Teacher Preparation

Caring-centered multicultural education is a framework in the field of education with the major goal of providing all students with equitable education and to address the achievement gap between mainstream and culturally diverse students. Within this ...

This conceptual article addresses the need for educators to interrupt status-quo silences surrounding the role of immigration status in schools—an issue that disproportionately impacts Latina/os. In this article we: (a) articulate the need for teacher education to address the impact of undocumented status in school settings, (b) present ethnographic vignettes of teachers who navigated these issues drawing from two qualitative studies, (c) synthesize understandings related to teaching undocumented youth, (d) highlight emerging areas of focus, and (e) outline continuing tensions. This article serves as an entry-way to bridge the lived circumstances of undocumented youth in schools, teacher practice, and aspirations for more equitable schooling.

High-stakes, standardized teacher performance assessments (TPAs) are dramatically shifting the landscape of educator preparation. In this article, we examine illusions of objectivity and rigor embedded in edTPA, focusing on the reductive nature of standardized teacher assessments and the corrosive impact of the burgeoning TPA industry. We assert that TPAs corrupt the preparation process by discouraging authentic, multifaceted, longitudinal evaluations of candidate readiness, thereby undermining the very rigor and accountability they purport to ensure.

This study tested two cognitive models, learning styles and dual coding, which make contradictory predictions about how learners process and retain visual and auditory information. Learning styles-based instructional practices are common in educational environments despite a questionable research base, while the use of dual coding is less ubiquitous, and thus measured examination of the two methods has implications for practical application. The study involved 204 university students who were surveyed on their preferred learning style and then presented with information that they were prompted to process via either imagery or linguistic means. The results

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to explore how mentors can act as change agents for social justice. It examines mentors’ roles in initial teacher education in the lifelong learning sector (LLS) and how critical spaces can be opened up to promote a flow of mentor, trainee teacher, learner and community empowerment.

Design/methodology/approach
– Two thematic literature reviews were undertaken: one of UK LLS ITE mentoring and the other an international review of social justice in relation to mentoring in ITE and the first year of teaching. Bourdieu’s concepts of capital, field and habitus (Bourdieu, 1986) are used as sensitising tools to explore LLS mentors’ practices and the possibilities for increasing the flow of “pedagogical capital” between mentors, trainee teachers, learners and communities, in such a way that would enable mentors to become agents for social justice.

Findings
– LLS mentors and trainee teachers are uncertain about their roles. In the UK and several countries, mentoring is dominated by an instrumental assessment-focused approach, whereby social justice is marginalised. In contrast, what we call social justice mentors establish collaborative democratic mentoring relationships, create spaces for critical reflection, support trainees to experience different cultures, develop inclusive critical pedagogies, and generally act as advocates and foster passion for social justice.

Research limitations/implications
– While the literature reviews provide timely and important insights into UK and international approaches, the existing literature bases are limited in scale and scope.

Practical implications
– A model for mentoring that promotes social justice and recommendations for mentor training are proposed.

Originality/value
– The paper addresses the omission in policy, research and practice of the potential for mentors to promote social justice. The proposed model and training approach can be adopted across all education phases.