“It Doesn’t Feel Like a Natural Fit”: Co-operating Teachers Account for Their Evaluation and Assessment of Pre-service Teachers’ Efforts to Fulfill Social Justice Indicators

Teacher education has long been troubled by the problem of reconciling what happens in course work with how that learning is taken up in practicum experiences. Our faculty asks co-operating teachers to account for interns’ professional growth by the extent to which the interns meet the requirements of the Internship Placement Profile (IPP). The study focuses on the eight IPP items which relate directly to “teaching for social justice.” The theoretical framework draws upon the literature of anti-oppressive/anti-racist pedagogies. Co-operating teachers and interns are expected to rely on the field manual that lists descriptors for each item of the IPP to assess growth and to set goals. The objective to understand how co-operating teachers perceive their intern’s ability to teach for social justice and reach their final evaluation was modified to reflect the finding that cooperating teachers were sometimes less familiar with these principles than were the interns.