Care Through Authenticity: Teacher Preparation for an Ethic of Care in an Age of Accountability

Abstract

This study elucidates the role that authenticity—knowing and being one's self—plays in preservice teachers' introduction to care ethics in a multicultural urban context. In one teacher education program, in observations, interviews, and surveys, preservice teachers described that caring required authenticity to avoid complying with uncaring mandates, to make choices reflective of one's beliefs, to find connections between one's self and the curriculum, and to de-center one's own ways of seeing the world.

Key words:

• care ethics
• teacher education