“I’d Say I Have a Bit of Work to Do”: Exploring Elementary Social Studies Pre- Service Teacher Criticality through PhotoVoice

Elementary pre-service teacher education offers important insights in terms of how teachers understand and develop criticality surrounding self-reflexivity, interaction with social studies content, and pedagogy. This study applied critical self-authorship frameworks, Freire's theory of conscientisation, and PhotoVoice methodology to explore pre-service teachers' self-awareness of their developing professional identities as situated within an elementary social studies methods course. Broadly, the study explored the question, "How does critical examination of our identities shape our understandings of elementary social studies education?" Results demonstrate an emerging awareness of the influence of personal history and experience, place, and multiple perspectives on learning and teaching social studies, but a need for more comprehensive and sustained attention to criticality throughout teacher preparation programs is needed to achieve selftransformation and antiracist/anticolonial pedagogy. These results offer theoretical and practical guidance for thinking about critical social studies elementary teaching and teacher education.


Introduction
Social studies education has long marginalized diverse and critical perspectives, offering instead a whitewashed version of history and current events (Ladson-Billings, 2003;Paris, 2012;Shear, et al., 2015). Given this legacy, the first opportunity for teachers to develop-or resist-criticality often occurs during their teacher preparation coursework (Dixon & Smith, 2010;Gorski, et al., 2013). Therefore, pre-service teacher education offers opportunities to examine how criticality evolves, the integrity (or superficiality) of that criticality, and its potential to influence curricular and pedagogical decision-making for generations of children. In particular, elementary social studies teacher education presents "the opportunity for identifying and problematizing" controversial topics, systems of oppression, and the complex ways educator identities shape teaching and learning about social justice (Shear, et al., 2018, p. xviii).
The first step in becoming a critical educator requires acknowledgment of one's identities and how those identities interact with understanding content, places, peoples, and worldviews. Skilled educators demonstrate selfawareness and the ability to reflect critically on their identity and professional practice (Rodgers & Scott, 2008;Stenberg, et al., 2014). Similarly, reflexivity is a "key element of a student teacher's professional development" (Korkko, et al., 2016, p. 199). Research suggests that preservice teachers (PTs) who critically examine their own histories and identities are better prepared to advocate for social justice and informed action as practicing teachers (Ellerbrock, et al., 2016;McGregor, et al., 2015).
While limited in scope, research into teacher thinking suggests that pre-service and early career social studies teachers struggle in terms of self-location, identity awareness, and reflexivity, particularly in terms of critical and antiracist pedagogy (King, et al., 2014;Levstik, 2008). To encourage teacher preparation programs (TPPs) to enhance their focus on such work, national frameworks emphasize the importance of professional and personal reflection, particularly in terms of advancing social justice. For example, the National Council for Social Studies (NCSS) Standards for the Preparation of Social Studies Teachers encourage opportunities for PTs to "reflect and expand upon their social studies knowledge, inquiry skills, and civic dispositions to advance social justice and promote human rights through informed action in schools and/or communities" (2018, p. 10). Despite this encouragement, many PTs "do not have an awareness of their own sociopolitical [and racialized] consciousness and, therefore, are ill-positioned to help young learners develop their own" (Ellerbrock, et al., 2016, p. 227).
The purpose of this study is to explore PTs' understandings about their evolving teacher identities within the context of elementary social studies education. Through the use of PhotoVoice, this study also highlights the potential for guided reflexivity as both research methodology and teacher education pedagogy. Research questions include: 1. How do pre-service elementary education majors identify and situate themselves in relationship to critical social studies education? 2. How does PhotoVoice enhance criticality and self-reflection within social studies teacher education?

Background and Theoretical Framework
In this article, we investigate focused opportunities for teacher candidates to explore their social studies identities, but we also hope to draw attention to the need for teacher educators and educational researchers to engage in, model, and articulate similar work. While self-reflection must occur within classrooms striving to enact critical social studies education, such self-reflection is rarely made transparent by teacher educators and scholars. We recognize that this article potentially reinforces the tendency to explore students' identities without confronting the many ways our identities shape how we view our students, how we conduct research, and how we reflect on our practice(s). To address this challenge, we include an explicit positionality statement here, and throughout the rest of this article we highlight examples of how we intentionally consider our identities in our work as teacher educators and scholars.
We identify as white, cisgender, heterosexual women from upper-middle class backgrounds. The university where we work is a land grant institution, and we recognize that such universities were made possible due to forced removal of Indigenous peoples1. In our case, Montana State University occupies lands shared by multiple Nations for millennia, including the Apsáalooke (Crow) and Piikani (Blackfeet) 2 . We also acknowledge the responsibility of educators and scholars to learn, teach, and communicate the complex histories and continued presences of Indigenous peoples. In Montana, we are also responsible for the implementation of Montana's Indian Education for All (IEFA), which mandates all students, preK-20+, learn about the histories and contemporary experiences of the Indigenous peoples whose homelands became Montana in order to reduce biases, sustain and revitalize Indigenous cultural identities, and expand relevance and accuracy for all learners (Stanton, et al., 2019).
We began learning about the privileges inherent to our identities through our postsecondary educations and our K-12 teaching experiences. We served as instructors of record for both courses in this study. Christine Stanton, who is a faculty member in teacher education, developed the K-8 social studies methods course. Hailey Hancock, an adjunct professor in teacher education, collaborated with Christine to identify readings, assignments, and experiences that engage with multicultural and social justice-oriented perspectives. The PhotoVoice project emerged out of these conversations.
Prior to transitioning to teacher education, we taught in "diverse" public schools in both urban and rural settings, where students from minoritized groups represented at least 20% of student populations. Our positionality reflects the predominant identities in K-8 teacher education programs nationwide, while our own K-12 students more accurately reflected broader U.S. demographics. In addition to learning from and with our K-12 students, we have both had opportunities to learn from mentors who identify as members of minoritized groups. For over 20 years, Christine has collaborated with leaders from multiple Indigenous nations to develop curriculum, support professional development, and create space within school and university systems for other youth-and community-led practices. For over 10 years, Hailey has worked as a teacher to close opportunity gaps for youth in underserved communities, supporting students in real world application and civic action in both urban and rural contexts. Despite our sustained, relational commitments to minoritized and underserved communities, we recognize we occupy white settler space physically and professionally. We strive to continuously learn from our mistakes, and we humbly look to scholars of color, minoritized students, and community members for guidance in our work.
Critical education requires a high degree of personal and social consciousness (Ellerbrock, et al., 2016), and critical educators must be courageous in terms of their self-identity work (Howard, 2003;Sabzalian, 2019a). Antiracist pedagogies (Blakeney, 2005;hooks, 1994;Howard, 2003;Tatum, 1992;Trifonas, 2003), racial literacies (King, et al., 2018), and anticolonial literacy (Sabzalian, 2019a) provide powerful lenses to guide such work, particularly within the field of social studies (Goldstein, 2020). Four steps are needed to cultivate and enact a critical, antiracist and anticolonial pedagogy: 1) developing deep self-awareness of one's own racial and cultural identity-and how that identity has been shaped by or benefitted through racism and settler colonialism; 2) gaining knowledge about the ways race, racism, and colonialism have affected-and continue to affect-schools, systems, and society; 3) decentering whiteness and property while expanding empathy for racialized, minoritized, and displaced peoples; and, 4) becoming activists who "combat racial inequities in work, school, and community settings" (Howard, 2003, p. 199).
To frame analysis of PTs' progress in terms of these steps, this study looks to Freire's (2000Freire's ( /1972 foundational theory of conscientisation, which describes the process of developing both an individual and collective critical consciousness. To further inform our research design and analysis, we applied selfauthorship theory. Baxter Magolda (2008) defines self-authorship as "the internal capacity to define one's beliefs, identity, and social relations" (p. 269). Self-authorship theory is well aligned with the goals of social studies teacher education, given its attention to learning as impetus for an "evolution of consciousness" within social contexts (Kegan, 1994, p. 9). See Appendix A for an overview of our theoretical frameworks and their relationships with major educational paradigms. Kegan (1994) identifies five increasingly complex orders of consciousness. While Order 3 (Socialized Mind) is the level most commonly attained by adults, Order 4 (Self-Authorship) is the minimum level needed to function effectively in contemporary society, and Order 5 (Self-Transformation) is necessary for systemic action and change. Through this study, we posit that PTs who demonstrate more advanced stages of conscientisation and higher orders of consciousness articulate a commitment to thinking and action that more effectively aligns with critical, antiracist, and anticolonial pedagogy.
When integrated with social studies frameworks, Freire's theory and Kegan's orders align with progressively more complex and critical views within social studies and teacher education. Traditionally, social studies education has relied heavily upon Eurocentric and "whitewashed" narratives (Busey & Walker, 2017;Loewen, 2010;Sabzalian, 2019a;Salinas, et al., 2016;Shear, et al., 2015;Stanton, 2014;Vickery & Salinas, 2019), which have shaped a socially egocentric lens, even for peoples of color and/or from historically marginalized backgrounds. Since teachers in the U.S. are predominantly white and from middle-class backgrounds (NCES, 2020), achieving critical consciousness requires movement beyond Kegan's (1994) Order 3 (Socialized Mind). Mobility between orders depends upon many complex factors. Research suggests that certain approaches to teacher education and professional development-particularly those that engage in intentional and guided critical self-reflection-are more effective at encouraging teachers and PTs to achieve these levels of critical consciousness than conventional approaches (Ellerbrock, et al., 2016). Specifically, PTs need opportunities for self-reflection followed by practice in critical curricular and pedagogical decision-making (Bazemore-Bertrand & Porcher, 2020;Muller & Bryan, 2020).

Methods
An emerging research methodology that shows promise for guiding reflection about identity is PhotoVoice, which is a participatory approach that engages participants in the selection, synthesis, showcasing, and narrative analysis of photographs that represent their thinking and experience (Guerrero & Tinkler, 2010). The methodology was originally developed within the field of public health research in the late 1990s, and since then PhotoVoice has demonstrated effectiveness in various contexts, particularly in terms of exploring the stories and experiences of marginalized populations (Roxas & Gabriel, 2016). The methodology's original goal centers upon elevating attention to identity and agency in order to enact positive social change (Baker, et al., 2017), so it aligns well with the purposes of this study. Specifically, "Photovoice maintains high standards and allows for selfempowerment of the participants, which further creates a socially just standard for educational research" (Roxas & Gabriel, 2016, p. 4).
PhotoVoice is inherently critical and autoethnographic, so it is particularly appropriate for research that explores the development of critical consciousness (Latz, 2017). Such reflection serves dual purposes to support learner/participant empowerment and to enhance data analysis. As Baker et al. (2017) note, "PhotoVoice data can become richer by participants reflecting and adding captions to selected photos" (p. 254). Furthermore, within teacher education TPP contexts, PhotoVoice demonstrates potential as both a research methodology and a pedagogical approach, given its participatory and action-oriented nature. In particular, the PhotoVoice project described in this paper illustrates ways teacher educators can use PhotoVoice in their own courses, and-given its situation in an elementary education methods course-it also offers ideas for application within K-8 classrooms.

Participants and Context
Participants included 30 PTs in two elementary social studies methods courses at a public, predominantly white institution in a rural, politically conservative state in the Pacific Northwest. Over 80% of the participants identified as white, female, and under the age of 25. Only 10% identified as non-white (Indigenous, Hispanic, biracial), and just over 15% identified as male. All were elementary education majors at the junior or senior level in the largest TPP in the state and were enrolled in a three-credit social studies methods course. Based on an autobiographical activity early in the course, many of the PTs demonstrated resistance to social studies as a subject area, for two main reasons: 1) anxiety about "not knowing the content" or "having to memorize" and 2) negative prior experiences with the content and/or social studies instructors.
In terms of preparing PTs to implement antiracist and anticolonial pedagogy, the focal TPP includes a multicultural education course, and several other courses include basic connections, most of which would align with Order 3 in Kegan's framework. Since the state mandates teaching of Indigenous perspectives across content areas and grade levels, all teacher candidates at the institution complete coursework in Native American Studies, and students are expected to demonstrate their ability to plan lessons with IEFA throughout methods courses and in field experiences. Most PTs noted that they rarely-if everexperienced explicit social studies teaching in their field experiences, as the focus tends to be on literacy and math, and almost none have witnessed teaching that addressed the state's Indigenous education mandate.

Data Sources and Analysis
To encourage deeper and more critical reflection about the influence of identities on social studies teaching, students in the K-8 social studies methods course are asked to complete a PhotoVoice project, which "offers an opportunity for [students] to think critically about who [they] are and how [their] background shapes [their] view of social studies teaching and learning" (assignment description). For the project, students identify a NCSS theme (e.g., "people, places, and environments") and choose six photographs from their personal collection, each representing a connection to the chosen theme and to a "cornerstone" social studies discipline. For example, students included photos of greatgrandparents (history), photos with friends during overseas travel experiences (geography), and photos they took of family farms (economics). While the PTs are able to choose any photos they believe fit the requirements, the assignment description does include example topics as well as references to the C3 Framework (e.g., "Civics" = Rights and Responsibilities; "Economics" = Economic Conditions in Home Town; "History" = Family Artifacts).
To accompany the photos, students include brief captions to explain each photo's significance in terms of the overall theme and associated discipline. Students arrange all of the photos and explanatory captions on a single digital display, such as a PowerPoint slide. Directly on their PhotoVoice displays, students are also expected to provide written land acknowledgements to recognize the Indigenous peoples with traditional and/or contemporary ties to the places or experiences highlighted in the photos. Through the project, we wanted to raise PTs' attention to the curricular exclusion of Indigenous peoples, encourage them to think about their own experiences as situated within broader historical and contemporary Indigenous presence, and practice researching and recognizing Indigenous peoples in the hopes that they will guide K-8 students in similar practices.
First, a land acknowledgement component elevates attention to the tendency for education broadly, and social studies education, specifically, to erase or diminish the long-standing histories of Indigenous peoples (all education occurs on Indigenous lands). Throughout the project, we regularly heard PTs say, "Before this project, I realized I didn't know who originally occupied this land" or, "I had never thought about the Native peoples and their histories when in this place." Additionally, the expectation asks students to think about the continued presence of Indigenous peoples and knowledges, especially as situated within the IEFA mandate. As scholars have noted, even in classrooms where Indigenous histories are recognized, those histories often end abruptly around 1900, despite the ongoing activism and presence of Indigenous peoples throughout the 20 th Century and today (Sabzalian, 2019b;Shear, et al., 2015;Stanton, 2012;Stanton, 2014). Finally, we wanted PTs to experience the practices associated with preparing and sharing a responsible land acknowledgement (e.g., researching history and contemporary connections using reliable tools, striving to use names and spellings preferred by Indigenous groups 3 , learning how to pronounce preferred names) so that they can guide young learners through similar practices.
Early in the semester, students share their PhotoVoice projects with peers using a Gallery Walk/Poster Session format, during which students provide brief one-on-one presentations to peers and then answer questions about their projects. To help frame their projects and encourage reflexivity, and as part of their initial project submission, students write a letter to themselves, where they synthesize their photos and identify a semester learning goal specific to social studies education. At the end of the semester, students revisit their letters, review their goals, and write a response letter describing ways their identities and/or views of social studies education have evolved.
For this study, a variety of data were collected, synthesized, and analyzed, including PhotoVoice displays, researcher-generated materials (e.g., memos, field notes), and participant narratives (e.g., "letter to myself" and response letter). Data analysis involved multiple phases: 1) "participatory sensemaking" with whole classes during Gallery Walk/Poster Session debriefing activities (De Jaegher & Di Paolo, 2007), 2) open exploratory coding of PhotoVoice displays (Emerson, et al., 1995;Rubin & Rubin, 2005;Saldana, 2016), and 3) multi-stage focused values coding of participant narratives to situate results within the theoretical framework (Saldana, 2016) (see Appendix B). Our research team consisted of one faculty member and two graduate assistants; the faculty member and one of the graduate students also served as instructors of record for the two methods courses.
To enhance trustworthiness and credibility, we developed a codebook aligned with emergent codes identified during the open coding phase (see Appendix C) and rubrics aligned with Kegan's Orders of Consciousness (see Appendix D). We also removed identifying information for students, divided data in a way to ensure instructors would not analyze data from their own class, and we had at least two researchers independently analyze each piece of data. As a team, we met regularly to practice aspects of the research process, refine analytical tools, and discuss discrepancies in analysis between researchers.

Findings and Discussion: Toward a (Critical?) Elementary Social Studies Teacher Identity
Broadly, the PhotoVoice projects (see examples in Appendix E) highlighted many themes that relate to identity, including the importance of personal experience and heritage, connections to place, and expanding awareness about inequities and multiple perspectives. The "letters" students wrote to themselves situated these themes in terms of values related to personal experiential and intergenerational learning, the importance of connection to community and place in learning, and the need to explore and learn about the experiences of "others". In terms of the first question ("How do pre-service elementary education majors identify and situate themselves in relationship to critical social studies education?"), PTs demonstrated an increasing comfort with and confidence in their relationship with social studies throughout the semester and resulting from both the PhotoVoice project and the reflective letter writing, although they rarely provided examples or explanations that truly align with antiracist or anticolonial pedagogy.
Similarly, general findings related to the second question ("How does PhotoVoice enhance criticality and self-reflection within social studies teacher education?") demonstrated the potential for PhotoVoice and the social studies methods coursework to encourage development of more critical and self-reflective perspectives of social studies, although few PTs consistently achieved levels 4 (self-authoring mind) or 5 (self-transforming mind) on Kegan's Orders of Consciousness. Below, we highlight and discuss findings surrounding key integrated themes related to these three research questions.

"Social Studies is All Around Me": Personal Learning and Social Studies Teacher Identity
As previous research has noted, PTs' views of teaching are greatly influenced by their family background and experiences (Korkko, et al., 2016). Through the PhotoVoice project, many of the PTs demonstrated expanded awareness of how their personal histories shape their understanding of social studies topics. One student explained, "Before this prompt I never thought about the factors that influence my decisions." Many students recognized their gaps in content knowledge and appeared to associate content knowledge with one of the most important qualities shaping an identity as a social studies teacher. For example, one student connected personal history and culture to social studies teaching, noting that through the project, "I realized the amount of history and culture I have that has formed my identity as an emerging social studies teacher." Another PT stated: When I began this PhotoVoice project I felt discouraged, because I did not feel that I had any background in social studies teaching... In taking a closer look I realized that social studies themes are all around me in my everyday life and experiences.
Despite this increasing awareness of the expansiveness of social studies content, many PTs expressed their desire to find and apply shortcuts both in terms of both content and pedagogy. For example, in their end-ofsemester reflection letters, several PTs focused on an appreciation for developing "toolkits" filled with "fun" and "engaging" practices to use in K-8 classrooms, which they emphasized increased their confidence in terms of both content and pedagogy. Although the PhotoVoice project encouraged them to recognize that social studies is "all around," we wonder if the PTs, after they become practicing teachers, will look to their specific contexts and communities for connections, relevance, and criticality, or if they will default to the pedagogical "toolkits" they bring with them and/or access through mainstream curriculum.
Furthermore, we noticed the tendency of PTs to view content and pedagogy as distinct, rather than seeing how they can-and mustconnect to support criticality, or what Dyches and Boyd (2017) term Social Justice Pedagogical and Content Knowledge. To address perceived gaps in content knowledge, many students identified goals that were content-driven (e.g., "I will listen to a history podcast three times a week during my workouts for the duration of the semester"), rather than pedagogical or dispositional. Others, however, demonstrated an understanding of more critical connections between content understanding, teacher confidence/interest, and teaching effectiveness. For example, one participant explained: My intent with this goal is to remove my own biases toward [the two disciplines, history and civics] I struggle with. Teachers are constantly hearing about how unconscious bias can affect student interest or ability to learn. What is often not spoken of is how these biases can apply to more than just individuals, but also the subject matter.
For this PT, interpretation of the content matter is viewed as a pedagogical act, and one that can advance criticality, as long as the teacher confronts the biases within curriculum. However, we do not necessarily see through this example whether or not the PT intends to bring the curricular bias to the attention of his/her/their students. In other words, will K-8 students learn how to critically evaluate their curriculum with their teachers, or are the PTs planning to filter content for their students?
The project also encouraged participants to share aspects of their identities they typically view as part of their "personal/private selves" in more public ways. For example, one student juxtaposed photos of two of her greatgrandfathers-one who was born in the U.S. and the other who immigrated from Iran. She described her U.S.-born European-American ancestor as a "True American," and while her original description includes quotation marks around this term, the PT does not question, explain, or critique the term. While sharing this information with her teacher, the research team, and her classmates drew attention to her own differences and background, this example also highlighted the tendency of the PTs to miss opportunities for reflection that could support self-authorship and/or self-transformation. In this case, the PT noted that her background allowed her to be "exposed to social norms of different cultures," but she did not reflect upon how such "exposure" has shaped her thinking and/or will inform her teaching.
Almost every project included at least one photo of family members, and many projects demonstrated values associated with sustaining tradition through intergenerational learning. For example, participants described learning about cultural knowledge from grandparents and planning to take their own children to family vacation sites. As the PhotoVoice assignment asked participants to reflect on the intersections between their identities and Indigenous claims to land, it encouraged PTs to reach Kegan's "socialized mind" or beyond. For example, one PT explained: "Studying my family's background and exploring the land acknowledgement allowed me a unique perspective about my background that I hadn't considered before." In addition to recognizing the influence of background experiences on thinking about social studies content, many of the participants noted ways the PhotoVoice process supported deeper understanding of how their teaching identities are shaped-and continue to be shaped-by these experiences. For instance, one PT explained, "While this assignment shows who I am, it can also help explain who I am as a teacher. I am constantly changing over time." Another PT provided specific examples to illustrate this change over time and-perhaps even more important-a recognition of that change: Each photograph held less significance before I started this project. I did not know how impactful a box of cherries or an old Mardi Gras picture was from years ago. Now, I see each picture as an important part of my identity… While this is my Social Studies teacher "identity", it is also much more, it is how I will interact with peers, students, professionals, and how I will share my knowledge with those around me.
Acknowledging one's identity is an important first step in becoming a critical educator, but, as this student and several of the other PTs demonstrated, being aware of how one's positionality evolves is even more important. As the PTs move from being students to being teachers, and to positions with greater potential authority, power, and influence, this self-awareness of change will be essential for continued development of criticality and for advancing equity and social justice within the classroom.

"I Have a Responsibility": Place and Social Studies Teacher Identity
Most of the PhotoVoice projects included photos that centered community, place, and/or the natural environment. Given the location of the TPP, which is a destination for outdoor recreation, and the emphasis of the institution on serving the "sons and daughters" of the farmers and ranchers of the state, this finding is not surprising. Although these aspects of identity are close to students, the PTs admitted they had rarely-if ever-considered how those aspects might influence their views of social studies and/or their approaches to teaching social studies. As one participant noted: My photovoice project is about my individual development and identity, and the evidence shows that as a social studies teacher, I will be very passionate about the history of where I live. I want my students to understand the significance of the land they live on through lots of explorations.
Connecting to place and local history is an important component for developing relevance for students. However, since the majority of PTs in this project identify as white, and since many of them come from predominantly white (and otherwise seemingly homogenous) communities, connection to place and local history may not, on its own, advance criticality. In fact, such connection could reinforce mainstream or "dominant" ideas of culture, place, and history.
To challenge students to think more critically about culture, place, and history, the PhotoVoice project required PTs to provide Indigenous land acknowledgements. Many of the students referenced these acknowledgements in their letters, and several noted that the project pushed them to access resources they can use as teachers, suggesting movement into the self-authorship and selftransformation orders of consciousness. For example, one participant noted, "After researching each Indigenous Land Acknowledgement of Native tribes in [state] that once lived here before us, I feel confident after more research, to bring forth their story and culture in my social studies curriculum." Another PT explained: This student's response demonstrates the potential for a land acknowledgement to encourage a basic critical shift in thinking about place and local history. In particular, when PTs realized that the stories/histories most familiar to them are incomplete, and that they reinforce what Grande (2008) calls "whitestream" (i.e., white, settler colonial + mainstream) knowledges, they began to recognize an added responsibility to learn more about stories/histories that have been excluded. In their final reflections, several PTs expressed an uneasy (humbling) awareness of how limited their understandings about diverse perspectives and social justice remain. Additionally, several acknowledged having a "responsibility" to learn, and many described education-and reflection on their own education-as helping them expand their understandings of diversity.
Overall, place, community, and culture were intertwined for many of the PTs. For example, a common theme recognized the value of "hard work" instilled by growing up in rural, agriculturally based communities. Many students described connections to farms, ranches, and land. On occasion, these connections were explored more critically. For example, one PT noted that her access to college was made possible because she was offered a rodeo scholarship at the university. While the university context is very different from her home context, she was able to sustain a sense of community through her involvement on the rodeo team, and she recognized the implications of community connectedness for her own teaching. This awareness, and articulation of it, demonstrates an emerging self-authorship in terms of identity as a university student, a member of various communities, and a teacher.
Other students noted a deepening awareness of inequities through their connections to place. For instance, participants described exposure to widespread poverty in urban centers, reservation communities, and developing nations through "mission" work and other travel. While the PhotoVoice project cultivated opportunities for PTs to identify these places and their influence on shaping their general views, very few students demonstrated self-transformation through explicit recognition of systemic and interconnected contributions. Without such critical perspective, awareness of differences can reinforce lower orders of consciousness.

"I Have a Bit of Work to Do": Multiple Perspectives and Social Studies Teacher Identity
Most of the PTs recognized-either directly on their PhotoVoice displays or through their self-analysis in their letters-the importance of developing multiple perspectives as social studies teachers. However, the degree to which these perspectives informed PT identity and awareness varied. For example, one participant observed, "I enjoy learning about others." While many of the PTs echoed this sentiment, they did not all explain how such learning shapes their own thinking, identity, and/or teaching. Problematically, some PTs even suggested that brief exposure to different views and experiences provides a level of expertise that might affect their teaching (e.g., "through my educational travel, I've experienced their 'world'"). For these students, recognition of multiple perspectives is merely reflective of Kegan's Order 2 (Instrumental Mind).
For other participants, their reflection on multiple perspectives demonstrates reaching Order 3 (Socialized Mind) or Order 4 (Self-Authorship). While these examples suggest PTs are not yet achieving self-transformation, they illustrate potential for future growth. For example, one PT explained: As a future social studies teacher, I have a lot of growth to do in my knowledge of the different cultures around the world. As I worked through and completed the PhotoVoice project I noticed that I do not have a lot of exposure and knowledge of different cultures and how to incorporate them into my classroom. I noticed, however, that I do value the importance of relationships with others and how powerful they can be. One goal that I have for this semester is to learn three new things about middle eastern culture that I can incorporate into the classroom.
Of course, even this example is problematic in its over-generalization and over-simplification of "Middle Eastern culture." Similarly, many of the other PTs' examples acknowledged the importance of multiple perspectives, but they did so in a basic or superficial way. For example, one of the most common civics topics in the PhotoVoice project focused on service to communities and people (seemingly) in need, and several PTs believed that volunteerism allowed them to quickly develop a cultural insider and good citizen perspective. Such "cultural tourism" service activities can reinvigorate colonial legacies, racist beliefs, and white savior views, particularly if they are short term and facilitated by community outsiders claiming a "mission" or agenda that does not align with the community's values and interests.
However, in a few cases, PTs demonstrated recognition of more complex differences between awareness, empathy, advocacy, and action. In these examples, the PhotoVoice project supported thinking that implies emerging self-transformation. For example, one PT explained: As far as social studies teachers go, I'd say I have a bit of work to do. Most of my experiences are either located in very white and privileged ski towns, or abroad for primarily vacationary [sic] reasons. Although [I]  Similarly, several PTs acknowledged the difficult but essential self-location work that is integral to self-authorship and social justice education. For example, one PT explained, "Through this project, I was able to discover and confront my own personal biases, capitalize on my strengths, and get to know myself on a deeper level." We note, though, that acknowledging one's positionality-or getting to know oneself "on a deeper level"-does not automatically equate with action or transformation, particularly within an elementary classroom.
Fortunately, by the end of the semester, many of the PTs were able to reflect on their original project and evaluate their initial goal with a more critical lens, and in several cases, PTs provided specific ideas for practice. For example, one PT explained, I believe my goals for this semester have changed after completing this project. I would have stated my goals more in terms of learning social studies content and providing the best resources. While this is still an important goal for me, I am now directed more towards expanding my future student's multicultural perspectives and providing them with opportunities to explore different societies. I want my students to feel comfortable questioning an event or timeline, and to ask help in comprehending their new-found knowledge. A large goal for me, is to step outside of my comfort zone to be able to support student understanding, expanding my inherent knowledge to fill in the answers for their questions.
Another PT echoed this desire to "step outside of the comfort zone" and encourage students to tackle difficult content and questions, claiming, "I realize that it is important to have the difficult conversations with students in order to assist students in making an impact on their community and world." However, while participants often selfreported an increased awareness within their end-of-semester reflection letters, most remained vague-and committed only to comfortable (e.g., "appropriate") action-in terms of future practice. For example, one PT claimed, I believe I am on the journey towards meeting my goal, which is understanding ways to respect other people's identities without isolating them. What I mean by this, is teaching material in an appropriate and beneficial manner so that my students have a broad worldview.
Broadly, for many of the PTs, "respecting other people's identities" might mean making space for those identities (as opposed to "isolating them"), but only if "appropriate" and "beneficial." At the end of the project, we were left wondering, what do the PTs believe is "appropriate" and "beneficial?" Does their view demonstrate a genuine shift in terms of criticality, or are they merely supportive of the idea of such work?

Implications: Self-Transformation for Critical Elementary Social Studies
Given the COVID-19 pandemic and the momentum of racial justice movements, now is the time to engage students-and teachers-as critical, antiracist, and anticolonial agents of change in their own education, lives, and communities (Love, 2020;Wing, 2020). Unfortunately, elementary education has long cultivated passivity, false empathy, and performative compassion while propping up myths of cultural neutrality, particularly within social studies (Castagno, 2014;Gooding, 2019). For classrooms led by predominantly white educators, a focus on fun, cooperation, and "niceness" minimizes one's own role in perpetuating inequities (Castagno, 2019). Therefore, shifting to critical, antiracist, anticolonial social studies depends upon teachers engaging in deep and difficult identity work that courageously and actively confronts mistakes, discomfort, and resistance to change.
Although the PhotoVoice projects highlighted in this study suggest an emerging self-authorship (Kegan's Order 4) and criticality in some areas and among some participants, most PTs demonstrated thinking about identity that aligns with the "socialized mind" (Kegan's Order 3). This finding, while consistent with results identified in earlier scholarship, is disappointing since social change requires consistent, active engagement at the selfauthorship and self-transformation levels. Broadly, our results made us wonder if PTs truly understand the role of self-reflection and selfeducation in self-transformation as teachers, or if they are still functioning as students hoping to be given answers, ideas, and simple solutions that will be build confidence and be comfortable for themselves and their students.
While building confidence is important for teacher development, the PT responses also suggest a continued expectation to "learn about the culture" passively from "others", instead of doing the difficult work needed for selftransformation. True critical transformation requires ongoing honest and humble selfreflection combined with extensive practice and a commitment to change. We also recognize that such transformation requires autonomy and agency, and that, therefore, even the best teachers in the world may be unable to inspire or sustain genuine criticality in some learners.
All this said, most of the PTs in this study did recognize that reflective identity work is a critical, challenging, and continuous process, especially in terms of learning to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in meaningful ways.
Unfortunately, efforts to support "diversity and inclusion" within K-12 and higher education often fall short of genuine transformation, since they tend to focus more on "talking" than meaningful "disruption" of racist and colonial systems (Bazemore-Bertrand & Porcher, 2020, p. 76). Although we advocate for courses and experiences that include diverse perspectives, we caution that an inclusive stance does not go far enough in preparing the next generation of antiracist and anticolonial elementary social studies teachers, and such an orientation might actually center whiteness through performative or even voyeuristic activities.
Therefore, critical and transformative education depends upon new commitments across elementary education and teacher preparation programs to re-center and elevate social studies education beyond engaging in "cultural tourism," incorporating reading lessons that use history texts, and requiring single teaching methods courses that focus on character education and preparation for "good" (i.e., complaisant) citizenship. Instead of superficial or additive inclusion of diverse perspectives, educators-including teacher educators-need to commit not only to a recentering of social studies education, but also to enhancing opportunities for critical learning about social studies content both within and beyond dedicated social studies class time and methods courses. As critical education scholars explain, white teachers need to take responsibility for their own learning in terms of antiracist and anticolonial curriculum and pedagogy (Sabzalian, 2019a;Wing, 2020), although it is difficult to take responsibility for learning something to which you have never had access. Better preparing PTs to enact antiracist and anticolonial pedagogy requires more comprehensive teaching/learning about the far-reaching influence of racism and settler colonialism, as well as additional practice combating curricular, symbolic, pedagogical, and methodological violence against people of color (Smith, Ng-A-Fook, & Spence, 2019).
Our greatest lesson learned through the PhotoVoice project was that teacher educators cannot assume that creating opportunities for transformative self-reflection and critical pedagogy will automatically lead PTs to engaging with such reflection and pedagogy in meaningful ways. In order to ensure transformative learning is possible, K-8 teachers need to provide opportunities for developing self-awareness of identity and applying a "critical lens to 'standard' elementary read alouds" in order to spur criticality and civic action (Muetterties & Darolia, 2020, p. 23). Such examples should include a combination of critical framing questions (e.g., Whose voice is missing? Why should we listen to different stories?) as well as broader elements that encourage students to create and explore their own questions and inquiries.
Similarly, as teacher educators, we now recognize the need for creating a balance between guiding questions/activities and space for PTs to ask other questions, including those we assume they can already answer. Book studies focusing on antiracist, anticolonial content and/or antiracist, anticolonial children's literature can offer opportunities for PTs to engage critically with questions of identity, perspectives of the "other," and pedagogical self-awareness (Sleeter, 2008;Souto-Manning & Martell, 2019). For example, during the Fall of 2020, we led book studies with PTs in our methods courses, where students each identified a critical text (e.g., Kendi's Stamped, Dunbar-Ortiz's An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People) to read and discuss. While we provided guiding questions for the PTs based on resources provided by the authors and other critical educators and scholars, we also encouraged PTs to bring their own questions and to think about specific ways to incorporate the texts into their own teaching practice. Finally, we invited PTs to write letters to their future students, thinking about the books they had read and their ideas for teaching practice. We found that having PTs write letters of commitment to future students proved a more powerful way to encourage criticality in terms of transferring theory to practice than the "letters to myself" included in the PhotoVoice project.
Of course, critical consciousness is dynamic and a "state of being that develops over time" (Muller & Bryan, 2020, p. 28), so we cannot anticipate major transformations due to a single project, over a single semester, or because of a single service experience. For the most part, we believe that PTs who reached level 4 or 5 during this study were already moving in that direction, and while PhotoVoice may have provided a vehicle to accelerate that progress, it was likely not the only factor in a student's trajectory. For example, one student who achieved a Level 4 with the end-of-semester reflection letter explained, "You have grown a lot over the semester, but your view on social studies education remains the same. Your relationships with people and ability to listen to multiple perspectives still remain at the heart of it." That said, this PT also claimed the course provided practical tools that empowered them to transfer a social justice-oriented theory to practice: "You feel a lot more comfortable about providing all of your students with an opportunity to share their voice. You have learned a variety of strategies to help make your students feel like [their] opinions matter." Although we are generally skeptical of PTs' gravitation toward "practices" and "toolkits" that promise comfort and ease of implementation, we note that this example demonstrates the potential to make a connection between a need for change and pedagogical decision-making. It is, like other examples from the PhotoVoice project, a starting point for conversations about identity, power, and privilege and how those aspects of ourselves and our students shape teaching and learning. Notes 1. We encourage educators and researchers to use names identified and preferred by specific Indigenous peoples (e.g., Piikani). However, we recognize challenges that can arise from such efforts. Individuals within the same community may use different terms or they may identify with multiple Nations or cultural/ethnic/racial identities. Additionally, government officials and policymakers influence discourse, often in ways that do not align with specific community identifiers. In this article, we use "Indigenous" to encourage solidarity across Nations and beyond the geopolitical boundaries of the U.S., Nation affiliations when referencing specific examples, and "Indian" or "Native" to align with policy discourse (e.g., Indian Education for All) or when referencing quoted language. However, we call attention to the continued, problematic use of "Indian," given its history. 2. We worked with community members and scholars to identify the Nations, spellings, and other aspects of representation included in this acknowledgement. We apologize if we have missed anyone or offended anyone. 3. In the PhotoVoice projects, including those shared in this article, there were errors and disagreements about which Nations had/have ties to specific places, how to spell and punctuate names, etc. We recognize, and encouraged PTs to recognize, the complexity of this work, given the misinformation available online; the prevalence of white historians, scholars, and government officials making naming decisions without adequate input and representation from Indigenous communities; and the intertribal and intratribal challenges surrounding dialects, pronunciation, and spellings. We encouraged students (and we encourage readers, scholars, and teacher educators) to do their due diligence in preparation of land acknowledgements, to be prepared to make-and be "called out" for making-mistakes, and to be willing to learn and grow. Finally, we encourage all people making land acknowledgements to include a statement such as, "We worked with community members and scholars to identify the Nations, spellings, and other aspects of representation included in this acknowledgement. We apologize if we have missed anyone or offended anyone.