Learning to Teach for Social Justice-Beliefs scale: an application of Rasch measurement principles.(ARTICLES)

The authors illustrate how a Rasch model can guide the development of a new affective measurement instrument--the Learning to Teach for Social Justice--Beliefs scale. The results provide strong evidence of a meaningful continuum of attitudes about teaching for social justice ranging from those easier to endorse to those more difficult to endorse.

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The idea of preparing teachers to teach for social justice is prevalent in a loosely related collection of teacher preparation programs, partnerships, grassroots teacher and community groups, and other initiatives in the United States and elsewhere. Despite national attention, however, there is considerable variation in meanings of the phrase teacher education for social justice, and, in general, this has not been a well-theorized term (North, 2006). Very generally speaking, however, most definitions (e.g., Adams, Bell, & Griffin, 1997; Cochran-Smith, 1999, 2004; Michelli & Keiser, 2005; Oakes & Lipton, 1999; Sleeter, 1996; Villegas & Lucas, 2002; Zeichner, 2003) have in common explicit recognition of the marked disparities in educational opportunities, resources, achievement, and long-term outcomes between minority and low-income pupil groups and their White, middle-class peers. This is coupled with the position that teachers have the potential to be both educators and activists committed to the democratic ideal and to reducing the inequities in American society. Teacher education for social justice, then, is teacher preparation deliberately designed to provide the social, intellectual, and organizational contexts to foster teaching for social justice in schools accommodating students in kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12).

Teaching for social justice in K-12 schools has as its primary consideration promoting pupils' learning (academic, social, emotional, and civic) and enhancing pupils' life chances, including challenging the structures, curriculum, labels, and school arrangements that limit or inhibit life chances. This agenda builds on a wide-ranging body of scholarship, practice, and grassroots efforts, including multicultural theory and pedagogy; research on effective practices in diverse classrooms; critical analyses of education and society; research on culture, language, and identity; organization at the grassroots community level to change schools; and theories related to the role of education in democratic societies. Teaching for social justice builds on and requires knowledge (i.e., knowledge of content, pedagogy, learners, cultures, schooling, communities, as well as knowledge of self), interpretive frameworks (i.e., ways of understanding and acting on the events and processes of schooling based on the integration of knowledge with beliefs, values, ethics, moral commitments, and attitudes), and practices (including subject-specific pedagogies and strategies for supporting the learning process of English language learners [ELL], pupils with special needs, and pupils from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds). Teaching for social justice also involves teacher commitment to being part of larger social movements by working as advocates and activists for their pupils.

In this article, we assume that teaching for social justice is a legitimate and measurable outcome of teacher education. The purpose of this article is to present evidence of the extent to which this assumption has been met. Specifically, we present the psychometric characteristics of the Learning to Teach for Social Justice-Beliefs scale. This includes the operational definition of the construct, the item development and pilot testing procedures, item analysis results of both classical test theory (CTT) and item response theory (IRT; Rasch) procedures, and evidence of discriminant validity.

METHOD

Variable Definition