Talking Practice: The Debriefing Session in Multicultural Teacher Education Curriculum

This article provides an initial theoretical discussion of some student and instructor narratives from an action research project in a preservice secondary English methods course. The course attempted to take up a concern for promoting dialogue around race, class, and gender within a notion of curriculum as the construction of culturally significant domains for conversation. Particular attention is focused on the planned debriefing session immediately following the preservice students' first practicum experience, seen as an important opportunity for bridging theory and practice. The paper draws attention to the complexities and tensions for students and instructor alike during these debriefing sessions. The article discusses an expanded role for the instructor within the constraints and possibilities of the debriefing session as one discursive site in the conceptualization of any program-wide agenda for multicultural teacher education.