Power, Teaching, and Teacher Education

This collection of essays frames the work of teachers and teacher educators within a struggle over what it means to educate a highly diverse public. Visions for public education, as shaped by progressivism and the Civil Rights movements, have emphasized preparation of all children and youth for participation in a diverse democracy. This vision is being challenged by neoliberalism, which frames education as a commodity to be acquired for individual advancement within a competitive marketplace, and as an arena for profit-making. In this book, Sleeter connects incisive conceptual analyses, research reviews, and descriptive portraits of teachers and teacher educators as they «teach back to power.» She argues that the work of pushing back against neoliberalism, especially as it overlaps with racism, patriarchy, and radical religious fundamentalism, is a political project, but one that research can help to support.