Chapter 3: Answering the Call: Developing Teacher Identity, Agency, and Resiliency Through Community-Led Cultural Immersion

The following chapter presents a progressive stage development framework on preparing teacher candidates to become resilient professional teachers in high-need urban communities. This urban teacher preparation model has evolved over the past 15 years through the Chicago Teacher Education Pipeline (CTEP), a university-based unit grounded in social justice that works to cultivate and sustain innovative, resilient, and effective educators for urban schools and their communities. This chapter uses data collected from a 6-year (2009–2015) U.S. Department of Education, Teacher Quality Partnership grant awarded to CTEP at Illinois State University (ISU) entitled Teacher Education and Assessment Continuum for High-Need Educators and Resources + Principal Leadership in Urban Schools (TEACHER+PLUS) Project.