Learning to Teach for Social Justice: Context and Progressivism at Bank Street in the 1930’s

Abstract

This is a historical case study of the role of contexts in the education of progressive teachers and learning to advance social justice through teaching. The case focuses on how progressive education, progressive schools, and progressive ideas in the US, primarily during the 1930’s influenced a very distinctive program, The Cooperative School for Teachers, which became Bank Street College of Education, in New York City. And in turn how this program came to influence what progressive teacher education could be about. This paper addresses how students at Bank Street developed a sense of relationship between the need to understand and influence the social context of their future students and how to foster and advance social justice. Bank Street’s approach to teacher preparation framed how progressive teachers should be prepared by offering models for how teacher education can help teacher candidates learn about contexts different from their own and connect the micro context of the classroom to address social challenges and inequities. Keywords: