Building Teacher Candidate’s Capacity to Disrupt Socialized Niceness Through Practice-Based Teacher Education

Abstract

Despite decades of resistance, activism, legislative action, and changes in mindset, special education continues to be affected by historical inequities that impact students’ access to a free and appropriate education. To effectively serve and advocate for their students, it is critical for special education teacher candidates (TCs) to have the skills needed to recognize and disrupt these inequities, even (especially) when doing so may cause discomfort for themselves or their colleagues. Learning to recognize and work through that discomfort, one of the impacts of socialized niceness, is often lacking from educator preparation programs (EPPs). This article presents practice-based teacher education (PBTE), a framework designed to build novice teachers’ skills for intellectually-rich teaching, as one method EPPs can employ to empower TCs to effectively disrupt socialized niceness in the name of equity for all students.