Self Narrative and the Process of Inquiry in Teacher Development: Living and Working in Just Institutions

Historically the cultures of certain ethnic groups in the United States have been rendered invisible in school pedagogy. New stipulations for credentialing in California, however, require teachers to reflect critically upon the meaning of cultural difference, including their own thinking and lived experience as well as the lives, backgrounds, and cultural history ofthe children they teach. To be effective in culturally diverse classrooms, teachers must confront certain contradictions in their own identity. Most teacher candidates have shaped their identity according to a set of mainstream values and beliefs that has denigrated cultural difference. The personal confrontation with difference and self-identity during the professional development process can be frustrating and painful ifpreservice teachers have never questioned their social position from the perspective of a belief system that values diversity and the cultural agency of ethnic communities