Educational Studies, Critical Teacher Preparation and the Liberal Arts: a view from the USA

Abstract

The preparation of teachers has long been viewed as a program area with interests, tendencies, and aims that make it both different from and inferior to the areas of study associated with the liberal arts. Yet the study of education may combine intellectual rigor, concerns for social justice, and a commitment to praxis, that can indeed add much to liberal learning. Teacher preparation within this context confronts the dominant tendencies toward technical rationality, apolitical neutrality, the efficient attainment of pre‐established and uncriticized outcomes, and the reproduction of inequalities toward which these things propel us. This article supports the view that inquiry, political action, and moral discourse are to be intertwined within programs of teacher preparation, and provides examples of how this may be accomplished.