This article begins from the premise that foundations scholars occupy an awkward place in the education school, because our work is predominantly grounded in the liberal arts but the work of other education scholars is predominantly preprofessional. To create a more meaningful place for foundations in the education school will require better…

Within the state selected for this study, teacher preparation programs and state certification criterion require that educators examine the relationship between school and society within social foundations of education (SFE) coursework. Using observations and interviews, this study examines to what extent four experienced, urban classroom teachers…

In this article, I explore teaching with a social foundations perspective in the unusual place of an "Introduction to Assessment" course for second-year, undergraduate, teacher candidates. By bringing the work of three candidates together with the four concerns of the proposed third edition of the "Standards for Academic and Professional…

This article addresses the unique role performed by social foundations programs in colleges of education and in addressing broader issues facing education today, which fundamentally include the development of interpretive, normative, and critical perspectives in academia. All three perspectives serve to create a scholarly framework within which…

The third edition of the "Standards for Academic and Professional Instruction in Foundations of Education, Educational Studies, and Educational Policy Studies" ("Standards") challenge us to envision what "a more holistic, inclusive and intellectually challenging approach to preparing educators" might look like. This article discusses how the…

Schools of education have seen many changes over the last 100 years (Labaree 2004). More recent modifications have included the slow and steady elimination of the social foundations of education in lieu of a more direct attention to teacher skills and basic training. The increased focus on the so-called "nuts and bolts" of teacher education trumps…

This third edition of the "Standards for Academic and Professional Instruction in Foundations of Education, Educational Studies, and Educational Policy Studies" is presented to the educational community by the American Educational Studies Association's Committee on Academic Standards and Accreditation. The Standards were first developed and…

Students often find themselves disconnected from foundations courses such as Philosophy of Education, citing the abstract nature of some of the ideas studied and a perceived disconnect from practical issues. Moreover, the place/space of the university classroom itself can be seen to contribute to students' disengagement and stunting of their…

In this article, the authors consider the ways that faculty in the Foundations strategize the placement of Foundations in teacher education in a politics of survival. Drawing on archival and interview data, the authors discuss the strategies invoked as boundary-work. They then situate boundary-work within the broader interpretive lens of cognitive…

The conflicts arising between the pedagogical preferences of the fields of instructional design and technology (IDT) and social foundations of education are substantial. This conflict is primarily one of pedagogical values separating the Social Foundations with its emphasis on critical and creative thinking and the presumption of value and theory…

Among the avant-garde organizations in Europe during the middle of the twentieth century, a few of them combined in 1957 to form the Situationist International (SI). This article locates relevant aspects of their theory in the increasingly visible constellation of Critical Geography and educational scholarship, both in the foundations of education…

America's sense of community is broken down; its sense of connectedness and the collective is "collapsing." That these senses ever existed is a matter for considerable debate. But, as the new millennium gains momentum and neoliberalism seeks expansion, the author argues that a focus on rekindling these concepts of community, connectedness, and the…

In this article, the author reflects on how people "think" the university in terms of certain borders, and how the foundational faculty of education are positioned with regard to these borders and structures, and what that might mean in terms of the conflicts within which they find themselves embroiled at this point in history. Ultimately, his…

In this article, I portray undergraduate education students at an urban, inclusive university participating in the process of defining their emerging philosophies of education. Excerpts from student writing demonstrate that, in a course organized around key essential questions, double-entry journals, and students' consideration of their…

Every year, it seems, there are cries that foundations of education is in peril. A panel at the recent meetings of American Educational Studies Association (AESA) focused on the fate of foundations in teacher education programs. At this panel, foundations scholars engaged in lively conversation about how to protect and promote foundations of…