Resisting Hegemony in Teacher Education: Possibilities for Transformational Teaching and Learning Within Neoliberal Systems

Abstract

Education both replicates and reinforces hegemonic power structures in society. To change educational systems, it is imperative that teacher educators resist neoliberal forces and normative assumptions that value some over others, prioritize competition over collaboration, and use mechanisms of standardization and accountability to operationalize both. This study explores how embracing multiplicity, prioritizing collaboration over competition, and enacting Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles in instructional design can transform learner and teacher educator relationships, outcomes, and experiences in their courses. The authors draw on their ongoing collective, situated self-study and critical collaborative inquiry of their pedagogical decisions and the impacts of these decisions on themselves and TCs within a demanding graduate teacher education program. As a result of this work, instructors and TCs were both able to simultaneously experience, imagine, and create greater possibilities for expecting, welcoming, and supporting the learner variability into their current and future classrooms.