WEB 2.0 TECHNOLOGIES FOR FACILITATING SOCIAL JUSTICE TEACHER EDUCATION 
 By Eric M. Dickens  
 
 
 
 
 A DISSERTATION  
Submitted to 
Michigan State University 
in partial fulfillment of the requirements 
for the degree of  Educational Psychology and Educational Technology - Doctor of Philosophy  2015  ABSTRACT 
 WEB 2.0 TECHNOLOGIES FOR FACILITATING  SOCIAL JUSTICE TEACHER EDUCATION 
 By  Eric M. Dickens   
 Many researchers argue that observed soci
al inequalities are often rooted in the 
structural issues of educational systems. Rather than bei
ng opportunities for equality and individual liberty, educational systems reproduce the status quo through 
disenfranchisement and marginalization of s
ubordinate groups. Social justice education aims to challenge these discriminatory syst
ems through critically conscious instruction. 
However, how best to prepare socially-just educators remains a problem
 of practice.  This study examines how teacher education course
s may play a role in
 shifting students' 
dispositions to be more socially-just and 
deepening their understanding of issues of inequality in education. It further explores how the use of educational technologies Å’ such as blogs wikis, and videos Å’ may enhance th
e effectiveness of these teacher education 
courses. Two versions of social justice te
acher education course were examined Å’ one 
section was taught using traditional met
hods, while the other was taught using 
technology-enhanced versions of major assignm
ents. Results indicate that both versions of the course were very effective at developing studentsâ„¢ knowledge and dispositions related to social justice. The technology-enhanced version of the course, however, did not offer a significant advantage over traditional 
methods either.  These findings have  
implications not only for future research a
nd practice, but, hopefully, positive social change.   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Copyright by 
Eric M. Dickens 
2015 
  iv   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 This dissertation is dedicated to the memo
ry of Raimo Hynynen, who built great things. 
v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
  I would like to thank my 
dissertation chair, Dr. Matthew Koehler in guiding me 
through this process. Many times over the year
s he could have thrown his hands up and given up on me, but he was there 
through the end and I was able to finish this project in large part due to his continued patience and support. I would also like to the members of 
my dissertation committee 
 Dr. Dorinda Carter Andrews for her vision, Dr. David Wong for his insight, and Dr. Angela Calabrese-Barton for her encouragement. 
 I am grateful for the endl
ess support of my family 
 Mom, Dad, Scott, Alex, 
Lauren, Logan and all the rest of the gang who have been with me every step of the way, 
even while 1,200 miles away. 

 Many thanks go out to my colleagues who 
have helped me complete this project 
 especially Jessica and Cale
b for their coding help  and everybody who I have asked questions of, bounced ideas off, or worked side by side with.  Lastly, I owe a huge dept to my friends 
and loved ones. Thank you to Paul, Justin, Mandy, Carolyn and all the 7 am crew, whose 
friendship kept me sane, Victor, whose 
work inspired me in the final days of wr
iting, and most of all, Jenni, whose love has carried me along. 
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 LIST OF TABLES.............................................................................................................ix 

LIST OF FIGURES............................................................................................................x 

Chapter 1 - Introduction......................................................................................................1
 Purpose........................................................................................................................
....6 
Conceptual Framework of Social 
Justice Beliefs and Knowledge.................................8 
Research Questions.......................................................................................................15 
Chapter 2 - Literature Review..........................................................................................19 
Social Justice Education...............................................................................................19 
Definitions.................................................................................................................19 

Outcomes of social justice education........................................................................23 
Dispositions...........................................................................................................24 

Knowledge............................................................................................................26 
History of social justice education............................................................................30 
Social justice pre-service teacher education.............................................................32 

Components of social jus
tice teacher education.......................................................32 
Measuring social justice teach
er education outcomes..............................................36 
Measuring dispositions.........................................................................................37 

Measuring knowledge...........................................................................................43 
Limitations of prior social ju
stice education research..............................................44 
Educational Technologies in Pre-Service Teacher Education......................................45 
Research on the educational affordances of Web 2.0 technologies..........................47 
Blogs.....................................................................................................................47 

Video journals.......................................................................................................49 

Wikis.....................................................................................................................50 
Limitations of prior research on Web 2.0 
technologies in teacher education...........51 
Synthesis...................................................................................................................52 
Chapter 3 - Course, Sections and Students.......................................................................56 
Common Elements........................................................................................................56 
Instructor...................................................................................................................58
 Student demographics...............................................................................................60 

Course Structure........................................................................................................61 

Daily course activities...............................................................................................62 

Pre- and post-test assessments..................................................................................64 

Common class assignments......................................................................................66 

Differentiated class assignments...............................................................................69 
Elements Unique to Traditional Course Section...........................................................73 
Representing author's ideas only...............................................................................73 

Continuous, self-contained document.......................................................................74 
vii Closed document.......................................................................................................75 
Ease of revising.........................................................................................................76 
Elements Unique to High Technology Course Section................................................77 
Blog posts..................................................................................................................79 

Wiki pages................................................................................................................82 

Reflection videos......................................................................................................84 
Chapter 4 - Research Methods..........................................................................................87 
Participants...................................................................................................................
.87 
Data Sources and Measures..........................................................................................88 
Learning to teach for social just
ice Å’ belief (LTSJ-B) scale.....................................88 
Short essays assignment............................................................................................90 

Student work on course assessments........................................................................93 

Student interviews.....................................................................................................94 
Data Recording.............................................................................................................96 

Research Design...........................................................................................................96 

Role of the Researcher..................................................................................................98 

Data Analysis..............................................................................................................103 
Quantitative data.....................................................................................................103 

Qualitative data.......................................................................................................105 
Strategies for Validating Findings..............................................................................109 
Clarifying bias.........................................................................................................109 

Triangulation...........................................................................................................109 

Second coders.........................................................................................................109 
Chapter 5 - Results..........................................................................................................11
1 Research Question 1.1................................................................................................111 
Research Question 1.2................................................................................................114 

Research Question 2.1................................................................................................116 

Research Question 2.2................................................................................................119 

Research Question 3...................................................................................................121 
Blogs.......................................................................................................................124
 Wikis.......................................................................................................................131
 Video journals.........................................................................................................135 
Chapter 6 - Discussion....................................................................................................140 
Overall Impact 
on Dispositions..................................................................................140 
Overall Impact on Knowledge....................................................................................142 

Lack of Difference Between Sections........................................................................144 
The same road.........................................................................................................144 

Two roads to the same destination..........................................................................145 

Missed opportunities...............................................................................................146 

Sample size.............................................................................................................147 
Implications for Researchers......................................................................................147 

Implications for Practitioners......................................................................................149 

Limitations..................................................................................................................15
2 viii Future Research..........................................................................................................154 
Conclusion..................................................................................................................158
 APPENDICES................................................................................................................161 
Appendix A - Foundational Course Information........................................................162 

Appendix B - Detail of Sources for Data Collection..................................................172 

Appendix C - Study Forms.........................................................................................196 
REFERENCES...............................................................................................................197 
ix LIST OF TABLES  Table 1 Conceptual Framework of Social Justice Beliefs..................................................9 
 
Table 2 Conceptual Framework of Social Justice Knowledge.........................................13 
 
Table 3 Research questions and data sources..................................................................16 
 
Table 4 Examples of educational affordances supporting socially-justice education......54 
 
Table 5 Common course elements and their educa
tional affordances beneficial for social 
justice teacher education..................................................................................................57 
 
Table 6 Common and differentiated assignments and their affordances for social justice teacher education..............................................................................................................58 
 
Table 7 Traditional section course elements and their educational affordances for social justice teacher education..................................................................................................74 
 
Table 8 High Technology section course elements and their educational affordances for social justice te
acher education........................................................................................78 
 
Table 9 Research questions and data sources..................................................................95 
 Table 10 Educational affordances used in qualitative data analysis, by media type.....108 
 
Table 11 Pre-test/post-test changes in dispositions and knowledge for each section and overall.............................................................................................................................11
1  
Table 12 Conceptual Framework of Social Justice Beliefs
............................................113 
 
Table 13 Conceptual Framework of Social Justice Knowledge.....................................119 
 
Table 14 Educational affordances used in qualitative data analysis, by media type.....122 
 
Table 15 Frequency of educational affordances use, by media type..............................123 
 x LIST OF FIGURES 
 Figure 1 Sample blog post for media artifact
/current event analysis assignment.............81 
 
Figure 2 Sample wiki page from iden
tity marker group wiki assignment........................84 
 
Figure 3 Sample student video from service learning video journal assignment.............86 
 
Figure 4: Pre-test/Post-test change in LTSJ-B scores by course section........................112 
 
Figure 5: Pre-test/Post-test change in social jusice knowledge short essay assignment 
scores by course section..................................................................................................117 

 
Figure 6 Sample blog post using video and images in addition to text..........................126 

 
Figure 7 Blog post comment providing feedback for the author....................................128 

 
Figure 8 Blog post comment providing soci
o-emotional support to the author.............130 
 
Figure 9 Wiki track changes page...................................................................................132 

 
Figure 10 Sample edit made to wiki pa
ge showing minor grammar changes................133 
 
Figure 11 Sample video journal page showing previous videos on the same page........138 
 Figure 12 Participant online consent form......................................................................196 

  1 Chapter 1 - Introduction  A number of startling disp
arities confront our educational system, many of them 
drawn along gender, racial, economic, and se
xual orientation lines.  The Achievement 
Gap between students of color and their wh
ite peers is well-documented. Previous 
research has examined how students of colo
r consistently score lower on standardized 
exams, (Jencks & Phillips, 2011) are le
ss likely to complete high school on time 
(Verdugo, 2011), and are underrepresented in college and universities (Aud et al., 2011). Many educators point to an fiOpportunity Gapfl (Carter & Welner, 2013; Diamond, 2013) 
of inequality in schools that leads to this difference in achievement. Researchers have 
identified that students of color often have
 access to less rigorous course loads (Oakes, 
Joseph, & Muir, 2004), are taught by less e
xperienced and lower-quality teachers 
(Darling-Hammond, Wei & Johnson, 2009; La
dson-Billings, 2004; Presley, White, & 
Gong, 2005; Ronfeldt, Loeb & Wyckoff, 2012)
, and are over-repres
ented in special education settings (Harry & Klingner, 2005; Yoon & Gentry, 2009). The impact of socioeconomic class on student achievement
 is similarly profound. Students in low-
income schools consistently score lower on st
andardized reading and math assessments 
(Aud et al., 2011)  and are five times more 
likely to drop out of high school (Chapman, 
Laird, Ifill, & KewalRamani, 2011). 

 While not experiencing as consistent a 
deficit in academic achievement, LGBTQ 
students often experience a much more nega
tive and hostile environment in schools than 
do their male and/or heterosexual classmat
es. For example, 74.1% of LGBTQ students 
reported being verbally harassed at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation, and 36.2% reported being physically harassed (Kosciw, Greytak, Palmer & 
2 Boesen, 2013). This harassment often is suffere
d in silence, as 60% of LGBT students who experienced harassment or assault never 
reported the incident to the school, most 
often because they did not believe anythi
ng would be done to address the situation 
(Kosciw, Greytak, Bartkiewicz, Boesen & Palmer, 2014).  This negative atmosphere can 
have serious consequences on LGBTQ students. LGBT students are more likely to skip 
class or an entire day of school because of harassment about their sexual orientation 
(Kosciw et al., 2014).  More seriously, gay and lesbian youth are five times more likely to 
attempt suicide than heterosexua
l young people (Hatzenbuehler, 2011).  Girls also face a number of disparities in 
school. For example, despite girls being the 
majority in high school biology, chemistry, 
algebra and pre-calculus courses, male 
students enroll in and score higher on adva
nce placement tests (Dalton, 2007; National 
Center for Education Statistics, 2004). Sim
ilarly, girls tend to score at or above boysâ„¢ levels in early elementary standardized m
easures of assessments, but by the end of high 
school they have fallen behind boys on high stakes and college enrollment exams such as 
the SAT and ACT (Corbett, Hill & St. Rose
, 2008). These downward trends over time 
may indicate a systematic bias towards boys in
 teachersâ„¢ practice and schoolsâ„¢ curriculum 
that have an additive negative effect on 
girlsâ„¢ esteem, self-efficacy and academic 
achievement (Sadker & Zittleman, 2012). 
Many teachers and scholars believe these statistics are a byproduct of structural inequality in the American public educationa
l system that privileges some students while 
oppressing and discriminating ag
ainst others (Ladson-Billings, 2009; Milner, 2012).  For 
more than two decades, scholars have argued 
that to confront these symptoms and the 
fundamental forms of oppressi
on and discrimination at their 
root, the public educational 3 system needs teachers with not only the know
ledge and skills requi
red to teach their 
subject matter, but also with 
a specific set of beliefs, knowledge and skills to address elements of social inequity underlying 
the achievement gap (Cochran-Smith, 2004; 
Ladson-Billings, 2009).  That is precisely the goal of social justice education and educators. Bell (2007) defines fisocial justice educationfl as fiboth an interdisciplinary framework for analyzing multiple forms of
 oppression and a set of interactive, 
experiential pedagogical principles to help learners understand the meaning of social 
difference and oppression both in the social system and in their personal livesfl (p. 2).  Within the broader context of "social justi
ce education," the field of social justice teacher education has developed with the goal of closing opportunity gaps and 
challenging systems of inequality by educati
ng critically conscious teachers at the pre-
service level and through continuing professional development. While university teacher 
preparation programs often offer classes or 
entire programs infused with the ideas and 
goals of social justice education, reviews of the impact of these courses have shown inconsistent or inconclusive results in terms of closing oppor
tunity and achievement gaps. 
Multiple reasons for these results have been offered. Some scholars have argued the 
lack of impact is because the goals, methods and demographics of teacher preparation 

programs have largely remained unchanged ove
r the past 25 years while classrooms and 
students' needs have become increasingly dive
rse (Cochran-Smith, Davis & Fries, 2004).  
Others have argued that, in many teacher 
education programs the real issues of 
inequality, diversity and opportunity are relegated to individual, and sometimes optional, 
fidiversity,fl or fimulticulturalfl courses that 
are disconnected from the ideas and curricula 
of the main preparation 
courses (Gay, 2010; Howard, 2006; Ladson-Billings, 1995; 4 Vavrus, 2002; Villegas & Lucas, 2002).  A third group of scholars maintain the these 
teacher preparation courses fail to successfu
lly challenge opportunity and achievement 
gaps because they teach teachers merely to
 "celebrate" diversit
y through superficial activities and recognitions, wit
hout teaching teachers about th
e root causes of social inequality, how schools maintain it, or how to
  actively teach for social justice (May & Sleeter, 2010; Lee, Menkart & Okazawa-Rey, 2007). In response to these critiques of existing teacher education practi
ces, social justice teacher ed
ucation seeks to address the 
systemic educational disparities based on race, 
social class, gender, 
sexual orientation and 
other identity markers.  
This study is positioned as part of the fiel
d of social justice teacher education and 
specifically social justice pre-
service teacher education. It aims to contribute empirical 
evidence to underdeveloped areas of this body 
of knowledge.  Multiple deficiencies in the 
research examining the impact of social justi
ce teacher education cour
ses exist.  The first 
area of concern relates to definitional issues, in that the term fisocial justicefl and what is 
meant by fisocial justice educationfl are va
guely, poorly or inconsistently defined (McDonald, 2008; North, 2006; Zeichner, 2009). 
 Secondly, because courses designed to 
prepare teachers to teach diverse learners
 are often disconnected ideologically and 
epistemologically from the majority of 
practice and methods courses in teacher 
preparation programs, research on these course
s is usually limited to small-scale, action 
research examining the issues of social ju
stice education within 
one specific course (Hollins & Guzman, 2005).  Third, much of th
e research on social justice education has 
focused on change in pre-service teachersâ„¢ attitudes and beliefs, but has not measured 
5 parallel changes in their practice or their 
studentsâ„¢ learning (Cochran-Smith, Davis, & 
Fries, 2004; Hollins & Guzman, 2005; Lu
cas & Grinberg, 2008; Weideman, 2002). 
In this study, I extended the course-based research approaches to social justice 
education by examining, in detail, the impact 
of an alternative met
hod of instruction and assessment that integrated Web 2.0 technologies 
into a pre-service social justice teacher education course.  Given the limitations in the research on th
e impact of courses designed 
to prepare teachers for diversity, especially thos
e aligned specifically with a social justice 
education ideology, this study is positioned to contribute to the literature by empirically 
measuring changes on two core outcomes of 
social justice education:  pre-service 
teachersâ„¢ beliefs, and knowledge. 
Studying the role of Web 2.0 technologies in di
fferentiating effects of this course is particularly of interest because of the lack
 of research on educational technologies in 
social justice education courses and because of hope that the use of these technologies 
might lend itself to producing the kind of unde
rstanding especially relevant to these types of courses. Past research has examined vari
ous technologies in courses designed to build teachersâ„¢ pedagogical or content knowledge; 
however few, if any, studies have been 
conducted on these technologies™ fiaffordancesfl (Gibson, 1977) for shaping pre-service teachers' social justice beliefs and knowledge
. Usingâ„¢s Gibsonâ„¢s definition of affordances 
as aspects of an environment, object or me
dium that allow agents to accomplish some 
task, this study examines if the unique affo
rdances of Web 2.0 tec
hnologies may facilitate 
the kinds of interaction and learning that lead to changes in studentsâ„¢ social justice beliefs and knowledge in these kinds of courses.  For example, the perspectives presented by 
authors students read in the course in this study often are finon-mainstreamfl ideologies 
6 that may differ the beliefs students have 
internalized in their upbringing. Web 2.0 technologies affordances for peer interaction may provide social support that impacts 
studentsâ„¢ self reflection and dispositional reexamination. Similarly, the issues of identity and social power represent complex domains, 
with concepts that are best understood as overlapping and particularly sensitive to individual biases and perspectives. This study examines if, for example, because of th
eir unique affordances for interaction and 
representing points of intersection, these Web 2.0 technol
ogies may impact students 
social justice knowledge in different ways than more traditional forms of instructional 
media (see Chapter 3 for further discussion on the affordances of the course, assignments 

and technologies included in this study). Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of a combination of Web 2.0 
technologies for facilitating social justice 
teacher education.  As is common in many 
other university-based teacher preparation pr
ograms, the course sections used in this 
study represent the single course 
in each student's teacher ce
rtification program that is 
specifically focused on a critical analysis of inequality in education. This course is a required part of the program and is used as a component in evaluating studentsâ„¢ 

applications to the teach
er certification program.  
 The present study focused on 
two sections of this course as individual examples of preservice social justice education teach
er education courses. While not explicitly 
stated as being about "social justice," these sections had in common a number of learning goals that aligned with the foundational principles of social justice education as described in previous research (see Literature review for further definitions and goals of social 7 justice education) that made it an appropriate forum for this study (see Conceptual Framework section below for further discussi
on of this fit between this study and the course focused on herein). The two sections of the course in this study shared overarching goals and many 
instructional components that represent a
ffordances (Gibson, 1977) that may have an impact on studentsâ„¢ social justice belief
s and knowledge. Examples of these ficommon 
affordancesfl include the course instructor, co
urse readings, and several assignments (see 
Chapter 3 for further discussion of affordances for social justice learning common to both 
sections of the course in this study). The sections did however differ in the media used on 
three course major assignments. For these assi
gnments, students in one class section used 
the fitraditionalfl media of individually and/
or collaboratively written reflective and 
analytical papers as forms of assessment. These fitraditionalfl media have their own 
unique affordances for impacting studentsâ„¢ social justice beliefs and knowledge (see Chapter 3 for further discussion of affordances for social justice learning in the 
fitraditionalfl section of the course in this study). In the second class section, these paper assignments were replaced by Web 2.0 tec
hnologies including blogs, wikis and video journals. These media have unique affordances 
of their own that may lead to changes in 
studentsâ„¢ social justice belie
fs and knowledge. (see Chapter 3 for further discussion of affordances for social justice learning in the fihigh technologyfl section of the course in this study). By comparing pr
e- and post-test measurements, this study examines the 
coursesâ„¢ impact on studentsâ„¢ social justice beliefs and social justice knowledge overall. 
Meanwhile, by quantitatively analyzing any difference in the degree of change in studentsâ„¢ scores between sections as well as qualitatively examining studentsâ„¢ 
8 experiences using blogs, wikis and video journals in class, this study provided some 
exploratory evidence about using alternate educational technologies in social justice 
teacher education courses. 
Conceptual Framework of Social
 Justice Beliefs and Knowledge 
 This study, as well as the 
course sections included in it, adopt a critically conscious perspective of education that varies from traditional "multicultural education." 

In short, whereas traditional multicultural teach
er education seeks to celebrate and affirm 
student diversity as an ideal, "critical 
multiculturalism" (Sleeter, 2001) examines 
underlying structural, institutional and indi
vidual discrimination that perpetuate 
inequalities in schools and society. For ex
ample, a traditional multicultural teacher 
education course may encourage teachers to
 read books by African American authors or 
discuss the contributions of Martin Luther King, Jr. during 
Black History Month. On the other hand, a "critical multicultural" teacher e
ducation course builds 
on the perspective of 
feminist and critical race theory scholars 
(among others) to have teachers examine issues 
such as the Eurocentric nature of school cu
rriculums that necessitate events such as 
"Black History Month" in the first place (see L
iterature Review for further discussion of 
multicultural, critical multicultu
ral, and social justice education and teacher education). 
 Since this study focused on studentsâ„¢ be
liefs about, and knowledge of, issues related to social justice in education, it is
 important to clearly frame what is meant by 
fisocial justice beliefsfl and fisocial justice knowledge.fl This framework was based 
primarily on previous social
 justice education research 
that measured beliefs as a 
construct.  For this study, social justice be
liefs was conceptualized as containing five 
discreet, measurable beliefs listed in Table 
1. These beliefs were synthesized from two 
9 bodies of research - studies that identified beliefs that present challenges to becoming 
more critically conscious social justice educators and research on the development and 
use of the beliefs instrument used in this study.  

Table 1 Conceptual Framework of Social Justice Beliefs
 Belief Description 
B1 Identity markers are largely, if
 not entirely, socially constructed B2  Social power, discrimination and privile
ge is real in soci
ety (debunking myth of 
meritocracy) 
B3  Belief in bias (oneâ„¢s own & others) 

B4  Schools & teachers have historically, 
and continue to operate in a way that 
perpetuates inequality 
B5  Schools in all areas & teachers in all subjects should be change agents for 
students and society by incorporating multicultural curriculum and making 

issues of inequality explicit in their work 
  The first body of research has argued th
at educators, including pre-service and practicing teachers, often hold preexisting ideologies that are problematic to being 
socially just educators and teachers of cultura
lly and linguistically diverse students. These 
beliefs are not only contrary to the ideals of social justice, they serve as obstacles in 
teacher education courses and workshops designed
 to have participants shift their beliefs 
to be more critically conscious and/or so
cially just. These ideological barriers may 
include internalized racist and sexist beliefs, (Ahlquist, 1991; Cannella, 1998; Scott 1995) viewing non-mainstream cultures from a defi
cit perspective, (Barrón, 2008; Ford & Grantham, 2003; Schultz, Neyhart & Reck, 
1996) adopting a ficolor-blindfl perspective that fails to acknowledge students™ racial identity, (Johnson, 2002; Lewis, 2001) seeing 10 schools and society as being unable to be changed, (Diem, 2009) and specifically seeing 
their role as teachers to be finon-political;fl re
fusing to bring up issues of inequality in 
their classrooms (Ladson-Billings, 2001). 
Working backwards, the opposite of these 
problematic beliefs described by these research
ers were conceptualized as being socially just beliefs for this study. These include beli
eving that teachers and students have their 
own biases based on past experiences (B3) and that teaching cannot be finon-political;fl that teachers can and should make teaching a
bout social justice issu
es a part of their 
pedagogy (B5). It should be noted that, in this studyâ„¢s conceptual framework, this last 
belief represents a belief in what teachers 
should do, not a knowledge or skill set in 
how to teach from this perspective. This knowledge 
of how to teach for social justice may be 
an essential part of a critically conscious pedagogy such as Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995), Culturally Re
sponsive Teaching (Gay, 2010), and Anti-
Oppressive Teaching, (Kumashiro, 2000) but it is
 not a goal of the course (the course 
framework document states, the course is fi
not a methods course 
designed to–.) and is not an area of pedagogical knowledge measured or
 assessed in this study (see Conceptual Framework for Social Justice 
Knowledge in the next section) and is therefore not included here.  
 The second body of research informing this
 study™s conceptualization of fisocial justice beliefsfl was based on the more recent 
work of Enterline, Ludlow, Mitescu and 
Cochran-Smithâ„¢s (2008) development of the 
Learning to Teach for Social Justice Å’ Beliefs (LTSJ-B) scale. The survey consists of
 12 items such as: fiIssues related to racism 
and inequity should be openly discussed in the classroomfl (B5) and fian important part of 
learning to be a teacher is examining oneâ„¢s own attitudes and beliefs about race, class, 
11 gender, disabilities and sexual orientationfl (B3)  that were developed from focus groups (and subsequent factor analysis) about the ideal beliefs characteristic of an ideal social 
justice educator (Ludlow, Enterline & Cochran-Smith, 2008). The LTSJ-B has 
demonstrated a high degree of reliability and 
validity and is frequently used as a measure 
of studentsâ„¢ dispositions in social justice education courses, including the one under study here (see Data Sources sec
tion for further discussion and Appendix B for full scale).  It is important to note that, while a 
measured variable of this study, shifting 
students' dispositions to be more socially just
 is not the main goal of the course used in 
this study. According to the guiding framework 
given to instructors for the course, the primary goal of the course is to develop student
s' critical thinking skills for analyzing and 
understanding "how socially constructed categories (e.g., social class, race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc.) are used to privilege some individuals and groups and 
marginalize others" in the sp
ecific social institution of public schools. Developing these analytical skills for helping teachers 
understand "the individual, communal, 
institutional/societal, and global mechanisms th
at convert differences into hierarchies of privilege and domination" and "the complex ro
le that schools play in this process" is intended to help future teachers "under
stand how their pedagogy and instructional 
strategies affect student achie
vement and life opportunities."  
 Based on this study's primary researcher 
experience teaching the course, while the course framework does not explicitly state chan
ging students' beliefs as a course goal, in 
the process of achieving its goal of developing students' sk
ills for analyzing systems of 
educational inequality, students are also likely to experience change in their preexisting 
beliefs about social power relationships, t
hose relationships' influence on educational 
12 opportunities, how certain groups of students are systematically marginalized, and 
teachers' role in replicating pre educationa
l inequality. For example, in conversations 
during office hours, students from previous 
semesters have described how, because of 
reading course articles and discussions, they have come to
 believe that while teachers 
may think of themselves as "neutral," they ac
tually are often very biased in their beliefs 
about students (B3 in this study's conceptual
 framework). Similarly, previous semesters' 
students have described a change in believing that how hard one works is the main factor 
in a person's success (i.e., the Myth of Merito
cracy) to now believing more in the cultural 
advantages and disadvantage groups of pe
ople face (B2 in this study's conceptual 
framework). For further discussion on the resear
cher's experience as an informative tool 
in qualitative and mixed methods 
research, see the Role of the Researcher section in the Research Methods chapter).  
 Further, these dispositional changes 
sometimes fit with course objectives 
described in the course framework. For ex
ample, the framework lists as a fiGuiding 
Objectivefl that students should firecognize that teachers, whether intentionally or not, influence the distribution of educational and social opportunity.fl This "guiding objective" informs the fourth belief in this study's c
onceptual framework. Even when dispositional 
changes students experience in the course ar
e not explicitly connected to the course 
framework and goals, they often 
fit with the previous research
 on "social justice beliefs" cited above and therefore inform the concep
tual framework used in this study. (see 
Appendix A for further details on the course framework and syllabus for the course in 
this study). 13 Similarly, based on previous research, fisocia
l justice knowledgefl is conceptualized to consist of three discrete, measurable 
knowledge areas, summarized in Table 2. 
Table 2 Conceptual Framework of Social Justice Knowledge  Knowledge Description 
K1 Critical knowledge of self; personal 
biases, past experiences as shaping 
beliefs; knowledge of own beliefs
 & assumptions; knowledge of own 
identity markers; knowledge of how th
ese influence their own educational 
experiences 
K2 Critical knowledge of students; knowl
edge of their cultures and identity 
markers; how these influence their educational experiences 
K3 Critical knowledge of current and hi
storical political a
nd social contexts 
of education   As with the fisocial justice beliefsfl th
ese three knowledge areas were primarily 
derived from previous research, specifically Howard's (2006) theoretical framework of 
fidimensions of knowing that are necessary for [t
eachers] to be effective in our work for education equityfl (p. 126).  These three dimensions are: 
fiknowing my self,fl fiknowing 
my students,fl and fiknowing my practice," whic
h Howard refers to as the "Achievement 
Triangle." These three sides of the "Achievement
 Triangle" form the basis for the areas of 
fisocial justice knowledgefl conceptualized for this study.   Several researchers have identified in
dividual areas of knowledge teachers should 
develop in order to be effective as social justice educators. For 
example, Helms (1995) 
and Ladson-Billings (2001) argue that teachers must reexamine their own often 

advantaged backgrounds and biases, Gay (2002)
 and Ladson-Billings (1995) suggest that 
teachers need to learn more about the backgr
ounds of their students' lived experiences 
14 that shape the diverse perspectives they bri
ng to the classroom. Further, several scholars (Darling-Hammond, 1995; Giroux & McLaren, 1992; Kozol, 1991; Irvine, 1991) claim that teachers need to know more about the soci
o-political contexts of
 education that often serve to disadvantage marginalized groups of students.  

 Howard's Achievement Triangle is on
e of the few conceptualizations of "knowledge important for social justice educa
tion" that combines multiple domains as a 
conceptualization of a singular "social justice knowledge" for teacher education. This multi-dimensional conceptualization is a signif
icant contribution to 
the literature because 
it succinctly combines previous research on ar
eas of knowledge relevant to social justice preservice teacher education. In addition, Howard's framework is useful for studies such 
as this one seeking to conceptualize and measure "soc
ial justice knowledge" as a multidimensional but single variable. Th
is study developed and introduces a new 
instrument for measuring students' social 
justice knowledge that contained short essay questions about each of these three sub-dom
ains (see Data Sources in the Research 
Methods chapter for further details on the development and use of this instrument). This 
instrument's three questions directly align 
to the three areas of knowledge in Howard's 
"Achievement Triangle" and th
e three dimensions of knowing 
in this study's conceptual 
framework. 

 As with the conceptual framework for "s
ocial justice beliefs" used in this study, while not the overall goal of this course, parts of this study's conceptual framework of 
"social justice knowledge" fit with the instructor's framework 
for the course in this study. This document explicates the fiGuiding Objectives,fl fiKey Themesfl and fiSpecific 

Competenciesfl with which students should 
leave the course. A number of these 
15 objectives, themes and competencies relate 
to areas of knowledge about the context of schools in society and issues of social power.  For example, the course framework 
outlines several areas of knowledge to be deve
loped in the course such as fiUnderstanding 
identity and positionalityfl and fis
ocial, political and historical contextsfl of schools. This 
area of knowledge fit well with the third dimensions of
 knowing outlined in Howard (2006) and the third area of social justice knowledge in this study's conceptual 
framework. 

 Overall, the primary source shaping the 
conceptual framework of what is meant 
by fisocial justice dispositionsfl and fisocial justice knowledgefl is previous research on social justice beliefs and knowledge, especially the literature informing the instruments 
used in this study to measure these variables 
(the LTSJ-B and short essays social justice knowledge assignment).  In addition, the concep
tual frameworks used for this study align 
with parts of the course framework and the instructor's previous experience teaching this 
course to make it an appropriate forum for m
easuring changes in students' social justice 
dispositions and knowledge as conceptualized in this study.  Research Questions  This study examined two sections of a pr
eservice social justice teacher education 
course. One section was taught using "traditional" paper-based assignments for 
individual- and group-written analysis papers and personal reflection journals. The other 
section used a series of Web 2.0 technologies for these assignments - blogs for the 
individually-written analysis paper, a wiki for the group paper, and video journals for the reflection assignment. In addition to the comm
on affordances for social justice learning 
that both sections of the course contained such as the instructor and several common 
16 assignments (see Chapter 3 for further discussion),  the different media used in each 
section had unique affordances that may have 
also led to changes in students' social 
justice dispositions and knowledge. 

Table 3 Research questions and data sources Research Question Data Source When Administered 
Data Analyses 1.1 - Pre/posttest Social Justice 

dispositional 
changes overall LTSJ-B dispositional 
survey Beginning of semester and 

end of semester 
Paired sample T-test of pre- 
and post-test scores for all 
students 1.2 Å’ Difference in  

Social Justice 

dispositional 
change between 

course section LTSJ-B dispositional 
survey Beginning of semester and 

end of semester 
Two-way ANOVA comparing differences in 

change in pre- and post-test 
scores between traditional 

and Web 2.0 technologies 

sections 2.1 - Pre/posttest change in Social 

Justice  knowledge 
overall Short essay assignment 
Beginning of semester and 

end of semester 
Paired sample T-test of pre- 
and post-test scores for all 
students 2.2 Å’ Difference in  
Social Justice 

knowledge change 
between course 

section Short essay assignment 
Beginning of semester and 

end of semester 
Two-way ANOVA comparing differences in 

change on short essay 
assignment scores between 

traditional and Web 2.0 

technologies sections 3 - Affordances of technologies for 
impacting Social 

Justice 
dispositions and 
knowledge Student work on blogs, wikis 
and video 
journals Throughout the semester 
Qualitative analysis of 
student work triangulated by 
student interviews 
  17 Therefore, of interest in this study was the overall change in all students' social justice 
dispositions and social justice knowledge, which were given to students in both sections as pre- and post- test assignments at the beginning and end of the semester. Change over 
the course of the semester in these dispos
itions and knowledge for all students were tested using a paired-sample T-Test of pre- and post-test scores. Additionally, the impact 
that using the Web 2.0 technologies (due to 
their unique affordances) instead of paper-based assignments may have had on the dispos
itions and knowledge of students in this section was examined using a two-way ANOVA 
as well as a qualitative analysis of a sample of students' work on these assignmen
ts. This research de
sign is summarized in Table 3 and elaborated in Chapter 4 (Methodology).   Based on the areas developed in the current
 bodies of literature, the gaps currently 
unaddressed, and these research goals, this study aims to answer the following research 
questions: Research Question 1: What was the impact
 of the teacher education course on 
social justice education on pre-service teachersâ„¢ soci
al justice dispositions? 
RQ 1.1 (quantitative):  What was th
e impact of the teacher education 
course on social justice education on 
pre-service teachersâ„¢ social justice 
dispositions regardless of course section? RQ1.2 (quantitative): How do these di
spositional changes differ for 
students enrolled in the course section employing Web 2.0 technologies 
compared to students enrolled in th
e course section employing traditional 
methods of instruction? 
18 Research Question 2: What was the impact
 of the teacher education course on 
social justice education on pre-service teachersâ„¢ social justice knowledge?  
RQ2.1 (quantitative): What was the impact
 of the teacher education course 
on social justice education on pre-
service teachersâ„¢ social justice 
knowledge regardless of course section? RQ2.2 (quantitative): How do these know
ledge changes differ for students enrolled in the course section employing Web 2.0 technologies compared 
to students enrolled in the course section employing traditional methods of 

instruction? 
Research Question 3 (qualitative): In what
 ways do the affordances of a collection of Web 2.0 applications influence how 
students develop their social justice dispositions and knowledge? 
 19 Chapter 2 - Literature Review 
 Two bodies of work inform this study: 
literature on social justice (and related ideologies) in education and research on app
lications of Web 2.0 t
echnologies in teacher 
education. Social Justice Education  The first body
 of knowledge relevant to the current 
research is the field of social 
justice education.  This field has developed over time to rethink and challenge how 
teachers and students go about their 
daily work in the classroom. 
 Definitions.
 In the United States, schools ar
e commonly seen as needing to 
provide students not only an education in subject matter content, but in preparation for 
participation in a democratic society (Labar
ee, 1989).  Some scholar
s and educators argue that this purpose of schooling goes beyond simp
le preparation for society, and requires that schools become forces for social change.  
This change is needed because, from this 
perspective, modern American society exhibits a number of 
fundamental inequalities and 
injustices that affect all people.  Further,
 schools, as powerful socializing institutions 
embedded in a socio-political context can ex
ercise a great degree of influence over how students learn about themselves, others, societ
y, and their futures in it are in a powerful position to make great strides in
 reducing those inequalities and injustices.  In this way, education becomes fitransformativefl (Howard, 2006). 

 A number of labels have been attached 
to ideologies aimed at reforming education 
as an agent of social change.  R
eading across the literature, there are
 references to, among other terms, fidiversity education, fimultic
ultural education,fl fieducation for social change,fl and fisocial justice e
ducationfl.  While these terms 
have been variously defined 20 and little consensus exists over their exact de
finitions, differences and degrees of overlap, an important distinction can be made be
tween ideologies and pedagogies from a 
fimulticulturalismfl perspective, and those more
 closely associated with fisocial justice 
educationfl.  Multicultural education came 
to prominence in the late 1970s and early 1980s with seminal work by Banks (1973;
 1988), Grant (1977; 1978) and Grant and Sleeter (1986). Multicultural education built 
of ethnic studies movement of the 1960s and 
1970s (Banks, 1993) and was seen as a response to integrationist ideas of the 1930s that saw cultural diversity as a cause of social c
onflict.  For multiculturalist educators, the 
goal became to recognize and celebrate 
cultural pluralism in schools, reducing 
misconceptions and establishing a sense of
 community (Applebaum, 2009; Olneck, 
1990).   
 In addition to criticism by cons
ervatives ideologically opposed to multiculturalism (see D'Souza, 1991; Schlesinge
r, 1991) multicultural education has been 
criticized by those within the field as not being critical enough. To these critics, multicultural education has being enacted in pr
actice only symbolically with fiheroes and 
holidaysfl as simplified markers of culture
 and diversity.  In other words, some 
fimulticulturalfl teachers and schools attempt to
 bring students together and reduce bias, 
and stereotypes by adding in a few books representing culturally diverse perspectives and designating certain times as celebrations of va
rious  groups and members of those groups 
(e.g., African American History Month) by 
having students learn about surface-level 
elements of culture such as food, dance and 
language.  When done this way, multicultural 
education can reinforce stereotyping through superficial understandings of culture as well 
21 as send the message that learning about culture 
and diversity is not a central part of the schoolâ„¢s curriculum (Applebaum, 2009).  

 Key multicultural education scholars have responded to this critique. For 

example, Banks and Banks (1995) responded to fione of the most prevalent 

misconceptionsfl about multicultural education - 
that diversifying curriculum to included 
diverse cultural, racial and ethnic groups is 
the main goal of multiculturalists. The authors 
contend this is only one goal and highlight on
e of the domains of multicultural education 
Œ fiequity pedagogyfl Œ they argue goes further beyond diversifying the curriculum. The 

authors explain that equity pedagogy means 
critically reexamining assumptions about 
teaching and learning, and firequires the dism
antling of existing school structures that 
foster inequalityfl (p. 153). Further, Sleeter 
(1995) describes critiques that multicultural 
education as a movement does not focus enough 
on challenging structural inequalities as fireductionistic,fl and fidisregarding large bodies of scholarshipfl (p. 90).   Still, even in her 1995 response to cri
tiques of multicultural 
education, Sleeter, 
acknowledges that fiwhen multicultural educat
ion is framed around learning about ‚other™ 
cultures and displacing stereotypes, the larger
 structural issues are ignoredfl (p. 91). Sleeter argues that, fimulticultural education theories must direct attention more directly 

to [systems for perpetuating structural ine
quality such as] White racism, patriarchy, and 
capitalismfl (p. 92). Similarly, Ladson-Billings
 (2004) argued that multicultural education 
does not go deep enough in order to significantly remediate educational and social 
inequality.  From this perspective, multicultura
lists must incorporate critical perspectives 
such as those found in feminist studies and 
critical race theory that examines social 
inequity as being the by-product of systems of privilege, oppression and discrimination 
22 fundamentally embedded in American society and its educational system.  For example, 
social justice educators such as Sadker and Zittleman (2012) argue that teachers 
commonly hold low expectations of, or complete
ly ignore, their female students while the 
standard "neutral" curriculum has a decidedl
y male-bias, focusing 
on the contributions and perspectives of male authors, protagonist
s, scientists and historical figures. Other social justice educators see schools as a primary contributor
 to societal homophobia and 
heterosexism, arguing that schools maintain 
heterosexism by systematically excluding 
LGBTQ perspectives from the curriculum. Th
is exclusion is so extreme, teachers will 
even avoiding acknowledging these 
perspectives even in the most obvious places such as 
studying the works of Virginia Wolf or Jame
s Baldwin (Friend, 1998).  This shift has led 
some scholars and practitioners to adopt a ficritical multiculturalismfl (May & Sleeter, 

2010) perspective that specifically aims
 to go beyond a simple recognition and 
celebration of cultural differences and focus on the ways in which those cultural 
differences become fodder for social system
s designed to maintain current arrangements 
that privilege and advantage some groups at
 the expense of others (McLaren, 1994; May, 1999).   Similar to the aims of critical multiculturalism are those of social justice 
education. Bell (2007) defines social justice education as fiboth an interdisciplinary framework for analyzing multiple forms of
 oppression and a set of interactive, 
experiential pedagogical principles to help learners understand the meaning of social 
difference and oppression both in the social system and in their personal livesfl (p. 2).  The goal of social justice educators then becomes: 
23 to enable people to develop the critical analytical tools necessary to understand oppression and their own socialization within oppressive systems, and to develop a 
sense of agency and capacity to interrupt and charge oppressive patterns and behaviors in themselves and in the institu
tions and communities of which they are a 
part (p. 1-2). 
Given the plurality of terms for movement
s seeking to reform current education 
practices for the betterment of society, and 
recognizing the distinction between traditional 
definitions of multicultural education and cri
tical multiculturalism, this study uses the 
general term fisocial justice educationfl as a 
theoretical perspective and framework. In this 
way, the current research recognizes that knowledge from variously labeled fields related 
to cultural diversity and inequality inform 
the work done explicitly under the heading of 
fisocial justice education.fl Therefore, for the 
purposes of this literature review and current study, research conducted as fimulticultural educ
ation,fl fidiversity education,fl fiteaching 
for social change,fl and other related fields are included as re
levant to the central themes 
and understandings of fisocial justice educationfl research. However, using the term 
fisocial justice educationfl makes the distinction that the focus of this research is not on 

simply the expressions of culture, but rather 
the social systems that use those expressions 
in order to reify existing social hierarchies.  
 Outcomes of social justice education. 
A number of intermediate outcomes are 
have been identified in past scholarly research on social justice education and practitioner-focused materials for social justi
ce educators. This res
earcher focuses on two of these outcomes: pre-servi
ce teachersâ„¢ beliefs about and their knowledge of issues 
related to social justice in education. 
24  Dispositions. Foundational to subsequent knowledge or action is a belief that the knowledge is important and that the action 
is worthwhile (Howard, 2006). In teacher education, these underlying beliefs about knowledge and practice are frequently defined as professional dispositions.  As defined by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (2012), fiteacher dispositi
onsfl are fiprofessional at
titudes, values, and 
beliefs demonstrated through both verbal and no
n-verbal behaviors as educators interact with students, families, colleagues, and 
communitiesfl (n.p.).  As with the NCATE 
definition, the terms fidispositionsfl is 
often used synonymously with terms like 
fiattitudes,fl fivalues,fl and fibeliefsfl in the literature on social justice education. Therefore, while some scholars argue for a clearer distin
ction to be made between the terms, this 
literature review includes research that uses 
the terms fidispositions,fl fibeliefs,fl fivalues,fl 
fitemperaments,fl and/or fiattitudesfl that view 
these internal mental 
constructs in such a way. Common across the research 
using different terms is the view that these mental 
constructs can be the target of social justice education and that the outcome of that 
education is an observable change, shift or more nuanced development in the learnersâ„¢ 
fidispositionsfl.   In the field of multicultural teacher educat
ion, several authors have argued that, not 
only can multicultural teacher education 
courses impact pre-service teachers' 
dispositions, but that this change is important and necessary aspect of becoming an 
effective teacher for all children (Taylor & Sobel, 2002). Smith (1998) contends that 
dispositional change is important for because
, for many teachers, their own education was 
grounded on assimilation ideology, with little ex
posure to diverse learners. While not the 
case for all pre-service teachers, those that come from ma
instream racial, class, language 
25 and religious cultures can often have never examined their dispositions, even thought 
they may be barriers to connect with and e
ducating diverse learners (Taylor & Sobel). 
Examples of these problematic beliefs includ
e internalized racist 
and sexist beliefs, (Ahlquist, 1991; Cannella, 1998; Scott 1995) viewing non-mainstream cultures from a 
deficit perspective, (Barrón, 2008; Ford & Grantham, 2003; Schultz, Neyhart & Reck, 
1996) and adopting a ficolor-blindfl perspective that fails to acknowledge students™ racial identity, (Johnson, 2002; Lewis, 2001).  Multicultural teacher education courses, especially those that adopt a critical and/or social justice stance therefore often challenge teachers' previously held mainstream 

ideologies. This change toward awareness of 
structural inequalities in education and that 
their work as a teacher may reinforce those in
equalities, can be difficult to accomplish. 
(Bhargava, Hawley, Scott, Stein, & Phelps, 2004; Kidd, Sánchez & Thorp, 2004). Taylor and Sobel (2005) describe how conversations that challenge teachers™ beliefs are often not only difficult and uncomfortable, but "simply foreign to many educatorsfl (p. 2).  
This discomfort may explain why pre-service 
teachersâ„¢ attitudes are very resistant to 
change (Grant & Secada, 1990; Major & Br
ock, 2003), especially when teachers are asked to confront their own prejudices (Horton & Scott, 2004). Many pre-service teachers, most of whom are White and from
 advantaged backgrounds (Ladson-Billings, 
2001; Nieto & Bode, 2008), are unwilling to change
 their beliefs about the impact of their 
own socialization on how they see their students and education, the existence of structural oppression and their potential role in maintaining it (LaDuke
, 2009).  Instead of changing their beliefs, many of these students are 
more willing to believe deficit model 
26 explanations for studentsâ„¢ lack of academi
c success (Agee, 1998; Gomez, 1993; Sleeter, 
2001). The process of dispositional change is not a quick one; it "can only be achieved gradually and longitudinally through continuous reflection about theory and practice in conjunction with knowledge about and experience with diverse learnersfl (Major & Brock, 2003, p. 9). That being said, several studies have assessed changes in dispositions as a possible result of a single teacher educ
ation course. This study continues in that 
tradition and presents empirical evidence of di
spositional change. For a further review of 
previous research on measuring dispositions
 in multicultural social justice teacher 
education as a background to the results reported here, see the Measuring dispositions section later in this chapter. 
Knowledge. The issue of what knowledge about t
eaching pre-service teachers should 
be learning is one of the major criticisms of
 Social Justice Education.  The fiknowledge critiquefl essentially argues that movements such as multicultural education and social 
justice education within the 
teacher education field place t
oo much emphasis on liberal 
progressive and political educational goals such as respecting pupilsâ„¢ cultural identity and 
raising their self-esteem while at the sa
me time devaluing training on traditional 
educational goals related to teaching subjec
t matter knowledge and basic skills (Cochran-
Smith et al., 2009).  However, this critique
 rests on the assump
tion that there is a dichotomy between justice and knowledge, that
 fithere is a choice about the goal of teacher education: either knowledge and learning 
or social justice.  From the perspective 
of this dichotomy then, social justice by de
finition precludes knowledge and learningfl (p. 
635).  This is a false dichotomy; knowle
dge in social justice education includes 27 traditional academic subject matter and/or 
pedagogical knowledge, but also a unique set 
of additional understandings about society, power, opportunity and the construction of 
knowledge itself.  One such knowledge for social justice educators to develop is knowledge of the self.  Gay and Howard (2000), King (1997) and Ladson-Billings (2009) argue that, in addition to content and pedagogical knowledge, teachers of
 ethnically diverse students need to be 
critically aware of th
eir own biases beliefs about culture, ethnicity and achievement, the 
expectations they have for students from 
various backgrounds, and an understanding of how those beliefs and expectations may be 
demonstrated in their teaching practice.  
Villegas and Lucas (2002) see this as part of a larger fisociocultural consciousness.fl They 

believe that most teachers do not have a st
rong sense of who they are socially and 
culturally and must engage in
 fiautobiographical exploration, reflection, and critical self-analysis to develop that sensefl (p. 22). Bell, Washington, Weinstein and Love (2003) add 
to this list of teacher se
lf-knowledge an understanding of oneâ„¢s own fears and doubts 
about teaching ethnically diverse students and about teaching issues of social justice.  The issue of self-knowledge is seen as particularly relevant for White 
teachers who make up 
the majority of the teaching fo
rce but often do not think of th
emselves in racial terms.  
For these teachers, self-knowledge must include an understanding of themselves as racial beings (i.e., having a specific set of experiences and perspectives that is unique to Whites, 
just as other people of other races do) and the ways they have been privileged by their racial identity (Helms, 1995; Howard, 
2006; Ladson-Billings, 2001; Lawrence, 1997). In addition to knowing about themselves, 
many scholars argue that social justice 
educators need knowledge of their studentsâ„¢ lives, identities and the cultural experiences 28 that shaped them.  This begins with k
nowing the norms, patterns of interaction and 
priorities found in the familial and cultural 
backgrounds of their students (Gay, 2010) as 
well as familial make up, immigration hist
ory, and knowledge of and past experiences 
with specific topics in the curriculum.  Villegas and Lucas further describe ways teachers 

can learn about studentsâ„¢ family histories in
cluding home visits, meeting with community 
members, and, within the classroom setti
ng, posing problems to students and noting how 
each solves them (p 4).  Effective social just
ice educators also understand the role of race, 
gender, economic class and other identity mark
ers in shaping the beliefs, attitudes, 
experiences and knowledge students of different cultural backgrounds bring with themselves into the classroom (Tatum, 2000)
.  Where knowledge of students intersects pedagogy, social justice educators need an additional set of knowledge for incorporating studentsâ„¢ culture into their teaching and curriculum in a way that not only celebrates diversity, but empowers students 
with a rigorous education that is also tailored to their 
experiences and perspective.  This is the basis for pedagogical movements such as 
Culturally Responsive Teaching (Gay, 2010), 
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (Ladson-
Billings 1995), and Anti-Oppressive Teaching 
(Kumashiro, 2000) as well as Milnerâ„¢s 
(2007) racially aware framewor
k for educational researchers.  In order for teachers to 
make schooling more relevant to, and stimulatin
g for, students of color, teachers need to 
have a deep knowledge of the historical
 contributions of people from multiple 
backgrounds to their subject matter as well as 
knowledge of how to revise curriculum in 
order to incorporate those contributions and better represent studentsâ„¢ lived experiences and cultural heritage.  29 A final body of knowledge needed for social justice educators is a knowledge of social power structures that privilege some 
groups at the expense of others, and the role education plays in that process.  Research s
uggests that effective social justice educators 
have critical perspectives on the social, historical and political contexts surrounding schools and that they recognize how their work is influenced by, and can influence those contexts. (Giroux, 2001; Irvine, 1991, Sleeter & McLaren, 1995).  These educators also know that there are structural inequalities not only in society as a whole, but built into the political, financial and organizational structures of schools that maintain power for 
dominant groups while con
tinuing to oppress subordinate groups (Darling-Hammond, 1995; Giroux & McLaren, 1992; Kozol, 1991, Irvine, 1991).  In general, in addition to knowing oneâ„¢s 
own self and multiple aspects of oneâ„¢s 
students, social justice educators are tasked with coming to understand the politics of 
education and the ways school perpetuate injustice in an unjust society (Bartolome & 
Trueba, 2000; Cochran-Smith, 2004).  Gay and 
Howard (2000) extend this idea to argue that social justice educators not only need to have a critical understanding of schoolsâ„¢ role in reifying social inequality, but also an in-depth knowledge of the type of education they are practicing that is intended to counter the pr
ocesses of inequality.  They refer to this 
knowledge as fimulticultural foundations of edu
cationfl and define it as an fiawareness of 
the foundational principles and ideology 
of multicultural teaching– [including] 
historical, philosophical, sociological, psychological, political, cultural, and economic 
analyses and explanations of
 what multicultural education 
is and why it is neededfl (p. 11). In summary, social justice knowle
dge for teachers includes a reflective 30 understanding of oneâ„¢s own self, knowledge of studentsâ„¢ lives, identities and experiences, as well as critical understanding of the social and political contexts influencing schools.  History of social justice education. Over almost a century, educational scholars 
have sought to reform the work of students,
 teachers and school leaders in order to directly challenge social inequality.  In Democracy and Education (1916), educator and philosopher John Dewey argued that schools shou
ld prepare students to become critical 
social beings that freely engage with one another to question knowledge in an effort to fight inequality (Ayers, Hunt & Quinn, 1998; Kliebard, 1994; Oakes & Rogers, 2006;).  
However, while the view of schools as being responsible for creating a more equitable 
society has been present for at least a centu
ry, the push to include this knowledge in education and teacher education received new vi
gor in the 1960s in concert with the Civil 
Rights Movement and the desegregation of schools. 

 One of the major education initiative
s of the Civil Rights Movement was to 
demand school reform so that all students in
 newly desegregated schools would face less discrimination and acquire more human rights. 
This included the call to have curriculum more wholly incorporate the experiences, pers
pectives, cultures and hi
stories of people of different ethnic groups. These calls for curricular reform laid the foundation for the 
modern vision of fimulticultural educationfl (Banks & Banks, 2010). The first 

implementations of a more diverse curricu
lum was rushed and without a thoughtful and 
careful consideration of how to integrate a broader range of ethnic experiences into the 
curriculum in a meaningful way (Banks, 2006). 
 This trend has continued today as many 
models of fimulticultural educationfl in practice focus on helping teachers, students, 

parents and administrators understand and re
late to people different from themselves. 
31 However, just as with early fidiversity educationfl that only superficially integrated a 
variety of perspectives into the curriculum 
this modern strain of multicultural education 
can become fijustfl a celebration of various 
peoples™ fiheroes and holidaysfl (Lee, Menkart 
& Okazawa-Rey, 2007). 
 Over the past decade, criticism of th
e shortcomings of multicultural education 
continued with many teacher education scholar
s arguing that very l
ittle has changed in 
the ways teachers are prepared in university-based programs (Grant & Secada, 1990; 
Ladson-Billings, 1995; Zeichner & Hoeft, 1996). 
Spurred by a more liberal and critical 
body of theory on teacher education, a finew teacher educationfl emerged that was 
committed to a more thorough infusion of mu
lticulturalism and imbued with critical 
understandings of identity and cultural structures at work in educational settings.   From this view, teacher education 
is less about preparing teachers for 
understanding a diversity of pe
rspectives and more focused on empowering teachers and 
students to interrupt systems of inequality, in
 other words, to work for fisocial justicefl 
(Cochran-Smith, 2004, p. 17). This view of t
eaching as a political act for challenging social injustice is rooted in Freire's (1970) 
view of teachers as "revolutionary leaders," 
who, rather than teach to students, work 
in tandem with their students to practice a 
"humanizing pedagogy – [that] expresses the 
consciousness of the students themselves" 
(26-27). Freire's perspective of teachers as ag
ents of change is an
 essential element of 
critical pedagogies such as Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995), 
Culturally Responsive Teaching (Gay, 
2010), and Anti-Oppressive Teaching, 
(Kumashiro, 2000).  
32  Grant and Sleeter (2010) succinctly outline th
at social justice teacher education is 
similar to multicultural education in many curri
cular and instructional practices, but goes beyond multiculturalism in four ways: Democracy
 in the form of debates and political discussions are centered in the classroom, students develop thei
r critical consciousness to investigate institutional inequality, students e
ngage in social action to challenge these 
inequalities, and supportive networks are built between various oppressed groups (pp. 68-69). While definitions of what fisocial justicefl 
exactly is varies, (see discussion in section 
on Limitations of prior social 
justice education research) mode
rn forms of social justice 
pre-service teacher education ca
n be seen as having their r
oots in multicultural education, 
but expanding to adopt a more political, 
critical and socially active ideology. 
 Social justice pre-service teacher education. 
Within the field of social justice 
education, teachers play a pivotal role, acting as agents of change within and beyond their classrooms.  While teacher education course
s with some degree of focus on addressing 
social justice issues are a common featur
e in university-based teacher preparation 
programs, these vary widely in the degree to
 which they critically assess the underlying structural inequalities inherent in educational settings and practices (Zeichner, 2006; Zeichner, 2009). However, some teacher pr
eparation courses (whether designed for 
specific settings such as urban schools or not) engage in specialized training that is intentional about developing the dispositions, knowledge, and competencies necessary to 

become not merely diversity-aware "multicultural educators," but effective, committed 

social justice educators (Carter Andrews & Donaldson, 2009).   Components of social justice teacher education.
  Programs and courses designed to prepare teachers for culturally diverse classrooms often differ in their 33 methods for doing so. Previous research ha
s detailed a number of course components 
designed to impact students' dispositions a
nd the affordances by which such change may happen. For the purposes of setting up the methods 
and results of this study, this literature review focuses on four components used in this
 study's course: cross-cu
ltural interactions with people from diverse backgrounds, assignmen
ts that focus on a critical reexamination 
of one's own learning history, personal reflec
tion of one's own beliefs, and ideologically 
challenging classroom discourse. 

 Previous research has described the imp
act of cross-cultural experiences on students' dispositions, especially those rela
ted to understanding how one's backgrounds 
influence their current perspectives (Fre
ire & Macedo, 1987; Gadotti, 1996; Wiseman, 
2001). The major affordance these experiences ha
ve for social justice learning is giving students the opportunity to perspective take; to learn from first-hand how people from 
backgrounds different from their own see the world differently. Doing so may lead to 
students better understanding their own biases and perspectives. For example, Gay (2000) and LaDuke (2009) argue that these kinds of personal experiences are especially impactful for white, middle-class, mono-lingu
al, predominately female teachers who 
constitute the vast majority of the teachi
ng workforce, but have had relatively little experience with people from diverse cultura
l backgrounds. Without these cross-cultural 
experiences, these teachers often make a "
phenomenal absolutism error" (Howard, 2000), 
mistaking their own beliefs and pers
pectives as the only reality.    One example of a cross-cultural experiences intended to change students' 

dispositions is fieldwork where pre-service te
achers work with students and/or families in 
culturally and ethnically diverse school and community settings.  (Capella-Santana, 2003; 34 Milner, 2006). After participating in these ex
periences, pre-service teachers may better 
understood students from different backgrounds, 
their values, and their beliefs, and be more open to teaching culturally relevant 
pedagogies (Kidd, Sánchez & Thorp, 2004). 
 Several authors have noted, however, th
at these kinds of experiences can be problematic if not carefully 
planned and thoughtfully carried 
out. In particular, if cross-cultural experiences are not paired with thor
ough examinations of race and class through 
concurrent class discussions, these experiences can lead to reinforcement of existing 
stereotypes about diverse students (Milner, 2006; Sleeter, 2001; Vavrus, 2002, cited in LaDuke, 2009). In this study, students engaged in a field-based service learning assignment that typically gave opportunities 
for cross cultural interaction. See Chapter 3 
for further discussion of the affordances of this course component. 

 A second common component of social 
justice teacher education courses is assignments that challenge pre-service teachers to reexamine their own personal histories 
and how those histories influence their current beliefs. Zeichner (1993) argues that teachers need to identify their own cultural id
entity before they can understand that of 
their students. In this way, "self-study" assignments may be the most important 

component of multicultural teacher developm
ent, creating a foundation for pre-service 
teachers to better understand the students and 
families they serve (Brown, 2004; Chizhik 
& Chizhik, 2005; Clark & Oâ„¢Donnell, 1999). Assignments such as "life history," 
"cultural history," and "cultural autobiographies" afford dispositional change by 

facilitating a critical examination of one's 
own history. Through this self-examination, the 
influence of lived experiences, family upbringing and an individual's cultural 

socialization become apparent and can be 
connected to current beliefs. When that 
35 connection is made, a student is better ab
le to understand their own subjectivity and biases, as well as how others' lived experi
ence influence their beliefs and behaviors (Bhargava, Hawley, Scott, Stein, & Phelps, 2004; Cochran-Smith, 2004; Villegas & 
Lucas, 2002). In this study, students wrote a two part cultural autobiography at the beginning and the end of the semester. See 
Chapter 3 for further discussion of the affordances of this course component. 

 A third frequently used component of so
cial justice teacher education courses is 
personal written reflections or journals. In these journals, students are often asked to write about their reactions, feelings or impre
ssions of other course components such as 
cross-cultural experiences or course readings. (Garmon, 1998, McFalls and CobbsRogers, 
2001). Similar to self-examination assignments, 
reflective writing's affordance for social 
justice learning is in engaging students in
 a metacognitive understanding of their own 
bias and cultural assumptions (Obidah, 2000;
 Villegas & Lucas, 2002). When students are intentionally examining their own ideas a
nd feelings, they become
 aware of their own 
subjectivity and better critique their own 
assumptions as well as those of others 
(Zeichner, 1996). An additional avenue for 
supporting reflective writings' affordance for 
examining one's one beliefs is in how teacher educators respond to their students' 

journals. By responding directly to students' reflections with constructive feedback, 
teacher educators can encourage further criti
cal reflection and dispositional change in 
their students (Ladson-Billings, 1991; Vill
egase & Lucas; Zeichner). In this study, students created seven reflective journals over the course of the semester about their 
experiences at their service learning site.  See Chapter 3 for further discussion of the affordances of this course component. 
36  Lastly, building on Freire's (1970) idea of
 "problem posing" instruction, engaging 
students in honest, respectful discussions has been a fundamental component of social 
justice teacher education described by a numbe
r of researchers. These class discussions 
can facilitate impacting students' dispos
itions through multiple affordances including 
giving reluctant or resistant students opportunities to participate and overcome their 
resistance (Griffin, 1997), students learning from one another's perspective to understand 
subjectivity and bias (Nieto, 1998), and building a trusting and respectful community where dispositional reexamination is fost
ered and encouraged (Griffin, Young, 1998).  
 While these kinds of discussions can afford changes in students' dispositions, 

facilitating them in challenging but productive 
way, can be difficult. For example, teacher 
educators need to encourage and support students' honesty, even if that honesty creates 
some conflict and disagreement (Garcia & Gu
erra, 2004). With out this conflict, the 
affordance for learning from one another and reexamining one's own beliefs is 
diminished. On the other hand, the discussi
ons must be carried out with a mutual 
commitment to respect (Nieto, 1998). Without 
this commitment, discussions can become 
defensive and counter-productive, likewise 
losing the opportunity for dispositional 
change. In this study, students engaged in daily class discussions designed to encourage challenging one another's ideas and beliefs in
 a environment of mu
tual respect.  See Chapter 3 for further discussion of the affordances of this course component. 

 Measuring social justice te
acher education outcomes. A fundamental part of 
any teacher education program is effectivel
y assessing the intended outcomes.  This is 
particularly true now when educators are increasingly required
 to present evidence of the 
outcomes of their efforts (e.g., evidence-base
d interventions and data-driven decision 37 making).  For social justice teacher educati
on courses, outcomes can be measured by the 
degree to which pre-service teachers change in each of the beliefs about and knowledge 
related to social justice in e
ducation. Previous research had detailed a number of ways to qualitatively and quantitatively measure the im
pact of social justice teacher education 
courses. However, for the purposes of setting up the methods and results of this study, 
this section of the literatur
e review focuses on the type (quantitative) and specific 
instrument (LTSJ-B) used in this study. 

 Measuring dispositions. Change in teacher education studentsâ„¢ beliefs about 
teaching for social justice is commonly assessed as an outcome variable of teacher 

education courses focusing on issues of diversity and social justice in education. Past research using this kind of assessment ha
s employed both qualitative and quantitative 
data. Based on interviews, focus groups and th
ematic analysis of student journals and 
class assignments, several themes of dis
positional change have been discussed in previous research. These cha
nges in disposition include pre-service teachers from 
dominant cultural groups rethinking their prej
udices about groups culturally different from their own (Hyland & Noffke, 2005), increasing in a sense of advocacy for 

historically marginalized students and groups
 (Athaneses & Oliviera, 2007), and growing awareness that oneâ„¢s own beliefs are bias
ed and uniquely based on individualsâ„¢ past experiences and identity (Medina, Morrone, & Anderson, 2005). 
 In addition to describing themes of dispos
itional changes, recent research has also 
used qualitative data to outline degrees of change in pre-service teachersâ„¢ beliefs related 

to issues of social justice. For example, Burant and Kirby (2002) used qualitative data collected from 26 predominantly white, middle class and female pre-service teacher 
38 education students collected through notes from field observa
tions, interviews and focus groups as well as studentsâ„¢ own reflective j
ournals and class assignments. Researchers 
analyzed changes in subjectsâ„¢ beliefs expresse
d in these data sources over the course of classroom and field-based learni
ng and present themes that describe degrees of change in 
their studentsâ„¢ beliefs. These degrees of change include deepening understanding, eye-opening and transformational, partially miseducative
, and escaping. Also measuring 
dispositional change by degrees is Adams,
 Bondy & Kuhel (2005). The authors used semi-structured interviews with 13 preser
vice-teacher education 
students about their 
experience working with a culturally diverse student mentoring program over the course 
of several months. Analysis of these inte
rviews presented themes of the degree of 
openness to a belief in the systemic nature
 of educational inequity, ranging from 
firesistantfl to fipassion and commitment.fl  

 In addition to qualitative reports, a number
 of quantitative instruments have been 
developed and used to measure change in pa
rticipantsâ„¢ beliefs about issues related to social justice in education. One of the most frequently used instruments is the Cultural 

Diversity Awareness Inventory (CDAI) develo
ped by Henry (1986). According to Henry, the goal of the CDAI is to generally assesses respondentsâ„¢, primarily school personnel, 
respect and awareness of children from cultu
res different from their own. Several researchers have used this instrument to iden
tity changes in pre-service teachersâ„¢ beliefs 
(see Brown, 2004a; Brown, 2004b; Davis & Turner, 1993; Larke, 1990). However, since, 
no data on the scaleâ„¢s reliability and validity 
have been excluded from Henryâ„¢s original 
research and subsequent studies, data interpretation and results from research using the 
CDAI has been ambiguous (Brown, 2004b). 
39  In addition to the CDAI, multiple other scales have been developed to 
quantitatively measure changes in educator
sâ„¢ beliefs about multicultural education, diversity and social justice. Examples of th
ese scales include the Survey of Multicultural 
Education Concepts (Moore & Reeves-Kazel
skis, 1992), the Teacher Belief Inventory 
(Tabachnick & Zeichner, 1984), and the Cu
ltural Attitude Test 
(Amodeo & Martin, 
1982). Compared to the CDAI, these scales have not been as widely replicated in subsequent research, and when employed, reliability and validity data are very 

infrequently reported. This lack of data signifi
cantly limits the applicability of the scales 
to and comparability of findings from pr
evious research (Pohan & Aguilar, 2001).  More recently, Ludlow, Enterline & 
Cochran-Smith (2008) presented an empirically-based, rigorously 
developed and tested, and replicable measurement scale for 
measuring pre-service teachersâ„¢ beliefs relate
d to social justice education.  The Learning to Teach for Social Justice-Beliefs scale (LTS
J-B) is based on initial pilot testing with 
more than 200 students graduating from a t
eacher preparation program with a specific 
over-arching emphasis on social justice educatio
n. After initial pilot testing, focus groups with undergraduate and graduate students in the program were conducted that led to item 
revisions and a second round of pilot testing which generated more reliable and 
consistent scores, along with additional 
feedback on scale items. After additional 
revisions, the LTSJ-B is now used as a program entry and exit assessment of teacher 
education students. Over multiple administra
tions of the scale as a program entry and 
program exit survey, the LTSJ-B has demonstrat
ed an average Chronbachâ„¢s alpha of .80 
and .74, respectively, with a Rasch goodness-of-fit analyses that showed consistency between observed and expected item responses.  
40  One of the first studies to employ th
e LTSJ-B was Enterline, Ludlow, Mitescu 
and Cochran-Smith (2008). Along with reporti
ng details on the development of the LTSJ-
B the authors, Enterline et al. gave the resu
lts of two sets of analysis evaluating the impact a teacher education program focu
sed on social justice had on students' 
dispositions. Enterline et al. measured this
 by comparing the mean LTSJ-B scores for 
freshmen students entering the program over th
e previous three year
s to seniors exiting the program over the same time period. They al
so administered the survey to graduates 
who had exited the program the year previous
 as a "one year out" assessment of the 
persistence of the program's effects. 
 Results of this analysis showed that 
exiting seniors' mean LTSJ-B scores were 
significantly higher than those of incoming freshmen, givi
ng evidence that the program 
over the past three years had been successful at
 shifting students' dispositions. In the "one 
year out" analysis, however, scores were note significantly different between the recent graduates and exiting seniors. In fact, the mean score for recent graduates (4.02) was 
nearly identical to that of exiting seniors 
(4.04). The researchers interpret this result to 
mean that the program effects persisted in recen
t graduates as they maintained their social 
justice beliefs.  

 Following up on Enterline et al. (2008)
, Cochran-Smith, Ludlow, Ell, O'Leary & 
Enterline (2012) reported the results of three large-scale studies employing the LTSJ-B in 
three different countries (the United States, New Zealand and Ireland). These studies used the instrument in a similar way as Enterline, 
et. al. - as an assessmen
t of impacts of entire 
teacher education programs on students' soci
al justice beliefs by measuring multiple 
cohorts of teachers entering and exiting the programs over multiple years. Mean scores 
41 for teachers exiting the United States, New Zealand, and Ireland programs (
=4.06, =3.73, =3.79 respectively) were significantly different (higher) than mean scores for 
teachers entering the program (
=3.38, =3.28 and =3.35 respectively), but with small 
effect sizes (
d=0.16, d=0.16 and d=0.14). These results provide evidence that each program was successful in shifting students' so
cial justice dispositions, but notably small 
effect sizes.  
 Mean scores in this study demonstrated
 a high degree of variance with standard deviations reading from 3.1 to 4.5 across the th
ree sites. This large variance may be due 
to the fact that this study used considerably large samp
les (ranging from 283 to 738 
participants) and time between pre- and post-te
sts (programs were one to four years in 
duration) and likely contributed to lowering the effect sizes. 
 In addition to the research done by the re
search team that developed the LTSJ-B, 
a number of studies have used the instru
ment as assessments as assessments of 
programmatic and course impacts on social jus
tice beliefs. Similar to Enterline et al. 
(2008), Anastasia and Hewett (2012) studied 4 cohorts of alumni (463) and current freshmen (567) from Jesuit universities to dete
rmine the lasting impact these universities' 
teacher education programs had on studentâ„¢s social justice dispositions. Anastasia and 

Hewett report that alumni mean scores (
=4.11) were not significantly different than those of current students (=4.20). The researchers interpret the results to mean that 
students did not change significantly overall in their beliefs over the course of their time 
in the teacher preparation programs.  

 Anastasia and Hewett followed these overa
ll findings with a subsequent item-by-
item analysis. This analysis showed that al
umni were significantly more likely to agree 
42 with individual questions on the LTSJ-B such
 as, "teachers should teach students to think critically about government 
positions and actions" and mo
re likely to disagree with reverse-coded items such as, "it's reasona
ble for teachers to have lower classroom 
expectations for students who don't speak 
English as their first language." The researchers interpret this to mean that, wh
ile the programs may not have had an overall 
significant impact in changing studentsâ„¢ dispositions, it did influence graduates to be more committed to certain aspects 
of teaching for social justice.  
 In a mixed-methods analysis of a soci
ology of literacy course, Lazar (2012) 
compared the LTSJ-B scores of 41 teachers w
ho had recently completed the course to 46 
teachers who had not taken the course. Lazar 
did not report overall mean scores for the 
two teacher groups, choosing instead to compar
e the groupsâ„¢ scores on each item. On this 
item-by-item analysis, Lazar found that t
eachers who had taken the course were 
significantly more likely to agre
e with one positively coded items and disagree with three 
reverse coded item than teachers who did not 
enroll in the course. While not reporting an 
overall impact of the course, Lazar interprets the item-by-item results to mean that the 

course had mixed results in that it may have
 changed teachersâ„¢ beliefs about some social 
justice issues, but not others. 
 More recently, Evans (2013) compared the 
pre-test/post-test dispositional changes of three cohorts of teachers enrolled in multip
le sections of a social justice mathematics 
course. Using a paired samples T-test, this study found no significant difference in the overall pre-test/post-test scores in the total sample (
n=115). Likewise, pre-test/post-test differences for each cohort were not statis
tically significant with small effect sizes 
43 (d=0.0, d=0.25, d=0.26).  The only significant difference found were when comparing the 
mean post-test scores between the th
ree cohorts using a one-way ANOVA.   Specifically, a cohort of teachers teaching in high-needs schools were 

significantly higher in their pre- and post-test LTSJ-B scor
es than the two other cohorts. As Evans acknowledged, this difference could be due to sampling bias as the teachers in 
high-needs schools were recruited specifically for teaching in urban schools and may be 
more social justice minded to begin with (a
s suggested by their pre-test scores). This 
groups' pre-test and post-test mean 
scores were relatively high (=3.94 out of 5) and did not change at all (d=0.0) over the course of the semester, which may indicated a ceiling 
effect on the course's impact. Further, post-te
st LTSJ-B scores for the other two cohorts 
of teachers actually decreased (though not si
gnificantly so) over 
the course of the semester. Overall, adding in qualitative evidence, Evans concludes the course had a 

mixed impact on teachers' social justice beliefs. 
 Measuring knowledge. While multiple researchers have measured individualsâ„¢ 
beliefs about issues related to social justice education, little research has been conducted on individualsâ„¢ knowledge of issues related to social justice education. Research measuring of social justice be
liefs has matured to the point where such dispositions are 
commonly measured qualitatively and quantit
atively. On the other hand, measurement of 
social justice related knowledge has lagged behind with researchers advocating multiple 
domains of knowledge important for social jus
tice educators, but very rarely attempting 
to empirically measure learnersâ„¢ developmen
t in those domains. For example, several 
researchers have argued for educators to grow in their understanding of the social, political and historical contexts of education and the role forms of discrimination such as 
44 racism, (Ladson-Billings, 2001) heterosexi
sm (Friend, 1998) and classism (Knapp & 
Woolverton, 2003). Other researchers have advocated educators learning more about themselves in terms of their own identity
 development (Gay & Howard, 2000; Helms, 
1995; Howard, 2006; Valli, 1995). Still other 
researchers point to understanding the 
identity and experiences of students from di
fferent cultural backgrounds as an essential knowledge for social justice educators (Gay, 2010; Lawrence, 1997). Despite these claims for the need for such knowledge develo
pment, very little research has specifically 
incorporated educatorsâ„¢ knowledge in these domains. Further, when social justice 
knowledge has been addressed, it is has been presented in descriptive, rather than empirical, research. Most often, this descrip
tive research presents themes of preservice 
teachers developing in their knowledge of soci
al inequality (see Mc
Donald, 2008) and of 
themselves as racialized beings in rela
tion to their students (Hylad & Noffke, 2005; Medina, Morrone, & Anderson, 2005). To date, there has not been research that attempts to not only describe, but measure and assess 
change in preservice teachersâ„¢ knowledge of 
issues related to social justice. In addition, no quantitative scales have been developed for measuring individualsâ„¢ social 
justice related knowledge.   Limitations of prior social
 justice education research.
 Research on social 
justice education teacher preparation cour
ses and programs has indicated a number of 
areas for concern.  First, the literature suffers from an inconsistent or often poorly defined conceptualization of what is meant by fisocia
l justice,fl and fisocial justice education.fl This lack of consistency has left the field open to criticism th
at social justice education is 
merely about boosting studentsâ„¢ self-esteem 
(Schrag, 1999) sacrifices actual student 45 learning (Will, 2006) or, worse, is just a form of socially progressive indoctrination by 
politically liberal faculty members (Crowe
, 2008; Leo, 2005).    A second major limitation from the literatur
e on social justice education is that prior research has largely focused on only pr
e-service teachersâ„¢ beliefs as an outcome 
variable and not considered other areas of change, such as knowledge in domains related 
to social justice. It may be argued that lear
ning to teach for social 
justice begins with a personal commitment based on dispositions, but an
 educatorâ„¢s beliefs are a necessary but 
insufficient precursor to teaching for social 
justice. Pre-service teachers must develop 
their knowledge in relevant areas in order to more fully 
understand the context of their work as well as how to translate their beliefs into practice. Indeed, many authors have 
made this claim for the necessity of su
ch knowledge (Howard, 2006; Ladson-Billings, 2001; Lawrence, 1997), and a few studies have described themes in educatorsâ„¢ social 
justice knowledge. However, there exists sti
ll a paucity of research that actually measures, let alone measures change in, e
ducatorsâ„¢ knowledge in domains related to 
social justice. 
Educational Technologies in Pre-Service Teacher Education.   
 The second body of knowledge relevant to 
the current research is the field of studies on technologies incorporated into teach
er education courses designed to prepare 
pre-service teacher for their 
future careers. Examining 
the literature on educational 
technology in teacher education, two themes do
minate previous research: 1) Preservice-
teachers are entering the classroom underprepare
d to integrate technology in meaningful 
ways into their daily practice, (Hasselbring, 2001; Smerdon 
et al., 2000); and, 2) it is incumbent upon teacher preparation programs to
 model use of technology so that pre-
46 service teachers will learn how use to incorporate such technol
ogies into their own practice. (Beyerbach, Vannatta & Walsh, 2001;
 Brownell, 1997; Halpin, 1999; Mullen, 
2001) 
 From these themes, the field of research on educational technology in teacher 

education has largely focused on one desired 
outcome variable: preparing teachers to be 
better uses of instructional technology. In this way, learning with educational technology in teacher education is a means to improve
 the pedagogical competencies of educators (what Mishra & Koehler, 2006 conceptualize as a specific Technological Pedagogical 
Content Knowledge). This contrasts with much
 of the research in the broader field of 
educational technology that focuses on the possible educational benefits to the learner directly. Based in educational psychology, research on the in-practice use of educational technology frequently argues theoretically a
nd empirically that such technologies may 
foster the development of cognitive behavior
s such as higher order thinking, creativity, 
problem solving and reasoning amo
ng students (Grabe & Grabe, 2001).  Since the purpose of this research is 
not to assess the effects of educational technologies on pre-service teachersâ„¢ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (or other conceptualizations of their competency for integrating technology into their lessons) but to explore the possible learning benefits of a set of technologies on pre-service teachers 
as learners, examining the previous research on the educational 
affordances of these technologies on learners (including, but not limited to pre-service teachers) will be more informative. The resear
ch presented here focused on the specific 
technologies being used in this research and emphasize research on the types of 
47 educational outcomes most salient to the lear
ning objectives of the course (i.e., shifting and developing social justice related beliefs and knowledge).  Research on the educational affordances of Web 2.0 technologies. While some 
technologies have been developed specifically for educating pre-service teachers and other learners, many existing technologies have 
also been explored for educational value. These potentially educat
ional technologies include mode
rn computer-based information 
communication technologies (ICTs), specifically Web 2.0 technologies. In general, the term Web 2.0 refers to World Wide Web-based 
sites, services, and applications aimed at 
facilitating user participation and collaboration (Brown & Adler, 2008). Common 
examples of Web 2.0 sites a
nd services include: Wikis (e.g., Wikipedia, Wookiepedia, 
and EduTech Wiki), blogs (e.g., Blogger, 
Wordpress), social networking sites (e.g., 
Facebook, LinkedIn), and recommender syst
ems (e.g., Digg and Stumbleupon). Building 
on the belief that media influences le
arning, (Kozma, 1994) many researchers have 
argued that because of their emphasis on us
er participation and collaboration, Web 2.0 
technologies are especially suited to learning from a social-constructivist perspective where learners actively create new knowledge through social interaction (Harrison & Barthel, 2009; Jonassen, 1999). This literature review presents research on the educational affordances of three Web 2.0 t
echnologies, focusing on those affordances most closely related to social
 justice teacher education.  
Blogs. A growing body of research has investigated the educational affordances of weblogs for teaching and learning in a variety 
of grades and subject matters. Researchers 
have considered a number of affordances, but
 three specific ones
 may be especially 
48 useful for shifting student teachersâ„¢ dispositions toward social justice and building related knowledge are considered here.  First, compared to off-line written text, 
blogs may enhance writersâ„¢ self-expression by 
allowing for multiple modes of self-expression using mixed media including images, 

audio and video. (Deng & Yuen, 2011) This affordance is particularly important to teaching courses on social justice educati
on. The critically cons
cious perspectives 
represented in such classes are often new ways of examining social phenomenon, and 
students may experience frustration expre
ssing themselves with the coursesâ„¢ novel 
vocabulary. Giving students multiple media fo
rms for expressing their thoughts may help 
overcome this frustration. 
Second, blogs may aid studentsâ„¢ self-reflec
tion, an important component of social 
justice education courses. Previous research
 has identified that blogs, as compared to 
traditional text, may be able to facilitate self-reflection by allowing writers to use 
hyperlinked text to connect their ideas in one
 piece of writing to previous written work 
(Ferdig & Trammell, 2004; Stiler & Philleo, 2003). 
Third, blogs allow for timely interaction be
tween the writer and readers, which may 
be useful between students in social justice education courses as they develop their critically conscious perspectives. While dial
ogue between writer and audience is possible 
in many media forms, blogsâ„¢ time-based ar
rangement of posts followed by in-line 
commenting significantly streamlines this inte
raction and facilitates the possibility for 
readersâ„¢ feedback to inform future writi
ng. Deng and Yuen (2011) call this social interaction between writer and readers for cognition and learning fireflective dialoguefl and note it includes readers™ input to help the writer make connections (which may be 
49 developed in future entries) and group pr
oblem solving. In addition to group meaning-
making between writer and audience, reader fe
edback may be used for social-emotional 
support (Dickey, 2004; Kreijns, Kirschner & Jochems, 2003) such as giving empathy and 
affirmation. For courses in social justice e
ducation where the concepts and perspectives are often contrary to mainstream ideologies st
udents have been raised with, this kind of help in meaning and socio-emotional support 
may be useful for students developing and 
adopting such new perspectives. Video journals.  Previous research has touted the benefits of journal writing for reflecting on and improving learning 
(e.g., Van Maanan, 1990, Schoen, 1987, and Hiemstra, 2001) including for pre-service t
eachers (Hatton & Smith, 1994; Lee, 2008). 
However, most research on reflection for pr
e-service teachers has focused on traditional 
text journals. Considering the different characteristics of video versus text, student reflections done via these different mediums may be affect
ed by the different affordance of each media type. Previous research on video reflections indicate some affordances that 
may be particularly useful in meeting the 
learning goals for social justice education 
courses. One such affordance is that because vide
o requires less effort in preparing as 
compared to text, students speaking their re
flection may be more likely to simply say 
more and go into greater detail while speaking a video reflection than when asked to write their reflection. While some of this sp
eech in their reflection may be superfluous 
details, some will be relevant to the reflecti
on and demonstrate a greater depth of analysis 
as compared to traditional written reflec
tions. (Heintz, Borsheim, Caughlan & Juzwik, 2010) In terms of keeping a chronological series
 of reflective journals, another affordance of video for greater depth of reflection is th
e ability to quickly re-view previous videos. 
50 Similar to writing versus speaking, re-watchi
ng as compared to re
-reading requires less effort for the student and may encourage th
em to re-view their previous journals. 
Reviewing older journal entries may help 
students make connections between their 
present and previous experiences, an essential part of reflection. (Lee, 2008) Lastly, while not germane to the issue of reflection com
posed via video as compared to via text, 
research on speaking compared to writing indicates speakers may be more likely to craft 
their reflection in a stream of conscious manner with less self-censoring, which, 
ultimately may be more honest in representi
ng the speakersâ„¢ true thoughts and feelings. 
(Loury, 1994; Marwick & boyd, 2011) Honesty is particularly useful in social justice education courses as the dispositional shifts that are the go
als of such courses require students to be honest about their internalized beliefs in order to shift them. 
 Wikis. Over the past several years, a growing body of research has developed on the use of wikis in educational settings. Several studies have considered affordances of 
collaborative writing on wikis that may be particularly relevant for use in social justice 
education courses. One such relevant affordance is wikisâ„¢ built-in features that simplify 
collaboration between multiple authors. In the process of creating and editing wiki 

entries, authors are exposed to the insights 
and perspectives of authors on the same 
concept (Chandra & Chalmers, 2010; Rei
nhold & Abawi, 2006). Reading multiple peoplesâ„¢ perspectives may be especially beneficial for social just
ice education courses 
where students are asked to question their own perspectives and re-consider ideologies 
from alternative perspectives. Even when 
authors do not differ in their perspectives, facilitating collaboration between multiple people may still be beneficial for students 

developing their beliefs about social justice education. Collaborative writing on a topic 51 may build a sense of community with othe
r writers (Farkas, 2007). In courses where students are often fitrying onfl critically conscious identities and perspectives that differ from those with which they have been rais
ed, reading contributions from peers who are similarly negotiating the new identities may he
lp give social justice education studentsâ„¢ socio-emotional support that they are not alon
e in this ideological re-examination. This 
sense of camaraderie may help overcome a ma
jor obstacle dispositional shifting toward 
social justice Å’ fear of being alone in this new disposition.  Another essential feature of
 wikis is the ability to combine contributions from 
multiple writers so that the resulting knowle
dge is expanded beyond that which a single 
author could contribute and shaped by mu
ltiple perspectives (Reinhold & Abawi, 2006). 
This co-construction of knowledge is especially useful for students learning about concepts in ill-structured domains whic
h are best understood by examining multiple 
representations using multiple lines of analys
is (Spiro, Collins, Thota & Feltovich, 2003). 
Many concepts in the domain of social justic
e education such as the intersectionality of 
identity markers within an individual and the 
overlapping layers of influences during the socialization process are ill-structured, requiri
ng such multi-dimensional analysis for true 
understanding. Using wikis to co-construct this understanding from multiple contributors 
representing multiple perspectives may be the most effective way to help students 

understand the social justice knowledge learning goals in these courses.  Limitations of prior research on We
b 2.0 technologies in teacher education. As many researchers have pointed out, while multicultural education and educational 
technology are both critical components of t
eacher education programs, the two topics 
are rarely if ever connected in research or in practice (Damarin, 1998; Sleeter & Tettegah, 
52 2002; Wassell & Crouch, 2008). This gap ma
y exist because the preponderance of research on technology in teacher educa
tion views pre-service teachers as 
future practitioners and focused on modeling technology 
use whereas while multicultural and 
social justice teacher education of
ten views pre-service teachers as learners
 changing and developing in their beliefs and knowledge specifically related to issues of diversity and equity. Thus, researchers in the field of educational technologyâ„¢s application in teacher preparation have failed to consider the educational affordances for subject matter 
learning. In the case of social 
justice teacher education, this subject matter learning exists 
outside of the pedagogical knowledge and skills for technology use, and the two 
knowledge domains have largely been disconnect
ed in previous research.  Furthermore, 
the few previous studies that have examined educationa
l technology for subject matter 
learning in social justice teacher educ
ation have largely focused on traditional 
communication technologies such as videos (Hayes & Groves, 2002), email (Anderson, 
1998; Sernak & Wolfe, 1998) and bulletin
 boards (Brown, 2004a; Ramirez, 2002). 
Outside of the field of multicultural and social justice teacher education, researchers have 

been active in theoretically and empirically examining the educational affordances of 
modern Web 2.0 technologies. However, re
search on these specific technologies for developing pre-service teachersâ„¢ social justice knowledge and 
beliefs is currently lacking. 
 Synthesis.
 To summarize, the two major bodies 
of research informing this study 
are the fields of educational technologies of Web 2.0 technologies and social justice 
teacher education. The former field is base
d in educational psychology, specifically the 
cognitive process these technologies encourage and allow for learners to engage in. The 
later field is based in critical theories 
of sociology, specifically examining social 
53 inequality and how institutions such as teacher education courses can do to challenge them, Bringing the relevant past research from 
these two fields together, it is possible to  54 Table 4 Examples of educational affordances supporting socially-justice education Educational            Affordance Cognitive    Process Relevance to Social-Justice Teacher Education  Reflection through connecting thoughts via hyperlinks 
between Blog posts (Ferdig & 
Trammell, 2004; Stiler & 

Philleo, 2003) or by re-

watching previous video 
journal entries (Lee, 2008) Better understanding of 
interconnectedness 
of concepts Better understanding of complex 
concepts such as intersectionality 

of identity markers and how these 

markers influence teachers and 

students educational experiences 
Making connections with input from blog readers (Deng & 

Yuen, 2011) and wiki con-
contributors (Reinhold & 
Abawi, 2006) Co-construction of knowledge Better, more complex 
understanding of current and 
historical political and social 
contexts of education due to 
increased variety of perspectives 
presented Socio-emotional support from 
blog readers (Kreijns, 
Kirschner & Jochems, 2003)  

and wiki co-contributors 
(Farkas, 2007) Reduction of anxiety about 
being ostracized  Nascent critically conscious 
dispositions are fostered and 
protected Video journals facilitate greater 
depth and length of reflection 
(Heintz, Borsheim, Caughlan & 

Juzwik, 2010) More opportunity for students to 
think about their 
beliefs and ideas Increased chance to self -examine 
previously held beliefs that work 
against to social justice and 

critically reevaluate these beliefs 

over the course of the semester 
Stream of conscious honesty in 
video journals (Loury, 1994; 
Marwick & boyd, 2011) Less self-censoring Students may be resistant to 
course ideas and use dishonesty 
to mask their disagreement; being 

honest in reflective video journals 
gives instructor (through 
feedback) and student (through 
re-watching) leverage in 
challenging students' beliefs that 

work against social justice 
55 see how the specific affordances of blogs, wi
kis and video journals may create learning 
situations that would be useful for developing the social justice dispositions and knowledge that serve as both the learning outcomes for the course under study and the 
questions guiding this research. Table 4 illustrates examples 
of the synthesis of cognitive processes potentially afforded by educational technologies that are particularly salient to the socially-just learning outcomes of this study. 
 56 Chapter 3 - Course, Sections and Students  This study focus on two sections of a soci
al justice teacher education course at a 
large mid-western university. Students were not
 aware when they enrolled for the course 
what the class assignments would be; therefor
e, participants in this research were 
effectively randomly assigned to either the tr
aditional section or the section using Web 
2.0 technologies.   Common Elements  While the courses differed in the media used for three class assignments, they 
contained a number of common elements incl
uding the instructor, the course structure, and several assessments and assignments. Thes
e elements each provided affordances for 
shifting students' social justice dispositions a
nd deepening their social justice knowledge.  
Table 5 and Table 6 summarize these common el
ements and their affordances; a detailed 
discussion of each subsequently follows. 
57 Table 5 Common course elements and their educational affordances beneficial for social justice teacher education Common Element Educational            Affordance(s) 
Benefit for Social         Justice Education Instructor Well-developed PCK for course 
content Facilitating SJK conceptual change Student 
demographics 
Small class size allows more 
opportunities to participate; Increased familiarity and rapport 
Checking SJK; socio-emotional support for 

dispositional change  Sophomore-level students are in 
late adolescent psycho-social 
development 
Open to dispositional 
reexamination and change 
 Gender diversity for breadth of 
perspectives More complex conceptual 
understanding with greater 
variety of insights Course structure Schedule gave sufficient time for 
in-depth and extended discussions Time to better understand SJK 
concepts in full complexity 

and  intersectionality 
 Course expectations (per syllabus 
& for teacher education program) 

held students accountable for 
engagement and participation 
Students committed and 
engaged to SJK building Daily course activities  
Pre-reading for concept building and conceptual change Facilitates class discussions 
for SJK conceptual change 
 Class discussions allow for 
collaboration for co-construction 

of knowledge; rapport building More complex conceptual 
understanding with greater 
variety of insights; socio-
emotional support for 

dispositional change Pre- and post-test assessments 
Framing and focusing implicit 
study's goals 
Students committed and 
engaged to SJK building  58 Table 6 Common and differentiated assignments and thei
r affordances for social justice teacher education Common Element Educational            Affordance(s) 
Benefit for Social         Justice Education Common course assignments 
Formative exam for catching and 
re-teaching misconceptions 
Checking nascent SJK; facilitates future conceptual 

building & change  Cultural autobiography for 
reflection on past experiences and 
beliefs and classroom application 
Dispositional reexamination 
and change; build SJK of own 
and student positionality 
 Service learning assignment gave 
first-hand experience with issues 

of diversity and/or inequality Encourage perspective taking and empathy to deepen SJK 

and shift dispositions 
Differentiated 
course 
assignments 
Media artifact/current event 
analysis assignment  for 

application of course concepts to 
novel phenomenon 
Conceptual transfer builds 
more complete understanding 

of complex SJK concepts 
 Identity marker group assignment  
featured collaboration for co-

construction of knowledge; More complex conceptual 
understanding with greater 
variety of insights  Service learning journals 
assignment for reflection on 

experiences observing/working in 
classroom 
Dispositional and conceptual reexamination 
  
Instructor. Both sections of the course were taught by the same instructor (who is also 
the primary researcher of this study). A
pplying Shulman's (1986) Pedagogical Content 
Knowledge framework, the instructor had a numbe
r of past experiences that helped make 
him an effective educator in both sections of 
the course. By the start of the semester, the 
59 instructor had ten years of experience t
eaching at the middle school and undergraduate 
level. This decade of teaching background 
built his general Pedagogical Knowledge 
giving him a skill set for leading a classroom, 
including skills such as facilitating whole 
and small group discussions, identifying misc
onceptions in student responses and using formal assessments to inform future instruc
tion that were particularly useful in this 
course.  
 The instructor had taught se
ctions of the course in this study three times prior to 
the semester. He had also taught educatio
nal psychology courses infused with social justice themes for an additional three previous 
semesters. In these courses, the instructor 
taught many of the concepts and material used
 in the sections of the course presently under study.  In addition to this specific instructional experience, the instructor had four years of experience as a public school teacher 
in an urban school district. During this time, he had first hand experience reflecting on 
his dispositions, better understanding his own and his students' positionality, and working 
within and against systems of inequality 
in public education. These experiences gave him a high Content area knowledge, which 
he was able to use in aiding students' unders
tanding of the class concepts and in guiding students through their own dispositional growth. 
 Taken as a whole, the instructor's past
 experiences teaching the course in this 
study and professionally as a social justice educator gave him a thorough understanding of the course concepts and how to effectively communicate them to students. For this 
course, the instructor had a well-developed Pedagogical Content Knowledge making him 
an effective instructor for the course a
nd an asset to students' dispositional and 
knowledge growth. The instructor acted as a common affordance for students in both 
60 sections of the course, using his Pedagogical Content Knowledge to help them make 
sense of the multifaceted and intersecting conc
epts in the course. This facilitation may 
have contributed to students developing a better social justice knowledge of themselves, 
their students and the contexts of education. Similarly, by fa
cilitating a learning environment where ideas can be challenged resp
ectfully in an open and honest forum, the 
instructor may have acted as an affordance for students dispositional shift. Bringing 

together his unique combination of professi
onal experiences, instructional skill set and 
thorough understanding of the course content, this instructor's practice may have 
contributed to changes in students' soci
al justice dispositions and knowledge.   Student demographics. The overall student make up was very similar between 
the sections in multiple ways. Both sections
 contained 15 sophomore-level students. This 
is a relatively small number of
 students; each section allows for up to 25 students to be enrolled.  Having a smaller class size may be 
particularly useful for a course designed to challenge students' pre-conceived beliefs a
nd build their knowledge of complex concepts such as the intersectionality of identity ma
rkers and the social construction of race. As 
compared to larger lecture-based formats, 
having fewer students may allow each student 
for more opportunities to participate (less 
competition) and more opportunities for 
students to interact peer-to-peer, which are foundational to students building knowledge together. In addition, a small class cohort of st
udents at roughly the same age, especially 
late-adolescent age, may help in rapport bui
lding for dispositional growth. Students at this age in both sections were likely to 
be at the same stage in the psycho-social 
development, engaging in similar identity refo
rming processes. This age is particularly 
61 open to dispositional reexamination, a fundame
ntal component of the social justice 
teacher education course.  

 Demographically, the sections were also 
very similar. The sections had the same 
gender ratio: 10 women and five 
men and though the sections varied somewhat in their 
racial demographics, overall the majority of st
udents in both classes identified as "white" 
or "Caucasian." Of those that did not, one student in the traditional section and two students in the high technology section identified as African-American and one student in 
the high technology section was an international student from China. The sections were 
also almost identical in their makeup of elem
entary and secondary education students. In the traditional section, 10 students planned to pursue a degree in elementary education, 5 
planned to pursue a secondary education degree. In the high-technology section, there were eight elementary education students a
nd seven secondary education students. This 
mix of genders and future career goals likely 
gave diversity to the perspectives students brought when contributing their understanding to such course topics as the social construction of gender, gender identity and male privilege, as well as broadening the 
range of classroom applications when disc
ussing such social justice issues as 
overrepresentation in special education and examples of "hidden curriculum" in schools. 
By contrast, both sections were not very racially diverse, likely 
limiting the breath of 
personal insight that could be contribute
d to class discussion on race and racism.  
 Course Structure. Overall, the two sections of the course were very similar in 
their structure. The two sections were identi
cal in terms of their overall goals, class 
format, schedule and position in the students' 
preservice teacher education program. Both 
sections of the course used the same sylla
bus (with the noted differences in the three 
62 assignments the high technology section of th
e course used Web 2.0 media for). This 
means that both sections had the same schedul
e, met the same number of days and length 
of time, used the same readings and had the 
same expectations in 
terms of attendance and 
participation. It is also important to note th
at, for these students in both sections, passing this course was a requirement for admissi
on into the university's teacher education 
program. Meeting for a total of 29 days and us
ing a combination of more than 50 articles 
as the course text meant that students in 
both sections had ample opportunity and time to 
engage with the complex concepts of the cour
se. The course's high e
xpectations in terms 
of weekly workload and for daily participation were paired with the understanding that 
success in the course was a prerequisite for m
oving on with their professional goals. This combination of factors helped ensure that students in both sections were committed, 

engaged, and accountable to the goals of the course. See Appendix A for course syllabus for further details of course schedule and expectations.  Having a course where the expectations 
are clearly spelled out and students are motivated to meet them promotes a positiv
e learning environment, regardless of the 
course's learning goals. This motivation may ha
ve been especially useful for a course on social justice as the critical stance of ma
ny of the course readings are designed to challenge students' preconceived ideas and 
beliefs, which could lead students to disengage intellectually with the course content. However, knowing they must perform 
well in the course in order to continue thei
r professional goals in teacher education added an extra layer of extrinsi
c motivation for students.  
 Daily course activities. Perhaps the most important elements of the course, and 
ones that the two sections shared in common we
re the day-to-day activities. Before each 
63 class, students in both sections were required to read one or more articles about topics such as how issues of privilege, identity, gender, race, and sexual orientation arise in 
school settings. In addition to reading, students were required to respond to a set of questions based on the articles, and bring their written responses along with the articles to class.  This requirement for active and engaged pre-reading fits with the constructivist 

approach to concept formation, an approach pa
rticularly useful for social justice teacher 
education courses where the concepts are multidimensional and very interconnected. 

Students certainly enter the course with pre-existing schema of course concepts such as 
race and gender. However, the pre-reading and reading response assignments activate 

that prior knowledge before class begins and establishes the parts of those concepts to be further added to and nuanced during class discussions. In addition, physically having these preparation materials in front of th
em every day served to prime students' 
participation in class discussions as well 
as to hold students accountable to being prepared for that discussion.    The focus of most days for both secti
ons were small and whole group discussions centered on their prior reading, current events, and previous class discussions. Most days, students in both sections sat in a large circle facing one another. During whole group discussions, students interacted directly with one another with the instructor acting as a facilitator to clarify statements, ask prompting ques
tions, and to keep the conversation focused.  During small group discussions, st
udents either worked with one or two students near them or they were assigned in
to specific groups by the instructor. In both small group arrangements, the instructor m
oved between the groups to serve a similar 
facilitation role as during whole group discus
sions. Because of this focus on discussion 
64 and learning from one another's contributi
ons, class participation norms encouraging 
students to participate and to be respectful of one anotherâ„¢s contributions were discussed during the first week of class and reiterated throughout the semester. 
 Whole group discussions gave student
s exposure to a broader range of perspectives on class topics while small group interactions gave students opportunities to interact with their peers in a more relaxed manner without the pr
essure of the entire class' 
(and instructor's) attention. Th
is mix of whole and small gr
oup discussion arrangements 
was designed to give students the opportunity to build rapport with one another while also allowing for as wide a range of perspectives and insights to 
be contributed to the discussion. This dual approach was designed with the goals of the social justice teacher education course in mind. The comfort and fa
miliarity between stude
nts especially in 
small group discussions, may have created a se
nse of communal trust, where students 
could be honest about their beliefs and ideas. Such openness is important for dispositional 
reflection and growth. At the same time, an
 open-floor whole group discussion where all students were expected to contribute gave mo
re opportunities for students to hear from a 
range of perspectives that may have served
 to complicate and nuance their knowledge of multifaceted social justice concepts.  

 Pre- and post-test assessments.
 Students in both sections took two assessments 
on the first and last days of class. The first of these assessments was the Learning to 
Teach for Social Justice - Beliefs (LTSJ-B)
 scale, a 12-item dispositional survey 
composed of five point Likert-type questi
ons.  Of these 12 items, five are positively 
phrased (and scored) such as, fiIssues relate
d to racism and inequity should be openly 
discussed in the classroom.fl and seven item ar
e negatively worded (and reversed scored) 65 such as, fiRealistically, the job 
of a teacher is to prepare st
udents for the lives they are 
likely to leadfl (see Appendix B for full scale).  The scale was developed by a team of 

faculty members at Boston College, whose en
tire teacher preparation program has an 
explicit focus on social justice, 
as part of an entry and exit survey to the program in order 
to compare and measure changes in studentsâ„¢ dispositions (See Data Sources and 

Measures section for further discussion on the development, validity and current 
application of this instrument). 

 The second student assessment, referred to 
simply as the "short essay assignment" 
was designed as a measure of studentsâ„¢ so
cial justice knowledge.
 Because such an 
instrument did not exist from previous rese
arch, a new instrument was created for this 
study. Researchers have identified multiple areas of knowledge important too being an 

effective social justice educator (see Literature Review for examples), but Howard (2006) 
is one of few who have attempted to combine multiple knowledge domains into a holistic 
conceptual framework for a teacher's "Soc
ial justice knowledge." This framework is 
comprised of three categories: a) Knowledge
 of the self, including oneâ„¢s own biases, presumptions and perspectives; b) Knowle
dge of students, including the culturally-specific experiences, beliefs, traditions and be
haviors that students bring with them into 
the classroom; and c) Knowledge of the social
, historical and political contexts that built 
and still shape the United Statesâ„¢ public ed
ucational system. Based 
on these categories, a set of open-ended, short essay-type questions we
re given to students in both sections as a pre- and post-test assessment of their 
social justice knowledge (see Appendix B for question prompts and scoring scale and the Data Sources and Measures section for 66 further discussion on the development, vali
dity and current ap
plication of this instrument). 

 The specific beliefs and knowledge areas
 assessed on these instruments was not 
explicitly stated to students in
 either section as goals of the course. Nevertheless, taking these assessments may have primed student
s about the implicit critical stance and 
expected outcomes of the course. In other 
words, taking a pre-test about one's beliefs 
about, for example, the salien
ce of inequality in education may have given students the 
initial suspicion that these beliefs will be 
the desired dispositions for the course - a suspicion that was likely reinforced as the course went on. Similarly, the short essay 
assignment may have framed for students 
what types of knowledge they would be expected to grow in over the course of the semester. These common pre-test assessments 
may have facilitated students' social justi
ce dispositional and knowledge growth in a way 
that showed up in post-test scores by imp
licitly communicating to students the domains 
of this study's research questions.  
 Common class assignments. In addition to the pre- a
nd post-test assessments and 
daily course activities, the traditional and high-technology sections of the course shared three major assignments: a formative exam given a month into the course, a two-part 

cultural autobiography essay and an off-site service learning assignment. All three 
common class assignments provide affordances th
at may have led to changes in students' 
social justice dispositions and knowledge. 
 The formative exam serves an important
 function in building students' social 
justice knowledge. Assigned after the first unit 
where the core concepts of the class are covered, the exam serves as a chance to 
identify misconceptions students may have in 
67 their understanding of class concepts. These 
concepts, such as multidimensionality of 
identity, social construction of normality and forms of privilege and discrimination, are 
fundamental to students' emergent social
 justice knowledge. The exam helped the 
instructor ensure that students had an 
accurate and relatively detailed conceptual 
understanding before proceeding further in the class. When and where students 

demonstrated misconceptions, the instructor 
gave immediate feedback and/or met with 
students individually to clarify these concepts. By helping the instructor catch 
misconceptions in students' understanding early
 into the course, the formative exam 
helped ensure that the social justice know
ledge formation and conceptual change that 
would occur over the rest of the se
mester was built on a solid foundation. 
 The cultural autobiog
raphy assignment occurred in tw
o parts: an initial reflection 
due three weeks into the semester and a final 
reflection due at the end of the semester. In 
their initial paper, students were asked to 
reflect on their own identity and the ways in 
which their choice of two social identity mark
ers (such as social class, race, ethnicity, 
language, ability, gender, and sexual orientation) informed
 their schooling experiences and development of self. The final autobiogra
phy asked students to reevaluate their initial autobiography, deep their initial reflection by applying the terminology and ideas from 
course readings, and to think forward, explaining how their identity and unique perspectives/biases/experiences may shape thei
r work as a future teacher. Both parts of 
this assignment are particularly useful fo
r social justice disp
osition and knowledge change. In terms of dispositional growth, even during the first part of the assignment, 

requiring students to reflect on their own past experiences an
d beliefs can lead to them 
recognizing previously unexamined beliefs a
bout issues such as privilege and social 68 construction. This ideological reexamination 
can be deepened and more precise in the 
second part after the student has gained terminology and the tools for understand how 
their beliefs have been socially constructed. In order for students' dispositions to shift, 
they have to first be examined and be
tter understood, and the cultural autobiography provides this opportunity for personal reexamination. The autobiography assignment has 
similar utility for social justice knowledge 
growth. The first part of the conceptual framework of social justice knowledge us
ed in this study focuses on a teacher understanding their own positionality - the 
unique and changing nature of their 
perspectives and the personal experiences that have formed those perspectives. The 
second part of the social justice knowledge framework refers to a teacher understanding their students' positionality. These two domains 
are main subjects of both parts of the 
cultural autobiography. In this assignment, students are tasked
 with critically analyzing their own and students' positionality, applyi
ng class concepts and using the tools of 
critical inquiry practiced in class in order to
 develop and demonstrate their social justice 
knowledge of these important domains.  

 Finally, all students in th
e both sections of the course spent 20 hours over a 10 week period participating in a fiservice learningfl experience at a local school or community center. During these service learning hours, students typically observed teachers, helped individual or small groups
 of students with schoolwork, and (less 
frequently) assisted the teacher in preparing 
and delivering lessons.  
This outside of class 
assignment gave students the opportunity to 
see first hand the concepts from course 
readings and discussions because these placem
ent sites were selected especially for partnering with this kind of course. For ex
ample, some of the placement sites were 
69 located in an urban school district where social class and racial opportunity gaps were often observed. Other placement sites were in 
more affluent districts, but in special 
education or multi-lingual classrooms where cour
se students could gain insight to ability 
and language as identity markers and the educ
ational rights of ability- and linguistically- diverse students. The first hand experience at their service learning sites may have been 
useful in changing students' so
cial justice dispositions. For example, students may have 
held pre-existing beliefs that were contrary to the ideals of social justice such as "it is 
reasonable for teachers to have lower classroom expectations for students who donâ„¢t 
speak English as their first language" (item six on the LTSJ-B scale). In such a case, 

seeing effective instructional accommodations for English Language Learners may lead a 

student to rethink their preexisting belief. Or, if a student held beliefs that were already more socially just, their experiences may have
 reinforced these beliefs. In a similar way, 
these experiences may have also been useful in building students' social justice 
knowledge. Their time in the classroom may 
have gave students additional opportunities to critically think about, analyze and apply course concepts. Further, service learning 
time was, for most students, their first experi
ence in a classroom as something other than 
a student. From this position, students were ab
le to observe the daily workings of schools, teachers and students from a new perspect
ive. The extended learning opportunities 
provided by service learning course component may have
 deepened and enriched students social justice knowledge beyond that which could be achieved through class discussions and reading alone.  
 Differentiated class assignments. Three assignments in the course were 
differentiated by section in terms of what medium stude
nts used in completing the 
70 assignment (see next section for discussion 
of the elements and affordances of the 
mediums unique to each section). However, 
while these assignments' medium differed 
between sections, some elements of each assignment remained the same. The affordances 

of these common elements of the assignment ma
y have led to changes in students' social 
justice dispositions and knowledge, regardless of the medium used. 

 First, students in each section completed 
a critical analysis of a media artifact or 
current event. Although each section used di
fferent media and tools to complete the 
assignment, regardless of section, this assignment required students to use multiple class 

concepts of social power and identity markers to critique a 
current cultural/news event or a media artifact such as a television show
 or movie.  Some students analyzed 
events/artifacts that have inherent qualities 
related to social power and/or identity (e.g., anti-immigration legislation) or events/artifact
s that are usually seen as being critically 
fineutral,fl (e.g., the Harry Potter books).  Students may have used the assignment to 
express their dispositions, but the main goal 
of the assignment was for students to apply 
their social justice knowledge in their analysis.  For students in both sections of the cour
se, this assignment's essential task of 
applying course concepts to a novel phenomenon
 may have contributed to their social 
justice knowledge, regardless of which medium 
they used to express that understanding. 
Students in both sections engaged in outside-of-class independent reading and small and 
whole group discussion in class in order to deepen and refine the conceptual knowledge of course topics. Most readings and discussions focused on educational institutions, 

however this assignment built upon those lear
ning tasks by extending the application of these concepts to phenomenon such as curr
ent events and television shows. This 
71 conceptual transfer required students to ex
amine the social justice concepts essential 
parts, the characteristics of the phenomenon they were examining, and remap those parts 
to the target.  This cognitive process required students to critically analyze and transform 
their knowledge, which may have lead 
to a more complete understanding. 
 Second, students in both sections completed an assignment centered on a critical 
analysis of a single identity marker. Although each section us
ed different media and tools 
to complete the assignment, regardless of s
ection, this assignment
 required students to work in groups to analyze an identity make
r (e.g., race, gender, social class) through the 
lens of four aspects of social power - social construction, privilege, discrimination and 
intersectionality.  Students choose which groups 
to join based on which identity marker 
they wanted to write about, and all groups focused on the same set of aspects of social 
power.  Each students was expected to write 
one or more sections of the assignment and 
to collaborate with classmates to synthesi
ze, connect and uniformly format their final 
paper.  For this assignment, students in the tr
aditional section created a single paper for 
their group while students in the high technology section created a single wiki page. Student collaboration was a central element 
of the assignment and an element that was 
common between both sections. Collaborative writing encourages the co-construction of knowledge, a process that could be advantage especially for courses such as the one in this study where the concepts are complex, multifaceted, and open to interpretation from 

different perspectives. Collaboration in this
 assignment may have
 exposed students to, and engaged students with, different perspectives on the same
 topic.  This exposure may 
lead to students refining their understanding as they conceptually accommodated their 72 colleagues' perspectives. With this collabora
tive thinking and writing process, students' 
social justice knowledge may have b
ecome more nuanced and broadened. 
 Third, in both sections of the course, fo
r six of the 10 weeks students were at their service learning site, they created a brief re
flective journal entry describing what they observed and/or participated during their time 
at the site, as well as reflecting on their experience in terms of class concepts of
 aspects of social power (e.g., privilege, oppression)  and individual identity markers 
(e.g., race, gender). Students either wrote a 
two page essay (traditional section) or recorded a five to seven minute video (high 
technology section) giving their description and analytical reflection of their experiences.   Teachers may use reflection to then make
 future pedagogical decisions, but in the 
case of students' service learning journals
, reflection is primarily a meaning making 
process wherein the student sequences interconnected ideas in order to come to a better 
understanding of an experience. During this process, the student may engage in thinking 
that could lead to changes in dispositions and/or knowledge. In terms of social justice 
dispositions, reflecting on what they observed at their service learning site and applying their understanding of course concepts to interpret and analyze those observations may 
have lead students in both sections to rethink their existing beliefs.  
 By not only experiencing a classroom se
tting from a new experience, but trying to make sense of it, students may have thought 
through how they felt about what they saw, and either reinforced or reconsidered those beliefs. Either wa
y, the process of engaging in and thinking about one's own beliefs may have
 lead to dispositional change. Similarly, 
while interpreting their service learning experiences through the lens of class concepts, students may have been activating their 
social justice knowledge. Applying their 73 conceptual understanding of issues such as privilege, discrimination and social 
construction to these new experiences may have deepened, nuanced or even changed 

students' social justice knowledge. 

 Overall, the traditional and high-technology 
sections of the course in this study 
had many elements in common, each with educational affordances that may have led to 

changes in students' social ju
stice disposition and knowledge.  Elements Unique to Traditional Course Section  
 While the two sections of the course shared many elements, they differed in the 
media used for three class assignments - a cr
itical analysis assignment, a group identity 
marker assignment and students' semester l
ong service learning journal assignment. For 
all three assignments, students in the tr
aditional section submitted their work in 
text/written form. This medium may have 
provided affordances for shifting students' 
social justice dispositions and deepening their social justice k
nowledge. Table 7 below summarizes the affordances of each assignments
' medium. A detailed 
discussion of each subsequently follows.  Representing author's ideas only. First, unlike writing in many Web 2.0 
technologies that contain feedback channels for input from readers, traditional papers 
typically represent the author's own ideas 
solely. It is not known for this study how students in either section may have collabora
ted outside of class on written assignments, 
but in writing a single-author paper, students in the traditional section may have felt more 
free to focus on developing and representing their own thinking without worrying about how to respond to and/or incorporate the feedback from others.  This focus fits with the 
first domain of social justice knowledge as c
onceptualized for this study - an examination 
74 of own preexisting ideas. In this study, this affordance may have been evident in the 
traditional section's critical analysis assignmen
t wherein students applied multiple course 
concepts as a lens to examine their 
chosen phenomenon.  Writing only from their 
perspective without needing to incorporate others' feedback may have led to changes in 
their social justice knowledge in ways that were different from the process of blog writing for students in the high-technology section.  Table 7 Traditional section course elements and their educational affordances for social justice teacher education Element Educational Affordance(s) Benefit for SJTE 
Text/written paper Author representing only 
own ideas, without having to 
incorporate reader feedback Focused metacognitive 
examination of own ideas and 

understanding  One continuous, self-
contained document 
Help author see relationships between individual parts and 
"big picture" of complex SJK 

concepts  Closed document, not open 
for public review Security in adopting critically 
conscious dispositions  Ease of revising before submitting 
Revising work can lead to deeper SJK understanding   Continuous, self-contained document. Second, the traditional paper affords a "top-down" conceptual understanding for students working on a single document, as 
opposed to on Web 2.0 writing that comprises 
multiple, separate posts.  Having all parts 
of their analysis contained in one docume
nt may have helped students see the "big 
picture" of their thinking.  Meanwhile, a holistic, well-developed social justice 
75 knowledge not only includes a broad, all-encompassing understanding of social systems, 
but also the connectedness of ideas; A deep understanding of social justice concepts such as systems of opportunity and the social cons
truction of identity requires students to be able to see relationships between many individual pieces. This process may be afforded 
when students are able to look at all parts of their work in one continuous narrative. For example, students submitted (and presumably 
wrote) their section papers as single 
documents rather than as separate blog pos
ts hosted across a single web site; Having one document in front of them, where all sections of their analysis were readily accessible, 

may have helped students make connections 
between social justice ideas focused on at 
different points in their papers.  Closed document. Third, the medium of an o
ff-line paper has its own unique affordance that may have changed students' 
social justice dispositions and knowledge.  
Unlike writing in various Web 2.0 technologies, 
an off-line paper is typically not open for public review.  This kind of privacy may s
upport the practice of adopting critically conscious perspectives in students' analyses
.  The perspectives represented in class 
readings often challenge mainstre
am ideologies about topics such as racism and privilege, and students may be uncomfortable or anxious
 at first adopting these perspectives for their own selves.  Knowing that their writing is only going to be read by a private audience of their classmates and the instructor, as opposed to posted online for public viewing, may give students a sense of security.  
  This process may have been evident in 
the traditional section's identity marker 
group paper assignment, in which students wo
rked in groups of three to analyze an identity marker (e.g., race, gender,
 social class) through the lens of four aspects of social 76 power - social construction, privilege, discrimination and intersectionality - before 
concluding with a discussion of how teach
ers might challenge problematic social 
constructions and forms of in
equality related to the group's chosen identity marker.  
Students in the traditional section produced a single collaboratively-written paper of eight to 10 pages that included references to class readings. It is not known what kind of word 
processing software students in the traditional section used to create the final document 
(e.g., a web-based collaborative writing platform like Google Docs or off-line word 
processors like Microsoft Word), but th
e final product was a private document only 
accessible by the students in the group and the instructor.  This process of "trying on" 

critically conscious perspectives may contribute to dis
positions' shifting to be more 
socially just and may encourage students to 
become more so by reducing discomfort - an 
affordance specific to this traditional me
dium and relevant to the study's goals.
  Ease of revising.  Fourth, whereas reflective video journaling involves recording in one take, traditional written journals afford
 ease of revision and editing of one's ideas 
before submitting the document. 
 The traditional format allows
 students to write an initial draft to represent their know
ledge and dispositions and easily revise, and mentally re-
engage with, parts of their analysis without having to rewrite the entire document; 
Conversely, in the corresponding high technology journaling format, a student would 
likely need to start from the 
beginning and re-record the entire video if any change were needed for any part of their analysis.  Additionally, unlike video journals, written journals can be created in multiple sessions over time. This ease of revision may mean less of a 

barrier to students' revising and rethinking th
eir analysis.  Reviewing and revising their writing is generally seen as an important st
ep in students' writing process, but may be 
77 especially beneficial to students in this course as they reexamine and metacognitively 
revisit their own thinking.  Thinking about and reflecting on one's own beliefs is a key 
component of dispositional change. Simila
rly, re-examining and cognitively engaging 
with their own knowledge may deepen students'
 understanding of their own ideas.  This reflective revision process played a part in the course's service learning journal 
assignment: As part of their 
service learning experience, 
students wrote six journals describing and reflecting on what they observed during their time in the classroom. In 
their journals, students were asked to apply course concepts as a way of analyzing their experiences. This required students to activate and engage with their developing social justice knowledge, as well as express their opi
nions as a way to present their social justice dispositions. Written journals were 
approximately two pages in length and 
submitted electronically as individual document files on six different weeks over the 

course of the semester. More so than "one 
shot" video journals, these written journals facilitate the self-revision and this iterative processes of reflecting, revising and rethinking may have led to changes in trad
itional section students social justice 
dispositions and knowledge. Elements Unique to High Technology Course Section 
 The two sections of the course in this
 study shared many elements but differed in 
others, primarily in the media used for thre
e class assignments - a critical analysis 
assignment, a group identity marker assignment and students' semester long service 

learning journal assignment. For these three as
signments, students 
in the high technology section used a collection of Web 2.0 technologies to complete their work. The digital  
78 Table 8 High Technology section course elements and their educational affordances for social justice teacher education Element Educational Affordance(s) Benefit for SJTE 
Blog post Enhanced self-expression 
via multiple media forms 
Demonstrate emerging SJK in 
multiple ways 
 Reflection through 
connecting thoughts via 
hyperlinks between posts Help author see relationships between individual parts and 
"big picture" of complex SJK 

concepts  Making connections with 
input from readers 
More complex conceptual 
understanding with greater 
variety of insights  Socio-emotional support in 
comments Support for adopting non-mainstream, critically 

conscious beliefs Wiki page Engaging with authors from 
different perspectives Reexamining/Reconsidering 
own ideas and beliefs  Socio-emotional support 
during collaboration Support for adopting non-mainstream critically 

conscious beliefs  Collaboration for co-
construction of knowledge More complex conceptual 
understanding with greater 
variety of insights Reflection Video Greater 
length and depth in reflection Deeper reexamination of own 
beliefs and understanding  Easy to re-watch previous 
video journals Deeper reexamination by 
drawing connections between 

previous and current beliefs 
and understanding  Lack of self-censoring 
(stream of conscious 

honesty) Honesty about beliefs supports dispositional shift 
 79 medium of blogs, wikis and video journals 
may have provided affordances for shifting 
students' social justice dispositions and d
eepening their social justice knowledge in 
different ways than the paper medium used in
 the traditional section. Table 8 summarizes 
these unique elements and their affordances; 
a detailed discussion of each subsequently 
follows.  

 Blog posts.
 Blogs as a medium for critical anal
ysis have several affordances that may lead to changes in social justice dis
positions and knowledge. First, blogs may give 
students more modes for self-expression including images, audio and video clips 

embedded into their blog posts. Having a
dditional modes of self expression and 
explanation is useful in a social justice 
teacher education course. Because they often 
challenge mainstream ideologies, the concepts and perspectives presented in the course 

are often counter to students' 
previously held beliefs and ideas. Therefore, when tasked 
with analyzing phenomena through these pe
rspectives, students may experience 
frustration expressing themselves with th
e course's novel vocabulary. Having multiple 
media forms for expression and explanation 
may help overcome this frustration and 
facilitate engaging with social justice dispositions and knowledge.   Second, many concepts presented in the c
ourse such as race, gender and social class intersect and inform one another, and therefore are best understood by revisiting and drawing connections between them. Blogs may be
 able to facilitate this reflection and 
connection-making by allowing writers to crea
te hypertext links between their written thoughts. 
 Third, unlike the single-authored writte
n documents in the traditional section, 
blogs allow writer and readers to communicate, 
which may be useful to the social justice 
80 knowledge development of students in this ki
nd of courses. The additional perspective and input is beneficial to ma
ny kinds of conceptual development, including for complex 
concepts such as systems of discrimination a
nd social construction of identity markers. 
 Last, in addition to co-constructing k
nowledge, blogs' comment channel may be a 
source of social-emotional s
upport such as empathy, encouragement and affirmation as 
students express in their writing the kind of non-mainstream, cr
itically conscious perspectives often found in these kinds of courses. This support from readers via their 
comments is an affordance of blog writing that may have an impact on students' 
dispositional change.  
 Students in the "high technology" section 
of the study engaged in this interactive medium for expression through a written critic
al analysis of a current event or media 
artifact.  In this analysis, st
udents critiqued these events or artifacts as they applied their 
knowledge related to social justice.  Students' analyses were
 written over the course of four weeks as a series of eight separate blog posts (the blog includes an additional post 
reflecting on their thinking over the process of writing a blog).  In addition, students in the high technology section were assigned to read and comment on at least two other studentsâ„¢ blog post each week. Students' writing in this assignment represents a multi-

stage analysis of a single phenomenon wherein students engage with multiple domains of 

social justice knowledge. With each
 of these stages written as 
separate blog posts, it is 
possible that students may see these ideas as se
parate, disjointed concepts; the affordance 
of hyperlinks within a blog post may help to 
connect the concepts and deepen students' 
understandings thereof. The assignment also re
quired students to "follow" other students blogs, leaving comments after each post. These comments serve as a feedback channel 
81 authors may use to inform future posts.  As
 students think about, apply, and express these perspectives, having socio-emotional support fr
om their peers may encourage students to 
internalize them and/or reduce any pote
ntial discomfort toward expressing non-
mainstream ideologies. 

For further discussion of previous research on these affordances of blogs, see the Research on the Educational affordances of Web 2.0 technologi
es section of the Literature Review chapter.   Figure 1 Sample blog post for media artifact/current event analysis assignment..  82   Wiki pages.
  Wikis as a medium contain multiple affordances that may lead to 
dispositional and knowledge change for students in this study. First, wikis are designed to facilitate collaboration between multiple authors. While working together to create and 

edit wiki pages, authors are exposed to various different perspectives on the same 
concept. Reading multiple people's perspectives
 may be especially beneficial for social 
justice education courses where students are 
asked to question their own perspectives and re-consider ideologies from alternative perspectives.  

 Second, the collaborative affordances 
of wikis may provide socio-emotional 
support for students as they develop their so
cial justice dispositions. In this kind of 
course, the critically consci
ous perspectives students are writing from may differ from 
those with which they have been raised and/
or currently hold. As students shift in their 
dispositions, reading contributions and collaborating with peers who are similarly 
negotiating these new identities may help give
 social justice education students socio-
emotional support through reassu
rance that they are not alone in this ideological re-examination. Feelings of isolation may be an 
obstacle to shifting dispositions to be more socially just, and the collaborative elements
 of wikis may help overcome this obstacle. 
 Last, wikis facilitate the collabora
tion that may produce a more robust, 
multifaceted understanding of a concept by allowi
ng multiple writers to contribute to the 
resulting wiki page. Many concepts in the domai
n of social justice education such as the intersectionality of identity markers and social construction are best understood through a 
multi-dimensional analysis with contributions 
from multiple perspectives. Using wikis to 
co-construct this understanding from multip
le contributors representing multiple 
83 perspectives may be the most effective way to
 help students understand the social justice knowledge measured in this study. 
Students in the high technology section of the course employed a wiki to write 
jointly, in groups of three, a critical analysis of an identity marker. Students were 
expected to work on one or more sections 
of the assignment and to collaborate with 
classmates to synthesize, connect and unifo
rmly format their final paper. Students 
produced a series of web pages on a course
-sponsored wiki, with each group producing a 
single page first defining the groupâ„¢s identity marker, then analyzi
ng how it relates to four aspects of social power before ending with a discussion of the classroom 
applications of how teachers might challenge 
problematic social constructions and forms 
of inequality related to the group's chosen identity mark
er. Each student could access and 
edit any page of the wiki at any time; but st
udents were given four weeks to work on their group's wiki page. The wiki itself was 
publicly viewable by anybody but required approval from the instructor before an account with editing privileges was granted. This collaborative and publicly accessible format e
xposed students to other group members' - 
and other classmates' - perspectives, facili
tated the co-construction of knowledge that advances social justice knowle
dge, and replaced the obstacle of isolation with the socio-
emotional support that working with peers en
gaging in similar identity re-negotiation 
affords. 
 For further discussion of previous resear
ch on these affordances of wikis, see the Research on the Educational affordances of Web 2.0 technologi
es section of the Literature Review chapter. 84  Figure 2 Sample wiki page from identity marker group wiki assignment.   Reflection videos.
 Three affordances of video journals may be particularly 
relevant to changes in students' social ju
stice disposition and knowledge. First, creating a video journal is a simple process of speaking 
into a webcam and orally reflecting on one's 
experiences. Because creating th
ese journal entries requires ve
ry little effort, students 
reflecting through this medium may be more in
clined to speak longer and go into greater depth in their reflection than those asked to write out their reflections. While greater 
length of reflection does not guarantee a greater 
depth of analysis, for students in a social justice education course grappling with ma
king sense of new class concepts and new experiences in their service learning site, more time to work through their thinking may 
be beneficial to students as they reexamine their beliefs and ideas.  
85  Second, the ease of access to 
video journals via hosting s
ites that group previously 
recorded videos together (as with the site 
used in this study) may encourage students to re-view their previous journals, a practice 
that can help students make connections 
between their previous and current experiences. Making these conn
ections may impact 
students' social justice knowledge by helping 
them see the relationships between concepts and/or impact their social justice dispos
itions by showing them how their beliefs may 
have changed over the course of the semester. 
 A third affordance of the video medium 
for reflective journaling is found in how speaking casually to a private audience (the 
instructor) may lead students to reflect in a 
more honest, open manner. This "stream of
 consciousness" speech - speaking without 
censoring oneself - may more accurately portray the student's internalized beliefs and 

ideas. Honesty about one's own beliefs and ideas
 is an important part of social justice 
education courses. For a student in a class such as this, in
 which their preconceived ideas and beliefs may be challenged, being disingenuo
us about how one actually feels can be a barrier to dispositional reexamination and a
ny change coming from that reexamination. 
Over the course of the semester, students in
 this study spent a total of 20 hours (typically two hours a week for ten weeks) engaging in a service learning project. At their sites, students observed teachers and students, work
ed  with individual or small groups of 
students, or helped the teacher deliver whole group instruction. After any service learning visit, students could record a video journal of at least six minutes in length reflecting on 
their experiences in the classroom. The instru
ctor determined this length by timing the 
reading of a two-page written journal (the expected length for the traditional section) 
aloud in order to make the two versions of th
e assignment comparable in terms of student 
86 effort required. Each student created six se
rvice learning video journals and uploaded it onto a site which made it very easy for students 
to find and re-watch their past reflections when they log in to post a new video. The structured organization on the video journals on the site facilitated students' making conn
ections over the course of the semester 
between their field experiences and their growing social justice knowledge, and also afforded the opportunity for students to track their own dispositional growth.  For further discussion of previous resear
ch on these affordances of video journals, see the Research on the Educational affordances of Web 2.0 
technologies section of the 
Literature Review chapter. 
  Figure 3 Sample student video from service learning video journal assignment.  87 Chapter 4 - Research Methods Participants 
 For this research, the theoretical 
target population was all undergraduate preservice teachers in the early stages of 
a teacher education program.  The sample 
population from which participants in this rese
arch were drawn is all preservice teachers enrolling in one of two sections of a social 
justice teacher education course at large mid-
western university in the current semester.  Students were 
not aware when they enrolled 
for the course what the class assignments w
ould be; therefore, participants in this 
research were effectively randomly assigned to 
either the traditional section or the section using Web 2.0 technologies.  Within the samp
led participants, all 30 students (15 in each section) were recruited to participate. Recruitment involved sending students a link to an 
online form asking students for their consent in
 having their work in the class included in this study. All 30 students digitally signed the form and agreed to participate (see Appendix C for student consent online form
).  All 30 students were sophomores; 18 planned to pursue a degree in elementary ed
ucation and 12 planned to pursue a secondary education degree.  The racial and gender demographic of the sample were typical of 
previous semesters of the course.  Twenty six 
participants identifying as Caucasian, three 
participants identified as African-American, 
and one (an international student) identified as fiChinese.fl  Of the 30 participants, 20 were women and 10 were men. For a more 

complete discussion of the study participants, see Chapter 3.  

 A subset of these participan
ts had their work included in qualitative data analysis 
and follow interviews (see Appendix C for additional consent form for follow up 
interviews). This subset was a purposeful sa
mple of four students 
in the high technology 88 section of the course. These four students were selected to have their work analyzed 
based on their performance on each of these assignments and in class overall. 

Specifically, four students in each secti
on were identified who not only scored 
exceptionally well on one or two of the assignments, but on all three assignments as well 
as on their class participation grade and their overall final grade.  The students averaged 
scores of 94%, 95% and 96% on their blog assignment, wiki assignment and video 
journal assignment respectively, 90% on cl
ass participation grade and 98% on their overall final grade.  Given the students' 
high achievement on these assignments, it was 
assumed that their work was more likely to 
have used the technologies to a fuller extent and thus more likely to demonstrate eviden
ce of the media's affordances for influencing 
social justice dispositional and knowledge growth.  All four students in this purposeful sample were sophomores, three students were
 women and were elementary education 
majors. One was a man and planned to pursue 
a secondary level certification in history education. All four students identified as white. Data Sources and Measures  Both quantitative and qualitative data we
re collected concurrently in order to address each of the research questions gui
ding this study. For a summary of how each of 
these data sources are aligned with this study's research quest
ions, see Table 9 at the end of this section. 

 Learning to teach for social ju
stice Å’ belief (LTSJ-B) scale.  
This data source was used to quantitatively assess changes in pa
rticipantsâ„¢ dispositions about social justice 
education, which provided evidence towards Research Questions 1.1 and 1.2.   89  Previous administrations of this sc
ale from 2005-2007 consistently showed a 
Cronbach alphas 0.80 at each administration of th
e Entry (freshmen-level) survey and an 
alpha of approximately .74 for the Exit (senior-level) Survey The scale variance estimates 

on all Entry Surveys was between 35 and 42; the scale variance estimates on the Exit 
Surveys was approximately 30 across all admi
nistrations (Enterline, Ludlow, Mitescu & Cochran-Smith, 2008).  The differences between these Exit and Entry Survey reliability estimates and scale measurements were believed
 to be a result of the homogeneity of the 
teacher education curriculum.  In other word
s, students enter the program with a wide 
degree of past experiences which caused a greater scale variance, but after four years of exposure to similar programs of study, they 
exited with a lower de
gree of variance on the scale.  Since the magnitude of the Cronbach 
alpha is a function of scale variance, this 
reduction in scale variance represented only a sl
ight decline in reliability between Entry 
and Exit Surveys (Enterline et al.).  For this study, scoring for the LTSJ-B included generating a mean score for each 
participant based on the 12 surveys items.  To 
answer Research Ques
tion 1.1, pre-test and post-test scores for each participant were sta
tistically analyzed using a paired sample t-
test for significant differences.  To answer Research Question 1.2, participantsâ„¢ post-test LTSJ-B scores were analyzed using a two way ANOVA test to identify a statistically 
significant interaction effect
 between two independent variables and one dependent variable.  In this study, the independent variables were placement (i.e., studentsâ„¢ placement in either the high technology 
or traditional class sections and 
time (i.e., the time difference between studentsâ„¢ pre and 
post-test scores on the LTSJ-B) and the dependent variable was the studentsâ„¢ post-test scores on the LT
SJ-B.  In other words, the 90 two way ANOVA test was conducted to identify significant differences between studentsâ„¢ scores over time (pre a
nd post test), but also differences between the groupsâ„¢ change in pre and post test scores. 
 Short essays assignment. 
 This data source generated quantitative data about participantsâ„¢ social justice related knowledge
 that contributed to answering Research Questions 2.1 and 2.2.  Previous research has identified multipl
e types of knowledge important for teaching for social justice, 
that for the purposes of this study was conceptually defined into th
ree overarching categories:  
a) Knowledge of the self, including oneâ„¢s own biases, presumptions a
nd perspectives; b) Knowledge of students, including the culturally-specific experiences, 
beliefs, traditions 
and behaviors that students bring with them into the classroom; 
and c) Knowledge of the social, historical and political contexts that built and still 
shape the United Statesâ„¢ public educational 
system.  However, despite the identificati
on of these important 
forms of knowledge for 
teaching for social justice, no previous rese
arch has attempted to empirically measure 
individualsâ„¢ knowledge of these issues.  
 Development of this instrument occu
rred locally.  Beginning with Howard's 
(2006) three categories of social justice educational knowledge, the researcher wrote three open-ended short essay questions.  These questions were taken to two graduate students in the department of Teacher Educat
ion with research and teaching experience in 
the field of social justice education.  These fellow social justice educators were asked for their input on the clarity and thoroughness of the items, as well 
as on the construct validity of the items (i.e., if 
they thought the questions would likely generate answers that actually demonstrated students' 
social justice knowledge).  Feedback from the graduate 
91 students was mostly positive; both educators 
agreed the questions were phrased clearly and that the combination of all three ques
tions covered a breadth of social justice knowledge so that student answers, taken as a whole across all three questions would accurately demonstrate their knowledge of soci
al justice issues in education.  The two 
graduate students did suggest that the questions were phrased in a way that primed the 
answerer to think specifically about social justice issues such as privilege and discrimination and suggested language to ma
ke the questions more
 fineutral sounding,fl and to help prevent priming participants fr
om giving socially desi
rable responses (though these responses may still show a lack of know
ledge).  For example, the first question was changed from, "As a teacher, how might your past experiences give privilege to some 
students and/or discriminate against othe
rs?" to " How will your own personal past 
experiences, beliefs and perspectives 
influence your work as a teacher? 
 Pilot versions of these questions were
 given in May of 2011 to 16 preservice teachers who had recently completed a course on
 social justice teacher education.  Pilot 
responses to these three short essay questions were reviewed by the researcher with an in-
service public school teacher who has a strong commitment to, and knowledge of, social 
justice education.  By reviewing participantsâ„¢ answers together, the evaluators developed four and five point scales for scoring the de
pth and accuracy of stude
ntsâ„¢ answers in each 
of the three knowledge domains.  The creati
on of this scale began by first identifying positives and negatives in students' responses (i.e., parts of their answers that 

demonstrated more or less of an understandi
ng of each social justice knowledge domain), 
then organizing those positives into sub-domains. For example, one sub-domain of 

knowledge of teacher bias that arose was the 
degree of focus on cultural issues/biases, as 
92 opposed to "neutral" biases not related to issu
es of equity. For each question, four or five 
sub-domains were created, becoming sub-scales 
to be averaged together to generate an individual score a student's knowledge in 
each domain (see Appendix B for full scales, 
sub-domains and sample answers representative of
 different scale levels on the scale).    Using these scales, the researcher and 
a different second coder with extensive experience in quantitative data analysis scored 
a sample of studentsâ„¢ responses in order to 
establish inter-rater reliability. After sc
oring studentsâ„¢ answers individually and subsequently conferring over differences, the two coders reached a sufficient degree of inter-rater reliability. The Krippendorfâ„¢s 
 of 0.81 for the first scale, 0.84 for the second scale, and 0.82 for the third scale. Each of these scores is above the threshold of 0.8 suggested by (Krippendorff 2008).   
 To answer Research Question 2.1, pre-test and post-test scores for each 

participantâ„¢s score on each of the three short essay questions were statistically analyzed 
using a paired sample t-test for significant 
differences.  To answer Research Question 2.2, participantsâ„¢ pre and post-test scores on each of the three short essay questions were 

analyzed using a two way ANOVA test to identify a statistically significant interaction 

effect between two independent variables and one dependent variable.  In this study, the independent variables were 
placement
 (i.e., studentsâ„¢ placement in either the high 
technology or traditional class sections and time (i.e., the time difference between studentsâ„¢ pre and post-test scores on the short essay assignment) and the dependent 
variable was the studentsâ„¢ post-test scores on the short essay assignment.  In other words, 
the two way ANOVA test was conducted to identify significant differences between 93 studentsâ„¢ scores over time (pre a
nd post test), but also differences between the groupsâ„¢ change in pre and post test scores. 
 Student work on course assessments.  
Over the course of the semester, students 
in both sections completed a number of assignments that were graded as formative 

assessments of their knowledge of
 class concepts related to so
cial justice in education.  
Some of these assessments used the same
 media type (e.g., the formative exam and 
cultural autobiography paper), but three assignments were differentiated by course section: Studentsâ„¢ service learning reflective j
ournal, their critical analysis of a current event or media artifact, and thei
r collaboratively-written criti
cal analysis of a socially-
constructed identity marker.  Students in 
the fihigh technologyfl course section used online videos for their journal, a series of individually written blog posts for their 
event/media critical analysis, and a collaborati
vely assembled set of wiki pages for their 
identity marker critical analysis.  Students 
in the fitraditionalfl course section used text documents for all three of these assignments.  
 To aid in answering Research Question 
3, qualitative data analysis of student work on formative assignments used a purposive 
sample of four studentsâ„¢ work from the 
high technology section.  The four students were selected to have their work analyzed based on their excellent performance on each of
 these assignments and in class overall. 
Given the students' high achievement on thes
e assignments, it was assumed that their 
work was more likely to have used the technologies to a fuller extent and thus more likely 
to demonstrate evidence of the media's af
fordances for influencing social justice 
dispositional and knowledge growth.  In all, of the 90 video journals, 120 blog posts, and 25 wiki sections created in the "high technology" section of the course, the 24 video 94 journals, 32 blog posts, and 6 wiki sections created by these four students were included for qualitative analysis. 

 Evidence of each Web 2.0 technology's affo
rdances for impacting studentsâ„¢ social 
justice dispositions and knowledge were ex
amined in two ways Œ within the fihigh 
technologyfl section and across sections to stude
nt work in the traditional section.  First, 
starting with themes derived from previous 
research on the educational affordances of 
video journals, blogs and wikis that may be applicable to soci
al justice education courses, 
student work was examined for evidence of, 
and differences between, how students in the traditional and fihigh technologyfl sections demons
trated their social justice dispositions 
and knowledge.  Second, within the fihigh technologyfl student sample, student work on 
these assignments was examined for changes in 
the ways students demonstrated shifts in 
dispositions and changes in knowledge over time that may be due to the mediumâ„¢s 
affordances.  This analysis was well-suited 
for studentsâ„¢ video journals and blog posts which represent multiple entries written over 
a three month period, as opposed to wiki 
pages and traditional text assignments which 
were written in a rela
tively short period of time.  For further discussion of analysis
 methods, see Data Analysis chapter. 
 Student interviews.
  Following the completion of the course, interviews were 
conducted with the four students in the fihi
gh technologyfl section of the course whose work was included in qualitative analysis.  The purpose of these inte
rviews was to have students reflect on their experiences using Web 2.0 technologies in instruction and 
assessment and elucidate how these technologies may have helped them reach the 

courseâ„¢s learning goals.  Interviews were conducted in a private setting on campus and 
follow a semi-structured format with eight
 open-ended questions, each including follow 
95 up prompts (see Appendix B).  To aid in recall,
 students were asked to re-visit their blog, wiki and video journals, and samples of thei
r work was available during the interview.  Each interview lasted approximately 30 minut
es and allowed time for subjects to ask 
questions at the end. 
Table 9 Research questions and data sources Research Question Data Source When Administered 
Data Analyses 1.1 - Pre/posttest Social Justice 

dispositional 
changes overall LTSJ-B dispositional 
survey Beginning of semester and 

end of semester 
Paired sample T-test of pre- 
and post-test scores for all 
students 1.2 Å’ Difference in  

Social Justice 

dispositional 
change between 

course section LTSJ-B dispositional 
survey Beginning of semester and 

end of semester 
Two-way ANOVA comparing differences in 

change in pre- and post-test 
scores between traditional 

and Web 2.0 technologies 

sections 2.1 - Pre/posttest change in Social 

Justice  knowledge 
overall Short essay assignment 
Beginning of semester and 

end of semester 
Paired sample T-test of pre- 
and post-test scores for all 
students 2.2 Å’ Difference in  
Social Justice 

knowledge change 
between course 

section Short essay assignment 
Beginning of semester and 

end of semester 
Two-way ANOVA comparing differences in 

change on short essay 
assignment scores between 

traditional and Web 2.0 

technologies sections 3 - Affordances of technologies for 
impacting Social 

Justice 
dispositions and 
knowledge Student work on blogs, wikis 
and video 
journals Throughout the semester 
Qualitative analysis of 
student work triangulated by 
student interviews 
 96 Data Recording   Quantitative data for this study was collected from two in-class assignments (the 
LTSJ-B survey of social justice in education beliefs and the short essay assignment about 
social justice in education knowledge) given on the first and last days of class.  Scores from these two assignments were recorded 
into spreadsheets during coding of student responses.  Qualitative data in this res
earch was the primary documents created by 
students in the form of text- or video-base
d reflective journals, paper- or blog-formatted 
critical analysis papers and collaboratively written papers or wiki sections.  Studentsâ„¢ video journals were posted online as streaming .flv files and 
were saved as .avi files.  Studentsâ„¢ blog posts and wiki pages were posted online as .html files and were download 
as complete web-page (.html and associated) 
files.  Studentsâ„¢ paper-based journals and critical analysis papers were originally submitted digitally as .rtf text files and were 

collected as such.  All files of student work were saved on the researchersâ„¢ password protected computer.  Student interview data was collected and 
recorded using digital audio recorders.  Using audio recorders allowed the researcher
 to follow a semi-structured approach and 
adapt questions based on intervieweesâ„¢ responses.  After each interview, the researcher took descriptive and reflective notes while listening to the audio recording, and deleted the audio recording thereafter.  Research Design  This study employed a mixed methods appr
oach, using specifically a concurrent transformative design with data collecte
d through both quantitative and qualitative methods in order to answer the thre
e overarching research questions.  97  In concurrent transformative research de
sign, quantitative data is collected at the same time as qualitative data; however neit
her data type is given a higher priority.  Instead, priority is given to
 the overarching theory or conceptual framework guiding the 
study and the data collection and analysis met
hods that are best suited to understanding and/or adding to the theory or conceptual framework are employed as appropriate 
(Creswell, 2013).  
 For this study, quantitative and qualitativ
e data was collected at the same time 
from already existing data sources.  Quantitative data was collected from student 

responses to the LTSJ-B surveys and short essay assignments administered at the 
beginning and end of the course.  Qualitativ
e data was collected from student work on 
class assignments and follow up student interv
iews.  Both quantitative and qualitative data was given equal priority and weight as both was used to answer the studyâ„¢s different, but equally-weighted research questions.  Data was integrated after data analysis during the interpretation of findings phase.  During data collection and analysis, different types of data was collected and analyzed separately. 
 At this point, the qua
ntitative data (in the 
form of raw coded scores) and qualitative da
ta (in the form of thematic codes) was 
compared with one another to create an inte
rpretation of evidence answering the research 
questions.  Throughout the study, data collection and analysis was guided by the overarching conceptual framework of social ju
stice education and the influence of media 
on the learning processes.  This research strategy is represented visually as: 
 
 QUAN  +  QUAL  
+  QUAN 
Social Justice Education, 
Mediaâ„¢s influence on learning 98  This specific research st
rategy was appropriate given the simultaneous nature of data collection and analysis, the equal prioritization given to the research questions each 
type of data addressed, and the importan
ce of existing theori
es and conceptual frameworks guiding this study. 
Role of the Researcher  As qualitative data collection 
and analysis methods are a part
 of this research, it is important to acknowledge the role
 the researcher typically plays in qualitative research.  Typically, a qualitative researcher collects, anal
yzes and interprets data that is ultimately 
constructed into new knowledge.  In this way, the researcher plays a central part in the study; therefore it is critical
 to acknowledge the personal perspectives the researcher brings to this study and the dynamic relationship 
between the researcher and participants.    My past experiences undeniably play a pa
rt in how I have framed and carried out 
this research study.  Raised in an affluent, predominantly white suburb, I was afforded an 
excellent education where school was taught in clean, safe, well-resourced schools with 
teachers who largely shared my lived experiences and cultural background.  Students 

were held to high expectations, with graduating from college 
being seen as the finormalfl 
path for all.  However, as a teacher in 
a low-income urban school district teaching 
primarily children of color and children from immigrant families, I saw first hand the gulf 

in educational opportunities between students of geographically close, but socially and economically distant schools.  
This experience learning the details of educational inequity led me to pursue a career in social justice 
teacher education, in hopes of preparing future 
teachers with the knowledge of the systems of
 grossly unequal educational opportunity. I 
99 observed the social, political and historical contexts that created and sustain these systems, and what teachers in all types of sc
hools and districts can do to dismantle them.  
 These experiences and the beliefs they i
ngrained in me influenced my role as a 
researcher in this study in multiple ways.  
Most broadly, the topic I chose to research 
largely stems from my belief in the importan
ce of social justice teacher education; a 
belief constructed first during my time as an 
urban educator and subsequently developed as an teacher education instructor. This 
study's purpose and conceptual framework are 
based on the underlying belief that, in order to achieve the ideals of an equitable society, major institutions, including educational systems must be critically examined for how 

they perpetuate systemic discrimination 
and privilege, and have these systems 
dismantled. A critical component of this exam
ination and dismantling is
 a socially justice 
teacher education that goes beyond the trad
itional multicultural education goals of celebrating and affirming dive
rsity.  My design of this study to adopt a critical perspective is clearly influenced by my personal belief in the importance of the learning 
outcomes for this course and the 
overall purpose of this study.   The fact that I feel so strongly that 
it is imperative pre-se
rvice teachers develop critically conscious dispositions and knowledge
 not only shaped my design of this study, 
but also my interpretation of the data.  I have
 high expectations for what students need to take away from the course in this study, and 
when individual students' answers on end of 
the semester assignments (e.g., the social ju
stice knowledge post-test; their final video journals) still do not show dispositional or knowledge growth, it likely frustrated me. 
This frustration may have led me to score th
ese submissions lower than they should have 
been scored, and/or to have potentially overlooked evidence of overall growth.    100  In a somewhat different 
direction, I carried some assumptions about the pre-
existing beliefs and knowledge of participants in this study that may have made me 
interpret the data less critically. In my experi
ences as a social justice teacher educator, I 
have found that the majority of my students 
have had a social and educational upbringing similar to mine before I began teaching.  
Based on this observed similarity, I assumed 
that most of the students in 
this study, as was the case for me
 at their age, had a general disposition towards the ideals of social justice education (e.g., equal opportunity, democracy in education and social mobility
) but with very little knowledge about how unjust educational opportunity and experiences often are.  Therefore, during data collection and analysis, I likely expected to see students demonstrate a low level of social justice knowledge and hold some dispositions that
 did not align with th
e values of social justice education, especially on assignments 
from the beginning of the semester.  For 
example, in analyzing students' social just
ice knowledge pre-test and initial reflective 
journals, I may have been more open to rating 
demonstrations of low levels social justice 
knowledge more highly, giving students some 
benefit of the doubt about their starting place with these issues.   

 Another influence my beliefs and experiences
 likely had on data analysis is that I am somewhat skeptical about 
how educational technologies, including those in this study, can change teaching and learning. While not ag
reeing with Clark's (1994) assertion that 
the affordances of an educational medium ha
ve little direct impact on learning outcomes, 
I come from a perspective articulated by schol
ars such as Cuban (2001) who believe that 
educational technologies' eff
ects on learning have largely been exaggerated - that, for a variety of reasons, the way educational tec
hnologies are used in classrooms limits their 
101 potential impact. From this skeptical perspec
tive, I likely began data analysis somewhat 
expecting to see limited evidence that these t
echnologies' affordances were being used in 
a way that promotes students' social justice growth.  

 In addition to my personal experiences 
and beliefs influencing how I conduct this study, my dual role as a researcher and teacher 
is a critical source of
 bias introduced into 
the study.  I was the instructor for sections of the course being evaluated in this study, which is likely to influence my role as a researcher in multiple ways.  First, as a 

researcher, I am evaluating the effectiveness of
 this course and exploring the influence of the technologies included in this study as a result of my e
xperience with them as an 
instructor.  I have taught this course and used these tec
hnologies, but have not had a systematic, empirical analysis 
of their effect on studentsâ„¢ learning about social justice.  This study is motivated by these experiences as
 an instructor and as a researcher. I was likely expecting to confirm what I suspected 
as a teacher - that the course overall, and 
these specific technologies to a lesser ex
tent, had a positive influence on studentsâ„¢ learning. 
 Second, throughout the study, some of the da
ta I collected was based on work I as an instructor prepared my students for and assigned.  It was my responsibility to evaluate the work for evidence of the variables under st
udy, and not in terms of
 its quality towards meeting assignment grading crite
ria.  It was helpful that my grading for this course had 
already been completed when I began analyzi
ng student work as data in order to remind 
me to consider the data as to how it answered
 the research questions and not specifically 
as to how it met the assignments' expectations
.  Third, it is possible that, during analysis, I may have been influenced by my memory of
 a studentsâ„¢ performance in the class and 
102 may have interpreted individual studentsâ„¢ wo
rk more positively or negatively.  For example, for a student I knew performed we
ll in the course, I may have been more 
willing to positively interpret 
a neutral response or infer a positive meaning that is not 
actually present in the data.   

 In my role as a researcher, I experienced
 a number of biases introduced as part of 
the qualitative research process. While recognizing that
 all research is subject to bias and that, for qualitative research especially, th
e human factor of the researcher as an 
instrument is both a fundamental weakness, but
 also the greatest strength (Patton, 1990) I attempted to control for these biases in 
two ways: through using reflective commentary notes and extensive member 
checking.. First, my notes ta
ken during the stages of qualitative data analysis of students' work and while re
viewing student interviews included reflections on my own subjectivity. This "reflective commentary" (Shenton, 
2003) acts as a form of self-e
valuation to monitor my own 
developing interpretations of 
the data. The purpose of these comments are to make explicit my own prejudices and 
assumptions so that I become aware of th
em and can challenge them in my further 
reading of the data. This bias check was especially useful during initial descriptive 
analysis of students' work where I would fr
equently write reflective notes, asking myself 
if my initial interpretation was accurate or 
if an alternative reading was possible (and 
listing as many alternative interpretations as 
I could). I would return to these notes in subsequent readings and reconsider the alternative interpretations when looking for patterns in the data. 

 The second guard against rese
archer bias I included in the qualitative research was an extensive use of member checking 
(Lincoln & Guba, 1985). In using "member 
103 checking" or "participant validation," the researcher presents his or 
her interpretations of the data directly to the participants themselves for them to validate or verify. This process 

not only serves to check the researcher's 
subjective interpretation, but also add the participants' own voices to the final presenta
tion of the data. In this study, qualitative analysis of the students' work on class a
ssignments generated a number of insights and 
possible avenues of interpretation. I presented my insights and possible interpretations from each student's work directly to that 
student during subsequent interviews. This 
member checking process often became the 
focal point of the interviews with my 
interpretations and the participant's responses
 being the ebb and flow of the conversation. 
As an example of this process, I would pres
ent to the participant a piece of their class 
work (e.g., a blog post or video journal entry), state my "noticing," and what was my 
working interpretation of what I noticed. Participants responded to confirm, refute or nuance my "noticing" and interpretations, ch
ecking my researcher bias and adding their 
own insights to the data analysis and interpretation process. 
Data Analysis  Quantitative data.  
In answering Research Questions 1.1, 1.2, 2.1 and 2.2, quantitative data from the LTSJ-B and short es
say questions assignment were analyzed as 
pre- and post-test measures of the courseâ„¢s
 effect on the two com
ponents of learning in social justice education and to identify a
ny significant differences between mean scores 
between the two course sections.   
 Scoring on the LTSJ-B was generated by taking the mean of each participantâ„¢s 

scores for the 12 items, factoring in reverse c
oding for negatively phrased items.  Scoring 
on the short essay questions assignment wa
s generated by taking each participantâ„¢s 
104 answer on each question and evaluating it against a five point scale for its depth and accuracy.  This scale was developed by the researcher and an additional coder based on 
existing samples of student work 
(see Appendix B for scale).    For this study, Research Questions 1.
1 and 2.1 generally refer to changes in individual studentsâ„¢ dispositions (RQ 1.1) 
and knowledge (2.1) between pre- and post-
test administered at the beginning and end 
of the semester.  The LTSJ-B dispositional 
survey and short essay knowledge scores for each participant in 
both sections of the course (estimated N=30) were calculated ba
sed on their responses to the pre- and post-test LTSJ-B survey.  Differences between participantâ„¢s pre- and post-test scores were 
analyzed for statistical significance using a 
paired-sample t-test. 
 The percentage of participants with scores demonstrating a sta
tistically significant difference were measured 
to evaluate the overall course effectiveness in changing social justice dispositions and 

knowledge.    Research Questions 1.2 and 2.2 generall
y refer to differences in learning outcomes between the fitraditionalfl and fihi
gh technologyfl class sections which may be 
due to the media types used in class assignm
ents.  To answer this question, students' 
scores in each section of the course were compared with one a
nother to demonstrate possible differences in the degree of change in social justice disposition and knowledge between students in the fitraditionalfl course section and those in the fihigh technologyfl section.  This comparison used a two way AN
OVA to identify a statistically significant interaction effect between two independent variables (studentsâ„¢ placement in either the 
high technology or traditional class sections and time) 
and one dependent variable (students' post-test scores on the LTSJ-B and 
short essay assignment. In other words, the 
105 two way ANOVA test was conducted to identify significant differences between studentsâ„¢ scores over time (pre and post test
), but also differences between the groupsâ„¢ change in pre and post test scores. 
 Qualitative data.  
In answering Research Question 3, qualitative data from a purposeful sample of studentsâ„¢ work on in-c
lass assignments and a series of follow-up 
student interviews were analyzed as an expl
oration of potential affordances of Web 2.0 
technologies for impacting social justi
ce disposition and knowledge learning goals.  These potential affordances represent a-priori
 codes from previous research on blogs, 
wikis and video journals.  For a complete list of these themes/affordances, see Table 10. 
 Qualitative analysis of student work occu
rred in a series of passes over the data, 
beginning with descriptive coding, followed 
by, where appropriate, analytical coding through longitudinal and cross-section comp
arisons. Qualitative analysis began by organizing the data into analyzable segments
. Segments identified 
differed by media type 
but included individual sentences or a series of related sentences, individual images, 
videos or hyperlinks.  Following this, descriptive analysis then began with the purpose of identifying overall where the a priori codes/
affordances were likely to have been shown in students' work. For example, any evidence 
of making conceptual connections in a blog 
post based on input from readers (Deng & Yuen, 2011) would require looking at comments, then subsequent posts whereas students in their video journals demonstrating 
"stream of conscious honesty" and avoi
ding self-censoring (Loury, 1994; Marwick & 
boyd, 2011) would likely be found in individual videos. After identifying where these 
themes were likely to be evident, student wo
rk was typically read three to four times, 
focusing on a specific a-priori theme each ti
me to create a richer description of 
106 affordance use and its potential impact on th
e student's social ju
stice beliefs and/or knowledge.  
 It was during this descriptive analysis th
at a significant change occurred in the 
coding process and a new theme emerged. Init
ially, the second pass over student work sought to create categorical code to organize whether segments demonstrated affordances 
related to beliefs, knowledge or both. However,
 this strategy changed as it became clear 
that the assignment's gradi
ng criteria, not the medium used, dictated for what purpose 
students used the technology. For example, because blog and wiki assignments chiefly 

were graded on how well the student demons
trated their knowledge and did not ask students to express their beliefs about the subject, affordances originally thought of as relating to dispositional shifts were very infr
equently present. Similarly, as video journals 
were much more focused on students' own belie
fs and ideas, there seemed to be a paucity 
of use of affordances related to knowledge growth. Overall, the distinction between use for knowledge and dispositions was defined more by task, than affordance, and this stage 
in the analysis was therefore altered.  

 Instead of categorizing what kind of
 learning was occurring during each affordances' use, this stage of analysis con
tinued with a deeper descriptive analysis to identify frequency and patterns of affordance use that may have led to changes in social 
justice beliefs and/or knowledge. During this stage of descriptive coding, an additional category was created to represent when it appear
ed an affordance could have been used in 
a students' work (e.g., an image could have 
been used or a comment made by a reader 
could have been subsequently integrated) but was not. This fimissed opportunitiesfl is an 
emergent theme that developed during data an
alysis and is not specifically drawn from 107 previous research (though previous research has discussed the misuse and underuse of 
educational technology). Responses from st
udent interviews about their experiences using each technology were used to triangulate in
terpretations of the occurrence, or lack 
there of, of each affordance. 
 Following descriptive analysis based on a 
priori codes, analytical coding began on segments where a specific educational affordance use was evident. This comparative 

analysis occurred in two directions - across sections and longitudinally within the high-technology section. Looking across sections, segments with evidence of educational affordance use were compared to parallel sections of the same assignment done by a 

purposive sample of four high achieving students 
in the "traditional" class section.  This comparison sought to highlight frequency and th
ematic differences in how students in the 
high-technology section used the affordances of each technology in a way that might 
have impacted their dispositions and/or their knowledge in ways not used or unavailable 
to students in the traditional section. Lastly, segments representing students' use of 
educational affordance were compared to ot
her sections of the same students' work 
completed at a later time. This comparison was meant to demonstrate frequency and 

thematic changes over time in ways students us
ed the technologies' affordances that may 
have had an impact on their social justice 
beliefs and/or knowledge, in accordance with previous research. This time-based compar
ison was best suited for video journals and blog posts, which represent multiple entr
ies written over a three month period. 
 108 Table 10 Educational affordances used in qua
litative data analysis, by media type 
Media Type Affordance Previous Research 
Blogs B1. Enhanced self-expression via multiple 
media forms 
Deng & Yuen, 2011  B2. Reflection through connecting thoughts 
via hyperlinks between posts Ferdig & Trammell, 2004; 
Stiler & Philleo, 2003  B3. Making connections with input from 
readers Deng & Yuen, 2011  B4. Socio-emotional support when adopting 
critically consci
ous perspectives. Kreijns, Kirschner & 
Jochems, 2003 
Wikis W1. Reconsidering own ideas because of 
contributions from authors with 

different perspectives Chandra & Chalmers 
(2010); Reinhold & Abawi 
(2006)  W2. Socio-emotional support of 
camaraderie in ideological re-

examination 
Farkas, 2007   W3. Facilitated understanding of social 
justice concepts because of multiple 

contributorsâ„¢ perspectives and ideas Reinhold & Abawi, 2006 Video Journals VJ1. Greater depth and length of reflection Heintz, Borsheim, 
Caughlan & Juzwik, 2010  VJ2. Reflection through connections made 
after re-watching previous video 
journal entries Lee, 2008  VJ3. Lack of self-censoring (stream of 
conscious honesty Loury, 1994; Marwick & boyd, 2011  109 Strategies for Validating Findings  This study employed multiple strategies for validating findings from its 
quantitative and qualitative data analysis. 
 Clarifying bias.  Creswell (2013) describes the importance of qualitative 
researchers stating the biases they bring to 
the research in order 
to "create an open and honest narrative that will resonate well with the reader" (p. 196).  By stating my 
positionality at the beginning I am acknowledging the preexisting beliefs that color my 

interpretation of the data a
nd adding to the trustworthiness of my interpretation of the data and this study's results.  This is done, 
however, while maintaining that all teaching 
and research is biased (Applebaum, 2009). 

 Triangulation.  Triangulation is not necessarily a tool for validation, but an alternative to validation that adds dept
h, complexity, richness and rigor to an 
interpretation (Flick, 2002). In addition to member checking used as a guard against 
researcher bias in interpreting themes and 
patterns from students' work, the multiple 
sources of data in this study act as a form of triangulation 
for the study's overall results 
and conclusions.  For example, qualitative data was used in answering Research Question 

3, however it also serves to add layers to the ultimate conclusions that can be reached 
from the quantitative data analysis. 

 Second coders.  
A currently-practicing public school teacher who is also a former 
student of this course and knowledgeable about the learning goals of social justice education was used in the development 
of social justice knowledge instrument 
quantitative coding scales.  This contribution helped establish content validity of the instrument, establishing that students' answ
ers did indeed reflect their degree of 110 knowledge in each of the three domains.  In
 addition, a different second coder with 
experience using Web 2.0 technologies in 
instruction and significant knowledge of 
quantitative research methods was used in 
analyzing studentsâ„¢ answers on the social justice knowledge instrument fo
r quantitative data analysis. 
 This coder's input helped 
establish the inter-coder reliability of scales
 used in quantitative data analysis for 
Research Questions 2.1 and 2.2 
111 Chapter 5 - Results  This chapter reports the results of quantit
ative data analysis of studentsâ„¢ scores on two instruments and qualitative 
analysis of students' work on class assignments and post-
hoc interviews.  The two instruments used fo
r quantitative data collection and analysis 
are the Learning to Teach for Social Justic
e Å’ Beliefs survey and the Social Justice Knowledge short essay assignment  Results ar
e presented here organized by the Research Questions for which they provide evidence. A summary of pre-test/post-test changes in 
students' disposition and knowledge
 scores is presented below in Table 11. This data answers Research Question 1.1 and 2.1 as to the overall impact of the course on students' 
social justice dispositions and knowledge, regardless of course section. Table 11 Pre-test/post-test changes in dispositions and knowledge for each section and overall  Traditional Section Technology Section Overall 
 Pre Post Pre Post Pre Post 
Dispositions  3.68 
(0.38)  4.04** (0.38)  3.59 (0.32)  3.98** (0.52)  3.64 (0.35)  4.01** (0.45) Knowledge  1.36 
(0.55)  2.13** (0.64)  1.81 (0.13)  2.28* (0.78)  1.81 (0.60)  2.20** (0.65) * Pre-Post change p<0.05 ; ** Pre-Post change p<0.01  
  Research Question 1.1  This research question asks: What was the 
impact of the teacher education course 
on social justice education on pre-service teach
ersâ„¢ social justice di
spositions regardless 
of course section (n=30)? To answer this question, a pa
ired samples t-test was conducted 
on overall changes in studentsâ„¢ disp
ositions as measured by pre-test (
=3.64, SD=.35) and post-test (=4.01, SD=0.45) scores on the Learning to Teach for Social Justice-
112 Beliefs survey.  Figure 4 below displays the pre- post-test changes in studentsâ„¢ LTSJ-B 
scores by course section.  Figure 4: Pre-test/Post-test change in LTSJ-B scores by course section  When using a paired sample t-test, no
rmal distribution is assumed. Prior to 
analysis, normality of distribution for each va
riable was considered satisfactory as the 
skew and kurtosis levels were estimated at
 0.55 and 0.23 respectively for pre-test scores and -0.73 and -0.26 respectively for the post-test scores.  Results from the paired samples 
t-test provide evidence that the course did in fact significantly increase pre-service 
teachersâ„¢ social justice dispositions; 
t(29)=6.04, p<0.01, d=0.93. These results suggest that, when considering the degree of dispositi
onal change before and after the course for 
all students, the course achieved one of its stated goals: to shift studentsâ„¢ dispositions toward more socially just beliefs. 
 Connecting these results back to this 
study's conceptual framework of social 
justice beliefs (Table 12) further explains what this change in scores means. These results 
113 suggest that, regardless of course section, the 30 students in this study changed in their social justice dispositions over the course of the semester. 
By the end of the semester, 
students were more likely to believe in major 
tenets in social just
ice education including the power of teacher bias, that those bi
ases along with other social powers and institutions can further discriminate agains
t already marginalized children, and that 
teachers should be change agents, challeng
ing these systems of inequality through a 
multicultural and critically conscious curriculum and pedagogy.  

Table 12 Conceptual Framework of Social Justice Beliefs
 Belief Description 
B1 Identity markers are largely, if
 not entirely, socially constructed B2  Social power, discrimination and privile
ge is real in soci
ety (debunking myth of 
meritocracy) 
B3  Belief in bias (oneâ„¢s own & others) 

B4  Schools & teachers have historically, 
and continue to operate in a way that 
perpetuates inequality 
B5  Schools in all areas & teachers in all subjects should be change agents for 
students and society by incorporating multicultural curriculum and making 

issues of inequality explicit in their work 
   These results demonstrate a much larg
er effect size than those reported in 
previous studies that used the LTSJ-B as an assessment of change in students' social 
justice dispositions. Cochran-Smith, Ludlow, 
Ell, O'Leary & Enterline (2012) reported 
the results of three large-scale studies assess
ing the impact of teacher education programs 
in three countries on students' social justi
ce dispositions. Analysis of difference in pre-
114 test and post-test mean scores for students
 in these three progr
ams showed significant 
gains in students' social justice dispositions. However, these gains showed effect sizes of 

only d=0.16, d=0.11, and d=0.14 for each of the three programs. By Cohen's (1988) own 
standards, these effects sizes are relatively small.  

 Research by Evans (2013) found effect si
zes similar to those of Cochran-Smith et 
al. (2012).  Evans assessed the impact of a 
social justice mathematics course on three 
cohorts of teachers' dispositions. The cour
se was not found to have a statistically 
significant impact on teachers' LTSJ-B scores
 and relatively small effect sizes of 
d=0.0, d=0.25, and d=0.26 for each of the cohorts.  By comparison, the effect sizes of the LTS
J-B pre-test/post-test gains for students in this study were much larger. The overall effect size of dispositional change was 

d=0.93, representing nearly a one standard de
viation gain for students' dispositional 
scores. This represents tremendous growth in so
cial justice dispositions and indicates that the course in this study was exceptionally successful in impacting students' beliefs 
Research Question 1.2  This research question asks: How do these dispositional changes differ for 
students enrolled in the course section employing Web 2.0 technologies (
n=15) compared 
to students enrolled in the course section employing traditional methods of instruction 

(n=15)? To answer this question, a two 
way ANOVA test was conducted. A two way 
ANOVA considers two (or more) independent
 variables influence on a dependent variable. In this case, th
e independent variables are placement (i.e., studentsâ„¢ placement 
in either the high technology or traditional class and time (i.e., the time difference 
between studentsâ„¢ pre and post-test scores on the LTSJ-B). As was discussed in the 115 results for RQ1.1, there was a statistically significant main 
effect of time on students' 
LTSJ-B scores F(1,28) = 35.33, p<0.01, 2= 0.56. However, there was no statistically significant interaction effect between time 
and placement on studentsâ„¢ post-test LTSJ-B 
scores F(1,28) = 0.06, p=0.81, 2= 0.01. In other words, while there was a statistically significant within section
 change over time, there was 
not a statistically significant difference on the degree of change between sections change over time. 
 As reported in the previous section and in the Measuring dispositions section of 

the Literature Review, multiple previous studies
 have analyzed pre-test/post-test changes 
in LTSJ-B scores as an examination of the 
effects of individual courses (Evans, 2013; Lazar, 2012; Leonard & Evans, 2013) and entire programs (Anastasia & Hewett, 2012; 
Cochran-Smith, Ludlow, Ell, O'Leary & Enter
line, 2012; Enterline, 2008).  However, this research question features a cross-case comp
arison of the changes between two sectionsâ„¢ LTSJ-B scores as an examination of differen
tial impact of the educational affordances of traditional and Web 2.0 technologies unique to 
each section. Two previous studies that 
have quantitatively examined pre-test/post-te
st dispositional changes and collected data on multiple cases (Cochran-Smith, 2012 and Evans, 2013) did not examine differences in 

the degree of change between these cases.
 Cochran-Smith, Ludlow, Ell, Oâ„¢Leary and 
Enterline (2012) examined dis
positional changes in three teacher preparation programs 
and Evans (2013) examined these changes in 
three teacher cohorts over a single semester. 
However, unlike this research question, both of these studies did not take up the question of comparing the differential effect each 
program or courseâ„¢s affordances had on the dispositional outcomes. This research ques
tionâ„¢s results showing similar dispositional 
116 outcomes between two sections employing diffe
rent methods for social justice teacher 
education is unique in this body of research.  
 Connecting back to the conceptual framew
ork for this study, the similarity of the 
degree of dispositional change between sections indicates that the two groups were indistinguishable in how their scores shifted. This test result gives evidence that the 
combination of the common and unique affordances of each sections of the course had a 

very similar impact on students' dispositions. 
Research Question 2.1  This research question asks: What was the 
impact of the teacher education course 
on social justice education on pr
e-service teachersâ„¢ social ju
stice knowledge regardless of 
course section (n=30)? To answer this question, a pa
ired samples t-test was conducted on the pre- and post-test scores of each of the 
three questions comprising the Social Justice 
Knowledge short essay assignment as well as 
on studentsâ„¢ combined, overall scores on the assignment. The Social Justice Knowledge
 short essay assignment purports to assess 
studentsâ„¢ knowledge of 1) the way their own 
perspectives will influence their teaching, 2) 
the way their future studentsâ„¢ own perspectiv
es will influence their learning and 3) the 
socio-political contexts of education. Figure 5 below displays the pre- post-test changes in studentsâ„¢ scores on this knowledge assessment by course section. 
117  Figure 5: Pre-test/Post-test change in social jusice knowledge short essay assignment scores by course section  Overall, the difference between
 the mean pre-test scores (
=1.59, SD=0.57) on the Social Justice Knowledge short essay assignment were significantly different, 
t(29)=4.66, p<0.01, d=0.95, than the mean-post-test scores (
=2.20, SD=0.70) at the p<0.01 level. What this means is that, in general, students showed a significant improvement in their 
social justice-related knowledge from the beginning of the class to the end. Comparing 
studentsâ„¢ pre- and post-test scores on individual questions shows a similar result. The 
difference between pre-test scores (=1.59, SD=.57) and post-test scores (=2.2 SD=.70) on Question 1 was statistically significant, 
t(29)=4.66, p<0.01, d=0.95, at the p<0.01 level. Similarly, the difference between pre-test scores (
=1.66, SD=.46) and post-test scores (=1.96, SD=.64) on Questions 2 was also statistically significant, t(29)=2.16, p<0.05, d=0.53 at the p<0.05 level. Last, the difference between pre-test scores (
=2.19, SD=.58) and post-test scores (=2.43, SD=.53) on Questions 3 was statistically significant, t(29)=-2.23, p,0.05, d=0.43, at the p<0.05 level. 118  These results from the paired samples t-te
st provide evidence that the course did in fact have a statistically
 significant impact on pre-serv
ice teachersâ„¢ social justice 
knowledge of the impact of their own biases; 
t(29)=-4.66, p<0.01, d=0.95, those of their students; t(29)=-2.16, p=0.04, d=0.53 and the influence of historical, political and social contexts on schools; t(29)=-2.23, p=0.03 d=0.43. These results suggest that, when considering the degree of knowledge change before and after the course for all students, the course achieved one of its stated goals: to make st
udents more knowledgeable about three relevant knowledge domains important 
for being an effective social justice educator.  Connecting these results back to this study's conceptual framework of social 
justice knowledge (Table 13) further explains 
what this change in scores means. These 
results suggest that, regardless of course section, the 30 students in this study changed over time in their knowledge of i
ssues related to social justice in education. By the end of the semester, students had a better understand
ing of how their own previous experiences will influence their work as teachers, how st
udentsâ„¢ previous experiences will influences 
their experiences in school, and of historical, social, and political contexts that have 
influenced education.  119 Table 13 Conceptual Framework of Social Justice Knowledge  Knowledge Description 
K1 Critical knowledge of self; personal 
biases, past experiences as shaping 
beliefs; knowledge of own beliefs
 & assumptions; knowledge of own 
identity markers; knowledge of how th
ese influence their own educational 
experiences 
K2 Critical knowledge of students; knowl
edge of their cultures and identity 
markers; how these influence their educational experiences 
K3 Critical knowledge of current and hi
storical political a
nd social contexts 
of education   It is difficult to compare these results 
to prior research as 
researchers have not previously quantified social justice knowle
dge as a measurable variable. Previous 
research has argued that part of learning to be a social justice educator is gaining 
knowledge such as those represented in this study's conceptual framework. However, no 
previous research has qualitatively or quantitatively meas
ured social justice knowledge, nor assessed the impact a course like the 
one in this study may have on such knowledge. 
Research Question 2.2  This research question asks: How do these knowledge changes differ for students enrolled in the course section employing Web 2.0 technologies (
n=15) compared to students enrolled in the course section employing traditional methods of instruction 
(n=15)? To answer this question, four sepa
rate two-way ANOVA tests were conducted, one for each question on the Social Justice Knowledge short essay assignment and a final 

test for each student's overall average score on this assignment. A two way ANOVA 
considers two (or more) independent variables 
influence on a dependent variable. In this 120 case, the independent variables are section (i.e., studentsâ„¢ placemen
t in either the high 
technology or traditional class) and time (i.e., the time difference between studentsâ„¢ pre 
and post-test scores on the short essay assignment). As was discussed previously, there 
were statistically significant main effect
s of time on studentsâ„¢ scores on all three 
knowledge questions. For question one, the results were 
F(1,28) = 21.93, p<0.01, 2= 0.44, for question two the results were F(1,28) = 4.56, p<0.05, 2= 0.14, and for question three, the results were 
F(1,28) = 4.84, p<0.05, 2= 0.15. Similar to the change shown on each individual question, there was a signifi
cant main effect of time on students' overall 
scores on this assignment 
F(1,28) = 21.93, p<0.01, 2= 0.44.  However, there was no statistically signifi
cant interaction effect between time and 
placement on studentsâ„¢ post-test Social Justice Knowledge short essay assignment scores 

for any individual question or students' overa
ll score. For question 1, the results were F(1,28) = 1.30, p=0.26, 2= 0.04, for question 2 the results were 
F(1,28) = 0.35, p=0.56, 2= 0.01, for question 3 the results were 
F(1,28) = 0.14, p=0.71, 2= 0.01 and for students' overall scores, the results were 
F(1,28) = 1.30, p=0.26, 2= 0.04. In other words, while there was a statistically significant 
within section
 change over time, there was not a 
statistically significant difference on th
e degree of that change over time 
between sections. 
 Connecting back to the conceptual framew
ork for this study, the similarity of the 
degree of knowledge change between sections indicates the two groups were indistinguishable in how they grew in their knowledge. This test result gives evidence that the combination of the common and uni
que affordances of each sections of the 
course had a very similar impact on 
students' social 
justice knowledge. 121  It is not known how these ANOVA results 
fit with previous results as no past research has measured soci
al justice knowledge quantitatively or qualitatively.  Research Question 3  This research question asks: In what ways does using a collection of Web 2.0 
applications influence how students develop their social justic
e dispositions and knowledge? To answer this question, student
 blogs, wikis and video journals were analyzing in a series of stages
 to identify, categorize, and ev
aluate evidence of specific 
affordances being used to represent the st
udentsâ„¢ social justice dispositions and knowledge (see Methods section). This analysis was based on specific affordances 
examined by previous research that may be 
particularly useful for achieving the studyâ„¢s 
social justice dispositional and learning outcomes (Table 14). Following this analysis, 
students were interviewed about their work and the researcherâ„¢s interpretations. The results of that analysis are presented by media type, with pa
rticular attention given to each affordance under analysis. Table 15 pres
ents a summary of the frequency each 
affordance was noted being used in the data
 or reported to be used by students during interviews. 
122 Table 14 Educational affordances used in qua
litative data analysis, by media type 
Media Type Affordance Previous Research 
Blogs B1. Enhanced self expression via 
multiple media forms 
Deng & Yuen, 2011  B2. Reflection through connecting 
thoughts via hyperlinks 
between posts Ferdig & Trammell, 2004; 
Stiler & Philleo, 2003  B3. Making connections with 
input from readers 
Deng & Yuen, 2011  B4. Socio-emotional support when 
adopting critically conscious 
perspectives. Kreijns, Kirschner & 
Jochems, 2003 
Wikis W1. Reconsidering own ideas 
because of contributions from 

authors with different 
perspectives Chandra & Chalmers, 
2010; Reinhold & Abawi, 
2006  W2. Socio-emotional support of 
camaraderie in ideological re-

examination 
Farkas, 2007   W3. Facilitated understanding of 
social justice concepts 

because of multiple 

contributorsâ„¢ perspectives and 
ideas Reinhold & Abawi, 2006 Video Journals VJ1. Greater depth and length of 
reflection Heintz, Borsheim, 
Caughlan & Juzwik, 2010  VJ2. Reflection through 
connections made after re-

watching previous video 
journal entries Lee, 2008  VJ3. Lack of self-censoring 
(stream of conscious honesty 
Loury, 1994; Marwick & boyd, 2011  123 Table 15 Frequency of educational affordances use, by media type Media Type  Affordance  Frequency  
Blogs  B1. Enhanced self expression via 
multiple media forms  
17 of 32 (53%) posts included images/video clips  
  B2. Reflection through connecting 
thoughts via hyperlinks between 
posts  0 of 32 posts (0%) used hyperlinks in connections of 
ideas to other posts   B3. Making connections with input 
from readers  
9 of 45 (20%) comments 
incorporated into subsequent 
writing   B4. Socio-emotional support when 
adopting critically conscious 
perspectives.  43 of 45 (96%) comments 
contained socio-emotional 

support Wikis  W1.Reconsidering own ideas because 
of contributions from authors 

with different perspectives  0 of 4 (0%) students reported influence by wiki on opinion on 
class topics   W2.Soci-emoti
onal support of camaraderie in ideological re-

examination  
0 of 4 (0%) students reported feeling support from peers 

through wiki     W3.Facilitated understanding of social 
justice concepts because of 
multiple contributorsâ„¢ 
perspectives and ideas  2 of 4 (50%) students reported improved understanding of class 

concepts resulting from reading 
othersâ„¢ wikis Video Journals  VJ1.Greater depth and length of reflection  20 of 24 (83%) of video journals exceeded length and 
time requirements of journal 
  VJ2.Reflection through connections made after re-watching previous 

video journal entries  7 of 24 (29%) journal entries referenced previous journal 
entries 
  VJ3.Lack of self-censoring (stream of 
consciousness honesty)  1 of 4 (25%) students reported never censoring speech in 

journal entries 124  Blogs. Over the course of
 one month, students in the high technology section 
wrote a series of blog posts analyzing a current event or media artifact. In their analysis, 
students applied ideas from cla
ss readings to their event/artifact, discussed classroom 
implications and, in their final post, reflected
 on the process of writing their blog. In their 
posts and in comments from classmates assi
gned to fifollowfl them, students™ work 
demonstrated, to various degrees, their use of
 the individual educational affordances of 
these technologies (see Table 14) in re
presenting their beliefs and knowledge.   Overall, the four students 
in the purposive sample fr
equently took advantage of using images and videos as enhanced forms of
 self expression (affordance B1). Over the 32 blog posts analyzed, students used images
 and/or video clips in 17 posts (53%). Meanwhile, students also frequently provided socio-emotional support when adopting 
critically conscious perspectives (affordance 
B4). Of the 45 comments left by students, 
almost all (43) contained some socio-emo
tional support. On the other hand, writers infrequently used the blogs' comments to info
rm their subsequent posts (affordance B3). 
While 32 of the 45 total comments left by readers contained feedback that could have aided the writers' thinking about their topics, 
only nine times did th
e writers incorporate this feedback into their later writing. Sim
ilarly, students infrequently made use of blogs' 
ability to hyperlink ideas between posts as
 a way of demonstra
ting their conceptual knowledge (affordance B2). Twenty of the 32 blog posts contained language that specifically referred back (or ahead) to big ideas elaborated in othe
r posts, but in all 20 examples, the writer did not make 
the explicit connection via hyperlink.  Deng & Yuen (2011) argued that the ab
ility of blogs to incorporate multiple 
forms of media such as images and videos
 may enhance writers' self expression beyond 
125 that which would be possible with text alone (affordance B1). In the purposive sample 
here, students did in fact frequently use this affordance. In 17 of the 32 blog posts analyzed, students included images and/or
 video clips (8 included only images, 5 
included only video clips, 4 included both imag
es and videos).  Students primarily used 
images and videos to supplement their text 
as they demonstrated
 their knowledge of social justice concepts. For example, one st
udent, in discussing religious identity added an image of several re
ligious icons at the top of her post. As another example, a student included a YouTube video clip that showed statistics of bullying against LGBT youths. In her text, the student referred back to these statistics, connecting them to the social justice 
class concepts of individual and structural discriminati
on (see Figure 6).   Students made less use of affordance 
B1 over time. After a month of writing 
posts, only one student included a video or image in any of their final two posts. 
Interview data from students gave two possible 
reasons for this decline in use. First, as 
two students explained, finding videos and images from external sites was simply too 
time consuming. The time necessary to find illu
strative videos and images was seen as 
especially unnecessary because, as one student
 commented, they were not part of their 
grade on the assignment. 
126  Figure 6 Sample blog post using video and images in addition to text 
  Previous research by Ferdig and Tra
mmell (2004) and Stiler and Philleo (2003) has argued that because of the affordances of
 hypertext and the fact that blog posts are 
written over time, but still connected under 
a single site, writing on a blog may aid 
writers' reflection (affordance B2). This afford
ance specifically allow writers to connect 
their thoughts in one post back to previous posts (or, with post-hoc editing, forward to later posts) and perhaps, enable them to 
more deeply understand a concept. At times, 
students did demonstrate that they were met
acognitively thinking about their previous or 
future thoughts expressed in other blog posts. For example, 
while discussing the social 127 class of characters in the movie Crash, one
 student referred back to his previous discussion of racial identity in the movie and to a future post on the intersection of these 
two identity markers. However, in neither
 instance did he actually hyperlink these explicit references in his present thoughts back or forward to his thinking in other posts. This kind of passing textual reference to a students' thinking ela
borated elsewhere was 
seen in comparative examples of students' 
papers. For example, three students in the traditional course section used phrases such as "as I will discuss later" and "as I said 

previously" in their text-only papers. Interview data gave some explanation for why blog 
writing students did not use hyperlinks to connect their thoughts between posts. As one student stated succinctly, she "didn't think to do that because [the instructor] didn't ask us 

to."  
 Deng and Yuen (2011) argued that blogs have a unique affordance for 

communication between writer and audience that
 can help shape the writers' message 
(affordance B3). Specifically, blog posts are wr
itten individually over a period of time, 
and readers are able to leave comments 
on the writers' work. This communication 
channel between reader and writer facilitates a feedback loop that may improve students' 
conceptual knowledge as they write. Out of 45 comments analyzed in this study, the majority (32 out of 45; 71%) provided constr
uctive input to the writer about the writers' 
conceptual understanding (see Figure 7). However, for a variety of reasons, this feedback 
was largely unincorporated into the writers' 
thinking, as only nine times did those 32 
constructive comments noticeably impact the students' writing. 
128  Figure 7 Blog post comment providing feedback for the author  Students offered several reasons for not 
using this affordance. First, students found comments somewhat limited to specific 
posts and not as helpful in informing 
future posts. For example, one reader asked 
the author of a blog about LGBT bullying to expand her discussion of discrimination, but because future
 posts focused on different social justice concepts, the writer judged her work to be sufficient and instead chose to 

move to the next post/concept. In interviews three of the four students sampled said they did not regularly read the comments left by their readers because comments come after 
the assignments are due and because comments we
re not seen as useful or necessarily as 
constructive. When one student was shown an
 example of a reader's comment made on a 
mid-month post that she could have incor
porated into a later post, the student 
acknowledged that she had simply stopped read
ing comments altogether by that point.   It is worth noting that one student 
in the sample not only regularly read 
classmates' comments before writing later pos
ts but also took that feedback into 
consideration as she wrote future posts. For example, in the comments section of her 
initial post introducing her analysis of the television show Glee, a reader suggested the writer describe the role other characters' reactio
ns, especially those of the athletes, played 
129 in enforcing gender norms in the show. The writer included both suggestions in her 
subsequent gender analysis post. In all, while the potential for blogs' affordance of user 
feedback in knowledge co-construction was attempted and at times fully realized, overall 
this affordance was underutilized and, over time, frequently ignored. 
 Students did use the commenting featuri
ng of blogs for another purpose noted by previous research (Dickey, 2004; Kreijns, Kirschner & Jochems, 2003) and particularly 
useful in social justice education courses: socio-emotional support (affordance B4). Throughout the sample of student blogs, almo
st all comments (43 out of 45) included 
some form of socio-emotional support (see 
Figure 8). A portion (15 out of 45) of these 
comments gave only vague or general positive feedback such as "I really think you picked a great topic" and "Great job, can't wait to hear mo
re!" that did not specially address the writers' expression 
of a social just disposition. However, the remaining 28 out 
of 45 (62%) comments were directed at the writers' dispositions. As an example of this 
kind of support, in response to a students' analysis of oppressive gender norms, one 
student commented, "I definitely agree – societ
y has made this picture of what an 'ideal' 
woman should be, that so many just can't liv
e up to, so they feel insecure and it causes 
many problems in their lives." This kind of 
agreement and support of the writers' beliefs 
was a common refrain through the comments section.  130  Figure 8 Blog post comment providing socio-emotional support to the author   Readers also frequently gave s
upport by recognizing when the writer has successfully/accurately analyzed a concept.
 For example, two students responded to a 
writers' analysis of sexual
 orientation as represented in the television show Glee with comments like, "I think you did an excellent job of displaying different aspects of what sexual orientation brings to Glee" and "You explain the ideas of personal homophobia, 
interpersonal homophobia, institutional homopho
bia and cultural homophobia very well." 
These kinds of comment do not give
 explicit support for the writer 
expressing socially just beliefs. Nonetheless, this approval/recognition tacitly supports the writers' socially 
just perspective.  This pattern of support dovetails with the fact that nowhere across the sample did a reader challenge or express an id
eological critique of a writersâ„¢ socially-just 
language/perspective. Some students suggest
ed the writer add to their analysis by including additional ideas or references, but 
none of the 45 comments criticized the writer 
for their beliefs. Taken as a whole, the ma
jority of comments in some way showed 
131 affirmation of the critically 
conscious dispositions expressed by the author and criticism 
of the authors' beliefs was completely abse
nt. This consistent support indicates that, overall, students used this affordance of blogs to help support their classmates' social 
justice dispositional development. 

 As with using reader comments to
 co-construct knowledge, commenting to provide socio-emotional support is potentially 
seen in a peer-editing collaborative writing setting for traditional, text-only writing. However, the rapidity and in-line nature of blog comments make this feedback channel more 
efficient, and potentially have a greater impact in supporting social justice disposit
ion taking when done online. It is worth recalling however that, during interviews, three out of four students acknowledged not reading comments on a regular basis. That be
ing said, these students all said they read 
comments, just not immediately after they were posted. Therefore, it was not surprising that, when asked about how it felt to read supportive comments, all four students said 
they enjoyed their readers' emotional support,
 even if that support was not received on a post-by-post basis. 
 Wikis. 
Over the last month of the course, st
udents in the high technology section worked individually and in groups to write a collection of pages for a class wiki. Each page focused on one identity marker (e.g., race, 
social class) and contained five sections 
explaining different aspect of that identity 
marker (e.g., social construction, privilege, 
discrimination) as discussed in class. Tw
o of the students in this purposive sample 
worked on sections for the Social Class wiki
 page and two students worked together on the Language wiki page.  132  Pages and sections that 
students wrote in the course Wiki were examined for 
evidence of students' use of educational affo
rdances derived from previous research (W1, 
W2, and W3 from Table 14).  Overall, stude
nts' final written work demonstrated no 
observable evidence of any of the themes derived from previous research. 
Because these themes focus on students' inte
ractions and therefore may not be readily 
observable from the finished text, a second st
age of data analysis was used, examining 
the tracked changes group member made to one
 another's writing (see Figure 9). In this 
sample, students made a total of 30 revisions to
 their groups' wiki pages. These revisions 
were not evenly split between the two groups
 - the Language group's wiki page only had 
3 revisions, all by the same student, while 
the Social Class group's wiki page had 27 
revisions by three different students.   Figure 9 Wiki track changes page 133 Of these 30 revisions, six changes were a student adding their own original text to the wiki page, seven changes were a student editing their own writing, and 17 changes were made to another students writing. Of these 
17 instances of a student editing another student's text, all represented only minor ch
anges to punctuation (five times), formatting 
(six times), phrasing (four times) or gramma
r (two times) (see Figure 10). Taken as a 
whole, as with the first stage of data analysis, the textual record of students' collaboration 
through changes to one another's wiki sections
 showed no evidence of students using the collaborative affordances of wikis in ways described by previous research to shift dispositions, provide socio-emotional s
upport, or deepen students' conceptual 
understanding.  Figure 10 Sample edit made to wiki page showing minor grammar changes  Student interviews were next used to triangulate these observations by asking students directly about their experiences with 
the wiki's collaborative elements. Previous 
research by Chandra and Chalmers (2010) a
nd Reinhold & Abawi (2006) has argued that wikis' ability to facilitate collaboration be
tween people with different perspectives can 134 expose writers to a greater variety of ideas 
and thus lead individual contributors to reconsidering their own ideas (i.e., affordance W1). In interviews, all four students acknowledged reading the contributions of other students in their own group and those working on other identity marker sections. 
However, no student reported having their opinions about class topics influenced by what they read on the wiki. As one student explained, "Basically, [the wiki] was all the same kinds of
 things people would say in class, – I paid attention in class and thought more about what people were talking about 
in class than what was on the wiki. It was the same kind of things 
though, just the same 
ideas."  
 In addition to shifting dispositions, 
Reinhold & Abawi (2006) argued that the collaborative elements of wikis can help st
udents better understand a concept because of multiple contributors' perspectives being added (affordance W3). Of the four students 

interviewed, two agreed they understood class concepts at least somewhat better because 
of reading others' wiki pages, while two st
udents did not see much benefit. One student specifically identified the power of multiple 
contributions on the wiki as helping her 
understanding. This student noted some students 
were quiet in class, but "talked" through the wiki and that their contributing to the conversation was beneficial because, "people have different ideas about [class concepts] and reading people's different ideas and 
opinions helps you see how complicated this 
all is." Not all students saw a learning benefit to reading multiple perspectives on 
class concepts. One student noted that the 
ideas presented were not significantly different 
than what was said in class, because, as 
he put it, "I think people knew what to write and were just trying to get a good grade and follow the assignment."  
135  Lastly, researchers such as Farkas (2
007) have argued that the collaborative element of wikis can lend so
cio-emotional support to i
ndividual students (affordance W2). Of the four students interviewed, none of the students reported feeling additional, direct, support from their peers through th
e wiki. One student, noted that, unlike blogs, there was not a channel for students to provide support to others. She said, " With the 
blogs, readers were saying nice things to sort of encourage each other. – but nobody said anything on the [wiki] page." However two students acknowledged that there may have 
been some tacit support in that, because, as
 one student said, "people would agree with each other and piggyback off what some
body was saying, so you knew somebody agreed 
with you wrote [on the wiki]." On the other hand, two students did not feel a sense of support from their classmates through their 
work on the wiki. These students qualified that this lack of feeling supported may have been mostly due 
to the fact that they were not looking for such support. One student reported already feeling "very comfortable" talking about issues of discrimination and id
entity, and did not need much affirmation 
from her classmates (on or offline), while th
e other student said "I didn't really think 
about what others thought about my part of the page. – I didn't really care if people 
agreed with me or not, I really just wanted
 to make sure I was getting a good grade." 
 Video journals.  
Over the course of the semester, each student in the high 
technology section recorded six video journals
 (six written journals in the traditional 
section) reflecting on their experiences obser
ving in a local classroom. Students were 
instructed to make their vide
o journals at least six minutes
 long (two pages long in the traditional section) and focus on their own reflection and analysis of what they saw that 

week  rather than simply describing/summariz
ing classroom events. Ea
ch student in this 136 sample produced six video journals. These 24 
videos were examined for evidence of 
students' use of educational affordances desc
ribed in previous research (VJ1, VJ2, and VJ3 from Table 14).  Where applicable, video 
journals were compared to a sample of 24 
written journals from four high achieving st
udents in the traditional class section.  
 Overall, students' video journals dem
onstrated a mixed picture of use of the 
mediums' educational affordances. Students'
 video journals more frequently (83%) exceeded length expectations as compared to 
written journals (54%), but video journal 
students did not spend most of their time anal
yzing events (37%) as compared to students 
writing their journals (52%) who did so. A greater number 
of video journals (29%) referenced previous journals as compared to 17% of written journals, but all references in 

both video and written journals were to general, big ideas rather than specific details. 
Finally, in very few (2 out of 24, 8%) video journals did the speaker explicitly appear to self-censor (e.g., by saying, "How should I put this?"). On the other hand, all videos 
contained behaviors potentially indicative of self-censoring (e.g., long pauses, looking away from the camera) but that could also be
 interpreted as simply aiding recall. Because 
of the ambiguous nature of these observed be
haviors, follow up interviews asked students 
about the degree to which they self-censored while recording video journals. All four students reported that they infrequently, if ever, stopped themselves from saying 
something the way they were thinking. 

 In their reflection on using various we
b 2.0 technologies with their students, Heintz, Borsheim, Caughlan and Juzwik (2010) 
noted that video channels may lead to 
greater length and depth of student reflection (affordance VJ1). Students were instructed to make their video journals a minimum of 
six minutes in length, which is comparable 
137 when read aloud to two double space pages (the minimum page length for written 
journals) and to spend most of their time 
analyzing events (as opposed to describing them). Therefore, as a way to measure this a
ffordance, videos journals were compared to 
written journals in terms of 
their overall length and the percentage of time the student 
spent analyzing events. Overall, 20 out of 24 (83%) video journals exceeded length 
expectations while only 13 out of 24 (54%) of written journals did so. The extended time 
students took on their video journals however did not mean they
 used that extra time for a 
greater degree of reflection and analysis. On average, video journal students spent most 
of their time describing events (63%) as opposed
 to analyzing those events (37% of their video time). This pattern of favoring descri
ption over analysis also compares poorly to 
written journals were students did use the majo
rity (52%) of their reflection to analyze, 
rather than describe, classroom events. In 
a follow up interview, one who consistently recorded videos longer than the expected length, acknowledged spending most of that time describing and "babbling on" about wh
at she saw that day, saying, "I don't know 
what I was trying to say, I think I was just happy to talk about my day and I didn't really 
think about the assignment [to analyze]." 

 Several researchers have argued refl
ective journaling may enhance students 
conceptual understanding of subject matter (Hiemstra, 2001; Schoen, 1987; Van Maanan, 
1990) while others have focused on the impor
tance of making connections in journals 
(Lee, 2008). Students in both sections of the course were encouraged to review previous journal entries before writing new ones, 
but video journals, being accessible from 
anywhere and easily reviewable in just a few minutes may 
be particularly suited to revisiting and making connections (VJ affordan
ce 2). In addition, students' past videos 
138 are accessible from the main page they use 
to record new videos, further facilitating access to previous videos for re-watching (s
ee Figure 11).  Indeed, it seems video journal 
writers more often made explicit connections ba
ck to previous journal entries. Seven out of 24 (29%) video journals in this sample referenced previ
ous journals in some way as 
compared to only four out of 24 (17%) of wr
itten journals. Notably though, both of these percentage represent a small portion of the to
tal sample. This underuse by both groups is 
most likely due to the fact that students did not frequently re-watch their previous video journals. In follow up interviews, one student reported never re-watching his videos; the other three reported only watching previous videos again "once or twice."  
 Figure 11 Sample video journal page showing previous videos on the same page   Last, video journals were analyzed for ev
idence that speakers refrained from self-
censoring (VJ affordance 3). Previous resear
ch has argued that self-censoring is an impediment to honest discourse and reflecti
on (Loury, 1994), a practice that carries over 
139 with similar effects to co
mputer mediated communication (Marwick & boyd, 2011). An 
initial analysis of students' video journals 
found that all videos contained instances of behaviors that may be used for self-cen
soring such as pausing during explanation, looking away from the camera, and using quali
fying words, Additionally, in two videos 
the speakers seemed to explicitly state they
 were avoiding saying something (e.g., saying, 
"How should I put this?"). However, it was not clear by simply vi
ewing video journals the thought process behind these actions. In follow up interviews, students were asked to review their video journals and report to what degree they recall censoring themselves 
while recording their journals. No student re
ported re-recording a video because they did 
not like how or what they said.  One student reported "never" stopping himself from 
saying something the way he was thinking 
it; all three other students reported infrequently doing so. 
 140 Chapter 6 - Discussion 
Overall Impact on Dispositions  A major conclusion of the results of this
 study is the course's impact on students' 
dispositions. Overall, combining both the traditional and high-technology sections of the course (n=30), the course was successful in shifti
ng students' dispositions toward being 
more socially just. This is seen in the significant difference between 
students' pre-test and 
post-test scores on the LTSJ-B scale. At th
e beginning of the semester, the average score 
on the LTSJ-B pre-test across both sections was a 3.64 out of five. The LTSJ-B asks students the degree to which they agree or disagree with social-justice minded statements 
such as fiteachers should teach students to th
ink critically about gove
rnment positions and 
actionsfl with a score of 3 translating to fiuns
ure."  Therefore, at the beginning of the semester, students™ dispositions were not fianti-social justice,fl but their scores did not 

indicate a clear agreement with these kinds
 of social justice-minded statements.  
However, by the end of the course, these scores had shifted to a mean score of 4. 01 out 
of five, meaning students on average "agreed" 
with social-justice minded statements such 
as fipart of the responsibilitie
s of the teacher is to chal
lenge school arrangements that 
maintain societal inequities." The post-tests 
score showing a clear agreement with social 
justice dispositional statements demonstrates 
a significant change in students' beliefs and 
an important outcome of the course. 

 This change in studentsâ„¢ beliefs is
 important on a conceptual level when considering the role dispositions play in te
acher education, especi
ally social justice 
education. Dispositions represent a fundame
ntal component of being a social just 
educator. In order to practice the kinds of culturally relevant pedagogies infused with 141 multicultural curriculum social justice educators have created and promoted, a belief that 
teaching as a political act for challenging sy
stemic inequality not only matters, but that it 
is possible, and indeed a responsibility of all educators. Dispositions represent a 

necessary but not sufficient element of being 
a socially just educator. Agreeing with the 
socially-just statements on the LTSJ-B only i
ndicates a dispositional alignment with these 
beliefs. However, from these foundational be
liefs, students in this study are making an 
important step along the way to beco
ming socially just educators.  
 This study's results are exceptional when co
mpared to previous research that has 
used the LTSJ-B instrument as a pre-test/pos
t-test assessment of the impact of social 
justice teacher education cour
ses on participants' dispositions.  For example, the three 
social justice teacher education programs 
reported on in Cochran-Smith et al. (2012) 
employed similar samples, methods, and measurement instruments as this study, and, like 

this study found statistically significant gains on studentsâ„¢ LTSJ-B post-test scores. 
Meanwhile, Evans (2013) reported no significant gains in LTSJ-B scores in his 
evaluation of three teacher cohorts in a social justice mathematics course. However, what 
is most noteworthy is that, in none of these cas
es were the effects of the treatment (i.e., 
course or program) nearly as large as those reported here. 

 The effect sizes for dispositional gains at the three sites reported in Cochran-

Smith et al. (2013) were 
d=0.16, d=0.11, and d=0.14. Similarly, Evans (2013) reported 
effect sizes of 
d=0.00, d=0.25, and d=0.26.  Compared to the d=0.93 effect size reported in this study, it is clear this course was exceptionally effective in impacting studentsâ„¢ 

social justice dispositions. This gain in dispositional scores represents nearly one standard deviation in dispositional growth, meaning the 
dispositions held by students in this course 
142 were clearly and figrossly noticeablyfl (Cohen, 1988) different than those they expressed before the course began.  Comparing these eff
ect sizes, it could be ar
gued that, at least in terms of dispositions, the course in this st
udy had more of an impact on students in one 
semester than other courses and even entire
 social justice teacher education programs 
lasting one and four years. The size of these effects speaks to the strength of the course, instructor, and assignments, and their affordan
ces for impacting social justice beliefs.  
Overall Impact on Knowledge 
 A second major conclusion of this study 
is the course's impact on students' 
knowledge. Overall, the course (combining 
both sections) was successful in improving 
students' knowledge of social justice in educa
tion issues. This is seen in the significant difference between students' pre-test and post-
test scores on the short essay assignment. 
Not only did students demonstrate a significant changes in 
their overall knowledge of issues related to social justice, they demonstr
ated a significant change in each of the three 
items included on the assessment.  Similar to 
shifting students' social justice dispositions, 
deepening students' social justice knowledge
 was not an explicit goal of the course.  However, students nonetheless showed a signif
icant change in these areas of knowledge because of their participation in the course. 
 Conceptually, social justice knowledge 
plays an important part in becoming a 
socially just educator.  Teaching from a crit
ically conscious perspective requires not only 
an ideological belief in the values of social justice education, but also a knowledge how systems of inequality operate 
in educational settings.  Without this knowledge, beliefs are 
difficult to put into practice.  The short-essa
y assignment used in 
this study specifically 
asked students to demonstrate th
eir knowledge about three areas  how their own past 143 experience may influence their teaching; how 
students' past experiences influence their 
work in the classroom; and of the social, histor
ical, and political context of education that maintain systems of inequality.  The fact th
at students showed, on average, significant 
gains in each of these areas dem
onstrates that students in this course are growing in their 
preparation for being socially just educators.  See Future Research section for future directions in researching social justice knowledge.  Two major contributions of this study's quantitative assessment of students' social 

justice knowledge are to provide evidence that
 "social justice knowledge" as a variable can be measured and, as a learning outcome,
 can be changed.  Previous theoretical research has argued that there are a number of areas of knowle
dge social justice educators need to develop; However, very little work has been done to conceptualize "social justice knowledge" as a measurable variable.  The wo
rk of Howard (2006) was central to this study because it was one of few pieces of research that presented a multi-dimensional 
view of "social justice knowledge."  The three sides of Howard's Achievement Triangle 
represent the three knowledge domains assessed in this study.  However, Howard does not attempt to measure this know
ledge overall or in its individual pieces.  This study and its results build off that previous work to demonstrate that a multi-dimensional 

conceptualization of "social justice know
ledge" is possible and measurable.  See 
Implications for Researchers for further di
scussion on future directions in measuring 
social justice knowledge. 
 In addition to conceptualizing "social ju
stice knowledge" as a variable, the results of this study provide evidence that students can change in their knowledge of issues related to social justice through participati
on in teacher educati
on courses.  At the 
144 beginning of the semester, students' scores 
on their social justice knowledge assessment 
(1.xx out of a possible 5) were notably low.  At the end of the semester, students' scores 
on this assessment were still relatively low (
2.xx out of a possible 5).  Still, this change represents a statistically significant growth in their knowledge.  Learning about issues such as teacher bias, students' lived experiences, and the multiple contexts influencing 

education is a life-long process. 
 The results of this study argue that social justice teacher 
education courses can be an inte
gral part of that process. Lack of Difference Between Sections 
 Another major conclusion from the resu
lts of this study is that there was no significant difference in the dispositional and knowledge growth between the traditional and high technology sections of the course.  This lack of impact is seen
 in the statistically insignificant results of the ANOVA test.  This test showed a main eff
ect of pre-test/post-test time on students' disposition and knowledge
 scores, but no interaction effect of students' placement in either 
the traditional or high technology section.  In other words, what the ANOVA results mean is that the de
gree of change students in the traditional section demonstrated in their beliefs and knowledge is so similar to the degree of change 
students in the high technology section demonstr
ated in these assessments that the two 
groups are virtually indistinguishable.  There 
are multiple possible explanations for why 
the change in disposition and knowledge scores were so similar between the groups. 
 The same road. The first possible explanation is that the two groups were more 
similar than they were different.  The two sect
ions of the course shared a large number of 
common elements with affordances that mi
ght have led to changes in students' 
dispositions and knowledge.  For example, 
the two courses had in common the course 145 instructor, the course schedule and readings, similar student
 make ups, and several class assignments.  It is entirely possible that b
ecause of this high degree of similarity, the 
courses were in essence the same road to th
e same destination.  These common elements 
and their educational affordances may have b
een what made the most significant impact 
on students' dispositions and knowledge as comp
ared to the relatively few elements that 
differentiated the course sections (e.g., the medium used on three specific assignments).  
Previous research has argued that a number of elements incl
uded in the course in this 
study (e.g., cultural autobiographies, cross-cultural interactions, and reflective journaling) can influence social justice learning outcome
s, especially students' dispositions.   
 Two roads to the same destination.
 The second possible explanation is that the two courses were in fact quite different from one another.
  However, these different versions of the course were equally succe
ssful in changing students' dispositions and 
knowledge.  Focusing on the three class assignments that used different media between 
course sections, these assignments constituted a significant portion of students' work in 
the class.  While there were common elem
ents between the two sections, it is also possible that the unique affordances of the traditional and high technology media were 
equally effective in impacting students' learning
 in the course.  For example, it is possible that for students in the traditional section, writing their critical analysis paper as one continuous single-authored document helped
 them see the connections between the different parts of their analysis and better understand the multi-dimensional, complex 

concepts that make up social justice know
ledge.  Meanwhile, for students in the high-technology section, it is entirely possible that they were able to see similar connections 
146 thanks to feedback from their blogs' readers'
 comments.  Therefore, the courses represent 
two roads leading to the same dispositional and knowledge change.  
  Missed opportunities.
 The third possible explanation for the similarity in the two 
groups' changes is that 
the course sections might have represented unique paths leading to possibly different outcomes, but the medium in 
the high technology section were not used 
in a way that differentiated their impact on 
students' social jus
tice dispositions and knowledge. Qualitative data analysis of student work gave some evidence of students 
using the unique educational affordances of these technologies in a way that was 
qualitatively different than comparable studen
t work from the tradit
ional course section. For example, in a blog post analyzing the i
ssue of sexual orientation, one student used a video clip with statistics about the frequency of harassment for LGBT0-Q teens to 
augment her written explanation. This multi
media channel for demonstrating social 
justice knowledge was unavailable to st
udents writing traditional papers.  
  However, while students occasionally used these technologies' unique 
affordances, a major theme that emerged from qualitative analysis of students' work (and 

subsequent member checked during follo
w up interviews) was that of "missed 
opportunities" wherein the way students used Web 2.0 technologies for class assignments failed to take full advantage of the unique affordances of these technologies. For 
example, no student used hyperlinks to c
onnect their thoughts across blog posts, an affordance that could have helped them build their social justice knowledge by understanding the interconnectedness of these concepts. In this way, students' work from 
the high-technology section used essentially the same media (e.g., individually-written 
text) and cognitive processes available to st
udents in the traditional section. The high 
147 technology section may have had 
the potential for being a different path to the same or 
different destinations, but students' technology 
use did not significantly differentiate their learning nor learning outcomes. 

 Sample size.
 The fourth possible explanation for the similarity in the two groups' 
dispositional and knowledge change is that this study's small sample is vulnerable to 
sample bias.  Each section of the course ha
d 15 students representing a total sample of 30 
participants.  It is entirely possible that 
if the sample size for both sections increased, 
students who might make significant use of th
e unique affordances in either section could join that section and have a significant impact on that group's average post-test sores. 
Implications for Researchers 
 This study's first major implication for re
searchers is introducing an approach to operationalizing social justice knowledge and measuring change in that knowledge, an 
important part of social justice teacher educa
tion research that has heretofore been under-
examined. Previous research evaluating thes
e kinds of courses has focused primarily on 
changing students' dispositions. This study bui
lds on previous research while expanding the field to include students' knowledge of how
 social inequalities affect students, their 
own teaching, and schools as social institutions as well.  This variable should be of 

particular relevance to social justice teacher
 education researchers as students in these 
kinds of courses may experience change in 
not only their dispositions, but knowledge as 
well. Without at least first c
onceptualizing this knowledge as an outcome variable to be 
studied, previous research has overlooked a possibly already-present learning goal and area of growth. 148  In addition to conceptualizing this vari
able, this study introduced an instrument 
for measuring change in student
s' social justice knowledge. Th
e contributions to the field of social justice teacher education resear
ch made by the short essay assignment are 
strengthened by the multiple points of validity 
and reliability included in its development 
and use. First, the instrument was theo
retically-grounded, being based on Howard's 
(2006) three "dimensions of knowing" for soci
al justice educators. Second, building on this framework, a series of open-ended short 
essay questions were pilot-tested, refined 
with input from researchers and 
educators in the field of so
cial justice education. Third, inter-rater reliability was assessed before m
easuring "Social Justice Knowledge" as a pre- and post-test variable. Results from this st
udy argue that this knowledge can be changed as a result of students' work in social just
ice teacher education c
ourses.  In all, the introduction of a theoretically-grounded instrument for measuring students' social justice 
knowledge is a significant implication for adva
ncing the field of social justice teacher 
education courses.    While this conceptualization and quantitative instrument mark important 

contributions to the field of research on so
cial justice teacher education, there is still 
much work to be done. See Limitations sect
ion for discussion of ways to improve the reliability and validity of the social jus
tice knowledge short essay assignment and the 
Future Research section for ideas about what
 directions future development of this 
variable and instrument might take. 

 The second major research implication of 
this study is in bridging the fields of social justice teacher education research
 and research on educational technologies, 
especially Web 2.0 technologies. The intersec
tion of these fields has received some 
149 attention, but remains largely underdeveloped 
theoretically and empirically (Wassell & 
Crouch, 2008). This study represents one of many possible connections between the 
fields, but in doing so, contributes in multiple wa
ys to this intersectional field. First, this 
study pulls together empirical a
nd theoretical research from bo
th fields to establish the connection that the educational affordances of specific Web 2.0 technologies may applied 
to the learning outcomes of social justice 
teacher education courses. This study also 
introduces empirical evidence that this connection is at least not counter-productive, and preliminary evidence that suggests this c
onnection may demonstr
ate the educational benefit of teaching with these 
technologies in general and for social justice education 
courses specifically. This evidence is limite
d and would greatly benefit from future testing, but it gives strength to the value of research in this intersectional field.  Implications for Practitioners 
 The results of this study have implica
tions for social justice educators when 
considering how to design such courses. Students in this study's course showed 
significant gains in their social justice dispositions and knowledge likely due to the educational affordances of multiple elements
 both common and unique to the traditional 
and high technology sections. A significant takeaway from this study for those designing 
future social justice teacher education courses is to begin by focusing on educational 
affordances that previous research and this study have suggested can support dispositional and knowledge growth. For example, previous research has argued that assignments and course elements that fost
er interaction with people from diverse 
backgrounds (Freire & Macedo, 1987; Ga
dotti, 1996; Wiseman, 2001), critical 
reexamination of one's own history and id
entity (Brown, 2004; Chizhik & Chizhik, 2005; 150 Clark & Oâ„¢Donnell, 1999; Zeicner, 1993), personal reflection of one's own beliefs 
(Obidah, 2000; Villegas & Lucas, 2002) and challenging but respectful class discussions 
(Griffin, 1997; Nieto, 1998) can shift students' 
dispositions towards being more social-justice minded. In this course
, those affordances were contained in students service learning fieldwork, their writing cultural autobiographies and their service learning 
reflection journals. Practitioners aiming to imp
act students' social justice dispositions 
should consider incorporating these kinds of course elements for their educational 
affordances.  
 In addition to these common elements with educational affordances for social 

justice learning, practitioners can look to this study's 
results for suggestions for integrating educational technologies in these courses. Students in the high technology and traditional sections of the course had si
milar degrees of dispositional and knowledge 
growth, suggesting there may be multiple ways 
to design social justice teacher education 
courses to achieve these learning outcomes. This
 study's results suggest that social justice 
teacher educators can replace traditiona
l paper-based assignments with Web 2.0 
technologies and produce similar results. 
The technologies employed in this study included affordances that differentiated them from, as well as affordances that were common to, traditional assignments. Whether it be due to their unique affordances, those 

in common with traditional me
dium, or a combination of both, this study gives empirical 
evidence to course designers that there are 
alternate ways impact students' dispositions 
and knowledge, and practitioners should be encouraged to incorporate the media and 
types of assignments that best fit their st
udents' interests, needs and the resources 
available.  151  However, it should be noted that, fo
r practitioners looking to incorporate educational technologies, mean
ing integration may require a 
significant redefining of the learning tasks involved and a unique fund of 
teacher knowledge for this reimaging and 
technology use. Applying Puentadura's (2014) 
SAMR model illustrates how practitioners 
can make the most of a given technologies
' affordances. According to Puentadura, high-
level educational technology integration represents "Redefining" the learning task at hand, keeping in mind the educational technol
ogy's unique affordances. At the same time, 
thinking through this redefining and carrying out a thorough integration of educational technology may require practitioners to deve
lop their technological pedagogical content knowledge (Mishra & Koehler, 2006). The TPAK framework suggests that it is not 
sufficient for practitioners simply to 
know how a technology works (TK), but to 
synthesize this knowledge with their pedagogical and content areas of knowledge (PCK) 
that give them an understanding of the learning outcomes of a given course and the 
cognitive processes in which students can 
engage in order to reach these outcomes. 
Keeping in mind these thinking process and le
arning outcomes, practi
tioners need formal 
and informal opportunities to learn about each technology and to synthesize this 

developing knowledge with their established PCK.   

 Bringing together the SAMR model a
nd the TPACK framework, practitioners 
wanting to make the most of any educationa
l technology in their courses need to deeply understand how the technology works, what kinds of thinking it affords and how these affordances fit with the learning outcomes of the course. Th
en, the practitioner needs to plan (and likely "reimagine") the learning task
s in order to explicitly incorporate these 
affordances. 152 Limitations 
 This study has multiple limitations. First, 
at the conceptualiza
tion stage, one of 
the variables under study - social justice knowledge - was conceptualized without precedent in empirical research. The concep
tualization of social justice knowledge 
employed in this study was based on Howard's
 (2006) three "dimensions of knowing" for 
social justice educators. While based on an
 existing theoretical 
framework, these three 
"dimensions of knowing" have not previously
 been used to represent "social justice knowledge" as a standalone variable. It is entirely possible that other social justice educators and researchers may conceptualize 
"social justice knowledge" in an entirely 
different way. Similarly, the educational a
ffordances analyzed were based on previous research, but had never been conceptualized as they were for this study. Previous studies on individual affordances of blogs, wikis, and video journals were consulted, but very little research has considered these affordances
 in the context of so
cial justice teacher 
education courses. As with the conceptualization of "social justice knowledge," other researchers may identify a different set of rele
vant affordances that might have been used 
for this study. 
 Second, at the data collection stage, th
is study had only 30 participants used for quantitative analysis. Further, only four of those students were sampled for exploratory 
qualitative data analysis. These four students 
were purposefully selected because of their 
excellent work on the Web 2.0 class assignments
, but this is still overall a very small 
sample. Additionally, these students were only 
sampled from one section of the course, 
so their work may not be representative of st
udents' in the traditional section within this 
study or externally of the traditional, paper-based assignments
 in other similar classes.  
153 Having such a small sample and pulled from 
one cohort makes the da
ta collection very susceptible to sampling bias.  Therefore, the 
findings based on analysis of this sample 
should be interpreted and applied with caution.  Third, also at the data collection stage,
 interviews used for qualitative data analysis were conducted almost three years afte
r the conclusion of the course. This is a significant gap in time between when the st
udents worked on their blog, wiki, and video journal assignments, and when they were as
ked to reflect on their experiences with the 
technologies. Prior to and during interviews, students revisited their work to aid in recall. Nonetheless, that students' memories of wh
at using these technologies did and did not do for them in terms of impacting their dispos
itions and knowledge were almost certainly imprecise and subject to error. Therefore, 
conclusions based on student interview data must be interpreted with caution. A final set of limitations of this study 
comes from the methods used for data 
analysis. The quantitative coding scale used for evaluating students' answers on the social 
justice knowledge assignment needs additional 
checks on its reliability. The scale was co-
created by two researchers based on pilot data from a previous iteration of this course and 
the scoring used for this study done by two researchers was tested for inter-rater reliability. As this was the first time this in
strument had been use
d, additional testing is 
needed to further establish the scale's inter-rat
er reliability and the instrument's test-retest 
validity. Until then, the strength of conclusions about students' social justice knowledge 
is limited. 

 The methods used for qualitative data an
alysis also introduce limitations to this 
study's findings. First, the qualita
tive analysis of student work began with a priori codes 154 derived from previous research. This framing allowed the present study to apply the theoretical and empirical work done in thes
e studies to a new set of learning goals, however doing so may have also limited th
e breadth of observations and masked 
potentially informative interpretations a
nd conclusions about students educational technology use in social justice education courses.  This study was able to draw some 
conclusions about students' use of educational 
affordances described in previous research, but a richer, different set of interpretations
 may have been omitted.  Future research on 
these technologies' affordances for social ju
stice education may begin with a reimagining 
of how these technologies could be more dyna
mically integrated into the course and 
employ a Grounded Theory approach (Corbin & St
rauss, 2007) that would be open to any themes that emerge from an open analysis of
 student work. (see Future Research section). 
 Secondly, the qualitative data analys
is of students' work using Web 2.0 
technologies employed only one coder, the pr
imary researcher and instructor of the 
course. The findings of themes present in stud
ent work represents an individual, biased 
interpretation of the data. Students' interview data was also consulted to triangulate these 

interpretations, but nevertheless, these qualitative findings should be interpreted with 
caution and future research on the use of educational technologies in social justice education courses should employ multiple coders to add to it's credibility and 
transferability. Future Research  Three directions for future research w
ould, one, seek to strengthen the weaknesses of the current study, two, reimagine the cour
se to reach possibly different conclusions 
about the integration of educational technologies, and, three, extend the findings of this 155 study into new empirical and theoretical wo
rk. In regards to the first direction, upon reflection, both the design of the course and the methods used to analyze student work 
introduce a number of limitations
 that could be addressed by more rigorous replications of the current study, or parts of it. Beginning at the conceptual level, future research could question, challenge, or support the way "social justice knowledge" in which was conceived and operationally defined. The operationalization of Social Justice Knowledge used in this study may have face validity, as
 it is based on Howard's (2006) conceptual 
framework, but other social ju
stice educators may have diffe
rent conceptualizations of what exactly "social justice knowledge" is and how to measur
e it. These visions of what this area of knowledge is could and should be presented in future research. Also at the conceptual level, this study selected a set of educational affordances found in previous research on blogs, wikis and video journals as being potentially useful in supporting the kinds of learning and psychological processes in which social just
ice teacher education students engage. That being said, as with conceptualizing 
"social justice knowledge," 
other researchers may identify other process, 
affordances and/or educational technologies they believe fit with the learning outcomes of these kinds of 
courses. Future research may 
seek to replicate and support the choices in 
technologies and affordances used in this 
study, or to introduce different choices that may more effectively bring about the 
dispositional and knowledge changes intended.  
 Future replications of this study could 
also address a number of limitations in the 
data collection and data analysis stages. Specifically, in terms of data collection, future replications could support or refute the initial findings from this study. Further, these 
subsequent findings could avoid some of the 
limitations from this study by using a larger 
156 sample overall, and particularly in the quali
tative analysis. The data analysis methods 
used in this study could be improved upon in fu
ture research. The validity and reliability of the instrument used to measure students' 
social justice dispositions (the LTSJ-B) has 
been established by previous research, but the instrument used to measure students' social 
justice knowledge was developed for this st
udy and has yet to be rigorously evaluated. Including this instrument in future research 
would add to its test-retest reliability while 
further checking the coding scale's inter-rate
r reliability. Further, the method used for 
analyzing qualitative data could be strengthened in future research. Only one coder (the primary researcher) reviewed students'
 work on Web 2.0 class assignments. The 
researcher did triangulate his interpretations of
 students' work by also consulting students' 
answers in follow-up interviews, but the 
qualitative findings remain largely the 
interpretation of one individual. This presents one of the most significant limitations in 
this study and any future replication of all or
 part of this study should include multiple 
coders and member checking durin
g qualitative data analysis.  A second direction for future research is to go beyond addressing weaknesses of the present study to begin at the conceptual level to reimagine 
the integration of education technologies into social justice teacher education courses, A redesign of the course's educational technology use could in
corporate the SAMR model (Puentedura, 
2014) to possibly to produce different data for analysis and different results for discussion. One of the possible interpretations for the similarity betw
een the dispositional and knowledge changes made by students in 
the traditional section and high technology 
sections is that the included technologies we
re not used in a way that took full advantage of their unique affordances. Applying Puentedura's SAMR model, th
is use represents 
157 "Substitution," the lowest level of educational technology use. Puentedura argues that, for educational technologies to have the largest impact on 
students' learning outcomes, 
instructors should use these tools to significantly "Modify" or "Redefine" the tasks in which students are engaged. For example, in this course, blog writers wrote a series of posts analyzing a current event or media ar
tifact using different class concepts. As assigned, the sequence and structure of these posts exactly replicated (or, to use 
Puentedura's words "substituted" for) the educational affordances of the papers written in 

the traditional section. This arrangement did not
 take advantage of the unique affordances of blogs, such as that readers' comments c
ould inform subsequent posts and that, using 
hyperlinks, blog-writers could connect their thoughts across several posts.  "Modifying" the task in this way may lead to different
 cognitive process by students, and possibly higher degrees of dispositional and knowledge change than what was observed in the 
present study. Future research could examine 
this possibility beginning with reimagining 
of the course's educatio
nal technology integration.  A third direction for future research 
is to build upon this study's results 
and implications into new theoretical work - sp
ecifically in defining in greater detail what 
"social justice knowledge" is and the role it plays in educators' practice. This study 
conceptualized "social justice knowledge" as a single outcome
 variable of a pre-service teacher course, but future work might more 
fully define it as a unique fund of knowledge as well as part of a broader kind of knowledge that intersects with an instructor's 
pedagogical and content areas of knowledge to inform his/he
r socially-just practice. In other words, this "social justice pedagogical content knowledge" (SJ-PCK) represents a 
knowledge of how to teach one's subject matte
r content in a way that raises students' 
158 critical consciousness about systems of inequality, and empo
wers students to challenge these systems as students and adults.  

 Defining Social justice pedagogical 
content knowledge and examining the 
relationship between these knowledge domains
 could also contribute to future 
pedagogical research in social justice education. As with many fields, linking theory to 
practice is a challenge for social justice e
ducators. For example, many researchers and 
authors (e.g., Lee & Okazawa-Rey, 1997) de
scribe ways of teaching subject matter 
content from a socially-just perspective, 
but fail to address the necessary-but-not-
sufficient social justice knowledge needed in
 order to effectively do so. Examining SJ-
PCK may help to better unde
rstand the connection between teachers' socially just 
pedagogical perspectives (e.g., Culturally Relevant Pedagogy) and their actual practice. Future research may better define this know
ledge and examine how it can be developed 
alongside teachers' content and 
pedagogical knowledge areas..  Conclusion  Overall, the results of this study supporte
d claims made by previous research that 
social justice teacher education courses can ha
ve an impact on students' dispositions and 
that educational technologies can be integrated into instruction in a way that helps teachers achieve their instructional goals. Quan
titative analysis indica
ted that, due to their 
common and unique affordances, the high-technology and traditional approaches were equally effective at significantly impacting 
students' social jus
tice dispositions and knowledge.  These results give evidence that, at the very least, using educational technologies such as blogs, wikis and video journals, does not interfere with students' 
learning in these courses. What is more, qual
itative data analysis seems to indicate that 
159 there was some untapped potential in the Web 
2.0 technologies; that a redesign of course learning tasks could take fuller advantage of these technologies' affordances for social 

justice learning, This is a hopeful conclusion and one that can inform 
future research and practice for these kinds of courses.  This study set out to make a connecti
on between the fields of educational technology and social justice education in order to examine ways in which the 
affordances of a set of Web 2.0 technologies may help achieve the learning goals of pre-
service social justice teacher 
education courses. Researchers and practitioners often seek to improve the effectiveness of their teaching, in this case, shifting students' dispositions 

to be more socially just and deepening thei
r knowledge of issues related to systems of 
inequality as they appear in educational contexts. Meanwhile, the field of educational technology has put forth a number of insights ab
out various applications may foster the 
kind of cognitive processes required for achievi
ng certain learning goals. Bring together 
these two fields, this study began with the belief that the educational affordances of blogs, wikis, and video journals - namely 
that they foster a deep understanding of multifaceted concepts through collaboration a
nd support deeper reflection and connecting 
ideas through hyperlinking and feedback channels - may be particularly useful for these 
kinds of courses.   In order to make this connection and dr
aw conclusions about these technologies utility for the field of soci
al justice teacher educati
on, this study drew on existing research, but also had to expand upon that 
research in multiple ways. First, a key 
component of this study was moving beyond th
e traditionally studied learning goals for 
social justice teacher education courses, i.e
., students' dispositions, and into examining 
160 changes in students' foundational understanding 
about issues of identity and inequality in 
education.  This expansion was seen as im
portant because, in order for teachers to 
effectively teach from a socially-j
ust pedagogy, they need to not only 
believe in the need 
to address issues of systemic inequality in
 their teaching, they must fully understand what 
those issues are. To measure this change 
in knowledge, a new instrument was constructed 
and implemented, with noted limitations.  
 Second, this study expanded upon previous 
empirical and theoretical research on 
the educational affordances of blogs, wikis and video journals by applying those affordances to a new, under-researched context. From an educational psychology 
perspective, research on these technologies educational affordances has been applied to various content areas, but has largely left unexamined their utility in achieving social 

justice education learning goals. This study adds additional evidence to the results and insights from previous research on these technologies while transferring those results into a new domain. In all, these two areas of e
xpansion represent significant contributions to the fields informing this research and hope
fully strengthen the emerging intersectional 
field of research on educational technologi
es for social justice teacher education. 
161    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 APPENDICES  162 Appendix A - Foundational Course Information 
Course Syllabus  
Course Description: This course introduces prospective teachers to 
the ways in which social inequality affects 
schooling and schooling affects social inequality.  This course is not a celebration of difference.  Rather, this course is designed to allow students to examine how socially 
constructed categories (e.g., social class, race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc.) are used to privilege some individuals and 
groups and marginalize others.  The course 
focuses mostly on one social institution, public
 schools in the United States; however, we will examine how other social institutions influence opportunities for success and failure 

in schools.  Central themes of the course in
clude culture, power, and difference.  Some 
key questions this course will explore include: 

 
In what ways do schools create, perpetuate, and exacerbate inequality?  
How do systems of privilege impact individualsâ„¢ opportunities for social and economic 
mobility? 

In what ways do teachers and students jointly produce conditions for successful learning or frustrating failure? 

How do school-community relationships a
ffect student opportunities to learn? What does it mean to teach for social ju
stice in schools of a
ll types and levels? 
 
We will identify the ways in which teachers in
fluence the distribution of educational and 
social opportunities, whether they intend to or
 not.  This means that teachers need to 
understand how their pedagogy and instructional strategies affect student achievement 
and life opportunities.  We will achieve this goal by questioning the way things are in 
society and challenging our assumptions, bi
ases, and stereotype
s and those of our colleagues.   
 
This course is not a methods course that 
provides answers for successfully working in 
diverse classrooms.  Rather, it is about how
 power influences schooling experiences of and opportunities for students. In that way, this course will help you better understand some of the basic social, historical, cultu
ral elements at work in schools today and prepare you for your experiences working with these elements as a 
teaching intern. This course is a required part of your preparation towards your internship year; further information about the criteria for in
ternship preparation can be found at: http://education.msu.edu/academics/undergraduate/criteria-for-progression.asp  
Required Texts Course pack (Available at Bookstore, across from the Union)  Grade Breakdown 
To compute your final grade, add up the 
points you earned for each assignment and 
locate that percentage in the following table. I round up starting with .5% (i.e., a 92.5 is a 4.0, but a 92.4 is a 3.5) 163  Assignments   GPA Ranges 
 Attendance & Participation 10%  
100-94% 4.0 
Reading Responses 13%  
93-86% 3.5 
Schooling/Cultural autobiography 20%  
85-80% 3.0 
Unit 1 Take Home Exam 11%  
79-75% 2.5 
Current Event/Media Analysis 
Paper 15%  
74-70% 2.0 
Identity Group Paper 15%  
69-65% 1.5 
Service Learning Journals 6%  
64-60% 1.0 
Service Learning Paper 10%  
<60% 0.0 
 Assessments 
Attendance, Preparation & Participation (10%) 
Attendance 
To ensure the regular on-time attendance and full 
participation in class that is critical to 
learning, I will take attendance at every class 
session and make note of late arrivals and 
early leavings. You may miss up 
to two class sessions without impacting your grade.  
However, if you a third class session, your grad
e for this part of c
ourse will be lowered 
by 50% (i.e., from 10% to 5%). Four absences 
will result in a zero for 
this part of course. Absences due to illness, family emergencies, 
funerals, car trouble, etc., will be counted toward the two absence limit.  Documentati
on is not required; however, because you get only two absences, it would be wise to save them for unpredictable circumstances.  
Absences due to participation in university-approved events (e.g., religious holidays, intercollegiate sports, etc.) will not count towa
rd the absence limit, but do require written 
documentation of your participation in these 
activities at the beginning of the semester 
and arrange to make up any missing work as fa
r in advance of your absence as possible.  
In addition, two late arrivals or
 early departures (more than 10
 minutes late or early) will 
count as one absence. As with full-class absences, documentation for why you arrived 
late or need to leave early is not necessary, but you should alwa
ys plan to be in class on time and to stay for the entire period, saving 
any late arrivals or early departures for emergency situations. 

 
You are required to complete 20 hours at you
r service learning site (2 hours each week) 
For absences at your Service Learning sites, you must call your host teacher in advance if you are unable to meet a field visit comm
itment and you must make up all Service 
Learning field absences.  If you do not complete all 20 hours of service learning, you cannot pass this course. In accordance with the Teacher Preparation Programâ„¢s 
Professional Conduct Policy, attendance and punctuality in class meetings and field 
experiences are critical to your success in this course and in the Program.  It is your 
responsibility to familiarize yourself with
 these policies, available online at: 
[removed to de-identify]
  In the case of recurring absences or tardiness, youâ„¢re the College of Education will be notified and you may be required to attend a meeting 
regarding your attendance.    164 Preparation & Participation 
Students are expected to thoroughly prepare for and actively participate in class. Thorough preparation includes reviewing readin
g all required assigned readings for each class, reviewing previous class notes, and possibly doing additional outside 

reading/research. Active participation in
cludes reading the assi
gned reading BEFORE attending class, bringing the readings to class, taking notes, being attentive, participating 
in class discussions and listening to comments raised by others.    
Students will be assessed on their preparation and participation based on the frequency, quality, and clarity of their contributions in class discussions and activities. Throughout the semester I will monitor each studentâ„¢s part
icipation, and provide feedback to them to 
suggest, if needed what adjustments in prepar
ation for and participation in class may be 
needed. If students continue to participate very during class, points may be deducted from 
the final grade for this part of the course.  
 
As a final note about participation, I encourage active discussions in an atmosphere that allows everyone to talk comfortably.  There 
are no right or wrong questions or comments, but offensive comments directed at groups 
or individuals will not be tolerated.  We 
recognize that this is a learning community, so you may ask about issues you do not 
understand, but please be considerate when framing your questions.  If you are uncomfortable with the classroom dynamics, you s
hould feel free to say so in class or talk with me during office hours.   

 Reading Responses 13% In preparation for each class period, you will 
be required to post a brief response to 
the readings.  At the end of most classes, I 
will provide a set of questions to guide your reading of the homework articles. As you rea
d, keep these questions in mind and make 
notes as you craft an answer to them. Pr
ior to each class, you 
will need to post your 
response to these questions in a private fiReading Responsesfl forum in Angel. Each 
response should be about 250 words and will on
ly be viewable by the author (you) and 
me. In your response, do not spend much tim
e summarizing the artic
le; you can assume 
your audience has read the articles as well. Your response posting is due by 10am the 
morning of each class period, but I HIGHLY re
commend finishing your readings as early 
as possible and posting your responses at least by the night before. The Angel Reading Response forum will automatically lock at
 10am and no additional postings will be 
accepted. 
 Schooling/Cultural Autobiography (20%) 
Understanding how your personal and schooling experiences have shaped your own assumptions about teaching and learning is esse
ntial to the aims of the course. To help 
you examine these experiences analytically, 
you will compose an autobiography in two 
parts in which you reflect on your own identity and the ways in which identity markers 
(such as social class, race
, ethnicity, language, ability, ge
nder, sexual orientation, etc.) 
informed your schooling experiences.  C
onsider in your essay what your schooling experiences might have taught you 
about your own identity.     165 Unit 1 Take Home Exam (11%) 
At the end of Unit 1, you will be given a paper exam to complete before the next class 
session (2 days). This exam will assess the 
depth and accuracy of your understanding of 
key concepts from the first part of this course. Questions on this exam will be in the form 

of multiple choice, matching, short answer a
nd essay. The exam is fiopen book;fl meaning 
students will be allowed to use their notes to help them answer questions, however, 
questions will require more than simple recall/recognition of terms and concepts from the 
readings and instead will as
k students to interpret, analyze and apply those terms and 
concepts in their own thinking.   Current Event/Media Analysis Paper (15%) 
For this assignment, students will write a crit
ical analysis paper (7-9 double spaced pages in length) regarding topics addressed in the course.  Critical reflection papers are 
responses to questions about class concepts as they are expressed in current events, different forms of media, and/or popular 
culture.  This paper should demonstrate your understanding of assigned readings and should draw on class discussions, videos and activities to analyze an outside-of-class phenomenon. In general, your writing is 
evaluated on the thoughtfulness of your ideas, articulation of your argument, and clarity 
of writing.  
 Identity Marker Group Paper (15%) 
At the end of Unit 1, students will join groups based on a specific identity mark
er they are interested in. Over the course of the semester, students will 
work individually and with their groups to write a critical analysis group paper about multiple aspects of social 
positioning such as privilege, oppression, dominant & non-dominant groups and 

intersectionality, as they relate to a singl
e identity marker. Ea
ch student will be responsible for about 3 double spaced pages 
of the entire paper which will be 10-12 
double spaced pages.  The paper is due at the 
end of the semester and should flow as one 
document to demonstrate the groupsâ„¢ collect
ive understanding of social positioning and 
identity markers by drawing on assigned readings, and possibly additional sources.  

 Service learning (16%) 
Service Learning Journals (6%) 

You will submit 6 service learni
ng journals in which you refl
ect critically on a specific 
situation/experience you are having through the lens of the course readings.  The entries should be about 2 pages double spaced. Only 1 journal per week is allowed, so you need 
to post a single journal entry, by 9pm on the Friday of that week, 6 times over the course of the semester.  

 
One purpose of the journals is to help you write
 a strong final paper.  So, for each journal 
entry, I suggest you try to include the following, focusing on Interpretation and Insights: 1) Description: Briefly describe what happened at your placement in as much detail as 
possible.   
2) Interpretation: Comment on what happenedÅ this can include your thoughts and personal reactions/feelings, what you learned, why you think certain things happened, etc. 166 3) Insights: Connect your interpretations to larger ideas, read
ings class discussions.  Is something you experienced in your placement a 
possible example of something we read about in class? 

 Service Learning Final Paper (10%) 
At the end of the semester, you will refl
ect on the whole of your experience at your placement school. This reflection should bu
ild on and go beyond the descriptions, 
interpretations and insights you wrote about in previous journal entries to discuss aspects of social power and identity as they appeared 
at your service learning 
site, as well as offer 
a critical reflection on how your thinking about these issues has changed over the course of the semester.  

 Submission instructions and Late Assignments: Students are expected to meet writing deadlin
es.  Any work submitted after its due date 
will be considered late.  Late papers will be
 reduced by 20% for the first day of lateness 
and an additional 20% for any time later, 
except in extreme cases.  If you are having 
trouble meeting a deadline, PLEASE communi
cate with me in advance, alternative 
options can often be made. Most written cl
ass assignments (papers and online reading 
responses) will be submitted on the course CMS site. Please note the dropboxes and 

discussion forums for these assignmen
ts WILL CLOSE AUTOMATICALLY at the 
posted deadline. Late papers must be ema
iled directly to me and no late discussion 
postings will be accepted.  Class Schedule  
The following list of questions will be helpful to keep in mind as you read each reading. What are the key ideas or concepts
 that the readings present?  
What does the reading have to do with pa
rticular aspects of diversity, power, 
opportunity? What argument is the author(s) trying to
 make? Where do you agree/disagree? Why? 
In what ways is the argument pe
rsuasive or not to you?  Why? 
What do you think the author failed to cons
ider about the issue?  Why?  Why not? 
What strikes you as particularly interest
ing, surprising, insightful, irritating, etc.? 
 This course schedule is a guide and is subject to change.  Any such changes will be 
announced in class or through email. If you miss a class, it is your responsibility to clarify if 
there have been any changes to the readin
g assignments for the following day.  
 Date Topic
 Come to class having read–
 Unit 1 Å’ Systems of Opportunity, Privilege & Oppression 
Wed. Aug. 31st   Course Intro  Mon. Sep. 5th No Class Å’ Labor Day 
Wed. Sep. 7th Purposes of Schooling Service Learning intro 
Norms & Learning
 Freire Å’ Ch 2, Pedagogy of the Oppressed Mon. Sep. Purposes of Schooling Labaree Å’ The American (High) School 
167 12th   has Failed its Missions 
Hocschild & Scovronick Å’ What 
Americans Want from Public Schools 
Wed. Sep. 14th  Identity Tatum Å’ The Complexity of Identity 
Mon. Sep. 19th  Cycle of Socialization 
Social Construction of Normality & Difference 
Harro Å’ The Cycle of Socialization 
Watch fiMickey Mouse Monopolyfl 
(online) 
Christensen Å’ Unlearning the myths that 
Bind us Wed. Sep. 21st  Privilege  Johnson Å’ Privilege, Oppression & 
Difference 
Johnson Å’ How Systems of Privilege Work 
Wildman & Davis Å’ Language & Silence 
(optional) 
Thurs. Sep 22nd Cultural Autobiography part 1 due by 9pm Mon. Sep 26th Forms of Oppression & 
Discrimination 
Pincus Å’ Discrimination Comes in Many 
Forms 
Young Å’ Five Faces of Oppression Wed. Sep. 28th Theories of Academic 
Success & Failure 
Nieto Å’ Toward an Understanding of School Achievement 
Langston Å’ Tired of Playing Monopoly? 
Sleeter & Grant Å’ Race, Class, Gender, and Abandoned Dreams (optional) 
Thur. Sep. 29th Pick identity groups (Angel) Unit 2 - Issues of Identity in Education Mon. Oct. 3rd Revisit Norms & 
Learning Gender: Overview Lorber Å’ Night to his Day 
Take home exam assigned at end of class Wed. Oct. 5th Gender: Bias & Discrimination 
Sadker & ZittlemanÅ’ Gender Bias 
Take home exam due at beginning of 
class Mon. Oct. 
10th Gender: Body Image 
Watch fiKilling us Softly 4fl (online) 
Pope, Phillips & Olivardia - The Adonis Complex 
Wed. Oct. 12th Sexual Orientation: Overview & Culture of schools Friend Å’ Heterosexism, Homophobia & 
the Culture of Schooling Mon. Oct. 17th Sexual Orientation: Homophobia & Inclusion 
Blumenfeld Å’ How Homophobia Hurts 
Everyone Mayo Å’ Queer Lessons: Sexual & Gender 
Minorities in Multicultural Education 168 Wed. Oct. 19th  Race: Overview Tatum Å’ Defining Racism 
Tenorio Å’ Race and Respect Among 
Young Children Takaki Œ A Different Mirror (angel, optional) Mon. Oct. 24th Race: History of Racism in the U.S.  Race: Educational Experiences of People of Color Minter & Prettyman Œ fiEducationfl from 
the EoAAC&H Wingfield & Karaman Å’ Arab Stereotypes 
and American Education 
San Miguel Å’ Contested Learning: Latino Education in the US Spring Å’ Asian Americans: Exclusion & 
Segregation 
Klug & Whitfield Å’ A Brief History of American Indian Education 
Wed. Oct. 26th Race: White Privilege 
McIntosh Å’ White Privilege 
Olson Å’ White Privilege in Schools Howard Å’ Ch 3 Decoding the Dominance 
Paradigm 
Mon. Oct. 31st Race: Wrap up 
ŁHoward Œ Ch 7 White Teachers & School 
Reform 
Edgington Å’ Moving Beyond White Guilt 
(optional) 
Wed. Nov. 2nd Language: Overview of Immersion, ESL & 
Bilingual Education Nieto Å’ Linguistic Diversity in the US 
Classroom 
Stritikus & Varghese Å’ Language Diversity and Schooling Mon. Nov. 7th Language: Linguicism & 
Discrimination 
Hays Å’ To Track or Not to Track Cummins Å’ The Two Faces of Language 
Proficiency Wed. Nov. 9th Language: Linguicism & 
Discrimination Continued 
Watch fiDo You Speak American?fl clips 
(online) 
Artiles et al. Å’ ELL Representation in SPED in California Urban School Districts (Angel) Mon. Nov. 
14th  Social Class: Equity & 
Opportunity Re-read Langston Å’ Tired of Playing Monopoly? 
Hodges-Persell - Social Class & Ed Equality Anyon Å’ Social Class and School Knowledge Nocera Å’ How the Middle Class has 
Helped Ruin Public Schools (optional) Wed. Nov. 16th Social Class: 
Social/Cultural Capital 
Lareau Å’ Why Does Social Class Influence Parent Involvement in Schooling? 
169 Carter Œ fiBlackfl Cultural Capital Thur. Nov. 17th Current Event/Media Analysis  due by 9pm 
Mon. Nov. 21st  Ability (physical) 
Special Education 
Smart Å’ Experiencing Prejudice & 
Discrimination 
Wed. Nov. 23rd Ability (mental & 
cognitive) Special Education 
ŁWikipedia Œ Learning Disability (Intro, 
Types & Diagnosis) Harry & Klingner Å’ Constructing Learning 
Disabilities Harry & Klingner Å’ Constructing Behavior 
Disorders Siegel Å’ IQ-Discrepancy Definitions and 
the Diagnosis of LD Mon. Nov. 28th Special Education: 
Overview Bicard & Heward Å’ Educational Equality 
for Students with Disabilities McNeal & Oâ„¢Rourke Å’ Legal Foundations of Special Education 
Wed. Nov. 30th Special Education: 
Issues & Challenges 
Losen & Orfield Å’ Racial Inequality in 
Special Education 
Smith, Salend & Ryan Å’ Watch Your 
Language Meyer, Bevan-Brown, Harry & Sapon-Shevin Å’ School Inclusion and Multicultural Issues in Special Education 
Unit 3 - Beyond the Current & Present Mon. Dec. 5th School Funding Biddle & Berliner Å’ Unequal School 
Funding in the US Rothstein Å’ Where has all the Money 
Gone? 
Arsen et al Å’ Adequacy, Equity & Capital 
Spending in Michigan Schools (optional, Angel) Wed. Dec. 7th Moving Forward McClintock Å’ How to Interrupt Oppressive 
Behavior  ŁBHH reading of your choice (angel) 
Thurs., Dec 
8th ŁCultural Autobiography part 2 due by 9pm Thur. Dec. 15th 10am-
12:00pm in 
our classroom 
Course Wrapup: Identity 
group presentations & Feedback Identity group papers due Service Learning Final Paper due    170 Core Course Concepts   Derived from official cour
se instructors' framework. 
Concept Examples/ Explanation Associated Authors/ 
Theories Aspects of Social Power 
Purposes of schools Social mobility; democratic citizenship; 
social efficiency Labaree Social construction 
of identity markers 
fisexfl vs figenderfl Harro™s Cycle of 
Socialization 
Social construction 

of normality & 

difference 
Dominant and subordinate groups; fiotheringflTatum & Harro 
Intersectionality of 
identity markers 
Intersection of race and gender Tatum 
Privilege Unearned advantages, co
nferred dominance Johnson, Wildman & 
Davis Forms of 

discrimination & 

oppression Individual, institutional & structural 
discrimination (especially teacher 

expectations and tracking); violence, 
marginalization, cultural imperialism, 

powerlessness, exploitation Pincus & Young 
Theories of academic success & 

failure 
Meritocracy; deficit theories; resistance 
theories, Social reproduction theory 
Nieto School funding Property tax struct
ures and other sources of school funding; inequality in school funding 
Berliner & Biddle; 
Rothstein Socially Constructed Identity Markers 
Gender Sexism; gender roles and re
sponsibilities Sadker & Zittleman; 
Lorber; Pope Sexual Orientation Heterosexism
 and homophobia; violence and 
harassment of LGBTQ students in schools 
Kimmel; Friend; 
Blumfeld 
Race Biological vs. social explanations of race; 
historical and current racism in U.S. and 

public schools; the Achievement Gap 

between white students and students of colorTakaki; Tatum 
Language Linguicism; school 
practices for educating English Language Learners; African 
American Vernacular English 
Nieto; Krashen; Cummins; Hayes 
Social Class SES and group a
ffinity; classism; roles of 
schools in social reproduction theory Anyon; Hodges-Persell; Lareau 
Ability (physical & 
cognitive) Social construction of ability/disability; 
Abelism; diagnosis and education of students 
with cognitive and learning impairments 
Smart; Heward & 
Cavanaugh; Harry & Klingner  171 Course Beliefs and Knowledge Learning Goals 
  Derived from official course 
framework for instructors document 
B1  Identity markers are largely, if
 not entirely, socially constructed B2  Social power, discrimination and privile
ge is real in society (debunking myth of meritocracy) 
B3  Belief in bias (oneâ„¢s own & others) 

B4  Schools & teachers have historically, 
and continue to operate in a way that perpetuates inequality 
B5  Schools in all areas & teach
ers in all subjects should be change agents for students and society by incorporating multicultural curriculum and making issues of 

inequality explicit in their work 
 K1 Critical knowledge of self
; personal biases, past experiences as shaping beliefs; 
knowledge of own beliefs & assumptions; 
knowledge of own identity markers; 
knowledge of how these influence their own educational experiences K2 Critical knowledge of students; knowledge
 of their cultures and identity markers; 
how these influence their educational experiences 
K3 Critical knowledge of current and histor
ical political and social contexts of 
education   172 Appendix B - Detail of Sources for Data Collection  
Learning to Teach for Social JusticeÅ Beliefs scale Respond to the following statements re
garding your beliefs about teaching 1 An important part of learning to be a t
eacher is examining oneâ„¢s own attitudes and 
beliefs about race, class, gender, disabilities, and sexual orientation 2 Issues related to racism 
and inequity should be openly discussed in the classroom. 
3R For the most part, covering multicultural t
opics is only relevant to certain subject 
areas, such as social studies and literature. 
4 Good teaching incorporates diverse cu
ltures and experiences into classroom 
lessons and discussions. 5R The most important goal in working with
 immigrant children and English language 
learners is that they assimilate into American society. 
6R Itâ„¢s reasonable for teachers to have lo
wer classroom expectations for students who 
donâ„¢t speak English as their first language. 7 Part of the responsibilities of the teache
r is to challenge school arrangements that maintain societal inequities. 
8 Teachers should teach students to think cr
itically about government positions and 
actions. 
9R Economically disadvantaged students have 
more to gain in schools because they 
bring less into the classroom. 
10R Although teachers have to appreciate divers
ity, itâ„¢s not their job to change society. 11R Whether students succeed in school de
pends primarily on how hard they work. 
12R Realistically, the job of a teacher is to pr
epare students for the lives they are likely 
to lead. a Likert response categories: Strongly Disagree=1, Disagree=2, Uncertain=3, Agree=4, Strongly Agree=5 b R: denotes the categories were reverse scored. 
 Social Justice Knowledge Short Essay Assignment 
On your own paper, answer each of the first three questions as fully as you can. Set a time limit of 30 minutes to answer all three questions.  1) How will your own personal past experiences
, beliefs and perspectives influence your 
work as a teacher? 
 
2) How will your studentsâ„¢ past experiences, be
liefs and perspectives influence them in 
your class? 

 
3) What are some social, historical and politic
al contexts that have shaped the evolution of American public schools? How are these c
ontexts still influencing how schools operate today? 
173  During pilot study; a 4th question was added:  4) Give me some feedback on these questi
ons– What was it like for you to answer these questions? Are they clear? Confusing? How 
long did you take to answer each one? How 
well did what you learned in TE250 last semest
er help you in answering these questions? 
 Short Essay Assignment Å’ SJ Knowledge Scale 
 Questions 1) How will your own personal past experiences, beliefs and perspectives influence 
your work as a teacher?  Sub-Domain/Score N/A 1 2 3 4 
Degree of emphasis on 

cultural 
knowledge  Tangible is 
the sole 
focus. No 
(limited) reference to 
cultural 
knowledge.  
Most of the focus is on the 

tangible. There 

is little focus on 
the cultural knowledge.  
Most of the focus is on the 

cultural. There 

is little focus 
on the tangible.  Tangible is only relevant 

as it relates 

to the cultural.  Awareness of mutability of 
beliefs   Little 
awareness 
of mutability 
of beliefs and no examples.   Vague awareness of 
mutability of 
beliefs with no 
examples.  Basic awareness of 
mutability of 
beliefs with vague examples.  Deep awareness 
of mutability 
of beliefs with potentially 
specific 
examples.  Awareness that their past 
experience is 
unique and 
limited to them.  
 Little 
awareness 
of limited 
perspective 
with no examples.  Vague awareness of 
limited 
perspective with 

no examples.  
Basic awareness of 
limited 
perspective 
with vague examples.  Deep awareness 
of limited 
perspective 
with potentially specific 
examples.  Understanding of the 
connection of 
past 
experiences to 
current beliefs 
 Little 
understandi
ng of the 
connection, 
with no 
vocab. and no examples.  Vague understanding of 
the connection 
with no vocab 
and no 
examples.  Basic understanding 
of the 
connection 
with use of 
empty vocab and vague examples.  Deep understandin
g of the 
connection 
with 
vocabulary used specifically 

and 174 meaningfully with specific 
examples.  Understanding of the 
connection of 
current experiences and beliefs to 

future beliefs 

and practices 
 Little 
understandi
ng of the 
connection with no v and no 
examples.  Vague understanding of 
the connection 
with no vocab and no examples.  Basic understanding 
of the 
connection with the use of 
vocabulary and 
vague 
examples.  Deep understandin
g of the 
connection with vocabulary 
used 
specifically 

and meaningfully with specific 
examples.    2) How will your students' past experiences, beliefs and perspectives influence them 
in your class? 

 Sub-Domain/Score N/A 1 2 3 4 
Degree of emphasis on 

cultural 
knowledge  Tangible is 
the sole 
focus. No 
(limited) 
reference to 

cultural knowledge.  
Most of the focus is on the 

tangible. There 

is little focus on 

the cultural 
knowledge.  
Most of the focus is on the 

cultural. There 

is little focus 

on the 
tangible.  Tangible is only relevant 

as it relates 

to the 
cultural.  Awareness of 
mutability of 
beliefs   Little 
awareness 
of mutability 
of beliefs 
and no 
examples.   Vague awareness of 
mutability of 
beliefs with no 

examples.  Basic awareness of 
mutability of 
beliefs with 
vague 
examples.  Deep awareness 
of mutability 
of beliefs 
with 
potentially specific examples.  Awareness that students' past 
experience is 
unique and 
limited to each 

of them.   Little 
awareness of limited 
perspective 
with no 
examples.  Vague awareness of limited 
perspective with 

no examples.  
Basic awareness of limited 
perspective 
with vague 
examples.  Deep awareness of limited 
perspective 
with 
potentially 
specific examples.  175 Understanding of the 
connection of past experiences to 
current beliefs 
 Little 
understandi
ng of the connection, with no 
vocab. and 
no 
examples.  Vague understanding of 
the connection with no vocab and no 
examples.  Basic understanding 
of the connection with use of 
empty vocab 
and vague 
examples.  Deep understandin
g of the connection with 
vocabulary 
used 
specifically 

and meaningfully with specific 
examples.   176  3) What are some social, historical and 
political contexts that have shaped the evolution of American public schools? How 
are these contexts still influencing how schools operate today? 

 Sub-Domain/Scor
e N/A 1 2 3 4 
Degree of emphasis on 

social justice-
minded contexts  Neutral is the 
sole focus. No 

(limited) reference to 
social justice-

minded 
contexts Most of the focus is on the 

neutral. There is 
little focus on 
social justice-

minded 
contexts. May 
mention 
diversity, but not in a socially-just, 
critically 

conscious way 
Most of the focus is on 

social justice-
minded contexts. 
There is little 

focus on 
neutral 
contexts. Neutral is only 
relevant as it 
relates to the 
social justice-
minded 
contexts. Number of 
contexts 
considered  1 context 
considered 2 contexts considered 3 contexts considered 4 or more contexts 
considered Depth of understanding 
of the 
influence 
contexts have had on schools  Little 
understanding 
of the 
influence, with 
no vocabulary and no examples Vague understanding of 
the influence 
with no 
vocabulary and no examples 
Basic understandin
g of the 
influence with 

use of empty vocabulary and vague 
examples Deep understanding 
of the 
influence with 

vocabulary used specifically 

and 
meaningfully 
with specific examples  Depth of understanding 
of the influence contexts still have on schools  Little 
understanding 
of the influence, with no vocabulary 
and no 
examples Vague understanding of 
the influence with no vocabulary and 
no examples 
Basic understandin
g of the influence with 
use of empty 
vocabulary 
and vague 
examples Deep understanding 
of the influence with 
vocabulary 
used 
specifically 

and meaningfully with specific 
examples   177 Short Essay Assignment 
 SJ Knowledge Scale Sample Answers 
 Question 1 - How will your own personal past
 experiences, beliefs and perspectives 
influence your work as a teacher?
 (Sub-domains: 1) Degree of emphasis on cultural 
knowledge, 2) Awareness of mut
ability of beliefs, 3) Awareness that their past experience is unique and limited to them, 4) Understandi
ng of the connection of past experiences to current beliefs, 5) Understanding of the conne
ction of current experiences and beliefs to future beliefs and practices.) 
 Score: 1 (1,1,1,1,1) 
"My past experiences will play a huge role in 
how I plan to operate as a teacher. Over the 
years, I have had a few teachers that have 
changed my life forever. I will incorporate 
things I remember from those classrooms in
to mine, with the hope to instill the same 
passion in school in my students as my teachers 
did in me. I have also had teachers that 
have changed how I view school in a negative
 way. Because I've been through this, I plan 
to teach differently than they did. My know
ledge on good and bad teachers from my past 
will guide me as I create a teaching style of
 my own. My beliefs and perspectives will 
also be powerful while shaping who I am as a 
teacher. I believe that learning can be fun, 
and that every child can learn. I will push that belief into my classroom so hopefully my 
students will feel the same way. - SN1 Pre-test 

 
Score 1.6 (1.59 was pre-test question 1 mean) (2, 1, 2, 2, 1) 
"Growing up, I have always been good at school. I developed efficient studying tactics early on. I believe this and my passion for what I am looking into teaching (science) 

could help make me an excellent teacher. Ot
her than that, my experiences at high school 
will also influence my work. [My high sc
hool] had many good teachers that left an 
impression. I had one world history teacher w
ho only lectured, but he enjoyed what he was talking about so much that his student
s paid attention all hours. – These teachers showed me that there are many effective ways 
to explain a topic to your class and that the more passionate and honest you are, the better. Secondly, this class deals with diversity in classrooms. Being open to many different 
types of people - race, gender, religion, sexuality is something that was instilled in 
me by my family from a young age. I think 
openness is the first step to any functioning classroom." 
 SR1 Pre-test  
Score 2.4 (2.2 was post-test question 1 mean) (3,2,2,2,3) 

"I will treat my ESL students with the same amount of re
spect and understanding as I received in my German school. Certain thi
ngs teachers did were wonderful, like treating me with respect and treating me as if I was 
a German student, and grading me as one, too, 
but with a bit more help in comprehensi
on. I will examine my own thoughts and actions 
more in the classroom. Asking myself, "Why do
 I feel this way and is it right? Am I 
doing this because of old stereotypes and belief
s?" I will also try to bring into my lesson 
more multicultural ideas and activities." 
 AB1 Post-test  
Score 3.6 (highest across all sections) (4,4,4,3,3) "I grew up in a conservative household that was very careful with money and very open 
about ideas on earning what you receive. For a long time, this was my understanding of 
178 economics and society, not paying any attenti
on to where people come from and what 
they're given. Now I see both sides, and sit
ting atop the fence shows a lot more than you 
could see on one side or the other. My goal is to have an equal opportunity classroom 
where a rating on merit can be perceived th
rough a lens of cultural acceptance and 
understanding." JM1 Post-test 
 Question 2 - How will your studentsâ„¢ past 
experiences, beliefs and perspectives 
influence them in your class? (Sub-domains: 1) Degree 
of emphasis on cultural knowledge, 2) Awareness of mutability of 
beliefs, 3) Awareness that students' past 
experience is unique and limited to each of them., 4) Understanding of the connection of 
past experiences to current beliefs) 
 Score: 1 (1,1,1,1,1) 
"My students' past experiences, beliefs, and pe
rspectives will influence my class in many 
different ways that could be considered challenging. But when I do encounter these situations I will e ready for the challenge. I wi
ll try my best to be a neutral teacher and 
will not take sides. I will not attempt to change
 their minds because I feel as if that is the 
students' decision. But I will discuss with 
them my past experiences, beliefs, and 
perspectives. I believe that informing student
s about the things stated above will help 
make them form an opinion as an individual." 
JC1 Pre-test  
Score: 1.75 (1.66 was pre-test question 2 mean) (1,1,3,2) 
"I believe that if a student has a bad attitude in class or perceive that the class is going to be uninteresting, he will not succeed in the classroom without vigorous 
effort. Also, if the student has experienced a poor teacher in the past, he will project those memories of a 
bad teacher on to me and fail to respect the 
class or take it seriously. However, if a 
student has had good experiences and comes into
 the room with a positive attitude and 
believe that he or she can succeed in the cla
ssroom, they are much more likely to achieve 
and score on the material." 
PB2 Pre-test  
Score: 2 (1.96 was post-test question 2 mean) (1,1,4,2) 
"My students' past experiences, beliefs and pers
pectives will greatly influence them in my 
classroom. If students have had bad experiences
 they may be more inclined to act up or 
not try as hard in class as students that
 have had good academic experiences. Their 
experiences may also contribute to how much 
they are comfortable in doing in class such 
as speaking out in class or answering questions out loud. If a student believes that they must receive an education and that it is importa
nt to them or their families, they may be 
inclined to put in more effort without my 
encouragement then if a student does not see 
the value of an education. Also, students may 
act differently if they believe they cannot 
succeed in school versus if they think they
 can. Or, if the option of college is an economically viable one, students may try hard
er because they believe they can go farther 
in school. If students have beliefs or experiences that oppose the way I am conducting my class, they may call me out on that idea or act 
up or dismiss things 
that I have to teach them because the do not respect my way of teaching." 
 KR2 Post-test  
 179 Score: 2.75 (highest across all sections) (4,1,3,3) "How students view their position in the school influences how they're educated. if a 
student ahs felt oppressed, they are more likely to do poorly in the educational system 
because it works against them, understandably. It 
is unfair to expect the same results from 
students treated unfairly. the teacher has to make an effo
rt to try and treat students equally, because of this." WG1 Post-test 
 Question 3 - What are some social, historical and political contexts that have shaped the evolution of American public schools? How are these contexts still influencing 
how schools operate today?
 (Sub-domains: 1) Degree of 
emphasis on social justice-minded contexts, 2) Number of contexts c
onsidered, 3) Depth of
 understanding of the influence contexts have had on schools, 4) 
Depth of understanding of the influence 
contexts still have on schools) 
 Score 1: (1,1,1,1) 
"Schools are very different in different areas for starters. Some schools were very tough 
on their students about education and still are today. Others schools don't push for 
anything, so either the student gets it or they don't. I find both methods to be flawed. If 
teachers were to make learning interesting but
 still make sure they keep order then 
everybody comes out winners. We can't change
 the learning process without changing ourselves."  JD2 Pre-test  
Score: 2.25 (2.19 was pre-test question 3 mean) (4,1,3,1) 
"The evolution of the American public school
 goes back a very long time, all the way 
back to social dividers like segregation and the infection of racism in the public school. One major change in the public school system happened when schools were 
desegregated. National Guard troops had to escort children into a Birmingham school to 
keep them from being lynched. Racism in sc
hools is not so prevalent today, but still exists, especially in the South. Many political acts, such as desegregation of schools and the Civil Rights Act helped bring us to where we are today." JV1 Pre-test  
Score: 2.5 (2.43 was post-test question 3 mean) (4,2,2,2) 

"Many social, historical, and political contexts have shaped the evolution of American 
public schools, specifically, when schools we
re segregated by race. Schools are obviously 
still not separated by law, but 
in "all colors" schools, children still tend to socialize 
together. I believe that this was somewhat in
fluenced by early segregation. There has also been plenty of cases having to deal with the inequality of education (Brown vs. Board of Education) that have created more equality 
in public schools, yet there is still major 
unequal education still occurring. this unequal education has to deal with a lot of funding done by the state and local property taxes." JC1 Post-test  
Score: 4 (highest across all sections) (4,4,4,4) "When educational foundations were first establ
ished in the U.S. it 
was to benefit elite white men, thus schools were funded by local ta
x. Today, this factor greatly influences the quality of education in poor and richer neighborhoods. After Brown vs. Board of Education, schools ceased to be segregated. today, stereotypes about race are still 180 prevalent in actions toward minority race 
students, who are overrepresented in some 
schools. Recently, it has increased in so
cial acceptability and expression to be 
homosexual or bisexual. While some students 
suffer silently and others broadly boast, actions taken by schools vary in location. Some
 state laws prohibit discussion on minority 
sexuality and others claim classrooms are a "
homophobic free zone." In the 90's, the U.S. 
government passed regulations for special educat
ion, ensuring that they received a chance at "equal education." Some students have
 been correctly diagnoses, over diagnosed (younger boys) and under diagnosed (young women). EB1 Post-test  Qualitative Data Sources 
 
Sample Service Learning Journal Prompts  Week 3 (week of 10/10): Last week and this week we're studying gender as a social 
construction. What are some ways you see 
students (and teachers) "doing gender" by acting out cultural norms for their gender? Do
 you see any evidence of gender bias in the teaching or curriculum (refer back to exam
ples from Sadker & Zittleman for help)? 
 
Week 4 (week of 10/17): We've been focusi
ng on sexual orientation in class. A major 
point about this identity ma
rker is how homophobia and he
terosexism are a fundamental 
part of schools. Do you see any evidence of that in your classroom? Are their any 
homophobic actions or words used? Do the studen
ts or teacher act/tal
k as if everybody is 
heterosexual? 
Week 8 (week of 11/14): In class, we've been
 talking & reading about Social Class, or SES. Do you see any difference in how student
s of different economic 
levels at your site might experience the same school/class differe
ntly? Do you see any differences between 
this school/site and schools/sites that ar
e largely made up of people of a different 
economic levels? If not, why do you think so
? If so, how might these be forms of 
individual, institutional and/or structural classism? 
Week 9 (week of 11/21):Do you see any evidence of the forms of prejudice & 
discrimination Smart described in her article?
 If not, describe how you think this school has avoided these types of behaviors & actions. If so, describe these behaviors/actions and how you avoid them in your own school/class. Critical analysis Paper Assignment Instructions and Rubric   Overview 
 Issues of identity, power, privilege an
d opportunity are all around us. In the current media, technological, social, politic
al, religious, familial worlds, aspects of 
peopleâ„¢s and groupsâ„¢ identity are being played 
out daily. The way these identity markers 
are expressed and interact with one another often has relevance to larger social functions such as privilege, oppression, discrimination 
and opportunity. In this paper, you will take a current event or a media artif
act and critically analyze it through the lens of core class concepts. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate your understanding of these class 
181 concepts as well as your ability to apply them in a real worl
d setting by analyzing some phenomenon
.  Organization 
 This paper will contain three parts. Firs
t, begin with a brief introduction that 
summarizes the current event/media artifact
 that you will be discussing. I wonâ„¢t be 
explicitly grading this part of your paper, so do not spend too much time on it.  
 Second, discuss your current event/media artifact through the lens
 of 2 identity 
markers. This section should include a brief explanation
 (1-2 sentences) of what fiidentityfl means as well as a brief explanat
ion of each identity marker you apply. Major 
identity markers you might refer to are: gende
r, sexual orientation, race, language, social class* and disability*.  At the end of this section, discuss how the intersection of each of these identity markers is releva
nt for your specific event/artifact.  Third, critically analyze your event/artifact through the lens of 3 class concepts about social power. Major class concepts in this area that you might refer to are: the Purposes 
of school, Cycle of Socialization, social construction of normality and difference, forms 
of privilege, forms of oppre
ssion, & forms of discriminati
on. Again, begin with a brief explanation of your terms before you start your analysis. 
 
 Finally, end your paper with a brief 
discussion of how you might apply this critical analysis with students in your fu
ture classroom. I am not expecting a fully 
articulated lesson plan or even for your ideas 
to be necessarily realistic, but be as specific 
as possible. Think about your studentsâ„¢ age and the potential connections between this event/artifact and the subject you might teach
. You may focus on ways you would use 
this analysis in class or outside of class
.  Grading Criteria  
 The paper is worth 15 points total, but will be graded out of 45 points. This 45 
points comes from 9 grading criteria that
 I will assess on a 0-5 scale (NG, Poor, 
Acceptable, Good, Very Good, Excelle
nt) The grading criteria are: Identity (20 points) Explanation
 of fiidentityfl and 2 fiidentity markersfl 
Analysis through first identity marker 
Analysis through second identity marker Analysis of intersectionality of identity markers 
Social Aspects (20 points) 
Explanation
 of each social aspects 
Analysis through first social aspect Analysis through second social aspect Analysis through third aspect Conclusion (5 points) Future application
 in your classroom  182 An fiexcellentfl explanation includes the use of accurate citations from class readings, 
concise interpretations
 of those citations and strong, illustrative examples
 from personal 
experience or from outside the class. 

 
An fiexcellentfl analysis includes a clear and accurate understanding
 of class concepts, accurate and insightful connections to class concepts through references to the class readings, discussions, videos and activities.  
An fiexcellentfl application includes insightful and creative id
eas that are specific to your 
future teaching situation.  
 Data sources Your paper should draw on evidence from, 
and your arguments should be supported by, 
data and ideas from a variety 
(5-10 total) of sources. When 
citing these sources, be sure 
to use APA style citations both in text (e.g., Pincus, 2000, p. 33) and in a collected works cited at the end of the paper. Sources from which to support your thinking and arguments 
include: 

 
 Readings from class (at least 5) 

Outside readings (academic articles/books 
as well as popular, but reputable books, newspapers, magazines & th
eir online equivalents) Class discussions & class activities 

Service learning experience 
Interviews & observations with intere
sting/relevant teachers and students Personal experience as a student, teacher, tutor, etc 
 Please double check the syllabus for formatting requirements, additional writing 
guidelines and  information on acad
emic honesty and late assignments.  Identity Score Comments 5 Œ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Œ Good 2 Œ Acceptable Explanation of fiidentityfl and 2 
fiidentity markersfl 
1 Å’ Poor  5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Analysis through first identity marker 
1 Å’ Poor  5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Analysis through second identity marker 
1 Å’ Poor  183 5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Analysis of intersectionality of 

identity markers 
1 Å’ Poor  Social Aspects Score Comments 5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Explanation of each social aspect 1 Å’ Poor  5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Analysis through first social aspect 1 Å’ Poor  5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Analysis through second social aspect 1 Å’ Poor  Conclusion Score Comments 5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Future application in 
your classroom 
1 Å’ Poor   Critical analysis Blog Assignme
nt Instructions and Rubric   Overview 
 Issues of identity, power, privilege an
d opportunity are all around us. In the current media, technological, social, politic
al, religious, familial worlds, aspects of 
peopleâ„¢s and groupsâ„¢ identity are being played 
out daily. The way these identity markers 
are expressed and interact with one another often has relevance to larger social functions such as privilege, oppression, discriminati
on and opportunity. In this assignment, you 
will take a current event or a media artifact 
and critically analyze it through the lens of 
core class concepts. The purpose of this assignment is to demonstrate your understanding of these class concepts
 as well as your ability to appl
y them in a real world setting by
 analyzing some phenomenon
.  Organization 
 Your analysis will take the form of a series of eight blog posts over the span of 
several weeks. In general, your posts will cont
ain three sections. Your first post will be a 
184 brief introduction that introduces the curre
nt event/media artifact that you will be 
discussing and previews the ways 
in which you will be analyzing it. 
 In the second section, you will discuss your
 current event/media artifact through the 
lens of 2 identity markers. Each post should include a brief explanation
 (1-2 sentences) of the identity marker you are applying. Majo
r identity markers you might refer to are: 
gender, sexual orientation, race, language, soci
al class* and disability*.  At the end of 
this section, discuss how the intersection of each of these identity 
markers is relevant for 
your specific event/artifact. 
 In the third section, you will critically analy
ze your event/artifact through the lens of 
2 class concepts about social power. Major class concepts in this area that you might refer 
to are: the Purposes of school, Cycle of So
cialization, social c
onstruction of normality 
and difference, forms of privilege, form
s of oppression, & forms of discrimination. 
Again, in each post, begin with a brief explanation of your terms before you start your 
analysis. 

 
 Finally, end your blog with a two part
 conclusion. Discuss how you might apply 
this critical analysis with students in your future classroom. I am not expecting a fully 
articulated lesson plan or even for your ideas 
to be necessarily realistic, but be as specific 
as possible. Think about your studentsâ„¢ age and the potential connections between this event/artifact and the subject you might teach
. You may focus on ways you would use 
this analysis in class or outside of class
. End you conclusion by revisiting your personal beliefs on the topic and reflecting on how your thinking about this topic and these class concepts may have changed over the course of writing your blog posts. 

  In addition to writing your own blog, 
each week you will fif
ollowfl two other students™ blogs and leave brief comments to 
their posts. These comments should be about 
2-3 meaningful
 sentences long. Meaningful sentences do things such as: challenge the 
authorâ„¢s ideas, suggest additional ways of making 
their argument, and support
 or extend the authorâ„¢s argument with additional evidence. 

 
Post 1 Å’ Introduction & Preview 
Post 2 Å’ First Identity marker (explain term & apply class theory) 

Post 3 Å’ Second Identity marker (e
xplain term & apply class theory) 
Post 4  Discuss intersectionality of these 2 id
entity markers in your event/artifact 
Post 5 Å’ First Aspect of Social Power (explain term & a
pply class theory) Post 6 Å’ Second Aspect of Social Power (explain term & apply class theory) 
Post 7 Å’ Future classroom application (be specific & creative) 
Post 8  Revisit beliefs & reflect on process of writing these posts  Grading Criteria 
 The assignment is worth 20 points total, 
but  will be graded out of 60 points. 45 
points come from 9 grading criteria that
 I will assess on a 0-5 scale (NG, Poor, Acceptable, Good, Very Good, Excelle
nt) The grading criteria are: Introduction (5 points) 185 Identity (15 points) Analysis through first identity marker 
Analysis through second identity marker Analysis of intersectionality of identity markers 
Social Aspects (10 points) 
Analysis through first social aspect  Analysis through second social aspect Conclusion (10 points) Future application
 in your classroom  Revisiting and reflection Explanation of terms (5 points) 
 Accurate brief explanation of class terms used in posts  
  The additional 15 points will come from the comments you leave on other 

students™ blogs. You will fifollowfl two other 
studentsâ„¢ blogs. Each student will make 8 
posts for you to comment on. Therefore, you 
will post 16 brief comments over the course 
of this assignment. Each of these comments 
will be worth 1 point (you can get an extra point). As long as you post on time and meet length requirements, your comment will 

receive full credit. 
 
An fiexcellentfl explanation includes the use of accurate citations from class readings, 
concise interpretations
 of those citations and strong, illustrative examples
 from personal 
experience or from outside the class. 

 
An fiexcellentfl analysis includes a clear and accurate understanding
 of class concepts, accurate and insightful connections to class concepts through references to the class readings, discussions, videos and activities.  
An fiexcellentfl application includes insightful and creative id
eas that are specific to your 
future teaching situation.  
 Data sources  In your posts, when you apply course concep
ts of identity markers and aspects of 
social power, you should draw on evidence from, and your arguments should be 
supported by, data and ideas from a variety 
(4-6 total) of sources. When citing these 
sources, be sure to use APA style citations 
both in text (e.g., Pincus, 2000, p. 33) and in a collected works cited at the end of the paper. Sources from which to support your 
thinking and arguments include: 

 ŁReadings from class (at least 4) 

ŁOutside readings (academic articles/books
 as well as popular, but reputable books, newspapers, magazines & th
eir online equivalents) ŁClass discussions & class activities 

ŁService learning experience 

ŁInterviews & observations 
with interesting/releva
nt teachers and students ŁPersonal experience as a student, teacher, tutor, etc 
186  Please double check the instructorâ„¢s classroom blog, te250.wordpress.com, for 
models of explanation and analysis. 
 Overall Score Comments 
5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Explanation of terms for 
each identity marker and 
aspect of social power
 1 Å’ Poor  Introduction 
  5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Introduce topic and preview areas of 
analysis 
1 Å’ Poor  Identity Score Comments 5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Analysis through first identity marker 
1 Å’ Poor  5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Analysis through second identity marker 
1 Å’ Poor  5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Analysis of intersectionality of 

identity markers 
1 Å’ Poor  Social Aspects Score Comments 5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Analysis through first social aspect 1 Å’ Poor  5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Analysis through second social aspect 1 Å’ Poor  Conclusion Score Comments Future application in 5 Å’ Excellent  
187 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable your classroom 
1 Å’ Poor 5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Revisiting initial beliefs 1 Å’ Poor  5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Reflection on process of writing a blog 1 Å’ Poor  Participation 
Score Comments 5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Commenting on first 
blog 1 Å’ Poor  5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Commenting on second 
blog 1 Å’ Poor   Group Analysis Paper Assignment Instructions and Rubric  Overview 
 Students will work indivi
dually and with groups of three to write a critical 
analysis paper about multiple aspects of social positioning such as privilege, 

discrimination and the social construction of id
entity as they relate to a single identity 
marker. Each student will be responsible fo
r about 2-3 double spaced pages of the entire 
paper which will be 8-10 double spaced pages.  The final paper should flow as one 

document to demonstrate the groupsâ„¢ collect
ive understanding of social positioning and 
identity markers by drawing on assigned readin
gs and additional sources. The paper is due submitted on Angel by Thursday December 15
th at 10am. 
  Organization 
This paper will contain six parts. First, be
gin with an introduction paragraph defining 
your groupâ„¢s identity marker (with an in-text 
citation to either a course reading or an outside source). The purpose of this paragraph is explain what you mean by "gender" or 
"race," etc. You may also need to explain what
 your identity mark is not; i.e., how gender 
and sex or race and ethnicity are different. 
Again, you would want a class or outside 
source to support this argument. Lastly, you sh
ould also say something general and broad 
about your identity marker in society and edu
cation that previews the rest of the paper. 188  Second, explain how the identity ma
rker is socially constructed. You will apply Harro's 
Cycle of Socialization theory, starting with the big idea and explaining in general how your identity marker fits
 into this theory. From there, be more specific and focus on the 
roles of schools (teachers, curriculum & social
 aspects) in social
izing ideas about your identity marker. Wrap up this section by talk
ing about ways teachers can enforce or go against this social construction process. 
 
Throughout your explanation you should cite the appropriate readings in-text and fully at the end of this page. You will obviously cite Harro, but you need to also find one 

additional source to cite that supports your explanation of the social construction of your identity marker, especially as it relates 
to schools. See section on fidata sourcesfl for 
suggestions on where to find additional sour
ces and how to integrate them into your 
analysis. 

 
Third, explain how your groupâ„¢s identity marker is used to discriminate
 against certain 
groups. You will mostly be applying Pincus' 
theory, starting with the big idea and 
explaining in general how the identity marker
 fits into this theory. Then, you need to explain all three forms
 of discrimination and come up with a school-based example of 
each one. Again, see fidata sources™ section below. 

 
Fourth, explain how the identity marker creates privilege
 for members of certain groups. 
You will likely be explaining Johnson's chapte
r from Unit 1 called "Privilege, Oppression 
and Difference" to explain the two types of privilege. However, for your identity marker, 
you may have a course reading that also 
talks about these two types of privilege specifically for your identity maker. You can 
cite and explain this reading instead of 
Johnson. Whether you use Johnson or some othe
r identity marker specific article on 
privilege, you will also need one additional source. 

 
Fifth, discuss the intersectionality of your identity marker wi
th another identity marker. 
This section is a little different than the ones before it. In this section, you do not have a specific course reading that you are trying to explain. Instead, use your own understanding and one source to explain how your group's identity marker commonly 
influences/is influenced by another identity ma
rker. Your explanation of this intersection should include multiple (2-3) school-based examples. You need to have at least one 

citation and can either pull from the course 
readings for examples of intersectionality between two identity markers or find an outsi
de source that does so. If you do the former, 
reread the articles on your identity marker and you likely will see some discussion of its 

relationship to another identity marker. If you do the later, think about an example of 
intersectionality you believe to be
 true, and then look for sources
 that support or illustrate 
that. 
 
Fifth, you will discuss the critical classroom applications
 of how teachers might 
challenge the social construction of normality and forms of discrimination associated 

with your group's identity marker. You will 
explain this by giving two examples of 
lessons or educational activities that woul
d not only teach some grade and content area 
189 learning goal, but also challenge social inequa
lity related to your identity marker. Your 
two examples may come from your own ideas or you may find examples online of 

sample lessons and activities that serve this
 dual purpose of teaching state standards 
while challenging inequalit
y. Sites like Teaching Tolerance and EdChange are good 
sources of these. 
 
I am not expecting a fully articulated less
on plan, but spend a few sentences on each lesson/activity explaining what content & 
grade-level standards it teaches, and how it 
also encourages/empowers/challenges student
s socially. You do not have to have a specific number of citations here, but if you re-present a lesson/activity you found elsewhere, or if you just start with somebody else's idea and bu
ild off of it, make sure you 
cite it in text and below. 

 
Sixth, end your paper with a conclusion paragraph that summarizes the major points 
youâ„¢ve made throughout your paper. 

 
Below is a chart organizing the main points above 
Section Suggested Length No. of Sources 
Introduction .5 page (150 words) 1 that defines ID marker 
Social Construction 1.5 pages (400 words) Harro + 1 more 
Discrimination 1.5 pages (400 words) Pincus + 1 more 
Privilege 1.5 pages (400 words) Johnson (or other) + 1 more 
Intersectionality 1.5 pages (400 word
s) 1+ (from class or outside) 
Classroom Application 1.5 pages (400 word
s) 0 required, but cite as needed 
Conclusion .5 page (150 words) 0 required, but cite as needed 
 Grading Criteria  
 See separate grading rubric for specific grading criteria, but in general:  
An fiexcellentfl explanation includes the use of accurate citations from class readings, 
concise interpretations
 of those citations and strong, illustrative examples
 from personal 
experience or from outside the class. 

 
An fiexcellentfl analysis includes a clear and accurate understanding
 of class concepts, accurate and insightful connections to class concepts through references to the class readings, discussions, videos and activities.  
An fiexcellentfl application includes insightful and creative id
eas that are specific to your 
future teaching situation.  Data sources  Your paper should draw on evidence from, 
and your explanations should be supported by, data and ideas from a variety (8+) of s
ources. Many of these will come from course 
readings as you define your identity marker a
nd explain key theories of social power. In 
190 the introduction, if there is not 
a clear definition of your identity marker in the course 
readings, you will need an outside source fo
r a clear, concise definition. Additionally, in 
your explanation of class concepts (social construction, discrimination, privilege and 
intersectionality) you will need 
a citation from outside the course readings to support the 
arguments made by the course reading.  

 
Most often, this this additiona
l citation will provide an example or statistic that supports 
or illustrates the class autho
râ„¢s argument. For example, in explaining what Harro's theory 
says about the role of media in socializing beliefs about gender, you would cite Harro first, and then perhaps an article you find on
line about masculinity in a recent movie. 
Similarly, you might use an a
dditional source to provide a statistic that helps make 
Harroâ„¢s point and further your explanation of
 the social construction of your identity 
marker. For example, in explaining what Ha
rro's theory says about school's role in 
socializing beliefs about language, you might find an article 
online giving survey results of teachers' opinions about bilingual and ESL.
 Remember, this is a paper for a teacher 
education course, so as much as possible, you should provide school-based examples of 
whatever it is you are explaining. 
 
When citing these sources, be sure to use APA style citations both in text (e.g., Pincus, 

2000, p. 33) and in a collected works cited at the end of the paper. Sources from which to 
support your thinking and arguments include: 

 Readings from class 

Outside readings (academic articles/books 
as well as popular, but reputable books, newspapers, magazines & th
eir online equivalents) Service learning experience (you can cite your SL journal) 
Interviews & observations with intere
sting/relevant teachers and students  Formatting 
 Each main should be about 1.5 pages or 400 words maximum. Your group's editor should 

proofread all sections for consistency of language and formatting
. The paper should read like one document written by one author, so th
e style of language should be consistently professional, academic tone that avoids cont
ractions, slang, and other forms of informal 
language. There should also be consistency in
 the actual formatting of the paper including 
font, line spacing and indentations.  Please double check the syllabus for formatting requirements, additional writing 
guidelines and information on academ
ic honesty and late assignments.  Section 1: Score  5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable  1 Å’ Poor  191 5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable  1 Å’ Poor  Section 2:  Score  5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable  1 Å’ Poor  5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable  1 Å’ Poor  Group Work   5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Average of group matesâ„¢ review of your 

efforts in completing 

the group project 1 Å’ Poor  5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Preparation for Finals day roundtable 
discussions 1 Å’ Poor   Grading criteria for individual work se
ctions (10 points each section) 
1) Social Construction section  Explanation of class co
ncept (Accuracy & depth) 
 Use of sources (class and/or additional references) 

2) Discrimination section 

 Explanation of class co
ncept (Accuracy & depth) 
 Use of sources (class and/or additional references) 

3) Privilege section 
 Explanation of class co
ncept (Accuracy & depth) 
 Use of sources (class and/or additional references) 

4) Intersectionality section 
 Explanation of class co
ncept (Accuracy & depth) 
 Use of sources (class and/or additional references) 

5) Critical Classroom Application section 

 Sample lesson/activity 1 (specificity & criticality) 
 Sample lesson/activity 2 (specificity & criticality) 
6) Editing section 192  Introduction & Conclusion  
 Formatting  & Cohesiveness of language 

 Group Analysis Wiki Assignment Instructions and Rubric  Identity Marker Name 
  Begin your page with an introduction pa
ragraph defining identity marker (with an 
in-text citation to either a c
ourse reading or an outside source). The purpose of this paragraph is explain what you mean by "gender"
 or "race," etc. You may also need to 
explain what your identity mark is not; i.e
., how gender and sex or race and ethnicity are different. Again, you would want a source to support this argument. Lastly, you should 
also say something general and broad about your
 identity marker in society and education 
that previews the sections below. This pa
ragraph should be written by the group editor, and should only be about 100 words long. 
 Social Construction   This section explains how the identity 
marker is socially constructed. You will 
mostly be applying Harro's Cycl
e of Socialization theory, st
arting with the big idea and explaining in general how your identity marker f
its into this theory. From there, be more specific and focus on the roles of schools (t
eachers, curriculum & social aspects) in 
socializing our ideas about your identity marker. Wrap up th
is section by talking about ways teachers can enforce or go against this social construction process. 

 
 Throughout your explanation you should cite 
the appropriate readings in-text and fully at the end of this page. You will obviously cite Harro, but you need to also find one additional source to cite that supports your explanation of the social construction of your identity marker, especially as it relates to schools. Most people will use this additional 

citation to provide an example of a specific aspect of Harro's theory. For example, in 
explaining what Harro's theory says about the 
role of media in soci
alizing beliefs about gender, you would cite Harro first, and then maybe an article you find online about 
masculinity in a recent movie. Similarly, you mi
ght use an additional source to provide a 
statistic that helps make your 
point and further your explanation of the social construction of your identity marker. For example, in explaining what Harro's theory says about 

school's role in socializing beliefs about 
language, you might find an article online giving 
survey results of teachers' opinions about bili
ngual and ESL. Remember, this is a wiki for 
educators (researchers, teachers, teacher educa
tion students, and others), so as much as 
possible, you should provide school-based exampl
es of whatever it is you are explaining.  
 Formatting wise, each of these secti
ons should be about 400 words maximum. 
This section is actually about 400 words, so use this as a measure of what your length 
should looks like. Also, remember this is fo
r a professional, academic audience, so avoid 
contractions, slang, and other forms of in
formal language. You can follow the "model 
identity marker" template to input your text
, but also make sure you proofread what you 
wrote to look for spelling and grammar erro
rs. Your group's editor should also proofread 193 this section for any weird formatting errors. A 
consistent look across all pages is key to making these pages look professi
onal. Little things matter, li
ke what "level" header you 
use and when you use a double space and when you use a single space. 
 Discrimination 
   Similar to the instructions above, in 
this section you'll be explaining how the 
identity marker is used to discriminate against certain groups. You will mostly be 

applying Pincus' theory, starting with the bi
g idea and explaining in general how the identity marker fits into 
this theory. Then, you need to explain all three forms of 
discrimination and come up with a school-bas
ed example of each one. Again, this is 
where you may find end up citing an additional 
source to give an example or provide a 
statistic. Every thing else about the formatting and length also applies here. 
 Privilege   This section will be very similar to the sections above in its purpose, use of 

sources, organization, length and formatting. 
You will likely be explaining Johnson's 
chapter called "Privilege, O
ppression and Difference" to explain the two types of privilege. However, for your identity marker, 
you may have a course reading that also 
talks about these two types of privilege specifically for your identity maker. You can cite 
and explain this reading instead of Johnson. Whether you use Johnson or some other 
identity marker specific article on privilege, 
make sure you find an additional source to 
provide a school-based example or st
atistic that helps your explanation.  Intersectionality 
  This section is a little different than 
the ones before it. In this section, you do not have a specific course reading that you are trying to explain. Instead, you are explaining a concept we have discussed at various times 
during class: "intersectionality." You do not need to explain your terms here, just jump into explaining how your group's identity 

marker commonly influences/is influenced by 
another identity marker. Your explanation 
of this intersection should include multiple sc
hool-based examples. You need to have at 
least one citation here. You can either pull from the course readings for 
examples/statistics of intersectionality between
 two identity markers or find an outside 
source that does so. If you do the former, we 
may not have a readi
ng specifically about two identity markers intersect
ing, but reread the articles on your identity marker and you 
likely will see some discussion of
 its relationship to another 
identity marker. If you do the 
later, think about an example that you believe to be true, and then look for sources that support or illustrate that. 
 Critical Classroom Application 
   This last section is the most different
 from the others. In this section, you will 
discuss how teachers might challenge the soci
al construction of normality and forms of 
discrimination associated with your group's 
identity marker. You will explain this by 
194 giving two examples of lessons or educationa
l activities that woul
d not only teach some 
grade and content area learning goal, but also challenge social inequality related to your identity marker. Your two examples may 
come from your own ideas or you may find 
examples online of sample lessons and activities that serve this dual purpose of teaching 

state standards while challenging inequality. Sites like Teaching Tolerance and 

EdChange are good sources of these. 
 
 I am not expecting a fully articulated le
sson plan or even for your ideas to be necessarily realistic, but spend a few sent
ences on each lesson/activity explaining what 
content & grade-level standards it teaches, but how it also encourages/empowers/challenges students soci
ally. You do not have to have a specific number of citations here, but if you re-prese
nt a lesson/activity you found elsewhere, or if you just start with somebody else's idea and build 
off of it, make sure you cite it in text and below. 
 Works Cited   Here is where all your sources cited in
-text above will be collected. These should 
be in full APA format and arranged alphabetically
 (not in the order they appear below!) It is editor's responsibility to proofread the fo
rmatting here and make sure everything is in 
order. 
 
 
 Section 1: Score  5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable  1 Å’ Poor  5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable  1 Å’ Poor  Section 2:  Score  5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable  1 Å’ Poor  5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable  1 Å’ Poor  195 Group Work   5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Average of group matesâ„¢ review of your 

efforts in completing 

the group project 1 Å’ Poor  5 Å’ Excellent 4 - Very Good 3 Å’ Good 2 Å’ Acceptable Preparation for Finals day roundtable 
discussions 1 Å’ Poor   Grading criteria for individual work se
ctions (10 points each section) 
1) Social Construction section  Explanation of class co
ncept (Accuracy & depth) 
 Use of sources (class and/or additional references) 

2) Discrimination section 

 Explanation of class co
ncept (Accuracy & depth) 
 Use of sources (class and/or additional references) 

3) Privilege section 
 Explanation of class co
ncept (Accuracy & depth) 
 Use of sources (class and/or additional references) 

4) Intersectionality section 
 Explanation of class co
ncept (Accuracy & depth) 
 Use of sources (class and/or additional references) 

5) Critical Classroom Application section 
 Sample lesson/activity 1 (specificity & criticality) 
 Sample lesson/activity 2 (specificity & criticality) 

6) Editing section 
 Introduction & Conclusion  

 Formatting  & Cohesiveness of language 
  196 Appendix C - Study Forms  Figure 12 Participant online consent form.  197   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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