ABSTRACT
What does the term “social justice” signify to new teachers today, in our larger, “multiracial society”? I wished to find out more about this after interviewing candidates for our M.S.Ed. program in a small institution in Upstate New York, and as I taught a variety of graduate courses in education. Our teacher education unit has created a “guiding philosophy” that posits three “claims”; the third includes this line: “our graduates are committed to being multicultural competent educators and teaching all students in their classrooms” (TEAC Brief, 2013; emphasis added). Thus, when I wrote interview questions for applicants to our new “Teaching and Learning Master’s Program,” I included this: “If you purport to ‘make a difference,’ what does this mean?” In our interviews, a disquieting phenomenon grew more and more apparent. My colleagues and I were disconcerted that not one applicant ever mentioned her work with poor or otherwise disadvantaged children. No one addressed the difficult topics of race, gender, sexual orientation, and children’s perceptions of these differences. Given that all applicants were White-and that all of the students and teachers I have seen over the past 6 years identified themselves as White-did this phenomenon signal that such issues did not matter in Upstate New York? Further, I wondered what the real intention lay behind our program’s mission to teach “multicultural competent educators”: even if future teachers did indeed “teach all students in their classrooms,” how could this possibly address issues of difference if all the students are White? Perhaps such teachers do not think that racial matters matter to them and the students they teach.
