Preservice Literacy Teachers “Bringing Hope Back” Through Practice-Based Research

Abstract

This descriptive case study explored literacy preservice teachers’ (PTs) learning for the use of practice-based research and the impact of research experiences on their literacy teaching. This project spanned two courses and two contexts: a learning and development course focused on PTs’ stance as inquirers, activists, and practice-based researchers, with work in a field placement classroom, and a reading methods course, focused on literacy teaching through inquiry and activism, with a mediated literacy mentoring experience. The researcher employed framings of communities of practice and transformative activism in analyzing PTs’ identity development as researchers, identifying resources and design features that supported PTs’ learning, and understanding connections between PTs’ stances as inquirers and use of inquiry as literacy curriculum. Findings indicate the ongoing identity development PTs experienced as they used practice-based research to envision and enact transformative possibilities in literacy teaching.

Keywords

preservice action research design/development research inquiry

Literacy teachers have become the passive objects of reform (Laguardia et al., 2002). Sadly, the dominant perspective in policy is that as technicians, teachers simply apply best practices. Particularly, when they work with marginalized communities, teachers’ effectiveness is judged solely by their students’ achievement on standardized tests (Au, 2008), and for many, “research is something that is done on them, not for them” (Mills, 2000, p. 8), and certainly not with or by them.

In rethinking the relationship between policy, research, and practice, with the goal of achieving educational equity, Eppley and Shannon (2017) have called for a move toward practice-based evidence. In attempting to empower teachers to generate practice-based evidence, teacher educators have begun exploring ways teachers can conduct their own research for change (Sailors & Hoffman, 2019). This view holds that teaching is not technical work but a profession requiring continuous cycles of reflection (Schön, 1983). Here, “there is nothing so practical as a good theory” (Lewin, 1951, p. 169), and “there is nothing so theoretical as good practice” (Schutz & Hoffman, 2017, p. 7).

Despite the constraints they face, practice-based research can provide literacy teachers with a toolset they can use to transform their instruction, themselves, and ultimately their worlds through activism (Picower, 2012; Schmuck, 2006). In alignment with the view of teachers as professionals, and in recognition of the powerful role teachers have in creating more equitable outcomes for students through activism, the purpose of this study is to identify design principles for the inclusion of practice-based research, inquiry, and activism in literacy preservice teacher (PT) education.

I ask:

How does literacy teacher preparation, with a focus on practice-based research, support PTs’ development of researcher and activist identities and practices?

What resources and experiences support literacy PTs’ understandings of practice-based research and activism?

How does teacher preparation, with a focus on practice-based research and activism, support PTs’ enactment of an inquiry and activist curriculum?

Background

In addressing these questions, I draw on two connected literatures: practice-based research and inquiry and activism as curriculum.

Practice-Based Research

Teachers can use practice-based research to examine the activity structures that underpin their teaching, envision new possibilities, and transform their contexts. Practice-based research draws on the related research methods and theories of action research (Lewin, 1951), design/development research (Van den Akker, 2006), and transformative research (Mertens, 2015). Practice-based research differs from other conceptualizations of teacher and practitioner research (e.g., Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1990, 2009; Pappas & Tucker-Raymond, 2011) in its inherently iterative design and its intentional focus on equity.

Practice-based research is both a stance and a set of practices characterized by methodological pluralism and reflective teaching. Despite the ethical and logistical challenges of conducting research on ones’ own practice (Hodgkinson, 1957; Suzuki et al., 2007), Zeichner (2003) has argued that research can function as embedded professional development. As teachers become more systematic, reflective, and efficient, the quality of student learning improves. Still, practice-based research is often regarded by university-based researchers and policy makers as a distraction and second-class work at best (Saija, 2014). Many institutional review boards and teachers as researchers operate from incompatible assumptions (Brown, 2010), preventing teachers’ research from being conducted and shared.

Practice-based research can help teachers fulfill their goals. Many literacy teachers experience teacher preparation that emphasizes cultural relevance and centers questions of social justice (Wetzel et al., 2019), however, “even among teachers who adopt critical practices within their classrooms, many fail to act as organizers outside of their classrooms” (Riley & Solic, 2017, p. 181). By providing a way to understand the systemic nature of challenges and communicate the power of their teaching with others, practice-based research holds promise as a tool for activism.

There are efforts to encourage in-service teachers to conduct research on their practice (Vaughan & Burnaford, 2016), but despite the fact that “teachers do not bring an inquiring disposition to their preparation” (Feiman-Nemser & Buchmann, 1985, p. 56), PTs are rarely prepared as researchers in advance (Amir et al., 2017). Most existing studies are framed around using research to encourage PTs to apply course content in their practice, rather than inviting PTs to theorize in new ways. Designing appropriate and asset-framed research questions (RQs) is a persistent challenge for PTs (Wickstrom, 2013). Oftentimes, research highlights a tension in practice, the “goal of which is to research a ‘tender spot’ in teaching” (Amir et al., 2017, p. 242), which PTs may avoid. Although PTs’ resistance to sociocultural topics (Wetzel et al., 2019) is well-documented, studies have demonstrated that research can be a space for PTs to question their assumptions about children and develop more appreciative stances toward racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse communities (Lysaker &Thompson, 2013; Scherff, 2012).

Given the scarcity of research in this area, some studies of in-service teacher learning are useful in framing the current study. Studies of teachers in practice-based research communities have shown that colleagues often function as critical friends, but university-based researchers and those with the capacity to evaluate teachers in the group, such as instructors, occupy a role fraught with political implications (Miller, 1992). However, teacher research groups can be powerful. In one of the few longitudinal studies of this topic, Simon (2015) found that a community of like-minded teachers was able to “develop activist orientations toward educational policy, critical solidarity with peers, and relational approaches to educating diverse students” (p. 41), which demonstrates the potential power held by teacher research groups.

Inquiry and Activism as Curriculum

The perspective for this study is linked to Harste’s (1994) conception of inquiry as “a philosophical frame from which we view the whole of education including what it is that teachers do” (p. 519). Accordingly, in addition to exploring the development of PTs as researchers, another goal of this study is to explore how PTs support their students as researchers in their prospective worlds through inquiry-based curriculum.

As a practice for teaching, inquiry stems from the activity curriculum that Dewey (1934) framed around students’ interests and Kilpatrick (1918) framed as a project method of learning. The more recent work of other literacy educators who have attempted to promote teaching through inquiry (e.g., Lewison et al., 2007; Vasquez, 2017) and work with in-service teachers at the middle-school and secondary levels to connect inquiry and advocacy (e.g., Ahmed & Daniels, 2017) has been informative to this study, although these settings are distinct from studies of elementary generalist PTs. The present project moves beyond existing literature by exploring PTs’ preparation for and enactment of practice-based research, while examining the influence of that research on their literacy teaching, particularly with complimentary pedagogies of inquiry and activism.

Theoretical Framework

This research rests on a sociocultural perspective (Vygotsky, 1978) and is framed in the practice turn in teacher education and in literacy studies (Hoffman et al., 2016; Janks, 2012). In this view, the practice of literacy teaching includes not only what teachers already do, but how they adapt practices through reflexive action. In conceptualizing PTs as both individuals and as members of a community, I draw on two overlapping frameworks: communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and the transformative activist stance (Stetsenko, 2014, 2016, 2017).

Communities of Practice

Theories of communities of practice describe how the roles and identities of members collectively shape changes to communities’ actions (Lave, 1991; Lave & Wenger, 1991). Lave and Wenger (1991) have explained, “Learning is not merely situated in practice—as if it were some independently reifiable process that just happened to be located somewhere; learning is an integral part of generative social practice in the lived-in world” (p. 35). This practice-centered approach prioritizes the lived-in, embedded nature of learning and decenters the importance of developing specific, prescribed competencies as a qualifier for membership.

Communities of practice constantly evolve. As Wenger et al. (2002) elaborated, “Because communities of practice are living things, they require an approach to organization design that more fully acknowledges the importance of passion, relationships, and voluntary activities in organizations” (p. 64). In this view, PTs are not just less-experienced future experts but a vital source of life for teaching communities. Gutiérrez (2013) has challenged that notions of learning as participatory do not necessitate a commitment to transformation. Here, the lens of the transformative activist stance (Stetsenko, 2014) has been added to ground this practice orientation inside of a commitment to social change.

Transformative Activist Stance

The transformative activist stance, developed from a reassessment of Vygotsky’s (1978) philosophy with the purpose of defining a “non-neutral, activist critical scholarship” (Stetsenko, 2014, p. 183), proposes that:

Every person matters because the world is evoked, real-ized, invented, and created by each and every one of us, in each and every event of our being-knowing-doing by us as social actors and agents of communal practices and collective history, who only come about within the matrices of these practices through realizing and co-authoring them in joint struggles and strivings. (Stetsenko, 2016, p. 7)

Stetsenko (2016) rejects a relational or dialogic ontology for the belief that “the future is actually always already in the making now” (p. 18). She has argued that individuals are created through actions directed toward the future they envision, rather than merely reflecting current norms. These ongoing acts of praxis define individuals’ identities. In this view, “education is about providing the tools for agency and activism—the tools for students to develop their own activist pursuits premised on stances and end points vis-à-vis a sought-after future” (Stetsenko, 2016, p. 249). Rather than being concerned with the ways that knowledge is adapting, or being adapted to, the present world, the transformative activist stance concerns itself with individuals’ ability to imagine that which does not yet exist and defines education as the means of bringing that imagination into reality.

Method

Setting

This study took place within a teacher preparation program at a public university in the Southwestern Unite States. This project was part of a larger design/development project, which broadly explored the learning of undergraduate PTs across a three-semester professional development sequence (PDS) running from the second semester of students’ junior year through graduation. This program is cohort-based and involves extensive field-based coursework for PTs seeking licensure to teach early childhood through sixth grade.

Participants

All of the students who enrolled in one cohort in the spring of 2018 (n = 15) were invited to participate by myself, a graduate student with no formal affiliation to the cohort. All consented. Ten were White, two Asian, one Native American and Latina, one Chicana, and one Biracial.¹ All were women, and five spoke languages in addition to English. PTs were assigned to different field sites in the care of three field supervisors.

My analysis focused on six cases. In order to study the impact of practice-based research experiences across contexts, I selected two PTs per supervisor. Given this project’s emphasis on identity, the secondary selection criteria was the maximization of racial and linguistic diversity. The six focal participants, identified by pseudonym, were: Jennifer, Elizabeth, and Rebecca, all White monolingual women; Nayeli, an emergent bilingual Chicana; Lainey, a White bilingual woman; and Amalia, a monolingual Native American and Latina.

Procedures

The context for this study spanned two courses offered concurrently in the second semester of the PDS: a capstone learning and development course focused on practice-based research and activist teaching, and a reading methods course focused on inquiry and activist literacy curriculum.

In the capstone course, instructors asked PTs to keep a research notebook and construct a research prospectus with a detailed data collection and analysis plan to be conducted in their field placement classroom. These assignments were required but open-ended. For example, instructors told PTs that one research notebook structure was to use the left-hand side for field notes and the right-hand side for analysis, but this format was not mandated. Additionally, PTs controlled how and how often they used their research notebooks. In course discussions and assignments, PTs read a handbook on practice-based research (Sailors & Hoffman, 2019), as well as Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire, 1970) and To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher (Ayers, 1993), which framed possibilities for more socially conscious teaching through reflective praxis.

In the reading course, PTs read puzzling moments and teachable moments (Ballenger, 2009) and participated in an inquiry- and advocacy-based literacy mentoring experience with third-grade students. This experience took place in a field-based site constructed as a hybrid space (Zeichner, 2010) where PTs were able to try practices that may have been unwelcome in a traditional field placement. In mentoring, their elementary students, who were predominantly Latinx English learners, explored self-selected topics. While each session differed, they typically included a mini-lesson on informational text strategies, text exploration, sharing, and argument writing.

Data Sources

PDS application essays, two pages in length and open-ended, were used to establish a baseline understanding of participants by reflecting PTs’ initial views. Data sources collected in the second semester of this project included (1) observational field notes of teaching and teaching artifacts (plans, reflections, and student work) to provide evidence of instructional practices, (2) course artifacts (blog discussion posts, reading responses, case reports, and research prospectuses), and (3) audio recordings and field notes I collected during coursework, to provide evidence of PTs’ views about their instructional practices and practice-based research.

Analysis

I selected a descriptive cross-case design (Yin, 2014), which allowed me to examine individuals’ identity construction as well as experiences and interactions between PTs. Qualitative, iterative analysis (Creswell, 2013; Rubin & Rubin, 2011) through communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and the transformative activist stance (Stetstenko, 2017) focused on which research tools PTs chose and how they were used, as they were actively constructing researcher and activist identities and innovating their teaching.

Accordingly, I applied five codes based on my RQs:

Code A: Research and activist practices, including examples of PTs’ use of research notebooks, data collection, and analysis procedures (RQ 1).

Code B: Researcher and activist identities, including statements made by PTs about who they were becoming as teachers, researchers, and activists, including but not limited to the explicit use of the term identity (RQ 1).

Code C: Teacher educator supports for research, including assignments (RQ 2).

Code D: Peer supports for research, including anything peers did, whether for an assignment or not (RQ 2).

Code E: Inquiry- and advocacy-based curriculum and teaching (RQ 3).

Some data fit multiple codes, particularly in research and activist practices and identities, which fit with the conceptual lens that identities are “real-ized” (Stetsenko, 2016, p. 7) through action.

Grounded themes, which emerged within each code, were assessed for validity through extensive member checking. In these audio-recorded consultations, I gave particular attention to pauses, hesitations, and participant ambivalence (Madill & Sullivan, 2018) as I asked PTs to examine their research notebooks and artifacts with me, a person with no institutional capacity to evaluate their work. Participants helped me understand the notebook not just as a research product but as a tool used with intention in their research process. After member checking, I developed individual case profiles, organized around the five code areas, to maintain a sense of each individual’s experiences while facilitating cross-case analysis (Yin, 2014). Cross-case analysis of Codes B–E focused on group-level patterns and included both common and unique experiences.

Findings

Since I have explored both individual identities and the ways these individuals learned in a community, findings are presented in two ways. I present findings for my first RQ, which emphasized identities and practices, as case profiles selected to highlight two distinctly different experiences in detail. Then, I share cross-case findings for all six focal PTs around my second RQ, focused on resources, and my third RQ, focused on the connections between research and an inquiry and advocacy curriculum. I begin by situating the two case profiles, Jennifer and Nayeli, in their respective school contexts.

Jennifer

Jennifer was placed at a school with a 42% White, 34% Asian, 16% Hispanic, and 8% Biracial/other student population. Although only 5.8% of the students in the school received special education services, Jennifer’s classroom was designated as an inclusion classroom, so her students had an especially broad range of needs. Jennifer “grew up as a teacher’s kid” and brought an extensive apprenticeship of observation (Lortie, 1975) to her role as a PT. In looking back on the semester, Jennifer explained that as she became a “researcher, learner, and investigator,” she was finding the value of “being assertive.” She wrote:

I have had to figure out who I am as a teacher and a person. Normally, I am a people pleaser who would do anything to make the most people happy, but as I began teaching, I realized it is important to know who I am and what I want. There have been many times that I have wanted to just hear, “Yes, that is right” Or “You should do this,” but I realize now that it doesn’t help me develop as a teacher. I try and figure it out. (Discussion Post, August 27, 2018)

For Jennifer, practice-based research was a space for her to “try” and “figure it out” in her teaching as she found her own voice. Consistent with other studies of PTs learning to act as researchers (Wickstrom, 2013), Jennifer’s RQ changed several times as she reframed classroom challenges as problem spaces in which she could act. Her research finally focused on the question: How does introducing a multimodal journal response space influence comprehension of text? She explained that this was inspired by close observation of a daily read aloud during snack time, during which she “began to wonder what this time was for.” She elaborated that she used research “to just see what the students would do when multimodal journals were brought into the environment during read aloud.”

In addition to the research project assignment, Jennifer used her research notebook for the duration of her placement. Her research notebook was a space to notice strengths, particularly of students who carried labels of disability, and record their hidden gems (Bomer, 2010). For example, when she observed a student enthusiastically sharing his knowledge about woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers, she noted, “He is really quick to act and be considered to be a student that needs more support (‘below grade level’)”…but “He knows so much about animals and science!”

Nayeli

Nayeli was placed in a second-grade classroom where her students were 91% Hispanic and labeled by the district as 94% economically disadvantaged and 57% English-language learners. Nayeli explained that her identity as an emergent bilingual Chicana sometimes made the personal work of teaching and research feel difficult, but research enabled her exploration of these questions in generative ways for her teaching. She explained, “Whenever I need support, I need people who look like and sound like me. And I love [my peers], but sometimes I can’t talk to them about some things.” Inside these tensions, Nayeli reported that she used research as a strategic process through which she could better understand herself and her students in difficult moments. She reiterated, “The [practice-based research] process is like, human, and it isn’t separate from who we are as people.”

Nayeli’s interest in identity and the “humanness” of teaching extended into her study, which focused on the question: How do activities and discussions about identity influence their writing? In her work, she focused on ways that her students, who she described as her “co-conspirators,” built on their funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 1992), as writers. In turn, she also explored how growth in her understanding of her students’ funds of knowledge supported her teaching. Nayeli explained that practice-based research was all about being “really intentional about your teaching vision, and being really intentional with your power.” For Nayeli, it was imperative to take a stance toward social issues as part of research and teaching. She explained:

I think if we are able to say “I believe in kindness to others and I show it by denouncing separation of families and volunteering for shelters. How will YOU show kindness?” then it gives specific examples and models of an injustice you are trying to validate and respond to. (Discussion Post, August 28, 2018)

Nayeli used her notebook as a space to ask questions about classroom routines, challenge the necessity of practices, and explore new possibilities and alternatives. In one discussion post, she wrote, “When I take some time later to re-read my notes and reflect on them (which I do not do nearly as much as I should) it is definitely a way to slow down the moments that I may not have thought about.” Nayeli acknowledged that she did not use the research notebook consistently (one entry simply read “9-27-18, today was nutso”), but she argued that it still held value.

Teacher Educator and Peer Supports

Stetsenko (2014) explained “it is directly through and in the process of people constantly transforming and creating their social world that people simultaneously create and constantly transform their very life” (p. 191). Thus, this section presents cross-case findings for all six PTs and describes the ways PTs were supported by teacher educators and peers as they transformed themselves and their social worlds through research and advocacy.

PTs varied in the ways they relied on cooperating teachers, supervisors, and instructors. Rebecca, Amalia, and Elizabeth built strong relationships with all three. However, Lainey, Nayeli, and Jennifer reported relying on their cooperating teachers for support with teaching questions and student concerns, while allowing field supervisors and instructors to support their research. Lainey explained this as complimentary and not a source of tension:

[My field supervisor] is helpful in offering me different resources and she’ll see some things that really help. And [my cooperating teacher] kind of gave me the idea of looking at how [my students’] English supports Spanish and Spanish supports English. So, it’s different, but they both help. Fresh eyes. (Member Checking, February 7, 2019)

While Jennifer and Lainey felt that allowing their cooperating teachers and field supervisors to each provide “fresh eyes” was helpful, Nayeli and her cooperating teacher navigated slightly different visions for teaching and research. Nayeli said:

She’s said “No, I’m not a social justice teacher, I don’t do that.” But a lot of what she does is thinking critically about the world, and helping people think about others in the world…Maybe I’m just thinking a little more in an activist framework. (Member Checking, January 30, 2019)

Later, Nayeli stated that she believed she had helped her cooperating teacher grow in her views, and at the same time, she had deepened her own pedagogical knowledge.

Coursework was designed to promote reflection and discussion; commonly, PTs would write discussion posts on a course blog before class, then one would be tasked with beginning the course discussion by summarizing themes across the posts and lifting challenges or questions for discussion. Amalia explained that this had created a space that was “open” and “brave, but not necessarily safe” in which they could share ideas and boldly push one another in their thinking.

In addition to the officially sanctioned roles taken by teacher educators, PTs often served as unofficial sources of support for one another, creating a “richly diverse field of essential actors” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 56). Analysis of these experiences, which seemed especially helpful to PTs, resulted in four themes: co-teaching and peer observation, using research across the program, viewing authors as mentors, and engaging in community groups.

Co-teaching and peer observation

All of the PTs co-taught during the literacy mentoring experience. Nayeli wrote that with her co-teacher, they “generally planned who would do what, but it mostly came down to who felt comfortable doing what with the other person jumping in” while using inquiry and advocacy as literacy curriculum. Many PTs described co-teaching’s importance in creating a research community, since it made their actual teaching decisions visible to one another. Additionally, PTs observed the field placement classrooms of their peers. Jennifer explained that observing Amalia’s teaching helped her “see a different perspective.” In these experiences, PTs found room to imagine possibilities in different contexts.

Using research across the program

Several PTs, including Jennifer and Elizabeth, took research notes in connection with other courses they were taking, even though they were not required. For example, Elizabeth used her research notebook to consider questions from her mathematics methods course: “Why is this so different from how we learned it?” and “How do you transition this to a lesson plan?” Similarly, Nayeli and others used their research notebooks to gather data for a project for their classroom management course. PTs were assigned to select a student to observe carefully and “re-story,” by reconsidering the meaning behind their actions. Above a description of a “really tough morning” with one student, Nayeli noted, “re-storying?” as she puzzled through alternative ways to view the student’s actions. By thinking across the program and across experiences, research tools helped PTs envision and enact transformation.

Viewing authors as mentors

Although certain texts were assigned, PTs chose to refer to authors as sources of influence and inspiration. Ballenger (2009), Ayers (1993), and Freire (1970) were regularly invoked in reading methods course discussions. For example, Nayeli found mentors in the authors of course texts and explained that her “teaching stance” and identity were similar to theirs:

Freire, Ayers, and Ballenger show such deep respect for those they work with. Their respect (and love) for human life is moving enough that it is taken from their own worlds out into the greater world. It is inspiring and humbling to be learning from them. I think our teaching stance of activism is the same. We can only truly be activists if we view people as people. (Coursework Observational Notes, November 20, 2018)

Many PTs shared course readings with their cooperating teachers. After reading Ayers (1993), Rebecca explained that the text, “served as a great connection that [she and her cooperating teacher] were able to consider relating specifically to our students,” and she explained that reflecting together informed their practice.

Engaging in community groups

PTs were active in community groups, including a local National Writing Project affiliate branch, a club for PTs, and a Latina teachers’ group. Several also attended the National Council for Teachers of English and International Literacy Association conferences. They brought their research mindsets and practices into these spaces, and in turn, these spaces validated and grew their research mindsets and practices even further. For example, Amalia connected her involvement in a summer writing project for local youth with research. In one post, she explained “During [the summer writing workshop] I was able to see how positioning oneself, finding strength in oneself and others ‘like them’ can really light this fire.” Later, Amalia drew connections to writing in her biography unit on activists as a way to continue this line of thinking and practice. Throughout the experiences reflected in these four themes, PTs’ benefited from both teacher educator and peer supports as they formed an emergent community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991) as teacher researchers.

Inquiry and Advocacy Curriculum

Across cases, as PTs took on research and advocacy practices and identities, their instructional practices as literacy teachers shifted. This section presents cross-case findings and describes PTs’ curricular decisions across the semester, around two themes: early impressions and enactment.

Early impressions

When first presented with the idea of inquiry and advocacy as curriculum, most PTs raised concerns. Rebecca wrote, “I wonder, how political can we really get?” Lainey saw this as a “blurry line,” while Elizabeth was clear that to her, it was a “flaw” for teachers to “push a certain agenda.” Other PTs were more supportive but had logistical concerns. Amalia agreed that inquiry was “interesting,” but she wondered, “When is it the best time to allow for open conversation, and when it is best for more structured sharing? Is there a best?”

Enactment

As PTs enacted inquiry and advocacy teaching, they came to a deeper understanding of how “activist being, doing, and knowing” (Stetsenko, 2014, p. 197) could work as curriculum. Elizabeth and Rebecca co-taught a unit on art. They explained, “our discussion of muralists and Diego Rivera really sparked a discussion on how artists can make changes through art. We made it more personal by getting [students] thinking of changes they want to make.” Amalia enacted inquiry and advocacy teaching in her field placement with a unit on biographies of activists. Here, Amalia used her research notebook to record one of her students’ comments that people “who have the power to make change…look like presidents.” Amalia reflected on the racialized assumptions in this statement and wondered, “Do they think presidents are the only people of power? If we continue to expose students to activism and activists, will this take form in their own identity and talk?” By the unit’s conclusion, she said, “Whenever people are oppressed, they have these thoughts, but we can build a confidence in ourselves and our voices so that we can project what we’re thinking,” and she indicated she had accomplished her goal.

Even PTs who were initially hesitant were surprised at how willingly their students became inquirers and advocates when afforded the possibility. This was accompanied by shifts in their view of their own roles and in shifts in their understanding of what it meant to be a good student. Rebecca said that through inquiry and advocacy as curriculum, she realized that her students, “would be here even if I wasn’t, so it’s not really about me or about what I have to say.”

Overwhelmingly, PTs explained that as teachers who used inquiry- and advocacy-based methods, research was helpful in their practice. Still, many named practical challenges. Lainey named limited time as one hurdle and lamented, “I feel like we scratched the surface.” Elizabeth explained that she often felt confused about how to respond to students’ comments. She said, “I find myself at a loss for words and my fear for making sure the student ‘gets it’ trumps my knowledge of them as a learner with many avenues to learning.” Similarly, Amalia explained that inquiry was sometimes “chaotic,” but she wrote, “Seeing them so interested in the subject and continuously telling me ‘I love [this]’ really encouraged me to be more okay with adaptations and revision” as she concluded that her discomfort with chaos was less important than her students’ learning.

PTs did not simply aim to understand or problematize the present, but instead, they imagined a new future and advocated with their students to “chart the course of actions that could help achieve social change” (Stetsenko, 2014, p. 186). In the end, Elizabeth, who had been hesitant, explained that she saw inquiry as “the best approach to engage students,” and yet, she drew on Freire (1970), acknowledging that “Banking education makes sense. It is easy to conform to this with standardized testing and high stakes in place. To teach through problem posing is harder.” Jennifer explained she had learned to encourage “community, inquiry, exploration, and building of knowledge.” When asked whether she thought of her teaching as political, Jennifer initially hedged:

Oh, gosh. I think I’m getting pushed more into it. I think from the beginning I was like “I don’t want to bring that into my classroom because it’s not my place to share those views,” but now I am thinking about ways I can bring the little p and big P into it. (Member Checking, February 7, 2019)

In the final course discussion of the year, one PT asked the question, “How do you bring hope back?” Perfectly echoing Stetsenko’s (2016) position that change is not only possible, but indispensable through our activist being, Nayeli solemnly responded, “Action. And making sure it is not performative either.” Rebecca agreed with the need for authenticity and offered a passionate call:

There are so many things happening, and looking at Pedagogy of the Oppressed and looking at the world, the news is sad and depressing and it doesn’t really make you feel hopeful or safe, whatever that looks like. But I feel in my teaching and discussions, and hearing the kids talk, and having these authentic conversations, that is where I personally find my hope. I don’t find my hope necessarily in the world around me, I find my hope in listening to my students and realizing that they’re powerful. (Coursework Observational Notes, November 20, 2018)

While an inquiry and advocacy curriculum presented many challenges, practice-based research supported PTs in taking an inquiring stance, listening closely to their students, and reflecting deeply on their teaching.

Discussion

Stetsenko (2016) reminds us that all our futures, which are already in process, will be the outcome of our imagination of more desirable, equitable possibilities combined with our active and continued struggle toward those aims. Consequently, this project explored how practice-based research could support the development of PT researcher and activist identities and practices. It also explored the little-understood link between PTs’ own stance of inquiry and advocacy and their enactment of an inquiry and activist curriculum.

In an era defined by fast-track certification programs and technical views of teaching, these PTs learned through a complex, professionalizing experience that drew on hybrid field design (Zeichner, 2010). Designing this experience was challenging. Literacy teacher educators may rightly fear logistical difficulties, such as securing settings for practice-based research. However, given the importance of communities in sustaining in-service teachers’ research (e.g., Simon, 2015), it is crucial that PTs co-reflect and discuss not just their successes, but their puzzles, as professionals. This project suggests cooperating teachers are not required to already view themselves as researchers for PTs to conduct research alongside them. Remarkably, PTs called in reluctant cooperating teachers as co-inquirers and activists, rather than calling them out for what they lacked. Peers, published authors, and professional groups filled in as needed. What seemed most important was that PTs sustained a community (Lave & Wenger, 1991).

Many teacher educators are also familiar with PTs’ commonly raised objections and fears about politically engaged teaching (e.g., Riley & Solic, 2017). Here, PTs moved forward by remembering their broader goals, trusting their students, and using inquiring mindsets and research toolsets to strengthen their practices. By becoming practice-based researchers, they truly “ask[ed] for themselves for whom, and on whose behalf, they are working” (Freire, 1985, p. 179). Through practice-based research, they found their own answers by choosing to resist oppressive mandated curriculum and deciding to focus on the young “co-conspirators” in their classrooms. Findings from PTs’ own research proved more powerful in reshaping their views than teacher educators’ suggestions and sage advice ever was.

Inquiry and activism make for student-driven curriculum. This type of teaching pushed PTs to reconsider what a stereotypical good student does. Many also realized they needed to let go of being good students themselves and began to act as professionals, rather than willing technicians. The use of tools like research notebooks was not bound by course assignments. I argue that instances when PTs elected to use the notebook, as well as when they did not, both reflect an avoidance of the “performative” and growth in their personal reflective capacity. Similarly, PTs’ sharing of course texts with other teachers suggests they had internalized the value of these perspectives. Practice-based research was liberating for both PTs and their students. Given the relatively stable demographics of teacher candidates in certification programs and teachers in elementary classrooms (National Center for Education Statistics, 2018), it is especially significant that this was true for teachers who occupied relatively privileged positions as well as teachers of color.

It remains to be seen whether these PTs graduated ready to actively use and defend the legitimacy of practice-based research as reformers, rather than becoming the object of reform, as many in-service teachers do. It is possible that the university served as a buffer between teachers and the institutional pressures of K–12 settings that both restrict curriculum and position practice-based research as unimportant. Arguing that they adopted a researcher identity so quickly is challenging, but while the time frame of the study was short, this project did look across two courses and two field contexts, and beyond, as PTs used research in ways unsanctioned and unrestricted by course requirements. Additional cross-course, program-level studies exploring the practices of in-service teachers who experienced preservice preparation on research could further inform teacher educators’ work. Acknowledging these limitations, it is still clear “the future never simply awaits us, but instead, is created by our own actions in the present” (Stetsenko, 2014, p. 192). Despite the institutional pressures that threaten to control their every move, if these literacy teachers continue to envision and act on the transformative possibilities of practice-based research, they stand poised to create more equitable opportunities for their students as they bring hope back through action.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for the contributions of Erica Steinitz Holyoke, Vickie Godfrey, and Anne Daly-Lesch, and I thank the K–12 partners who made this work possible through their commitment to innovation and equity.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Catherine Lammert

Note

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