Guiding White Pre-Service and In-Service Teachers toward Critical Pedagogy - Utilizing Counter-Cultures in Teacher Education

Oct 15, 2026

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The essay examines critical pedagogy in teacher education, offering concrete and theoretical examples for preparing both pre-service and in-service teachers to adopt a social-activist orientation. It argues that teacher educators must help students identify social, political, and economic forces that create injustice in schools and broader society. Drawing on the authors’ experience with predominantly White teacher candidates, it addresses how neoliberal and corporatized training can depoliticize practice, provoking resistance to critical scholarship while limiting emancipatory instructional design and activist engagement.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages19

Reading Time48 min

AccessFree to download

Critical pedagogy and teacher education goals

Social justice and emancipatory instructional design

Challenges of educating White teacher candidates

Neoliberal and corporatist teacher preparation

Resistance to critical scholarship and blame-the-victim narratives

Guiding White Pre-Service and In-Service Teachers toward Critical Pedagogy: Utilizing Counter-Cultures in Teacher Education By Brad J. Porfilio & Curry S. Malott Brad J. Porfilio is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at Lewis University, Romeoville, Illinois. Curry S. Malott is an assistant professor in the Department of Education at D’Youville College, Buffalo, New York. This essay documents a few key examples of the critical pedagogy and curriculum thatwe employ tochallenge pre-service and in-service teachers to consider the concrete and theoretical contexts oftaking on a socialactivist-teacher persona. Our vision of social justice is rooted firmly in the critical tradition, as it is anchored in excavating unjust social and economic formations that imperil the vast majority of the world’s population, while concomitantly empowering the economic elite. Not only do we believe that teacher educators must take the lead in helping their students recognize the social, political, and economic forces creating injustice in schools and in the wider society, but they must help current and future teachers develop emancipatoryvisions ofhowto develop instructional designs, collaborate with educators, and engage in activist initiatives which have the potential to eliminate social inequalities and build institutional structures based on democracy, equity, and fairness (McLaren, 2005) . Like many teacher educators, we have worked in institutions where almost 95% of the teacher education students have self-identified as “White.” Because of the difficulties of working with this nearly ubiquitous at-risk group (at risk for acting as oppressors), we focus our attention in this essay on the challenges White in-service and preservice teachers pose to practicing critical pedagogy. Although some of our former students have come to take a critical stance toward North America’s social and economic systems that operate to privilege the few atthe expense ofmany, and promote equity and social justice across the various elementary and secondary content areas, we, like many critical teacher educators, find the task of educating White pre-service and in-service teachers—echoing Freire(2005)—to“readtheword andtheworld”and create socially-just educational projects that play an active role in building an equalitarian society rewarding even as it is often daunting (Cross, 2005; Porfilio & Yu, 2006; Sleeter, 2002) . Schools of education are still very traditional in their approach to preparing K-12 teachers,(Cochran-Smith, 2004) as they (mis)inform students that “schooling is unequivocally a good thing serving the best interests of individual students, marginalized students, and the culture in general”(Kincheloe, 2004, p. 4) . They often remain silent on how the larger structures of power are bent on generating asymmetrical social and economic relationships. Moreover, as neoliberal policies, logics, and practices have infiltrated the way in which we prepare schoolteachers, over the past decade, more of them, echoing Macedo (1994), have become “stupefied”(Macedo as cited in Kincheloe, 2004) . For example, corporatist teaching preparation has churned out and continues to prepare a sizable amount ofpre-service teachers. The preparation is characterized by fast-track alternative programs, some of which do not require teacher candidates to take one course in the field of education. Several corporately-sponsored programs have also been designed by clinical “educational” conglomerates, such as Sylvan Education and Kaplan Inc, which attract mid-career changers and post-baccalaureate students who yearn to gain their teaching credentials as quickly as possible.1 There are also several alternate route programs,2 such as Troops forTeachers, Transition toTeaching, Passport to Teaching, and Teach for America, that allow future teachers to bypass some of the “burdensome requirements” associated with traditional forms of teacher cert

FAQs

What is the essay’s central purpose in teacher education?

It documents examples of critical pedagogy and curriculum used to challenge pre-service and in-service teachers to consider the concrete and theoretical contexts of adopting a social-activist teaching persona.

Why do the authors focus on White teachers in their discussion?

They note that in many institutions nearly 95% of teacher education students self-identify as “White,” and they address the difficulties and risks of this group acting as oppressors by engaging them with critical pedagogy.

How do neoliberal policies affect teacher preparation according to the essay?

Neoliberal logics and practices are described as infiltrating teacher preparation, increasing the prevalence of fast-track, commercialized, and alternative programs that prioritize profit or status quo beliefs over socially just democratic schooling.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by moss~