Alyssa Hadley Dunn

Reconsidering the Local after a Transformative Global Experience: A Comparison of Two Study Abroad Programs for Preservice Teachers.

This comparative case study analyzes two study abroad experiences for preservice teachers—a 4-month student teaching placement in Sweden and a 3-week intensive intercultural course with school observations in France. Although they differed in duration and structure, both programs focused on developing preservice teachers’ understandings of diversity and pedagogy in a global context. Using transformative learning theory (Mezirow, 1991) and drawing on grounded theory methods, research questions included (1) What are preservice teachers’ experiences in two different study abroad programs focused on local/global diversity and pedagogy? (2) According to participants, what programmatic elements contribute to transformative learning experiences in such programs? Results underscore the need for relevant and interactive assignments, hands-on experiences, and support for personal growth in programs that aim to help preservice teachers “go global.” Implications are raised for future research, teacher education, and university programming.

Betting the House: Teacher Investment, Identity, and Attrition in Urban Schools.

This study explores the impetus for and impact of four urban teachers’ extracurricular investments. Framing teacher investment as work voluntarily undertaken with an eye toward bringing about a highly desired, yet highly uncertain, end, we argue that the outcome of these often-hidden investments have identity and career implications for teachers. Through a comparison of two case studies in the southeast and northeast United States, we investigate why and how teachers come to invest themselves in particular extracurricular projects, the identity implications of the investments, and how the ultimate outcome of the investments may influence their decision to stay in or leave the profession. Findings reveal that teachers’ extracurricular investments—either in individual students or whole-school projects—are intimately tied to their identities and career trajectories. Implications are offered for research, teacher education, and policy.

Like if You Support Refugees: Preservice Teachers' Sensemaking of Contested Issues in a Digitally-Mediated Multicultural Education Course.

Abstract The advent of Web 2.0 and social media have changed how individuals act and react in mediated spaces. Pre-service teachers, familiar with navigating online spaces, enter their courses with a wealth of digital experiences, understandings and ways of making meaning. This study examines how pre-service teachers in a multicultural education course communicate across digitally mediated spaces. Using discourse analysis and sensemaking theory to analyse their Facebook posts, we asked: How do White pre-service teachers discuss and make sense of issues related to immigration in a multicultural education course? Our findings revealed that participants attempted to make sense of immigrant language and culture while building new knowledge and identities as future educators at a time when public narratives about immigrants were disparaging. Further, blended learning provided a beneficial digital space for pre-service teachers’ sensemaking processes. Implications are offered for research and practice.

#UrbanAndMakingIt: Urban Youth’s Visual Counternarratives of Being #MoreThanAStereotype

The purpose of this study was to analyze the narratives constructed by urban youth in a summer program for future educators of color. In particular, we asked, “In what ways do students use texts to...

Whiteness as a Dissonant State: Exploring One White Male Student Teacher’s Experiences in Urban Contexts:

Studies on student teaching continue to suggest that preservice teachers’ feelings of dissonance are related to disparate views of teaching and learning between universities and schools. Drawing on interview, artifact, and observation data, the authors utilize Cognitive Dissonance and Critical Whiteness Studies to make different sense of the experiences of one White student teacher (Brett). Results indicate that Brett experienced dissonance related to fractured relationships, misaligned teaching strategies, and disengagement as he taught youth of color. Importantly, the use of Critical Whiteness Studies helped to additionally reveal the way Whiteness affected Brett’s movements toward consonance—mainly through rationalization and problematic notions of perseverance. The authors suggest that Whiteness itself is a dissonant state, and argue that conversations focused on dissonance from misaligned university theory and K-12 schooling practices is dangerously incomplete. Implications for research and practice are included.

“I Don’t Want to Come Off as Pushing an Agenda”: How Contexts Shaped Teachers’ Pedagogy in the Days After the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

Guided by perspectives on the sociopolitical contexts of schooling, control of teachers’ curriculum and instruction, and teaching of elections, we use findings from a national questionnaire to explore the contexts that shaped teachers’ pedagogical decision making following the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Our findings reveal that classroom, school, district, state, and national contexts often manifested in pressure from colleagues, parents, the administration, the district, and the public. This pressure is reflective of the lack of trust, autonomy, and professionalism for teachers in our current climate. The days immediately following the election revealed new understandings about teachers’ views on neutrality, opportunities for agency within control of teachers’ work, and a call for justice-oriented pedagogy. Implications for teacher education, practice, and research are discussed.

Refusing to Be Co-Opted: Revolutionary Multicultural Education amidst Global Neoliberalisation.

Abstract In this article, I explore how neoliberalism dictates the terms of debate about education reform and equity in the U.S. and abroad. In particular, I explain how two paradigmatic reforms – the edTPA evaluation for preservice teachers in the United States and the global initiative Teach For All – have co-opted the discourse of multicultural education in an attempt to advance their own priorities and not those at the heart of the field, thus jeopardising the possibility of real justice. Finally, I envision a way forward, through a theory of revolutionary multicultural education, as we seek to reimagine the terms of debate about the goals of educating all students.

Trafficked teachers: Sucking educator labor across borders

From India, Jamaica, and the Philippines to Atlanta, New York, and Baltimore, among others: teachers are recruited by for-profit agencies to teach in U.S. schools, filling temporary positions in pr...