Caught in the Current: A Self-Study of State-Mandated Compliance in a Teacher Education Program

This qualitative self-study examines the impact of California’s state-mandated revision of teacher education programs on a department’s—and individual faculty members’—approach to teacher education. In spite of claims by respondents that this process had little impact on their approach to teaching, the authors’ analysis of interview and conversational data and documents suggests otherwise. Faculty members’ increased use of technocratic language and terminology reflecting compliance with the new state standards reveals a substantive shift in the ways they think about what they do.