Research: “I didn’t know teaching was so political”: Preservice Teachers’ Development of a Political Vision for Teaching

Alexander et al. (2023) reported that, between 2021 and 2022, there were 563 measures introduced by government officials aimed at restricting teaching about race and racism; of those, 241 were passed. Given this reality, there has never been a more important time to help our English education preservice teachers understand that nothing is apolitical. In this article, the authors share findings from a two-year study that explored the following question: What kind of political vision do preservice teachers develop in a structurally and conceptually coherent English education program? Findings show that a cohered program around a shared political vision helped the PSTs highlighted in this article develop their own political vision for teaching, which included the understanding that students are citizens, teaching is relational work, and perspective taking is foundational to teaching.