ABSTRACT
This chapter presents four themes that emerged from the Angela, Latoya, and Natasha’s experiences in the teacher education discourse community: teaching in an urban setting, teaching for social justice, classroom and behavior management, and the overload of methods and strategies. Teacher education literature reports that the majority of prospective teachers are different from the K–12 student population in significant ways, specifically on the basis of race and ethnicity, language, and socioeconomic background. Social justice teacher education focuses on preparing teachers to address social injustices that persist in schools. Social justice teacher education means preparing teachers who will be committed to creating more just and equitable teaching and learning experiences that close access, opportunity, and achievement gaps. The preservice teachers had to develop a research question to explore while in their practicum and provide an evidence-based analysis of a relevant issue in teaching.
