ABSTRACT
As the authors of the second book in this series, Culture and Teaching
(Liston & Zeichner, 1996), pointed out, education in most democracies is
a “publically funded, state-supported endeavor. . . . Public schools are
public institutions and as such they are the focus of much discussion and
analysis”—not only at school board meetings but in the community at
large. As we write this, in the year 2000, presidential and other candidates
are making education a top priority in their campaigns. Yet teacher educa-
tion is typically limited to preparing people mainly at the school site and
primarily for their classroom activities. Most teachers are not taught to
think about the implications of what they do in their classrooms for their
schools, their communities, or their country.
