Social Justice and Teacher Education

Understandings of Social Justice and Attitudes to Diversity

One of the major research themes focused on how preservice teachers understood and conceptualized social justice, often in conjunction with their attitudes to diversity. Work conducted by Ballantyne and Mills (2008), Clarke and Drudy (2006), Chubbuck (2007), Mills and Ballantyne (2010), Mills (2009), McDonald (2007), and Hyland (2010) explored this theme.

In Ballantyne and Mills’s (2008) study, six preservice music teachers from three Australian teacher education programs were interviewed prior to graduating and again 6 months into their first year of teaching about their understandings of inclusiveness in the music classroom. Although narrow understandings of what constitutes inclusive practice in the music classroom were identified among almost all the teachers interviewed, inclusive practices that are more closely aligned with a recognitive view of social justice (Gale & Densmore, 2000) were also evident. What was also noteworthy was music teachers tending to see relevance in courses that specifically focus on how to teach music. The authors concluded that courses addressing inclusive practice need to explicitly refer to the music classroom context for music teachers to see their relevance.

In Clarke and Drudy’s (2006) research in Ireland, variations in orientation to ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity were common in their analysis of 128 postgraduate secondary preservice teachers’ pre-program questionnaire responses. Their article was one of only a few within the pool to draw on analysis of large numbers of questionnaire responses. The questionnaire measured pre-existing attitudes and values toward social justice—defined as respect for different identities, values, and lifestyles and concern with the way in which socio-cultural and symbolic injustices are rooted in patterns of representation, interpretation, and communication—diversity, and preferred types of classroom practice relevant to the local Irish context. A reliance on conservative and traditional teaching strategies among the group was evident. The authors suggest that such strategies would not position teachers to adequately meet the needs of students in diverse classrooms. Older preservice teachers (aged 25 years and above) and those teaching subjects with a high diversity, social justice, and global awareness content—those teaching one or both of the subjects teaching civic, social, and political education (CSPE) and religion—were more positively orientated to diversity. While teacher educators need to acknowledge that preservice teachers tend to rely on “tried and tested” strategies at this stage of their career, the classroom strategies generally considered most appropriate to teaching diverse classrooms are active and experiential. Addressing these contradictions is one challenge for teacher education programs.

Varied understandings of social justice were also evident in the research of Chubbuck (2007), who focused on preservice teachers in an education course utilizing instructional methods based on theories of critical pedagogy and Ignatian pedagogy in a U.S. university. Ungraded reflective journals and focus group interviews gave the 15 participants the opportunity to reflect on their understandings of socially just teaching and concerns about enacting it. While just below half of the participants suggested that a teacher’s presentation of social justice issues should be approached cautiously and not be integrated into the curriculum, equally as many expressed enthusiastic willingness to include social justice issues and a strong commitment to a curriculum that definitively challenges the status quo and encourages student activism. Chubbuck argues that critical pedagogy—with its specific focus on issues of justice—and Ignatian pedagogy—grounded in Jesuit commitment to education and the formation of people who will adopt an action-oriented solidarity with the poor (International Commission on the Apostolate of Jesuit Education [ICAJE], 1994)—can be utilized to provide the tension necessary for effective social justice pedagogy.

Variation in preservice teachers’ attitudes toward cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and socio-economic diversity among student populations may be explained in part by the research of Mills and Ballantyne (2010). Their research explores the relationship between Garmon’s (2004) three dispositional factors influencing preservice teachers’ likelihood of developing multicultural awareness and sensitivity in one Australian teacher education program as exhibited in their autoethnographic assessment pieces. Although the attitudes toward diversity as exemplified in the work of 48 preservice teachers were analyzed, excerpts from six autoethnographies are presented. The authors argue that Garmon’s three dispositional factors may develop sequentially: from “self-awareness/self-reflectiveness,” moving toward “openness,” and finally a “commitment to social justice.” Although the authors conclude that one stand-alone course within a teacher preparation program is not sufficient if we expect to change the dispositions of preservice teachers, the research also goes some way toward explaining why there might be variations in attitude that may impact on the ability to teach diverse student populations in socially just ways. While this article draws on graded assessment pieces, and Mills and Ballantyne cannot rule out the possibility of inclusion of socially desirable responses, only three students (6% of participants) submitted autoethnographies that were infused with what the authors view as a highly “desirable” response: a commitment to social justice.

Mills’ (2009) research analyzed the impact of teacher education on preservice teachers’ dispositions toward social justice. Interviews were conducted with 12 preservice teachers who were beginning a 1-year program, and 12 who were beginning their final year of a 4-year program within one Australian university. Data from four preservice teachers are presented. Interestingly, subscription to (a) recognitive views of social justice and (b) liberal democratic forms of distributive justice, premised on “simple equality” (which regards all individuals as having the same basic needs), is evident in the comments of teachers from both programs. This suggests that preservice teachers who have completed 3 years of teacher education are not necessarily better prepared than those who are beginning their teacher education with knowledge, skills, and attitudes to successfully teach diverse student populations. The research confirms the need to find more effective ways to challenge values, attitudes, and practices through intercultural, support group and educational experiences.

McDonald (2007) took a different approach by focusing on the conceptions of social justice articulated by teacher educators aiming to integrate social justice across two elementary social justice teacher education programs in two U.S. universities. Data were collected over the entire 1-year preservice program and included interviews with teacher education faculty members (22); 10 preservice teachers (3 times during their 1-year program); observations of university classes (67); preservice teachers’ clinical placements (3 times each in their clinical placement); a review of documents such as accreditation reports, course syllabi, and assignments; and pre- and post-surveys of the preservice teacher cohorts. Such breadth and depth of data collected over a 1-year period are not typical of the field, nor is the focus on the conceptions of social justice held by teacher educators. McDonald found variation in the perceptions of teacher educators, but in general, they tended to focus on a conception of social justice that emphasizes the needs of individuals without necessarily recognizing how individual experience may be shaped by issues of oppression and structural inequality. She suggests that such an emphasis may not fully prepare teachers to face the challenges of teaching diverse students.

However, conceptions of social justice appear not to be fixed but are changing and changeable. Hyland’s (2010) research is a case in point in its examination of the ways that 24 U.S. master’s level preservice teachers understood their roles as teachers for social justice, and how their diverse subject positions as African American, White, Christian, agnostic, gay, and straight complicated their understandings of teaching for social justice. Through an analysis of preservice teachers’ journal entries, transcriptions of classes, notes on informal conversations with and emails from students, the author analyzed the ways that these students expressed and challenged each other’s contradictory discourses about teaching for social justice. For example, the preservice teachers most vocal about teaching for social justice on issues of race were against incorporating issues of sexuality. Hyland concluded that the intense time period of the class and the cohort model generated the sense of community necessary for some participants to renegotiate their subject positions around race and sexuality.

In sum, variations in preservice teachers’ understandings of social justice were common in many of the articles exploring how preservice teachers understand and conceptualize social justice. That is, both preservice teachers with positive orientations to diversity and a strong commitment to social justice, and those espousing discourse indicative of deficit models of social justice were evident in the cohorts studied, regardless of the amount of time students had been studying or the specific focus of the course/program. Variations were also found in the perceptions of teacher educators, from an emphasis on the needs of individual students to a concern with broader structural inequities (McDonald, 2007). However, as Hyland (2010) noted, conceptions of social justice are not fixed, but changeable. Although one stand-alone course within a teacher preparation program appears not to be sufficient if teacher educators have expectations of changing the dispositions of preservice teachers (Mills & Ballantyne, 2010), Hyland’s (2010) research suggests that a cohort model as well as teaching a cohort in “intensive mode” can generate the sense of community necessary for some participants to renegotiate their subject positions. In addition, Ballantyne and Mills (2008) argued for the need for courses about social justice to link this focus to the classroom context to assist preservice teachers to see its relevance. Chubbuck (2007) recommended the use of critical pedagogy and Ignatian pedagogy as one fruitful way of doing this.

Changes in Beliefs

It is widely accepted that changing teachers’ beliefs is difficult (Brown, 2004; Mills, 2008; Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998). The pool of articles analyzed that focused on this area—Enterline et al. (2008); Frederick, Cave, and Perencevich (2010); Mills (2013a); and Lee (2011)—drew a range of conclusions about whether, how, and why preservice teachers’ understandings of social justice changed over time.

Enterline et al. (2008) investigated the extent to which beliefs related to social justice differ among teacher candidates upon entry to, exit from, and 1 year out of a U.S. teacher preparation program with an explicit social justice agenda. Their research draws on a scale they developed (the Learning to Teach for Social Justice–Beliefs [LTSJ-B] scale) to measure the construct “Learning to Teach for Social Justice–Beliefs.” There were approximately 125 respondents to each survey and more than 1,000 respondents in total, clearly differentiating this study in a pool of predominantly shorter term, interview-based research projects. The surveys focused on teachers’ perceptions, expectations, and beliefs about teaching; their plans for teaching and expected career trajectories; their sense of preparedness for teaching; and, once in the classroom, their reported practices and strategies. Enterline et al. found that the social justice belief scores were substantially higher in exiting than entering teacher candidates and were maintained after 1 year of teaching. This substantiates the argument that teacher education can make a difference to preservice teachers’ beliefs and attitudes, particularly where a coherent approach to addressing social justice issues is central to a teacher education program (see, for example, Tatto, 1996).

Interest in measuring changes in preservice teachers’ beliefs has prompted an array of research in the area. Frederick et al. (2010) focused on preservice teachers’ perceptions of causes for shifts in their beliefs about social inequity within an education course. Their research analyzed three questionnaires and course assignments completed by 33 U.S. sophomore-level preservice teachers. Three defining experiences, activities or observations were perceived by preservice teachers as causing shifts in their thinking regarding social justice: (a) reflective analysis on visits to local public and charter schools, (b) learning the history of diverse cultures from their perspectives, and (c) simulation activities. By the end of the course, many preservice teachers began viewing themselves as responsible agents of change, examining education as embedded in larger social contexts, scrutinizing their own schooling experiences, and initiating social justice discussions.

Change in dispositions toward social justice over time was also documented by Mills (2013a), but linked to preservice teachers becoming more experienced as beginning teachers. Twenty-four preservice teachers from two secondary education programs within one Australian university were interviewed 4 times across a 2-year period—over 1 year as preservice teachers and 1 year as beginning teachers. The research theorizes dispositional change in two teachers. As preservice teachers, they were tied to either liberal democratic models of redistributive justice or retributive justice (see Gale & Densmore, 2000). By the end of their first year of teaching, there was movement toward social democratic or difference models of redistributive justice. This dispositional change took place simultaneously as the participants became more experienced as beginning teachers. Mills concludes that practicum placements that are limited in terms of length and limiting in terms of scope are potential barriers to the development of preservice teachers’ understanding of social justice.

Lee’s (2011) research similarly concluded that teacher education was not able to change all preservice teachers’ understandings of social justice. The research examined whether and how six U.S. early childhood preservice teachers changed their understandings of teaching for social justice during 1 year of a teacher education program. An extensive range of data were analyzed, including conversations, meetings, interviews, telephone and email conversations, e-portfolios, autobiographies, reflective journals, lessons and field notes from observations, and feedback on the participants’ teaching. Despite the strong focus of the program on teaching culturally, socio-economically, and racially diverse students and the author’s focus on teaching for social justice, change in conceptualizations and/or teaching practices was facilitated for some but not all preservice teachers. For some participants, understandings of social justice were in conflict with their teaching practices: although they verbalized the concept of teaching for social justice in terms of equality or equity in social relations, they came to view social justice as an extra area of content to be taught and, therefore, difficult to integrate in the classroom, and even unnecessary in contexts with little ethnic or socio-economic diversity. It could not be determined whether preservice teachers’ experiences before the program, field placements, or the program was most influential. Lee argues that the impact might have been stronger if there was a shared, explicit, and consistent focus on teaching for social justice across the faculty.

It is evident that articles focusing on changes in beliefs drew a range of conclusions about whether, how, and why preservice teachers’ understandings of social justice changed over time. Whereas Enterline et al. (2008) used a scale they developed to measure the construct “learning to teach for social justice” and found that the social justice belief scores were substantially higher in exiting than entering teacher candidates, Frederick et al. (2010) focused on what preservice teachers perceived as causing shifts in their thinking within teacher education. Both concluded that teacher education programs with a social justice agenda, and experiences and activities reflective of this, can make a difference. Positive change in dispositions toward social justice over time was also documented by Mills (2013a), but this change took place while participants (who transitioned to beginning teachers during the research) were becoming more experienced as first-year teachers rather than during their preservice teacher preparation. Lee’s (2011) research reached similar conclusions about the limited ability of teacher education to make a difference to preservice teachers’ understandings of and/or teaching practices related to social justice, even within programs with a strong social justice focus.

Field Experience and Service Learning

The articles by Adams, Bondy, and Kuhel (2005); Bieler (2012); Farnsworth (2010); Spalding, Savage, and Garcia (2007); and Tinkler, Hannah, Tinkler, and Miller (2014) predominantly address issues of social justice through student experiences in the field, and through service learning. They reflect a practical response to calls by Cochran-Smith (2010) and others including the authors (Ballantyne & Mills, 2015) to utilize experiential approaches to learning combined with reflective tasks to most effectively impact on preservice teachers’ understandings of social justice.

Spalding et al. (2007) examined the impact of a 9-day field-based experience in Poland, focused on the Holocaust, on the attitudes toward diversity of future U.S. education professionals. Twelve students (including five preservice teachers) participated in an excursion to the March of Remembrance and Hope (MRH); case studies based on three students are presented. Analyzed data include course application materials, materials created by the students, field notes, journals, emails, and a questionnaire distributed 1 year after the excursion. It seems that this particular innovation was central to changing the three participants’ knowledge, beliefs, and actions, and these seem to have not diminished over time. The students demonstrated changed thinking about diversity and willingness to take action against social injustice, and while the authors attribute this to the authenticity of the event, it may also be attributable to positive dispositions toward diversity in the small group of participants in the field experience. This may nevertheless mean that non-schooling environments provide excellent opportunities for authentic experiences.

Farnsworth’s (2010) research explored the social justice identities implied in the stories preservice teachers told about their participation in community-based learning experiences. Repeat narrative-focused interviews with four U.S. elementary preservice teachers were analyzed and three are presented. The analysis highlighted how community-based learning can enable preservice teachers to re-orient their identities and view social justice issues in a transformative way.

Although the first two articles demonstrate that carefully constructed field-based experiences have an impact on preservice teachers, Tinkler et al. (2014) found that a similar (service learning) experience at a U.S. university revealed evidence of social justice and charitable dispositions, but this was not necessarily statistically significant. The authors analyzed interviews with 37 preservice teachers. A questionnaire drawing on the Munroe Multicultural Attitude Scale Questionnaire (MASQUE) that tests respondents’ knowledge and understanding of diversity and willingness to act in response to injustice was delivered twice during the semester to 35 preservice teachers. Tinkler et al. note that the service-learning experience reinforced stereotypes and fostered a paternalistic attitude in some preservice teachers. A distinction is drawn in the analysis between charity (or traditional) service learning and social justice (or critical) service learning, with social justice (critical) service learning as the approach most likely to foster changed attitudes.

Adams et al.’s (2005) U.S.-based study focused on how and why preservice teachers at different points in a teacher education program responded differently to a community-based field experience involving one-on-one mentoring with African American children in local public housing neighborhoods. The authors analyzed interviews with 19 preservice teachers at different points in a 5-year program. Preservice teachers’ responses fell into seven categories: resistance, heightened awareness, conscious openness, knowing children as learners, cultural responsivity, insights into oppression, and passion and commitment. Factors influencing preservice teachers’ responses included prior experiences with diverse children or families and perceptions of having received scaffolded assistance (through complementary or contrasting field experiences, class discussions, readings, assignments, etc.) during and after the field experience. Time in the program did not seem to influence responses.

Bieler’s (2012) article is the only article in this category to use student assignments as the primary source of evidence for investigating preservice teachers’ social justice orientations. The analysis focuses on identifying patterns in the social justice goals in 3 years of secondary English preservice teachers’ community-based lesson plan assignments. In the assignment, preservice teachers inquire into the multiple communities in and around their field placement school and use this to design a lesson to teach their students. Thirteen assignments were analyzed and six are presented. The most highly graded lesson plans exhibited strengths in complex understanding of content standards, deep grounding in the local community, and clarity of justice-oriented goals. Although there is an assumption that the lesson plans produced should provide evidence of social justice goals, students may have been unaware of these expectations of their work. This could be both a strength or a weakness of the research—there is unlikely to be an impact of socially desirable responses in the research and students may have produced work demonstrating commitment to social justice goals without being prompted to do so, but equally, indicators of preservice teachers’ commitment to social justice goals may not have been explicitly included in the assessment task responses because it was not a task requirement.

This work addressing issues of social justice through student experiences in the field and through service learning in the area has variously provided evidence of the impact of utilizing experiential approaches to learning (in the community) combined with reflective tasks to most effectively impact on preservice teachers’ understandings of, and approaches toward, social justice. In particular, it seems that pedagogical approaches that encourage students to deconstruct their experiences, with explicit emphasis on assisting them to reflect on the impact of the field experience on their beliefs, are likely to have greater impact on social justice understandings (Farnsworth, 2010; Spalding et al., 2007; Tinkler et al., 2014). Emphasis on the importance of prior experiences (ideally deconstructed as part of the teacher education process) was clearly evident in the work of Spalding et al. (2007) and Adams et al. (2005). Emphasis was also placed on the importance of designing field experiences to allow genuine relationships of equal status to form between students, and between students and those in the community (Spalding et al., 2007; Tinkler et al., 2014). This is then likely to be evident in student works, such as student assignments, which draw on these experiences to demonstrate deep grounding in the community (Bieler, 2012).

Innovations and Challenges in Teacher Education

A fourth theme in the literature sheds light on innovations in the field of teacher education that have been designed with social justice outcomes for preservice teachers in mind. The work of Graziano (2008); Ritchie, An, Cone, and Bullock (2013); Kraehe and Brown (2011); McDonald (2005); Olson and Craig (2012); and McDonald (2008) exemplifies this theme. Related to research on innovations is research that focuses on challenges for preservice teacher education with intentions of developing socially just teachers, such as that conducted by Mills (2013b).

Graziano’s (2008) research examined the experiences of 22 U.S. master’s level preservice teachers, enrolled in the course “Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice,” who collaboratively developed and taught the course syllabus to one another. Field notes compiled throughout the semester by the author, and pre-, post-, and mid-semester surveys provided data for analysis. Although students acclimated to the course structure and assumed responsibility for their own learning, results indicated that students preferred deeper, richer dialogues on the social issues they chose to study. Graziano concluded that it may be necessary to balance student-centered instruction, where power and decision making are shared, with more traditional methods of teaching including more direct instruction from the teacher educator as the “expert.”

These kinds of deeper, richer dialogues could also be facilitated in a collaboratively planned methods block (one semester in which a single cohort of candidates took all content methods courses together) in the research of Ritchie et al. (2013). Their research explored the ways that this semester-long experience with a social justice emphasis influenced preservice teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and practice regarding teaching for social justice. The research focused on four faculty members at a U.S. university and their 16 elementary preservice teachers enrolled in four content methods courses (language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies). Questionnaires, reading responses, one whole-class focus group interview, preservice teachers’ lesson plans, unit plans, and in-class discussions were analyzed. Preservice teachers indicated that the social justice emphasis of their four methods courses gave them a new perspective on the world. The authors concluded that the concerted effort of the team of staff to make cross-course connections and support the vision of infusing social justice into their courses seemed to have great impact. Although it was a necessary step toward developing teachers committed to progressive social change, greater resources are needed for teacher education to effect true social change.

Kraehe and Brown’s (2011) research examined how a course employing collaborative, arts-based inquiries in social justice–oriented teacher education can provide generative spaces for developing preservice teachers’ critical socio-cultural knowledge. The research focused on 54 U.S. preservice teachers after completing the course “Sociocultural influences on learning.” Final reflection papers and interviews with 20 preservice teachers were analyzed. Significant shifts in critical understandings about the socially unjust nature of schools and teaching were enabled by preservice teachers’ engagement with the conceptual materials, the arts practices, and the other students in the course.

The implementation of social justice across two elementary U.S.-based teacher education programs (including university courses and field placements) and what preservice teachers’ opportunities to learn about social justice looks like in such programs was the focus of McDonald’s (2005) mixed-method comparative case study. Social justice and equity are positioned centrally in the preparation of prospective teachers in both programs. Data were drawn from an extensive pool collected over 1 year as discussed in the analysis of McDonald (2007) and included interviews, observations, and a review of documents such as accreditation reports, course syllabi, and assignments and pre- and post-surveys of preservice teacher cohorts. The research revealed three broad findings: (a) preservice teachers had opportunities to learn about some groups of students more than others, (b) some opportunities favored the development of conceptual tools over that of practical tools in ways that had some effect on preservice teachers’ views of teaching, and (c) clinical placements enabled or curbed preservice teachers’ opportunities to learn about social justice depending on the specific diversity of the students in their placements.

Olson and Craig’s (2012) research explored how two teacher educators focus on social justice in their teaching of preservice and graduate education students. Reflective narrative analysis was undertaken by the authors—teacher educators from Canada and the United States—focusing on innovations as described in their accounts of their teaching. The authors conclude that quality teaching necessarily involves social justice, not through overt telling (indoctrination), but through participatory showing in which students arrive at their own conclusions by interrogating their own lives and experiences, propelled by educators’ ongoing questioning.

McDonald’s (2008) research drew on the same data set and 10 preservice teachers from the two innovative social justice teacher education programs reported on in her 2005 and 2007 articles (discussed previously). The focus of this article, however, was an examination of assignments implemented across a number of courses within the programs and their role in preservice teachers’ opportunities to learn about social justice. The research highlighted that when assignments drew on preservice teachers’ field placement experiences, they overwhelmingly stressed an individualistic notion of justice. When assignments emphasized the socio-political conditions of schooling, they focused on general principles for teaching and were disconnected from field placement experiences. McDonald concluded that diversity among students in field placements substantially shaped preservice teachers’ opportunities to engage with the notion of social justice in their assignments.

Other research focused on challenges faced by teacher education in developing socially just teachers. Mills’ (2013b) research drew on interviews with 24 teachers from two Australian secondary teacher education programs within one university. Interviews were conducted up to 5 times with each participant over a 3-year period—more than 1 year as preservice teachers and more than 2 years as beginning teachers. Students from both programs critiqued the time dedicated to educating them about catering for diversity and few saw the diversity course they undertook as part of their program as valuable. Both programs were critiqued for the amount and timing of practicum placements. Mills concludes that practicum placements that are limited in terms of length and inappropriately timed (located only in the final year of the program rather than throughout the degree) do not prepare preservice teachers for the challenges of catering for diversity in socially just ways.

In brief, the research focusing on innovations in, and challenges for, teacher education designed for social justice outcomes for preservice teachers were quite diverse. Although innovations ranged from students developing and teaching the course syllabus to one another (Graziano, 2008), participating in semester-long cross-curricular innovations (Ritchie et al., 2013), participating in arts-based inquiries within a course (Kraehe & Brown, 2011), to participating in a teacher education program with social justice integrated throughout (McDonald, 2005, 2008), what was common to each of them was the drive to place social justice at the center, either through the curricular or pedagogical focus. Collaboration also seemed to be key to the success of each of these—either within a course or cohort (between students), or between teacher educators working within courses or programs, or between teacher educator and student (Olson & Craig, 2012)—to achieve the social justice aims of the teacher educators behind the innovation. Although some innovations reported higher degrees of success than others, field placements were discussed as one critical factor in determining whether teachers were able to develop socially just dispositions (Mills, 2013b). They were additionally acknowledged as substantially shaping preservice teachers’ opportunities to engage with the notion of social justice (McDonald, 2005, 2008) and, therefore, may need to be seriously reconsidered as one challenge for preservice teacher education.