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Teacher Education for Social Justice in the Canadian Context

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Regimes of Belonging – Schools – Migrations

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Abstract

Social justice priorities are seen as some of the most compelling issues presently facing teacher education in transnational contexts. Yet such efforts are not without controversy and challenges even within relatively progressive policy environments such as Canada. Presently, educational priorities emphasizing anti-racist, decolonizing, and transnational perspectives are being redefined in new ways in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic and the momentum around the Black Lives Matter movement. I argue in this chapter that teacher education needs to move beyond reflective practice and incorporate more critical approaches if social justice is to be robustly enacted in schools and society. Drawing on the decolonial theory of Brazilian scholar Santos, I use his concept of abyssal thinking to analyze prevalent racist stereotypes held by some teacher candidates in a Manitoba teacher education program, and advocate for critical discourse analysis as a promising methodology for challenging and overcoming such stereotypes.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A teacher candidate is defined as a pre-service teacher or teacher in training, preparing to work in the kindergarten to grade 12 education system. In my university, this means completing a two-year Bachelor of Education degree after first completing a Bachelor’s degree in Arts, Sciences, Music, or other discipline.

  2. 2.

    A common teaching load for teacher educators at my institution is five half-courses per year, with approximately 35 students per course section.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada

    Clea Schmidt

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  1. Clea Schmidt
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Correspondence to Clea Schmidt .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Universität Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Lydia Heidrich

  2. Universitat Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Yasemin Karakaşoğlu

  3. Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany

    Paul Mecheril

  4. Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany

    Saphira Shure

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Schmidt, C. (2021). Teacher Education for Social Justice in the Canadian Context. In: Heidrich, L., Karakaşoğlu, Y., Mecheril, P., Shure, S. (eds) Regimes of Belonging – Schools – Migrations. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-29189-1_27

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-29189-1_27

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