Questioning Assumptions and Challenging Perceptions

Meg White is an Assistant Professor in Teacher Education at Stockton University. Currently much of her teaching and scholarship is preparing pre-service teachers to be effective urban educators. Visit her blog: https://reflectionsinedblogblog.wordpress.com/Corine Meredith Brown is Assistant Chair for the Interdisciplinary and Inclusive Education Department at Rowan University. Her teaching and research focus on pre-service teacher preparation in diverse learning environments.Connie Schaffer is a faculty member at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Her teaching and research focus on preparing pre-service teachers to better understand the context of urban schools and the students who attend them.

That teachers need to understand themselves – their talents as well as their shortcomings, their sensitivities as well as their biases– before they can be effective with students of all backgrounds is by now fairly well accepted. In Questioning Assumptions and Challenging Perceptions, authors Meg White, Corine Meredith Brown, and Connie Schaffer go beyond platitudes to explore not only why but also how teachers and other educators can do so. This book will be useful for novice as well as veteran teachers who want to make a difference for themselves and their students.

• Foreword by Jack McKayAcknowledgementsIntroductionChapter One: Personal ExplorationChapter Two: Creating a Definition of UrbanChapter Three: The Social Context of Children and Families in Urban EnvironmentsChapter Four: Stages of Cognitive Dissonance: Internal ReflectionsChapter Five: Stages of Cognitive Dissonance: External ImplicationsChapter Six: Transforming Knowledge into ActionChapter Seven: Translating Theory into ActionReferencesIndexAbout the Authors