Faculty members in teacher and administrator preparation programs have unprecedented opportunities to incorporate advanced technologies, including the expansion of online classes and the use of online discussion forums. Within online environments, the concepts of critical pedagogy are more connected to the landscape of digital information,…

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…

I examine pre-service elementary school teachers' process of defining diversity as part of a state-mandated, high-stakes, teacher education portfolio benchmark; metaphors' roles in their defining process; the evaluation mechanism, and the literal and metaphorical bench-mark boundary these pre-service teachers must reach to enter the profession.…

This article derives from an Adolescent Literacy course that had been designed to foster preservice teachers' knowledge, skills, and dispositions to teach from a multiliteracies perspective. At the course's conclusion, the author designed, and secured institutional IRB approval to conduct, a self-study of curriculum, teaching, and learning…

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…

This article analyzes the epistemological aims and justification of character education legislation passed by the North Carolina General Assembly. I take this specific state law as representative of the broader national trends in the character education movement. I primarily use the work of Richard Rorty as the theoretical lens for the analysis…

The aim of this article is to describe and analyze the undergraduate Social Foundations course I taught at an urban, inclusive university that attempted to provide students with, among other things, a forum for them to develop both a self-confident personal voice and a view of self as potential change agent of schools. In brief, with what I term…

This article draws upon the history of teacher education to provide an introduction to four competing pedagogical philosophies. These four philosophies battled for control over curriculum for teachers during the period from 1890 to 1930. I begin by defining curriculum for teachers to include the liberal, the professional, and the experiential…

In this article I examine my struggles as a White teacher educator creating discourse around race with my preservice students. I use my own struggles to highlight how White members of a teacher education faculty do, and more often do not, address race either with our preservice teachers or among ourselves. In particular, I explore the implications…

The attempt to reform education using performance-based accountability may eventually be applied to teacher education. If so, it poses a potential challenge to those in social foundations as well as to other teacher-educators. Among other things, it requires that we think clearly about our mission and the kinds of effects we would like to have.…

This article examines to what extent, if any, educational policy documents cite or support the inclusion of the social foundations of education (SFE) within teacher preparation when discussing how to enhance "teacher quality." A review of ten major educational policy reports over the last two years reveals an almost complete lack of attention to…

During the past thirty years, while foundations of education programs have been shrinking on American campuses, faculty in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee created an undergraduate degree program in community education that has attracted older, nontraditional students. Using a curriculum that provides skills and…

This article builds on a case study about how teacher education students may actually learn racism through their program. It employs an analysis of how new racism is operationalized in today's sociopolitical contexts. Field placements and knowledge taught about various groups are critiqued as major teacher education reform efforts that…

The recent turn in teacher education reform in the United States toward hyper "professionalization" and assessment-based accreditation, spearheaded by the largest accrediting agency, the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), has moved beyond codifying knowledge and skills to codifying the internal existence of those…

The purpose of this article is to present the conclusions of a Deweyan-oriented constructivist educator concerning what I believe to be a number of crucial dysfunctional elements embedded in the very structure of the traditional teacher education program. My experience as a teacher educator has led me to conclude that certain time-honored aspects…