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From Ideal To Practice And Back Again: Beginning Teachers Teaching For Social Justice, Ruchi Agarwal, Shira Epstein, Rachel Oppenheim, Celia Oyler, Debbie Sonu

Publications and Research

The five authors of this article designed a multicase study to follow recent graduates of an elementary preservice teacher education program into their beginning teaching placements and explore the ways in which they enacted social justice curricula. The authors highlight the stories of three beginning teachers, honoring the plurality of their conceptions of social justice teaching and the resiliency they exhibited in translating social justice ideals into viable pedagogy. They also discuss the struggles the teachers faced when enacting social justice curricula and the tenuous connection they perceived between their conceptions and their practices. The authors emphasize that such struggles …