Debate continues about what should shape and inform teaching and teacher education programs. In the age of globalization, considerations related to global competence, awareness, and community can no longer be ignored. Humane education, a newer and lesser-known area, addresses these considerations; its vision is such that every institute of…

This article draws into specific relief current perspectives of teacher education and the ongoing debates over how best to prepare teachers for the integration of immigrant children into society--in particular, into schools and classrooms. Equally important is preparing teachers for working with undocumented populations that enter society and are…

Those who are in university-based teacher preparation seem to constantly defend the ethos of teacher education, lately in the face of a concerted, organized, well-funded attempt to obviate the need for traditional preparation. For teacher educators who are preparing candidates to be on the front lines of a high-stakes testing battleground, it is…

Social capital theorist Robert Putnam (2007) argued that diversity produces fear and leads people to disconnect from one another. For student teachers, diversity of whatever kind--ethnicity, religion, class, disability, gender, or sexuality--generates fear and an expectation that it has to be managed. Civic education within teacher education has a…

Teacher education is charged with the goal of training teachers who will prepare the next generation of citizens. Since Horace Mann's common schools, teachers have been the purveyors of political education, often through teaching patriotic songs and celebrated historical events and individuals. Through liberal education and critical pedagogy,…

Teachers need a much greater repertoire of skills than those that produce successful test takers. Teachers need to be prepared to lead students to important understandings and ideas, to assist them in developing key skills, and to open up for them values and attitudes that guide everyday actions in an uncertain world. Teacher education programs…

The work of schools and the work of universities are deeply interconnected; nowhere is this interconnection stronger than in the work of teacher education. Universities are challenged to produce more teachers and better teachers so that young people will have a vibrant and meaningful future. In these challenging times, universities must step up to…

In this paper, the author discusses the necessary elements of civic engagement in teacher education and responsibility for schools. For over 50 years, John Goodlad conducted research, created an institute to study education in a democratic society, and formed 25 partnership sites to engage in research and practice. The National Network for Renewal…

Teacher educators are supposed to ensure that their preservice candidates and practitioners are equipped with the content knowledge, pedagogical skills, and dispositions that will help to create effective classroom teachers who serve as models of civic engagement for their students. Civic engagement is understood as being the act of making a…

The author takes up the invitation to engage in the dialogue on the imperatives for civic engagement in teacher education at the intersections of youth, immigration, and globalization in urban contexts--especially when given that many of the youth in K-12 schools are immigrants or children of immigrants. The first imperative considers the…

In teacher education, the key concern must be inequitable civic education, which includes economic education and opportunities available for underserved students. Inequitable civic education opportunities reinforce already-widening disparities between groups of citizens. This bodes ill for democracy and the ability to wrestle with the complex…

In the realm of teacher education, the conversation among teacher educators across the nation invariably leans toward better understandings of the experiences that seem to foster the development of effective teachers. Experience has certainly had a significant influence on the author, a teacher educator committed to teaching for social justice.…

Studying democracy, and doing so critically, while striving to live it presents a peculiar and special charge to public education. As John Goodlad suggested, for teacher educators and in-service educators, this charge brings with it a responsibility to stand as stewards of public education and, hence, the most noble traditions of democracy in…

"Social justice" is a commonly used term in teacher education and in educational research, but little is known about the frequency with which schools of education explicitly articulate social justice as a component of teacher education. This study documented the incidence of the term "social justice" in 520 conceptual frameworks written by teacher…

Schubert (1986) juxtaposes curriculum's role in creating a just society. Yet despite educational reform, a monolithic curriculum has continued to dominate school systems in an attempt to create a national identity. Perhaps Schubert's question can be answered by changing the type of curriculum offered to students. The type of curriculum that can…