"You have to reach before you can teach": A study of teacher candidates' journeys of community teaching

Abstract

Initiatives to involve communities in preservice teacher education programs are not new. Neither are attempts to provide preservice teachers with experiences in communities. However, there are fewer research accounts of preservice teachers experiences in programs where teacher educators establish “equal status” (Seidl & Friend, 2002) partnerships and work towards solidarity with families and communities; the people who personally have the most at stake in public education. The dissertation, organized into three articles––one literature review co-written with Lorena Guillén and two empirical studies––presents analysis to illustrate the possibilities and institutional constraints that became visible as teacher educators and mentors from local families and communities worked together to prepare community teachers (Murrell, 2001; Murrell, 2015). It also presents recommendations about how teacher education programs can develop sensitivities rather than calluses (Cuban, 1969) and be (and stay) conscious (Coates, 2014).