Empowering preservice teachers through advocacy and activism

This chapter seeks to address how to retain teachers by empowering preservice teachers within their teacher preparation program through advocacy and activism. Drawing from a longitudinal study on preservice teachers, among other studies, this chapter applies Freire's critical pedagogy as a framework to outline these main ideas and explain ways to implement them in a teacher education program: (1) Preservice teachers must recognize that they are functioning within a neoliberal system; (2) Preservice teachers must recognize that they have the power and voice to change and disrupt the system through advocacy and activism; (3) Preservice teachers must recognize that they can use their voice to change education and education-related policies that affect their students and their teaching; (4) Preservice teachers must recognize that they can use their voice to change social policies that affect their well-being and day-to-day life as teachers.