Teacher candidates are central to the implementation of educational policy in schools, but receive little professional training around policy in their teacher education coursework or in their practicum experiences in the field. In examining this disconnect, this article explores the following questions: What do teacher candidates know about educational policy at the beginning of their student teaching practica? How do they envision their role with respect to policy? How does their participation in a critical discussion group around educational policy influence their perspectives? This article draws on qualitative data from a group of teacher education candidates enrolled in a student teaching practicum in Massachusetts. Analysis illustrates how teacher candidates make sense of educational policy via their university experiences and their field placements. Data suggest that critical discussion groups have potential to support increased capacity around teacher candidate policy engagement.
AchinsteinB.OgawaR. T.SpeiglmanA. (2004). Are we creating separate and unequal tracks of teachers? The effects of state policy, local conditions, and teacher characteristics on new teacher socialization. American Educational Research Journal, 41, 557-603.
2.
AnyonJ. (2005). Radical possibilities: Public policy, urban education, and a new social movement. New York, NY: Routledge.
3.
AppleM. W. (2005). Education, markets, and an audit culture. Critical Quarterly, 47, 11-29.
4.
BallD.CohenD. (1999). Developing practice, developing practitioners: Toward a practice-based theory of professional education. In Darling-HammondL.SykesG. (Eds.), Teaching as the learning profession (pp. 3-32). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
5.
BallS. J.MaguireM.BraunA.HoskinsK. (2011). Policy actors: Policy work in schools. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32, 625-639.
6.
BehizadehN.ThomasC.CrossS. B. (2019). Reframing for social justice: The influence of critical friendship groups on preservice teachers’ reflective practice. Journal of Teacher Education, 70, 280-296.
7.
BirchakB.ConnorC.CrawfordK. M.KahnL. H.KaserS.TurnerS.ShortK. G. (1998). Teacher study groups: Building community through dialogue and reflection. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
8.
CoburnC. E. (2001). Collective sensemaking about reading: How teachers mediate reading policy in their professional communities. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23, 145-170.
9.
CoburnC. E.SteinM. K. (2006). Communities of practice theory and the role of teacher professional community in policy implementation. In HonigM. I. (Ed.), New directions in education policy implementation: Confronting complexity (pp. 25-46). New York: The State University of New York Press.
10.
Cochran-SmithM.LytleS. L. (2009). Inquiry as stance: Practitioner research for the next generation. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
11.
Cochran-SmithM.LytleS. L. (1999). Relationships of knowledge and practice: Teacher learning in communities. In Iran-NejadA.PearsonP. D. (Eds.), Review of research in education (pp. 249-305). San Francisco: American Educational Research Association.
12.
CreswellJ. W. (1998). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five traditions. London, England: SAGE.
13.
DelaneyS.HauckC. (2017). Teacher commentaries. Peabody Journal of Education, 92, 435-439.
14.
DeweyJ. (1933). How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. Boston, MA: D.C. Heath.
15.
EmersonR.FretzR.ShawL. (1995). Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
16.
Feiman-NemserS. (2001). From preparation to practice: Designing a continuum to strengthen and sustain teaching. Teachers College Record, 103, 1013-1055.
17.
FlodenR.MenikettiM. (2005). Research on the effects of coursework in the arts and sciences and in the foundations of education. In Cochran-SmithZeichner (Eds.), Studying teacher education: The report of the AERA panel on research and teacher education (pp. 261-308). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
18.
FontanaA.FreyJ. H. (2000). The interview: From structured questions to negotiated text. In DenzinN. K.LincolnY. S. (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 645-672). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
19.
FreireP. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
20.
GirouxH. (1983). Theories of reproduction and resistance in the new sociology of education: A critical analysis. Harvard Educational Review, 53, 257-293.
21.
GirouxH. (1997). Rewriting the discourse of racial identity: Towards a pedagogy and politics of whiteness. Harvard Educational Review, 67, 285-321.
22.
GirouxH. A. (1983.). Theory and resistance in education: Towards a pedagogy for the opposition. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.
23.
GoodA.Barocas FoxS.Chavez-MorenoL. C.FeldmanR.CanelaC. (2017). A seat at the table: How the work of teaching impacts teachers as policy agents. Peabody Journal of Education, 92, 505-520.
24.
GrudnoffL. (2011). Rethinking the practicum: Limitations and possibilities. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 39, 223-234.
25.
HammernessK. (2003). Learning to hope, or hoping to learn? The role of vision in the early professional lives of teachers. Journal of Teacher Education, 54, 43-56.
26.
HammernessK.Darling-HammondL.BransfordJ.BerlinerD.Cochran-SmithM.McDonaldM.KennethZ. (2005). How teachers learn and develop. In Darling-HammondL.BransfordJ. (Eds.), Preparing teachers for a changing world: What teachers should learn and be able to do (pp. 258-289). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
27.
HaraM. (2017). Rethinking equity: Preservice teachers’ perceptions and practice around policy. Peabody Journal of Education, 92, 466-485.
28.
HeinekeA. J. (2015). Negotiating language policy and practice: Teachers of English learners in an Arizona study group. Educational Policy, 29, 843-878.
29.
HeinekeA. J.RyanA. M.TocciT. (2015). Teaching, learning, and leading: Preparing teachers as educational policy actors. Journal of Teacher Education, 66, 382-394.
30.
IngersollR. (2003). Is there really a teacher shortage?Seattle, WA: Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, University of Washington.
31.
KenaG.Musu-GilletteL.RobinsonJ.WangX.RathbunA.. . .ZhangJ.VelezE. (2015). The condition of education 2015 (NCES 2015-144). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch
32.
KincheloeJ. (2008). Critical pedagogy (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
33.
KnappM.FergusonM.BamburgJ.HillP. (1998). Converging reforms and working lives of front-line professionals in schools. Educational Policy, 12, 397-418.
34.
KumashiroK. K. (2015). Against common sense: Teaching and learning toward social justice (3rd ed.). London, England: Routledge.
Lawrence-LightfootS.DavisJ. H. (1997). The art and science of portraiture. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
37.
LeonardoZ. (2004). Critical social theory and transformative knowledge: The functions of criticism in quality education. Educational Researcher, 33(6), 11-18.
38.
LipskyM. (1980). Street-level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public services. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
39.
LittleJ. W. (2003). Inside teacher community: Representations of classroom practice. Teachers College Record, 105, 913-945.
40.
McLarenP. (2005). Capitalists and conquerors: Critical pedagogy against empire. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
41.
McLaughlinM. W.TalbertJ. E. (2006). Building school-based teacher learning communities: Professional strategies to improve student achievement. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
42.
RogoffB. (1997). Evaluating development in the process of participation: Theory, methods, and practice building on each other. In AmselE.RenningerA. (Eds.), Change and development: Issues of theory, application, and method (pp. 265-285). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
43.
ShulmanL. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4-14.
44.
ShulmanL. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of a new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1-22.
45.
SleeterC. E. (2008). Equity, democracy, and neoliberal assaults on teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 54, 1947-1957.
46.
SleeterC. E. (2009). Teacher education, neoliberalism, and social justice. In AyersW.QuinnT.StovallD. (Eds.), The handbook of social justice in education (pp. 611-624). New York, NY: Routledge.
47.
SpillaneJ. P.ReiserB. J.ReimerT. (2002). Policy implementation and cognition: Reframing and refocusing implementation research. Review of Educational Research, 72, 387-431.
48.
ThompsonS.ThompsonN. (2008). The critically reflective practitioner. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
49.
YinR. K. (2003). Case study research, design and methods (3rd ed., Vol. 5). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
50.
ZeichnerK. (2010). Rethinking the connections between campus courses and field experiences in college and university-based teacher education programs. Journal of Teacher Education, 89(11), 89-99.
51.
ZeichnerK. M.ConklinH. G. (2005). Teacher education programs. In Cochran-SmithM.ZeichnerK. M. (Eds.), Studying teacher education: The report of the AERA panel on research and teacher education (pp. 645-735). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
52.
ZeichnerK. M.TabachnickB. R. (1991). Reflections on reflective teaching. In TabachnickB. R.ZeichnerK. M. (Eds.), Issues and practices in inquiry-oriented teacher education (pp. 1-18). New York, NY: Falmer Press.
