Disrupting the taken-for-granted: Autobiographical analysis in preservice teacher education

Abstract

Framing the Study We believe that the fi rst step in fulfi lling the promise of democracy, equity, and social justice is in preparing new teachers to defi ne themselves as advocates for all children. Th is preparation involves developing a critical perspective in which teachers gain refl ective habits that lead them to actively question and work towards changing the inequities that exist in our schools (Britzman, 1986; Cochran-Smith, 2004; Lucas & Villegas, 2002). Yet, having been reared in a country that traces its roots to the subjugation and annihilation of the Taino, the enslavement of people of African descent, the colonization of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, the exclusion and internment of Chinese and Japanese Americans, and the marginalization and alienation of people of color and women, many teachers-in-preparation cannot help but have been infl uenced by “the ideological mechanisms that shape and maintain our racist order” (Bartolome & Macedo, 1997, p. 223). Th ey may enter classrooms carrying unconscious yet deeply rooted assumptions that schools are inherently fair, that children’s capacities to learn are predetermined and unalterable, and that meritocratic competition is the route to equal educational opportunity. As teacher educators, our primary goal should be to actively and deliberately interrupt this racist ideology and to engage novice teachers in their own processes of self-analysis so they learn to see through new eyes that can recognize injustice and oppression.