Deficits, therapists, and a desire to distance: Secondary English preservice teachers’ reasoning about their future students.

Abstract

This article explores how secondary English preservice teachers reason about their future students and the consequences these systems of reasoning have for their thinking about pedagogy and their roles as teachers. By examining these systems of reasoning, this article helps to denaturalize normalized discourses about adolescence—discourses that oftentimes help to name and position young people in powerful, predictable, and problematic ways. Finally, this article suggests ways English teacher educators might create spaces for preservice literacy teachers to rethink how their experiences with adolescents are always mediated and produced by discourses that authorize how young people are known and acted upon.

Reference

Petrone, R., & Lewis, M. A. (2012). Deficits, therapists, and a desire to distance: Secondary English preservice teachers' reasoning about their future students. English Education, 44(3), 254-287.

Journal

English Education

Analysis

Is this article part of a larger project or series of studies?

yes

Does this study draw on a large, preexisting data set?

yes

Research Approach

Grounded theory

Geographic Setting

United States

Institutional Context

University based

Certification Level

Secondary

Programatic Focus

Research Location Context

University

Preservice Participants

Undergraduates (university based program)

Preservice Sample Size

Duration of Data Collection

Academic Semester

Data Sources

course materials
Document Analysis
Survey

Data Analysis Tools

coding (non-specific)
grounded theory
Inductive analysis

Researcher Positionality

inside (staying their own students)

Research Questions

How do the participants of this study (secondary English preservice teachers) conceive the population of people with whom they will work as teachers?
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes

What are the relationships between these participants' conceptions of their prospective students and their thinking about the role/func tion of the school subject English and their own roles/identities as teachers?
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes

What are the systems of reasoning that undergird the participants' conceptions of their prospective students and the relationships these have to their thinking about the school subject English and their own roles/identities as teachers?
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes