A Guide for Deconstructing Social Reproduction: Pedagogical Conocimientos within the Context of Teacher Education

Abstract

As the mosaic of student demographics continue to change into the 21st century, teacher credential training programs must necessarily prepare educators to be culturally affirming and responsive to the equitable schooling of students. Through pedagogical conocimientos, educators-in-training may rely on self-reflexive methodologies, which facilitates the engagement of self and others in interaction, as they collectively retrieve family legacies, focusing on gathering histories on their family’s origins, language, religion, work, education, and migration. This prepares future teachers to unearth and examine internalized prejudices, traumas, and stereotypes, to thus counter and contest deficit thinking and distorted views of student populations, beginning with them. This chapter introduces pedagogical conocimientos, illustrating the praxis as it problematizes social reproduction in the context of schooling.