This study used critical dialogue within a teacher preparation program to address the dilemma of preparing preservice teachers for educational arenas in which they will interface with students who are socially and economically disadvantaged. Using Critical Race Theory as a lens, the study addressed the following research questions: What were the…

This interpretive study examines the outcomes of using a social justice service-learning field experience in a social foundations course to help illuminate for teacher candidates the often "invisible" institutionalized inequities of public schools. The findings demonstrate how social justice service-learning can be used as a field…

This article examines how pre-service teachers can work effectively with Mexican and Mexican American students. Using the foundation of funds of knowledge (González, Moll, & Amanti, 2005) and the critical race theory concept of community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005), the article weaves together these ideas to discuss how they can be…

A critical issue in teacher preparation today is that some candidates meet the criteria for admission to teacher education programs yet they struggle or fail to develop the levels of knowledge, skills, and/or dispositions required to complete the program. This article offers three different case studies to examine the monitoring process developed…

In this article, Christine K. Lemley presents a case study that focuses on the overarching question, "How do teacher candidates reflect on discrimination to promote transformative action?" and examines an assignment, composed of two written papers. At the beginning of the semester, the teacher candidates wrote a paper in which they…

In this article, Denise D. Cunningham presents a project that emerged from informal discussions with early childhood pre-service teachers during their content area methods courses at a large, Midwestern four-year university. Students stated that they needed personal experience with materials and practices that they will be expected to use in…

Efforts to enhance college going rates have employed a number of strategies, such as improving recruitment efforts and enhancing financial aid packages. Little effort, however, has been directed at looking at the social and human capital that might impact a residential community, and the subsequent influence this community might have on a…

One of the purposes of higher education is to promote citizenship and social justice. This article explores the way Aurora University is helping students to discover what matters through the impact of "Sleep Out on the Quad," which is an event that uses multiple pedagogies to impact student learning of homelessness. It serves as a call…

Gladwell (2000) describes context as "the tipping point" for leveraging change. This paper explores how differentiated learning opportunities situated in the school context supported changes in practice for urban elementary teachers during the implementation of Writer's Work-shop (Calkins, 2003 & 2006). The teachers in this…

Affirmative action is perceived as a corrective policy intended to promote social equity (Crosby, Iyer, & Sincharoen, 2006; Curry & West, 1996; Kaplin & Lee, 2007; Oppenheimer, 1996). Indeed, affirmative action as a policy has been used to address minority underrepresentation (Ball, 2000), remedying the effects of past/current…

Although education has seen trends of progressive ideologies that promote student and teacher empowerment (Ayers, 2011; Lyons, Catallozzi, & Benson, 1998; Spring, 2008), the dominant educational discourse mirrors a business model of efficiency expressed by the social economist Lester Frank Ward (1872). Evidence of contemporary education…

The foundations field cannot sustain itself in its present condition. A range of complex forces have combined to marginalize foundations over the past few decades. The decline of this field as a separate discipline in schools of education has been abetted by the fact that foundations is generally a "service provider" to other programs.…

When defending educational foundations, Isabel Nunez and Pamela Konkol sometimes find themselves responding to the question of "why?"-often phrased, "But WHYYYYY do we have to take a class on this stuff??? (We want to take more methods!)." As distressing as this can be for teacher educators whose own work reveals rather a…

In their recent landmark study of undergraduate education in America, "Academically Adrift," Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa question whether colleges and universities are really able to justify their traditionally exalted reputations. The study paints a rather dismal portrait of how little learning may actually be taking place on our…

In this paper, Leonard J. Waks re-imagines the social foundations of education (SFE) as a project within the information society. He begins with what he believes to be a reasonably non-controversial definition: SFE is a field of scholarship and teaching aiming to provide a comprehensive understanding, through description, interpretation, and…