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A concern for social justice in education raises questions about the ways schooling has failed systematically to serve many students from diverse backgrounds. Who gets how much schooling is still an important issue. Equally vital is the kind of education that children and youth receive - and who decides. A focus on social and historical context reveals multiple inequalities which influence access to, treatment in, and outcomes of schooling. As educators and citizens, we need to be concerned about the effects of persistent poverty, cultural imperialism, racism, sexism, heterosexism - and the list goes on. Teachers alone, of course, cannot solve these injustices and inequities. But teaching is an inherently moral and political enterprise, and teachers' daily actions do matter in the effort to build a more caring, and democratic society. Preparing and supporting teachers to engage in this intellectually and politically demanding work, therefore, is of the utmost importance.
A wide variety of equity -oriented pedagogies currently vie for attention, yet in most of the teacher education program descriptions and mission statements that I am aware of, the call to social justice is left vague and thus open to multiple interpretations. What educating for social justice means is not always, or even usually, self-evident until broad value statements are put into practice and contested within local arenas. In large teacher education programs in universities like the one where I work, this vagueness fosters the creation of silos rather than critical debate, both across and within departments or disciplines. It results in fragmentation and often token attention to "diversity" via some foundations courses or a special cohort within the larger teacher education program.
Clearly taking diversi. ty seriously - diversity of teacher, student, and community populations, including global immigration flows - is essential to preparing and supporting teachers for the 21" century. Yet in the absence of clarity over the contested meanings of diversity and social justice, too often the unstated notions of liberal individualism - which are so prevalent as to be taken as common sense - shape teaching practices. In research that I have done with teacher candidates, for instance, many report valuing the various differences of their students based on race, gender, class, sexuality, and ability, but they conceive of these...