Crossing Boundaries and Building Learning Communities

This book addresses the boundaries between teacher education scholarship and preparation for practice in a multicultural society. Teachers' voices as scholarly practitioners, capable of critiquing their profession, are brought to the forefront as key actors in the process of democratizing education. The author proposes connecting two research paradigms, critical ethnography and narrative inquiry, as tools for translating critical pedagogy into teacher education and K-12 practice.Chapter 1 examines the state of critical education and critical ethnography as a backdrop for understanding the void and need of critical ethnographies as leadership praxis in the field of education. It introduces the main thesis that narrative inquiry needs to be theoretically and practically built in the struggle for more democratic social relations both in schools as well as in teacher education. Chapter 2 presents a comprehensive literature review of critical theory in education and chapter 3 presents a history of critical ethnography and narrative inquiry in educational research. Chapter 4 serves as a transitional or border-crossing chapter between theory and practice. The remaining chapters focus on critical narrative ethnographic studies as examples of a kind of participatory action research. The final chapter continues to develop the concept of preservice teacher research development as integral to the process of becoming social agents of change.