“Packed with honest stories that document the missteps, mistakes, and rethinking of courses that focus on issues of social justice, Cultivating Social Justice Teachers offers all of us – professors, teachers, researchers, and students – strategies for teaching and learning how to face the inevitable bumps and obstacles that get in the way of full inclusion and understanding of multiple perspectives. Engaging in brave and frank discussions, the editors and authors of this text are a model of what is needed if we are to change how teachers are prepared to teach in our diverse classrooms.” Sonia Nieto, Professor Emerita, School of Education University of Massachusetts, Amherst "Cultivating Social Justice Teachers emphasizes the profound connection between how we, as teachers, see ourselves and how we see our students, and recognizes that educators are de facto agents of Social Justice, positioned to either perpetuate or interrupt systems of oppression. This book points out how collaboration, connection, and communication are fundamental tools and practices in the work of preparing teachers to be Social Justice educators, planting seeds that, hopefully, will translate into the reflective practices that bridge our knowing of systemic oppression to guiding our own students in recognizing the social structures they have inherited. Most importantly, this book inspires hope that beyond acknowledging the roots of our current reality, teachers and students can change the course of injustice." Jennifer Chavez-Miller, Middle School Teacher and Curriculum Coordinator Mountain Mahogany Community School, Albuquerque, New Mexico “Few challenges in teacher preparation are as salient as teaching the central, troubling concepts of social justice that many profoundly resist learning. With theoretical nuance, pedagogical savvy, and highly relate-able examples and self-reflections, Cultivating Social Justice Teachers shows the possibilities for doing what often seems impossible. This book is one that no teacher educator—or any educator—can or should do without.” Kevin Kumashiro, author of Bad Teacher!: How Blaming Teachers Distorts the Bigger Picture