To investigate teachers' beliefs about critical-thinking (CT) activities for different populations of learners, the Critical Thinking Belief Appraisal (CTBA) was administered to 145 practicing secondary teachers. Teachers rated both high-CT and low-CT activities as more effective for high advantage learners than low advantage ones, demonstrating…

Changing times and postmodern perspectives have disrupted the taken-for-granted relationship between child development knowledge and the preparation of early childhood teachers. Despite ongoing exchanges about how best to respond to the critique of the developmental knowledge base, few descriptions of how particular teacher educators have gone…

To date, the professional development school (PDS) preservice teacher preparation literature base is long on attitudinal analysis and short on comparative analysis of outcome variables. This article reports on a 2-year study comparing the lesson planning, teaching effectiveness, postlesson reflectivity, and content retention of professional…

This article examines the construction and experience of change agency within action research courses in preservice teacher education. Four preservice teachers' experiences of action research are analyzed, and tensions and challenges teacher educators and preservice teachers face as they attend to change processes in learning to teach are…

Nationwide and statewide shifts and ambiguity in language education policy have created substantial instability for teachers. Through a cross-case study and analysis of bilingual teachers in two states, this article shows how these teachers participate in responding to and making decisions regarding language policy. This article shows how and why…

The increasing number of English language learners (ELLs) in U.S. schools requires rethinking teacher education (TE). Most teachers have received little preparation in how to educate ELLs. Change in TE programs is needed to ensure that TE students are prepared to teach ELLs. Such change begins by educating TE faculty first. One catalyst for…

This article reports findings from a research project on the early career path of a group of male elementary school teachers. Issues of caring for children and disparities between how male and female teachers are permitted to relate to their elementary-age students are explored. In the preservice situation, the participants experienced tensions…

This article challenges the pervasive notion that linguistic and ethnic diversity are causes of the perceived gap in achievement in schools highly affected by Spanish-speaking students participating in programs of bilingual education. The study examines existing data from the state of Colorado with regard to student achievement and compares these…

For more than 30 years, Janusz Korczak (1878-1942) devoted his life to educating orphaned Jewish children, and he stayed with them to the end as they all perished in the Treblinka concentration camp. In his teaching and writing, Korczak encouraged teachers to become autonomous knowledge producers by questioning and interrogating their work.…

This article describes one school of education's efforts to navigate a state-level mandate requiring that candidates for teacher certification demonstrate "positive impact on student learning." It explains ongoing efforts to make sense of the requirement, to measure its congruence with program philosophy, and to develop a response. The article…

This article examines the integration of social justice in teacher education and defines dimensions of teachers' opportunities to learn. Findings come from a comparative case study of two elementary teacher education programs: the Teachers for Tomorrow's Schools Program at Mills College and the Teacher Education Intern Program at San Jose State…

In this article, the author describes the liberatory and critical classroom she tried to create with preservice teachers. She reflects on how the perceptions of her teaching and of her class by one student led him to feel silenced inside the classroom but liberated to express his views of the community in e-mail dialogues. Anthony's actions in…

The Banneker History Project (BHP) reconstructed the history of a local, segregated school. The Benjamin Banneker School served African American youth from 1915 to 1951. Oral histories from surviving alumni as well as primary documents from the times were sought. This article focuses on ways that one group of participants, 24 preservice teachers…

The value of university-based programs of teacher education in preparing high-quality teachers is currently the focus of increasingly contentious debate among researchers, policy makers, and media experts. To a large extent, public awareness and understanding of the work of teacher education is filtered through one or another of these lenses…

Although teaching is regarded as "women's work," few calls for change in the multicultural and social justice literature focus attention on the teaching self as a socially constructed gendered identity. Given Black women's prominence in this literature as successful educators of students underserved in contemporary schools, the author suggests…