The people who prepare teachers -- teacher educators -- are often explicitly or implicitly held accountable for teacher quality and are frequently blamed when school students do not meet national or international expectations. Despite high expectations, historically there has been little attention to the education of teacher educators or to local…

In this article, we describe our inquiry and confess how our work as teacher educators weaves through multiple contexts and roles to reinforce a stronger enactment and construction of knowledge and practical relevance. We examined the complex nature of teacher education roles through collaborative self-study. Questions included the following: What…

We draw on Engeström's (2011a) formative intervention approach to bring together mentor teachers and university supervisors to construct a tool for structuring observations and mentoring student teachers. Data include videos and transcripts from seven meetings where participants discussed mentoring and viewed video records of teaching practice to…

Teacher-education programs continue to face the challenge of improving the preparation of teachers for diversity in particular racially diverse and low-income students. Certain factors such as dispositions, self-reflection, and prior experiences contribute to preservice teachers' attitudes and beliefs toward diversity and social justice issues.…

This essay attempts to shed light on key influences on the process of becoming a social foundations educator, focusing on the problem of how to conceptualize the work and aims of a social foundations practice. A suggested solution to this problem lies in the concept of "theorizing practice." The essay briefly elaborates this concept, and its…