Critical Readings in Teacher Education (Provoking Absences)

Like other fields of study, teacher education defines itself both by what it includes and by what it excludes. Teacher educators and researchers have spent a great deal of time seeking and attempting to eradicate the flaws in existing structures and practices, but significantly less time learning to perceive the absences. The premise of this book is that until we can identify and begin to address what is absent, teacher education will be constrained by a perennial recycling of concerns that have characterized so much of research, policy and practice to date. If teacher education is to have a different future, we need to ask different and difficult questions. This book, with contributions from theorists in Australia, Canada and the United States, addresses the challenges we face in establishing a more hopeful future for teacher education. The authors’ provocative contributions identify what is ‘missing’ in teacher education while providing critical counterpoints to existing frames of reference in the field. In writing ‘against the grain’ they open up new conceptual spaces and exciting trajectories for a different teacher education.