Self-Study and Diversity II is a book about the self-study of teacher education practices in a diverse world. In this volume, the authors examine the preparation of teachers through a shared orientation to diversity grounded in a commitment to addressing issues of identity, equity, diversity, social justice, inclusion, and access in their professional practice. The first chapters are autobiographical studies in which teacher educators reflect on how their personal identities as minorities within a historically oppressive culture inform their professional practice. These powerful narratives are followed by accounts of teacher educators addressing diversity issues in the United Arab Emirates, India, South Africa, and Thailand. The closing chapters attend to the challenges of preparing teacher candidates to become inclusive educators in a diverse world. Even though each chapter focusses on a particular dimension of equity and social justice or dilemma of practice, the insights in these self-studies are relevant to all teacher educators interested in improving teacher education by respecting diversity and becoming more inclusive. Particular strengths are the diversity of authors and international scope of the book.

This book is about the self-study of teacher education practices at a time when inclusion and diversity are being questioned. Authors of various backgrounds and identities draw on their own experiences to examine the challenges of preparing teachers.

This book critically explores pedagogical activities, policies, and coursework that teacher education programs can provide to more fully prepare teacher candidates and in-service educators for professional practice in urban schools. It illustrates how teacher educators from across the United States are supporting teacher candidates and in-service teachers to possess the knowledge, skills, and dispositions for equity-oriented instructional practices and advocacy for professional engagement in the urban context. Chapters share insider perspectives of urban teacher education on preparing teachers to teach in culturally, linguistically, and socio-economically diverse classrooms. They discuss teacher educators’ learning about their own practice in the preparation of teachers for city schools, preparing teacher candidates from rural and suburban contexts to teach in urban settings, and supervising practicing teachers in city classrooms. The volume also focuses on the interplay of cultural and linguistic parity between teacher educators and their preservice/in-service teacher students, implementing learning activities or coursework about teaching in urban schools, and enacting critical pedagogical practices. This book will be beneficial to teacher educators focused on teacher preparation for city classrooms and urban school districts, and researchers seeking to adopt self-study methodology in their own research endeavors.

Self-study and Diversity is a book about self-study of teaching and teacher education with equity and access as focal issues of practice. Chapters in this book have a shared orientation to diversity grounded in the acknowledgement that educators have a responsibility to address equity and access issues inherent in teaching. To that end, individual chapters address such areas of diversity as race, ethnicity, gender, disability, and power, as well as broader areas of social justice, multiculturalism, and ways of knowing. Even though the focus in a chapter may be on one particular dimension of diversity, the dilemmas and responses of a teacher educator, elicited through self-study, can apply well beyond that immediate context. This broadens the appeal of the book beyond the self-study community and beyond specific issues of diversity, to people interested in teaching in general and in the process of improving practice. An additional strength of this book is the inclusion in each chapter of information regarding the use of particular strategies, both for self-study and for teaching for diversity. A separate index of these suggested research and teaching practices will direct the reader to specific chapters.

As teaching is socially, culturally, and politically constructed, it is important that teacher educators committed to social justice attempt to create secure environment where all voices are heard and teacher candidates can inquire into personally and socially challenging topics within a safe and caring classroom culture. Relationships of trust are fundamental to teaching about social justice and to being receptive as learners in such classes. Mindfulness on the part of teacher educators and teacher candidates can go a long way in fostering respect, openness and acceptance in such classes. Together they can lead to teacher educators and candidates thinking deeply about themselves, schools and schooling as they move towards a vision of a more equitable and just society. The teacher educators who have contributed to this volume recognize the challenges of balancing respect for their students with the call to social justice. Their accounts and critical reflections convey how relational and mindful approaches might offer positive avenues to self and shared exploration by teacher candidates and teacher educators alike. Several chapters attend to the challenges for educators as they encounter culturally and linguistically diverse contexts. Others attend to these issues within the complexity of diverse university classrooms in order to guide teacher candidates towards dispositions and practices that help foster inclusion and engage diverse learners and communities. Together, these chapters offer thoughtful approaches to living alongside aspiring teachers as they develop deeper understanding of the concepts of race and diversity, and inclusive approaches to teaching and learning.

Art as an Agent for Social Change explores through original research, experiences, and personal narratives the role of the arts in bringing forth social change within three interconnected themes: community building, collaborations, and teaching and pedagogy.

This book offers a detailed examination of reflective practice in teacher education. In the current educational context, where reflective practice has been mandated in professional standards for teachers in many countries, it analyses research-based evidence for the power of reflective practice to shape better educational outcomes. The book presents multiple theoretical and practical views of this often taken-for-granted practice, so that readers are challenged to consider how factors such as gender and race shape understandings of reflective practice. Documenting approaches that enhance learning, the contributions discuss reflective practice across the globe, with a focus on pre-service, in-service and university teachers. At a time when there is pressure to measure teachers’ work through standardised tests, the book highlights the professional thinking that is integral to teaching and demonstrates ways it can be encouraged in beginning teachers. Aimed at the international community of teacher educators in schools and universities, it also includes a critical examination of methodological issues in analysing and evaluating reflective practice and showcases the kind of reflective practice that empowers teachers and pre-service teachers to make a difference to students.

This book communicates new voices, insights, and possibilities for working with the arts and memory in researching teacher professional learning. The book reveals how, through the arts, teacher-researchers can reimagine and reinvigorate moments of the past as embodied and empowering scholarly experiences. The peer-reviewed chapters were composed from juxtaposing unique “mosaic” pieces written by 21 new and emerging scholars in South Africa and Canada. Their research explores diverse arts-based practices and resources including collage, film, drawing, narrative, poetry, photography, storytelling and television alongside related ethical issues. Critically, Memory Mosaics also demonstrates how artful memory-work can engender agency in professional learning with teacher-researchers taking up pressing issues of social justice such as inclusion and decolonisation. Overall, the book offers a multidimensional, polyvocal exploration of how artful memory-work can bring about future-oriented professional learning enacted as pedagogies of reinvention and productive remembering. Memory Mosaics: Researching Teacher Professional Learning Through Artful Memory-Work, by Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan, Daisy Pillay, and Claudia Mitchell, along with teacher-researchers on two continents, is a ground-breaking book. It models a collaborative approach to arts-based research that melds memory-work, visual and poetic arts, and reflective practice to promote professional learning, personal transformation, decolonisation, and a more just future. Like colourful pebbles and bits of glass, the authors place teachers’ self-stories in relation to one another in an artful design, creating thematic coherence that evokes a deep sense of knowing. Judith C. Lapadat, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Education, University of Lethbridge, Canada Memory Mosaics: Researching Teacher Professional Learning Through Artful Memory-Workassembles exemplars of professional learning in an intriguing mosaic format. A topic is introduced, followed by memory-pieces; then: discussion and/or creative response. This lively juxtaposition generates momentum for highly productive forms of remembering around social justice issues, even as the reader is invited into an intimate circle of shared concern: for these issues, with these (and other) teacher-researchers. It is a beautiful, original, and practical book. Teresa Strong-Wilson, Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, McGill University, Canada

ChatGPT and Global Higher Education: Using Artificial Intelligence in Teaching and Learning