FINDING TRACTION FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE PRACTICES 73 FINDING TRACTION FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE PRACTICES THROUGH THE STUDENT TEACHING SOCIALIZATION TRANSITION

A key issue continuing to plague current educational systems is the intransigent racial and socio-economic achievement gaps for students. Using narrative inquiry and Harré and van Langenhove's (1999) six modes of positioning theory, this study considered preservice teachers' construction of socially just pedagogy within their public school internship contexts. This conceptual lens revealed student teachers are positioned as learners, which gives them a degree of failure resistance (Dweck & Molden, 2005). However, it also puts them in a subverted position where they are susceptible to socialization processes. Transference of social justice and critical pedagogy learning was not always possible because of participants ' moral positioning as guests within their internships and pressures, both real and perceived, to conform to micro, meso, and macro structures. A recommendation is to engage preservice teachers in iterant positioning (Morrison, 2013) so they are better able to internalize and utilize socially just pedagogy in their own classrooms