This article seeks to characterize Teach For America's (TFA) theoretical framework as engendering disillusionment among its corps members. Given that the corps members have little to no pedagogical or methods training prior to taking on teaching positions through TFA, the lessons learned during the summer training set the stage for the…

This article explores the limits of introductory social justice education and the ways in which a social foundations course could expand and deepen the social justice lens of current and future educators. The authors, members of an introductory graduate-level Social Foundations course, discuss the limitations they realized in their previous social…

This article advocates a nonviolent approach to social justice education. First, social justice education literature is reviewed, and two contrasting and influential approaches--critical theory and poststructural theory--are the focus of critical analysis. A nonviolent approach is proposed as an alternative. Second, the notion of social justice is…

This article offers a quantitative analysis of the growth of for-profit provision of teacher education in the United States. Data from all Title-IV-aid-participating institutions from 1996 to 2008 is analyzed to provide a comprehensive overview of the relative changes in enrollments of education majors at public, not-for-profit, and for-profit…

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…

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…

This article is an exploration of the emerging narratives on learning and teacher education in the United States and Hong Kong, as found in official policy statements and curriculum documents. Particular attention is given to Hong Kong's initiative in implementing an interdisciplinary liberal studies curriculum, and the continued professional…

This article examines how students enrolled in a university course focused on sociocultural influences and learning changed in their understanding of the relationship between sociocultural factors, teaching, and schooling over the duration of the semester. In this context, sociocultural factors refer to key social constructs such as race, class,…

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…

Educational research suggests that the response biases of educators can negatively influence student performance and aptitude (Blanchett 2006; Bloom 2001; Darity et al. 2001; Gordon 2005; and Skiba et al. 2000). This article introduces "good enough methods" for autoethnography as an alternative approach to this problem. Luttrell (2000, 13)…

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…

We provide an interpretation of authority in schools among a convenience sample teacher candidates. We analyzed responses of a convenience sample of thirty-one undergraduate interns enrolled in two cohorts of block methods courses at a southern urban university. Approximately four of five students consented to have their reflections analyzed. The…

The "information era" has brought up new literacies, although most of them are still not part of the K-12 curriculum or the teacher education curriculum. One of these new literacies is critical media literacy. The purpose of this article is to document the urgency for including this new literacy in school and teacher education curricula given the…