ABSTRACT
This chapter argues for the importance of theory and, in so doing, for the centrality of social foundations within teacher education. It presents reflective practice, which opens up cultural assumptions of the practitioner and those assumptions operating in the larger situational context of schooling and society. The chapter offers another approach: infusing foundations concepts into an entire teacher education program. Developing the skills and sensibilities to be socially active teachers can ideally occur within the social foundations classroom, with its critical content and emphasis on exploring causes, implications, and imaginative possibilities. The chapter emphasizes that the theoretical insights offered by a justice-oriented foundations perspective offer essential directions for teacher education programs. As teacher educators dedicated to social and ecological justice, the attitudes and ways of thinking that students carry into the classroom. Finally, the chapter privileges democracy in its ideal representation of a deep democracy in which rights and responsibilities are truly shared.
