“Just Don’t Get Up There and ‘Dangerous Minds’ Us”: Taking an Inquiry Stance on Adolescents’ Literacy Practices in Urban Teacher Education

Abstract

Teacher candidates assumptions about urban students shape their expectations and approaches to teaching them. In this chapter I document how a community of teacher candidates learned about teaching English in urban high schools through investigating adolescent literacies with their students. Beginning with an examination of the social construction of ``risk,{''} I analyze teacher candidates' inquiries into urban adolescents' literacy practices and the cultural and linguistic resources they bring to classrooms. Findings suggest how a critical inquiry stance encouraged individuals to interrupt deficit perspectives and ``risk-laden discourses{''} (Vasudevan and Campano, Rev Res Educ 33(1):310-353, 2009). This informed counter discourses about the talents and capabilities of urban students that provided a basis for developing more culturally relevant and relational approaches to teaching them.