Investigating Power and Agency in Singular Diversity-Requirement Education Courses

Moving Beyond Content Analysis to Engage with Critical Praxis Analysis

Abstract

Given recent pushes toward homogenous teacher education, teacher educator pedagogy necessitates modeled critical practice. The research presented here provides an analysis to ground the call for a move beyond teacher education pedagogy focused on the dissemination of knowledge about critical issues in classrooms. Utilizing two methodological traditions – namely, critical discourse analysis and phenomenography – this paper reports on the discursive moments enacted in a graduate course that sought to foster critical understandings of issues in urban science education, intending to lead to critical practices employed by this population of teacher candidates and doctoral students. Findings support that not only was there a preponderance of the dissemination model of teaching and learning, but also that the students within this course, even when working in groups, were unable to generate critical unit plans for prospectus science lessons in K-12 classrooms. Implications for this study are discussed in relation to the literature on critical teacher education.