Patrick J. McQuillan

Good and Just Teaching: The Case for Social Justice in Teacher Education.

A particularly controversial aspect of teacher preparation is the increasing number of teacher preparation programs that emphasize “social justice” as part of the curriculum. This article examines how students in a program with a social justice agenda understood the concept and how their understandings played out in practice. Using interviews and observations, we show that teacher candidates focused on ensuring pupils’ learning rather than merely boosting their self‐esteem or spreading political ideologies, as critics of the social justice agenda suggest. In classrooms, candidates concentrated on teaching content and skills but also had a critical perspective, built on pupils’ cultural resources, and attempted to reach every pupil. We argue that teaching for social justice, or what we title “good and just teaching,” reflects an essential purpose of teaching in a democratic society in which the teacher is an advocate for students whose work supports larger efforts for social change.

A Longitudinal Study of Teaching Practice and Early Career Decisions A Cautionary Tale

Although the turnover rate among beginning teachers has been a major concern for some time, most studies do not link teacher retention with teaching practice. In contrast, this study looks specifically at career decisions coupled with practice. Guided by a view of teaching as social and cultural practice, the study used multiple qualitative data sources, including extensive observations, interviews, and samples of teachers’ and students’ work. Based on within- and cross-case analysis of 15 cases at four distinct time points within a 5-year period, the authors identified multiple patterns of teaching practice linked to early career decisions, which reflect considerable variation in quality of teaching and career trajectory. The authors argue that “stayers” and “leavers” are not homogeneous groups, as is often assumed in research and policy. Rather, there are multiple variations of practice coupled with career decisions, some desirable and others not, with different implications for policy and practice.

Hypertext and pluralism: from lineal to non-lineal thinking

One goal of American and Northern European higher education is to promote acquisition of a pluralistic cognitive style, which has as an important property— non-lineality. This paper investigates the effects of using of an advanced hypertext/hypermedia system, Intermedia, to develop instructional materials for two university courses in English and Biology intended to promote acquisition of non-lineal thinking. Use of Intermedia is shown to produce significant learning effects, which are somewhat more pronounced for persons involved in developing materials than for students using the system.

Possibilities and Pitfalls: A Comparative Analysis of Student Empowerment

Although U.S. schools typically express commitment to preparing students for the responsibilities of democratic citizenship, most American youth are socialized for adult civic life by an institution that defines them as passive and subordinate and treats them in ways that are anything but democratic. In contrast to such counterproductive practices, the author offers a comparative analysis of two schools’ efforts at student empowerment. He first outlines why schools should help empower students and then proposes a conception of student empowerment founded on three dimensions: the academic, political, and social. To explore the “possibilities and pitfalls” of empowerment in practice, the author presents case studies of two schools’ student empowerment efforts. Each examines how the schools sought to help empower students, what power students gained, and how students and faculty responded to these efforts. Drawing on insights derived from these studies, he discusses some practical implications for schools hoping to promote student empowerment.

Three Perspectives on School Reform

Most research on school reform over the past several decades is characterized by three perspectives-the technological, political, and cultural (House, 1979; House, 1981). Studies based on these three perspectives account for a vast amount of the scholarly literature. An adequate understanding of school reform necessarily involves all three perspectives, though many reformers emphasize only one, a partial knowledge which often results in reform failure because of neglect of the other powerful factors. According to our analysis, successful school reform must be based on all three aspects. In this chapter, we outline the three perspectives and suggest how successful reforms embody an appreciation of all three.

Change Takes Time: A Look at the Growth and Development of the Coalition of Essential Schools.

There is not a specific blueprint here for a top‐to‐bottom restructuring of the system. Thats been tried and is being tried, with the result being a high degree of failure. In any case, such a blueprint or model would violate the first of the imperatives: giving room to teachers and students to work and learn in their own way (Sizer 1985a).

In search of coherence: ‘inquiring’ at multiple levels of a teacher education system

Inquiry-into-practice represents a valuable disposition for teachers; reflecting on one’s teaching to derive insights for subsequent practice can enhance professional efficacy and promote student achievement. To support this disposition among teacher candidates (TCs), Lynch School of Education faculty at Boston College created a capstone course, Inquiry Seminar, where TCs complete a formal inquiry project. Conducted while student-teaching, the project requires candidates to research their teaching practice, identify areas of concern, and modify their teaching accordingly. To assess the teacher education system’s coherence, we explored how Inquiry Seminar did, and did not, align with program objectives. We drew on varied data sources, including interviews, course observations, archival data, and inquiry project papers. We found that when Inquiry Seminar experiences complemented TCs’ field experience, program objectives were more often realized. Two factors proved critical to our research: integrating the often-neglected voice of TCs and clinical staff, and examining a foundational feature of the teacher education program, Inquiry Seminar.

Education Reform as Revitalization Movement

This article draws parallels between the educational reform movement of the Coalition of Essential Schools and revitalization movements, using elements of the revitalization framework as a process model to clarify issues and tensions that emerged during school change efforts. Further, the article demonstrates the importance of simultaneous (not after-the-fact) documentation and alternative change models in clarifying what is happening throughout the developmental history of a reform organization and in ongoing analyses of trends and developments.

Interpreting Early Career Trajectories

Career decisions of four teachers are explored through the concept of figured worlds in this qualitative, longitudinal case study. Participants were purposefully chosen for similarity at entry, with a range of career trajectories over time. Teacher career paths included remaining in one school, repeated changes in schools, attrition after relocation, and non-renewal of contract. Data included interviews, observations, participants’ assessments, and pupils’ work. Cross-case analysis suggests that no single teacher attribute or workplace condition determined teachers’ career decisions; rather, teachers’ ability to refigure their identity within the figured world of teaching shaped career trajectory. Key factors such as ability to address disequilibrium, teacher identity, agency, and collaborative capacity are examined. Implications call for pre-service preparation and professional development to navigate cultures of schools, amended administrative involvement in teacher retention, and policy reform acknowledging the complexity of teachers’ figured worlds.

Urban School Leadership and Adaptive Change: The “Rabbit Hole” of Continuous Emergence

In the current educational context deliberate and continuous emergence seems eminently logical. Schools comprise so many interacting dimensions—moving parts of people, ideas, contexts, and resources—change truly is the norm. School systems therefore need to adjust to both the challenges and opportunities they regularly encounter. In doing so, the principal represents a critical leverage point. Believing that “Leadership is no longer the activity of gatekeeping and directing but of enabling and empowering” (Morrison 2002, p. 19), wrote that administrative leaders should “enhance the skills and knowledge of people in the organization [and] create a common culture of expectations around the use of those skills and knowledge” (p. 15). One strategy for addressing this challenge and enacting these ideals is to generate a complex adaptive system in which power and authority are decentralized and all school personnel—students, teachers, administrators, and parents—embrace a common vision committed to shared beliefs, values, policies, and practices. Accordingly, we conceptualize systems emergence as an adaptive process in which a school “system” adjusts to its context, drawing upon the analytic heuristic known as continuous emergence to reveal the ongoing and intertwining challenges that arise for urban school leadership when this occurs. In terms of the emergence process, we engage the experience of disequilibrium, intensification, emergent order, and stabilizing feedback not as linear phenomena leading to a single outcome but as an ongoing process in which these features of emergence interact in ways that are largely non-linear and unpredictable yet still reveal promising strategies for adapting to the varied sources of disequilibrium that arise in the system.