First Comes a Look at the Self: Integrating the Principles of Social Justice into a Teacher Preparation Program

Social justice in education means that educators can be agents for bringing equity into the everyday lives of people at every level of society. In order for equity to be obtained, teachers and other school personnel must be able to recognize inequities in all forms, including but not limited to gender, race, class, ability, and language. Additionally, teachers and school personnel must be prepared to act against forms of inequity within the classroom in order to promote social change among students and in society as a whole. The deaf education program at the University of Tennessee, housed in the Theory and Practice in Teacher Education Department, includes an educational interpreting major as well as a deaf education teacher preparation major. In the fall of 2014, the authors decided to embed the principles of social justice within the content of the deaf education program as well as apply these principles in real-world application specifically within the teacher preparation major.