Building Capacity and Commitment for Leadership in Preservice Teacher Education

Abstract

Current educational reform initiatives advocate changes in both teachers’ and administrators’ roles. Increasingly, teachers are being asked to work with colleagues, administrators, and parents to achieve school-wide reforms. The existing professional socialization of new teachers, however, does little to encourage teachers to gain the skills required to collaborate with other adults. In this article, we argue that preservice teachers education must help beginning teachers develop the commitments, skills, and knowledge required for teacher leadership, and explore the implications of this argument for the pedagogy and curriculum of preservice education.