International Portal of Teacher Education

Source: Teaching Education, Volume 25, Issue 1, 2014, pages 24-42

This article examines how an inquiry-based social studies student teaching seminar helped three preservice teachers negotiate the pressures of standards-based reforms during student teaching.

The author first explores how initial perceptions of standardization and high-stakes testing corroded images of powerful teaching and created an ex post facto relationship with teaching social studies.

The author then examines how an inquiry-based seminar mitigated these initial impressions by
(1) suspending the authority of accountability;
(2) creating contact through collaborative inquiry; and
(3) refracting practice.