Chapter 7: Latino/A Preservice Teachers and Community Service-Learning: Justice Embraced, Dodged, and Troubled

This chapter explores 12 Latino/a preservice teachers’ divergent social justice views during a service-learning project. Some participants believed they should promote social justice, some did not discuss it, and others did not feel promotion of it was their role as teachers. This chapter prepares teacher-researchers interested in service-learning and social justice for respondents’ possible disagreements and it demonstrates the power of teacher candidates’ dialogue regarding their fieldwork. Also, this study shows how socioeconomic, immigration, and neighborhood factors relate to discrimination among people of the same race and ethnicity, which demonstrates the complex nature of culture. Data gathering took place in a south Texas colonia, or unincorporated settlement, with a high poverty level. Data sources for this grounded theory study were structured written reflections, daily logs, a focus group discussion, a visual metaphor activity, and participant observations.