Analysis Beyond Assumptions: One Teacher Candidate's Identity in Relation to Social Justice
Open Access
- Author:
- Klock, Holly Ann
- Graduate Program:
- Curriculum and Instruction
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- April 23, 2021
- Committee Members:
- Rachel Wolkenhauer, Major Field Member
Bernard Badiali, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Tanner Vea, Outside Unit Member
John Holst, Outside Field Member
Kimberly Anne Powell, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- teacher candidate
preservice teacher education
identity
social justice
positioning
professional development school - Abstract:
- This single-case, descriptive study explored one K-4 teacher candidate’s identity and attempts to teach toward social justice within and beyond a series of small group discussions in a Professional Development School context. More specifically, it studied how this teacher candidate positioned her identity through the lenses of social justice (Curry-Stevens, 2007; Kavanagh & Danielson, 2020 ), intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989;1994) and positioning theory (Davies and Harré, 1990; Bamberg, 1997a) to further our understanding of the integral role identity plays within and beyond the classroom as teacher candidates attempt to take on socially just teaching. This dissertation extends current scholarship by 1) investigating one teacher candidate’s identity as it relates to social justice and how this aligned with her practices in the classroom setting (Mills & Ballantyne, 2016; Sleeter, 2004) and 2) bringing the intersectionality of one teacher candidate’s identity into focus when analyzing her discourse and classroom practices (Pugach et al., 2019). Using Curry-Stevens’s (2007) pedagogy for the privileged, I created a series of eight small-group discussions in which Rebecca, a PDS teacher candidate participated. Additionally, this study incorporated three one-on-one interviews, observations in the practicum setting, and post-observation debriefs. The data were analyzed in two layers, 1) Bamberg’s three-level positioning analysis (1997a) and 2) thematic analysis (Bruan & Clarke, 2006; Creswell, 2013). The data suggests that 1) Rebecca positioned her identity at a distance from possessing privilege and perpetuating oppression, 2) Rebecca demonstrated shifts in how she restructured her understanding of the world as she moved among various environments, and 3) Rebecca’s perception of power among institutional tensions shaped her positioning in regard to taking responsibility for change. The findings of this study suggest that addressing social justice through one’s identity paired with an analysis of actions taken in the practicum setting is a vital step as preservice teacher education programs shift toward centering justice.