Community-Based Teacher Education: The Experiences of Teacher Candidates Learning Alongside Grassroots Youth Organizers

Abstract

This community-based action research (CBAR) project acknowledges and disrupts existing systemic barriers to bring teacher candidates and grassroots youth organizers together through dialogue and reflection for transformative action. The practice of community-based pedagogy is described and utilized to demonstrate how critical understandings of community may imagine new ways of learning in conventional teacher education programs. This process enhances teacher candidates’ understanding and use of community-based pedagogy while supporting youth organizers in social justice initiatives within schools and communities. The findings, which draw from the CBAR project of a white, cis-gender woman who is a teacher educator-scholar-community organizer, provide implications for teacher educators aiming to foster collaborative partnerships with youth-centered grassroots community organizations and intergenerational community members. Teacher educators are invited to engage in paradigm shifts to curate community-based teacher education programs that are stimulated by and benefit local schools and communities.