Talking Back: Teaching and Learning through Autobiographies in Multicultural Education

Source: Teaching Education, Volume 23, Issue 2, 2012, pages 153-165

This article is intended to situate the curriculum in the author's multicultural education courses – of talking back through autobiographical inquiry – within real schools, a site where curriculum theorists rarely situate their work.

The literature by curriculum theorists that precedes the author's study generally has focused on how pre-service teachers in multicultural education courses are changed (or not) as a result of course readings, discussions, and critical autobiographical reflection, all of which happen within the confines of the university classroom.

This article focuses on the ways in which pre-service teachers use autobiographical inquiry to reflect on the impact of the context of real public schools and K-12 students on their constructions of themselves as teachers.

In this work, the author draws on bell hooks’ notion of “talking back” as an overarching framework in analyzing the autobiographical reflections of pre-service teachers.