Uncertain identities of non-higher-education-based EFL teacher educators: a third space theory perspective

ABSTRACT

Although research on teacher educators’ identities has received increasing attention in recent years, non-higher-education-based teacher educators’ professional identities are still under-researched. Informed by the third space theory perspective, this paper presents a study that investigated 139 non-higher-education-based English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher educators’ identities through the lens of metaphors. An analysis of the metaphors revealed four types of identities, namely, the willing communicators, the discontented jack-of-all-trades and master of none, the struggling professional leaders, as well as the caring supporters. These terms capture the participants’ self-images and specify their obligations and responsibilities as teacher educators. The paper concludes with some implications for teacher educators’ preparation and continuing development.     

The teacher I wish to be: exploring the influence of life histories on student teacher idealised identities

This paper examines the influence of life histories and apprenticeship of observation on the formation of student teachers’ idealised identities. The life histories of 15 student teachers are decoded. Through eliciting from the student teachers the teacher they wish to be, the paper focuses on the interplay between the personal histories and ideal teacher identities for the future. The implications of the findings for initial teacher education are considered.     

Supporting the professional development of teacher educators in a productive way

This study reports on what 13 teacher educators going through a procedure to become registered as a teacher educator in 2011–2012 learned, what goals they formulated for their further professional development and what activities they planned to achieve these goals. The methods used in this study are mainly the same as were used at the time the first cohort went through the registration procedure in 2002. The 2012 cohort participated in a supportive programme, whereas the 2002 cohort did not. This enables a comparison of the results of both studies and thus some insight into the possible benefits of integrating a registration procedure with a supportive programme for the professional development of teacher educators.     

Exploring the Radical Middle between Theory and Practice: A collaborative self-study of beginning teacher educators

This article is a collaborative self-study of our development as beginning teacher educators over the course of an academic year. A focus of our self-study was our shared interest in the role of theory and of practice in teacher education programs. Theodore taught a philosophy of education course and Shawn taught a practicum supervision course. Both authors share autobiographical excerpts of their teaching contexts and the problems of practice that they encountered. Our analysis suggests that the dichotomy between theory and practice is unhelpful and unproductive for both teacher candidates and teacher educators. Theory and practice are densely interwoven aspects of teaching that can be tacitly separated by coursework in teacher education. We advocate a pedagogy of teacher education that explores the radical middle between theory and practice.     

Landmarks in the professional and academic development of mid-career teacher educators

This paper focuses on the professional and academic development of mid-career teacher educators from two universities in England. The objectives of the study were to analyse and compare the career experiences of teacher educators; in particular, to identify stages of development, landmark events and contextual factors affecting professional learning and academic identities. In-depth biographical interviews were carried out with 12 teacher educators, together with living graphs of their career paths. Clear landmarks were identified in both contexts, with development in teaching seen as largely positive, while research development was much more varied. Teacher educators who were further on in their careers saw research development as transformative personally as well as academically. In analysing the findings within a sociocultural learning framework, the authors draw in particular on Swennen et al.’s model of teacher educators’ sub-identities, Akerlind’s categorisation of an academic identity and Eraut’s contextual and learning factors.     

A systematic literature review of faculty development for teacher educators

Although ample literature exists regarding the effectiveness of faculty development (FD) activities, there is a gap in the literature synthesizing its outcomes. This review, using a predetermined review protocol, analyzed 22 publications on FD for teacher educators using Kirkpatrick’s training evaluation taxonomy. We found that North American universities provide the most empirical evidence about FD activities, focusing on technology integration in teaching and pedagogical skill improvement. Formal programs, such as serial workshops and developmental relationship, were reported with high frequency, compared to self-directed learning and organizational development activities. Empirical research was heavily based on self-reported, qualitative data and emphasized individual-level outcomes. There is a lack of information regarding the impact of FD activities for teacher educators on subsequent student learning or the downstream effect on school systems. Similarly, institutional involvement in FD remains largely unexplored. We conclude with robust recommendations for research and practice.     

Spatialised metaphors of practice: how teacher educators engage with professional standards for teachers

Pre-service teacher educators, both nationally and internationally, must negotiate a plethora of expectations including using Professional Standards to enhance teacher quality. In Australia, the recent Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) report highlighted weak application of Standards in Initial Teacher Education (ITE). However, recent reports suggest that many education stakeholders feel positive about the implementation of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APSTs). This study responds to these differing viewpoints by exploring how teacher educators in a large metropolitan university in Australia account for the use of Standards in their work. Discourse analysis techniques in conjunction with socio-spatial theory make visible particular metaphors of practice as teacher educators negotiate the real-and-imagined spaces of regulated teacher education programmes. The findings highlight the importance of investigating the utility of Standards in the lived experiences of teacher educators, as they are responsible for preparing quality, classroom ready graduates.     

Perceptions of identity among Finnish university-based subject teacher educators

The aim of the present study was to explore how Finnish university-based subject teacher educators perceived their professional identity. Several factors related to professional identity were analysed. Subject teacher educators are initially subject teachers who have proceeded to the doctorate level. They form a small academic group within a larger faculty milieu with only partial responsibility for a teacher education programme. The study is based on focus group interviews with 15 subject teacher educators at four of the eight universities that offer teacher education in Finland. The results reveal that these teacher educators have a strong and persistent self-ascribed identity of an educational nature. The close social interplay with other subject teacher educators within the faculty seems to contribute to a confident collective identity. However, the self-identity is not congruent with the other-ascribed identity, which varies depending on the other party’s institutional context. The subject teacher educators examined in this study wished to have research included to a higher extent in their identity as subject teacher educators.     

The professional identities of teacher educators in three further education colleges: an entanglement of discourse and practice

Initial teacher education programmes have been identified as crucial to meeting the twin policy aims of professionalising the further education (FE) workforce and achieving improved learner outcomes, yet college-based teacher educators are underrepresented in published research and commentary. Drawing on a case study of teacher educators employed by three FE colleges in England, this paper argues that the contested and politicised nature of the FE sector presents a unique set of circumstances that distinguishes this population from other members of their professional group and severely restricts the identities available to them. Through a thematic discursive analysis of documentation, observation and interview data, it is argued that FE positions teacher educator identity through political governance, through the business practices of colleges and through the sector’s historical relationships with vocational and higher education. Within this distinctive context, teacher educators experience competing identities of ‘qualified and credible’, ‘teacher’, ‘different from others’, ‘part of FE’ and ‘employee’ that are entangled with the dominant discourses of English further education. After discussing the implications of these findings for a professional profile of teacher educators, the paper concludes that teacher educators are better understood as a heterogeneous occupational group in order to avoid obscuring professional concerns linked to policy landscapes.     

Teacher Educator Identity Development of the Nontraditional Teacher Educator

The development of a professional teacher educator identity has implications for how one negotiates the duties of a teacher, scholar, and learner. The research on teacher educator identity in the USA has been largely conducted on traditional teacher educators, or those who have started their careers as public school teachers and then went on to the collegiate level as teacher educators. This auto-ethnography considers the professional identity formation of a nontraditional teacher educator, one whose professional career did not include a career as a public school teacher. Although there are common influences on professional development between the traditional and nontraditional teacher educator, such as biography, institutional contexts, and personal pedagogy, there are significant differences in the process as those influences are experienced. This research proposes an extended process for nontraditional teacher educators, including the search for legitimacy and belonging in the community of educators.     

When a practitioner becomes a university faculty member: a review of literature on the challenges faced by novice ex-practitioner teacher educators

It is challenging for ex-practitioners beginning to teach in higher education settings due to their long experience in other fields. In this paper, as an example of a nexus of practitioners and academics, the focus is the issues of novice teacher educators at the beginning of their careers and support programmes for them. Three factors were identified as causing the most distress: difficulty in changing their identities, adjusting to the new work environment and fear of research. These problems align with the cognitive, social and ethical aspects of learning. To overcome these problems, various potential platforms exist, such as traditional mentoring, peer mentoring, joint reflection or self-study. With support programmes, regardless of platform, novice teacher educators’ struggles can be opportunities to learn more about the three aspects of their new jobs.     

教师教育者:内涵、身份认同及其角色研究

教师教育者是指教师的教师,既包括基础教育阶段中的教师教育者,也包括中等师范层面和高等教师教育机构中的教师教育者。教师教育者模糊的身份认同是教师教育者专业发展的重要阻力之一。教师教育者是教师教育知识的生产者、教师专业发展的引领者以及教师教育文化的推动者。教师教育者角色的探究是增强教师教育者身份认同的重要途径,也是教师教育者从事教师教育工作的逻辑前提。     

Educating the teacher educator—A Ugandan case study

Who educates teacher educators? How are teacher educators educated and prepared for their roles and tasks? This article uses a review of a two-year full-time Diploma in Teacher Education (DTE) for teacher educators in Uganda to engage with these questions. The article begins with a presentation of the Ugandan teacher education context and a literature review, focusing mainly on teacher educator knowledge, preparation, roles and tasks. It then presents the review process and discusses the main findings that emerged, exploring their implications for the education of teacher educators in Uganda and internationally. The main implications concern the critical role of teacher education pedagogy, context, teacher educator knowledge, tasks and roles, reflective practice, practitioner research, and the background, capacities and education of the educator of teacher educators.     

Critical moments in the process of educational change: understanding the dynamics of change among teacher educators

This study examines the complex process of change among teacher educators who have chosen to improve their practice in a professional development community. Storyline methodology was used to reveal the dynamic process which teacher educators undergo when they consider adopting innovative pedagogy. Findings reveal critical moments in professional development which are characterised by evaluation of feedback from colleagues and students. Professional growth results not only from interaction and negotiation of meaning within the community but also from the effects of messages received from outside the communal context. A two factor model taking into account implementation and feedback is used to show the dynamic process of evaluation and negotiation in teacher educators’ professional development trajectory. This study deepens understanding of transition towards change within learning communities, while providing insight into the development of teacher educators as a distinct professional group.     

Everyday life and everyday learning: the ways in which pre-service teacher education curriculum can encourage personal dimensions of teacher identity

This article presents and discusses the findings of a research project, the main objective of which is to identify curriculum components that promote personal development as a nuclear part of teacher professional identity formation through pre-service teacher education. Curriculum is viewed as an ecological scenario with different subsystems and both as formal and informal. Identity formation is conceived as an ever-provisional result of a double transaction: the biographical one and the relational one. The curricula of four different historical periods of pre-service teacher education in Portugal and the professional identity of teachers trained within them were characterised through collection and analysis of documents and biographical narratives. Crossing results from the four periods, the quality of school climate emerges as an important variable to the quality of the teachers’ identity. The lifelong learning ethos seems to emerge when the training curriculum connects everyday learning with everyday life, namely by urging the students’ involvement in school life, peer learning activities and peer and teacher educators’ informal learning activities.     

Spaces of possibility in pre-service teacher education

Pre-service teacher education is a spatialised enterprise. It operates across a number of spaces that may or may not be linked ideologically and/or physically. These spaces can include daily practices, locations, infrastructure, relationships and representations of power and ideology. The interrelationships between and within these (sometimes competing) spaces for pre-service teachers will influence their identities as teachers and learners across time and space. Pre-service teachers are expected to make the connections between these often-contradictory spaces with little or no guidance on how to negotiate such complex relationships. These are difficult spaces, yet the slippages and gaps between these spaces offer generative possibilities. This paper explores these spaces of possibility for pre-service teacher education, and uses the spatial theories of Lefebvre and Foucault to argue that critical reflective practice can be used to create Soja’s ‘thirdspace’ for reconstructing future practice.     

Investigating science teacher educator identity through the politics of domestication and critical positional praxis

The focus on identity in the field of teaching and learning continues to grow, especially when it concerns equitable outcomes for students. While most attention is placed on students' identities and increasingly those of teachers, lesser addressed are the identities of the teacher educators and researchers broaching the issue of identity. Additionally, identity research is not often linked to relationships between self, others, and transformative action. We recognize these as gaps to be addressed and offer critical positional praxis (CPP) as a response. CPP is the public manifestation of the insights gained through our sense of identity and reflexivity. More specifically, CPP is the actions (or inactions) that express who we are in response to an event in any given social context—especially oppressive ones. In this article, we draw from our own critical autoethnographies, as a context for putting CPP into practice in identity research. Our collective analysis of these critical autoethnographies revealed how our identity development was inseparable from the ways in which we have each resisted the politics of domestication. Our autoethnographies further point to the role of dissent as central to our experiences of becoming critical science teacher educators committed to equity, diversity, and anti-racism in education. We draw from this analysis to offer recommendations for how identity and positionality can move beyond theoretical constructs toward transformative personal and collective change in science education.     

From Skepticism to Scholarship: Learning and Living Self-Study Research in a Doctoral Seminar

Teacher education doctoral seminars can provide a space for students to collaborate, reflect and support each other as they transition from teacher to teacher educator. These spaces also provide a forum for the learning of new research methodologies. This collaborative self-study chronicles how one group of doctoral students learned self-study research and fostered a scholarly identity in a doctoral seminar focused on learning about teacher education practices through self-study research. The participants shared autobiographies, journals, and critical summaries of assigned readings, and they questioned each other’s understanding and development in the context of their shared experiences. Through this process, they overcame concerns regarding self-study as they developed their understanding of the components of self-study research and accepted their new role as self-study researchers. This study provides insights into the benefits of using doctoral seminars as a space to develop a scholarly identity and for using that space as a source of investigation. Implications for similar communities are also discussed.