Dispositions in Teacher Education: A Look at Social Justice

Source: Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. 58, No. 5, 370-380 (2007)

The use of a dispositional framework in the preparation of teachers, especially one that attends to issues of social justice, has generated considerable debate of late. In this article, the author argues that assessing teacher candidates' dispositions related to social justice is both reasonable and defensible. She explains why social justice matters in teacher education, provides a definition of the term dispositions and discusses why programs of teacher education must attend to them, and gives examples of practices used at one institution to assess teacher candidates' dispositions related to social justice to illustrate that such assessment can be done in a fair and principled manner.

The author concludes that underlying the dispositions debate is an all-out war to define the goals of public education, the role of teachers, the nature of knowledge, and conceptions of learning, teaching, and learning to teach.