We make the road by walking together: New teachers and the collaborative and context-specific appropriation of shared social justice-oriented practices and concepts

•Understanding local context and effective collaboration enhances teaching practice.•Common preservice teacher training supports inservice teacher collaboration.•Provision and research of post-TEP supports enhances TEP practice.•Resistance and social justice teaching requires the critical support of like-minded peers.

This study examined the work of a collaborative group of six new United States-based social studies teachers from the same social justice-oriented teacher education program (SJOTEP). Shared practices and concepts introduced previously in the SJOTEP were developed and appropriated to their classrooms and schools in consideration of the local context, through the collaborative problem-solving process of the group. It is argued that SJOTEPs and TEPs committed to issues of diversity, democracy, inclusion, and/or equity should be collaboration-based, teach a coherent and consistent social justice-focused curriculum, and provide post-graduation collaborative support and research it.