Reflection and Narrative-Based Writing — Critical Ethnographic Action Research as a Transformative Approach in Teacher Education in Mexico

This project examines a collaboration between two teacher educators from San Francisco, U.S.A, and a teacher educator colleague from the city of Oaxaca, Mexico. The research focuses on central tenets of an innovative approach to teacher education, Critical Ethnographic Action Research (CEAR), pioneered at Universidad Autònoma Benito Juarez de Oaxaca (UABJO), a public university in Oaxaca. The approach integrates critical reflection and critical theory on coloniality, critical ethnography, identity texts and autobiography, and reflective-based teaching. Based on a series of focus group interviews with UABJO BA preservice educators and an analysis of their BA theses, we analyze how the CEAR approach supports preservice educators to deepen their embodied knowledge of critical reflection through engagement with critical theory, narrative and autobiography, and egalitarian and empathetic instructional practices. Our research offers an examination of an innovative approach from the Global South to support teacher educators in other global contexts in creating more liberatory approaches to pre- and inservice curriculum and pedagogy.