| Current research in teacher education emphasizes the urgent need for preservice teachers to be prepared with an understanding of the social context of schooling including the complex interactions of race, class, gender, and ability in K-12 classrooms (Gay, 1993; Cochran-Smith, 1995). This understanding is a component of critical consciousness, which emphasizes both emancipatory knowledge construction and a commitment to act transformatively on the conditions of schooling (Freire, 1970, 1973; Shor, 1992). Based on a democratic social orientation for education, the purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which "seeds" of critical consciousness developed in four preservice teachers as they constructed knowledge about teaching and learning over the course of three semesters. Initially, the preservice teachers were students in a two semester Professional Seminar series that involved service learning as a method for making connections between practical or "everyday knowledge" and teacher education content or "academic knowledge" (Vygotsky, 1978, 1986). The goal of the Professional Seminar series was to raise the awareness of preservice teachers to social issues, such as the effects of class, race, gender, and ability on the experiences and outcomes of schooling for K-12 students. This study continued through student teaching, held concurrently with a third semester Professional Seminar, in order to capture the early interactions of the preservice teachers in their student teaching placements. Changes in discourse, conceptual organization, and role elaboration were documented throughout the course of this study from interviews, course syllabi and requirements, and observations. The experiences of four preservice teachers were situated: (1) within the classroom context of the Professional Seminar series; (2) within the institutional context of a teacher education program emphasizing the social context of education and; (3) within the sociocultural context of teacher education reform. |
