This paper adopts a social justice theoretical perspective on issues of poverty and Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and reports research from a programme of work being carried out by colleagues at five education departments acrossEngland.

Poverty is remarkably persistent in the wealthiest societies. The work of Wilkinson and Pickett (2009) shows how inequality is damaging to societies and that theUKis among the most unequal societies in the ‘developed world’. The geographer Dorling (2011) has further demonstrated how localised the spatial patterns of poverty and wealth may be and how closely they are associated with educational achievement.  Much education policy discourse adopted by governments across Europe over recent years has sought to address these matters but educational inequalities persist. Indeed, the market based policies introduced by successive governments in Europe and the US have led to greater social and economic polarisation in schooling, especially in large cities. Austerity measures are likely to exacerbate this inequality. Research has consistently shown that the most economically disadvantaged pupils have the poorest educational outcomes (Marshall, 2002).

At least here in theUK, it is true to say that little research has actually focused upon how teacher preparation programmes can address the educational inequities caused by poverty. What is known, is that teachers, including student teachers, often hold stereotypical ideas about pupils and parents and consequently locate the causes of educational underachievement within the pupil or the home rather than within institutional structures and practices (Gazeley & Dunne, 2005).

There has been remarkably little research that directly addresses any linkages between poverty and teacher education.  In the US there has been some exploration of these matters  (AERA conference 2013) and scholars such as Zeichner (2009), Ladson-Billings (2006), Nieto (2000) and Cochran-Smith (2004) have all in various ways engaged with closely related themes – although disadvantage in this work has often been associated with ‘race’.   In the UK, we have had a number of aspirational statements about ensuring that good quality teacher preparation will lead to narrowing ‘the achievement gap’ and the Teach First programme (building on Teach for America) has explicitly sought to attract the ‘best’ graduates into the most challenging school circumstance.  But on both sides of the Atlantic there has been a notable absence of sustained research or evaluation in this area.

The aim of our research project was to develop our understanding of the ways programmes of ITE can seek to address the impact that poverty can have on young people's life chances. This initial study, in five UK Higher Education Institutions, sought to explore student teachers’ developing understandings of the influences of economic disadvantage on educational achievement and subsequent life opportunities. The two key research questions that framed this study were:

1. How do programmes of ITE frame and seek to address the link between poverty and poorer educational outcomes?
2. To what extent do student  teachers’ understandings of and attitudes towards poverty change or develop during their programme of study?

Cochrane-Smith, M. (2004) Walking the Road – Race, diversity and social justice in teacher education. New York: Teachers’ College Press. Dorling, D. (2011) Injustice – why social inequality persists. Bristol: The Policy Press. Gazeley, L. & Dunne, M. (2005), Addressing Working Class Underachievement, http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4DMUK_en-GBGB251GB252&q=Addressing+Working+Class+Underachievement Ladson-Billings, G. (2006) It’s not the culture of poverty, it’s the poverty of culture: the problem with teacher education, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 37, 2, 104-109. Marshall, G. (2002), Repositioning Class. Social Inequality in Industrial Societies, (London, Sage). Nieto, S. (2000) Placing Equity Front and Center: Some Thoughts on Transforming Teacher Education for a New Century. Journal of Teacher Education. 51 (3) 180-187 Wilkinson, R. and Pickett, K. (2010) The Spirit Level – why equality is better for everyone. London: Penguin. Zeichner, K. (2009) Teacher Education and the Struggle for Social Justice, Routledge, New York and London.