Theory and Practice of Justice-Oriented Teacher Education

It is our pleasure to introduce issue 57:2 of Equity & Excellence in Education, the second to be released under our editorship. As with the last issue (57:1), this one features articles that were reviewed under the previous editorial team of Drs. Jamila Lyiscott, Keisha Green, Justin Coles, and Esther Ohito. We have grouped these articles around the theme, “Theory and Practice of Justice-Oriented Teacher Education,” due to their shared focus on teacher education for social justice. While the articles in this issue represent a range of theoretical orientations, methodologies, and approaches, they all consider what is meant by “social justice” in teacher education, and how to bring the field of teacher education into better alignment with those aims and values.

Teacher education is uniquely positioned at the intersection of K-12 and higher education; it is shaped by and shapes both levels. As a field of study, a practice, and a myriad of specific programs, teacher education is influenced by the same socio-political forces and inequities that shape K-12 schooling. Additionally, it is influenced by schools themselves because pre-service teachers develop much of their understanding about how to teach through clinical experiences and placements in school settings. Teacher education also has the potential to transform K-12 schools by how it prepares teachers for these settings and the extent to which new teachers feel (and are) empowered to enact change in their classrooms, schools, and beyond. The articles in this issue engage with pressing questions about the aims, practices, and challenges of justice-oriented teacher education in our current historical moment. Drawing from critical theoretical perspectives, they acknowledge that teacher preparation programs often reproduce, rather than disrupt, the institutionalized racism of K-12 schools and higher education. As such, to truly and effectively prepare teachers to enact anti-racist and justice-oriented practice, we must radically re-envision and transform how we do teacher education and the theoretical assumptions on which these programs are based.

But how can we do that and what should we build instead? Readers who are pondering these questions will find much food for thought in the articles collected here. Taken together, they offer a stimulating dialogue on questions such as: Why do we prepare teachers the way we do, and what are the limits of this model? What would it look like to prepare teachers to truly enact social justice and anti-racism in their practice? What is our complicity and responsibility as teacher educators? How could we bring this vision about? How can we work to diversify the teacher workforce? These critical conversations are as urgent today as they ever were. As the authors of this issue show us, the broader social context of schooling continues to be shaped by the persistence of systemic racism; anti-Blackness; racialized forms of hate including (but not limited to) Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, linguistic racism, xenophobia, anti-Asian and anti-Latinx racism; and labor exploitation. In this context, “[w]hat it means to train pre-service students as social justice practitioners is far from a settled matter” (Clay, et al., this issue). The articles in this issue do not provide simple answers, nor do they reach similar conclusions. However, they all engage critically with these larger questions. Moreover, many of the authors write from the perspective of being teacher educators themselves, drawing on their personal and professional experiences as sources of knowledge and insight.

We open this issue with Roegman and colleagues’ conceptual article, “Advancing Racial Equity in Extended Clinical Practice,” which sets a solid foundation and framework for engaging with the collection as a whole. In this piece, the authors critique the construct of “clinical practice” (i.e., student-teaching) and question the taken-for-granted assumption of the field that more time in clinical practice is always “better” for preparing teachers. Drawing from critical theories of race and racism, they note that systemic racism shapes every aspect of schooling; racist practices, assumptions, and outcomes are routinized and naturalized within school settings. As such, requiring pre-service teachers to work in school settings for longer periods of time is unlikely to support the development of anti-racist practice. In fact, longer placements in schools could reproduce systemic racism rather than disrupt it.

This basic argument—that teacher education is often reproductive rather than transformative, even when teacher educators intend to adopt social justice aims, due to institutionalized and taken-for-granted practices of the field—is broadly (if implicitly) shared across the rest of the articles collected here. In these subsequent articles, authors critically reflect on their own work as social justice teacher educators (Aronson et al.; Bansari et al.); consider whether teacher education programs adequately prepare teachers for anti-racist practice (Maloney et al.); examine why teacher educators who value social justice do (or don’t) cover topics like labor oppression (Clay et al.) or anti-Semitism (Vernikoff et al.) in the curriculum; and explore factors that motivate Black men to enter the teaching profession as a step toward diversifying the teacher workforce (Manchanda et al.).

In conclusion, the articles in this issue discuss the bidirectional relationship between teacher preparation and K-12 schooling and identify an urgent need to critically reevaluate practices in teacher education. They invite readers to reflect on how teacher educators, by adopting transformative pedagogies, can better prepare their students to be agents of change, recognizing and dismantling inequities within fundamentally unjust education systems. Ultimately, this collection serves as a call to action for education policymakers, teacher educators, and other stakeholders to engage in courageous conversations about systemic reforms that prioritize justice and equity in teacher education, thereby preparing future teachers to cultivate spaces where all students have equitable access to quality education and where social justice is not just a goal, but daily practice.