Social justice: The missing link in school administrators’ perspectives on teacher induction

Pinto, LE, Portelli, JP, Rottman, C, Pashby, KL, Barrett, SE and Mujuwamariya, D (2012) Social justice: The missing link in school administrators’ perspectives on teacher induction. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy (129). ISSN 1207-7798

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Abstract

Critical scholars view schooling as one piece of a larger struggle for democracy and social justice. We investigated 41 school administrators‟ perceptions about the role and importance of equity, diversity and social justice in new teacher induction in the province of Ontario. Interviews reveal that principals were interested in shaping teacher induction programming in their schools and school districts, but that they regularly prioritized technical issues like classroom management and pedagogy over systemic issues like equity and social justice. When asked directly about equity, principals spoke about learning styles, special needs and differentiated instruction, but they regularly ignored new teachers‟ abilities to counter systemic oppression—racism, sexism, and classism. Our findings suggest that without an explicit focus on equity and social justice in provincial policy documents, teacher induction programming runs the risk of reproducing a transmission model of new teacher education.