‘We matter just the same’: students and pre-service teachers working together in an alternative educational setting

This paper examines how a clinical experience in an alternative educational setting impacted both pre-service secondary teachers and the students with whom they worked. The participants were pre-service secondary teachers completing a clinical experience at a local agency that served a population of students for whom traditional school settings were not effective, as well as students at the agency. The results indicate that for the pre-service teachers, the experience allowed them to develop a deeper understanding of learner diversity and the importance of connecting to students. For the agency students, the interactions with the pre-service teachers provided them with additional academic support, as well as resources for post-secondary education. The agency students also recognized that they had the power to show pre-service teachers how to work effectively with students for whom traditional school settings are a challenge. The authors conclude with implications for pre-service teachers, agency students, and university and clinical site instructors, as well as practical considerations for developing such partnerships.     

Facilitating growth in prospective teachers’ knowledge: teaching geometry in primary schools

This paper reports on a study that focused on growth of understanding about teaching geometry by a group of prospective teachers engaged in lesson plan study within a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment. Participation in the activity was found to facilitate considerable growth in the participants?? pedagogical-content knowledge (PCK). Factors that influenced growth in PCK included the nature of the lesson planning task, the cognitive scaffolds inserted into the CSCL virtual space, the meta-language scaffolds provided to the participants, and the provision of both private and public discourse spaces. The paper concludes with recommendations for enhancing effective knowledge-building discourse about mathematics PCK within prospective teacher education CSCL environments.     

‘I am not the teacher!’: some effects of remodelling the roles of teaching assistants in English primary schools

Remodelling the roles, responsibilities and working practices of all school staff has been central to the government's modernisation agenda for English state schools. This is typified by a determination to review and change the distribution of tasks undertaken by teachers and teaching assistants (TAs). Whilst there has been a substantial increase in the numbers of TAs employed in schools there is still a lack of clarity about their roles and about the impact of remodelling on the working lives of both teachers and assistants. Evidence from the Transforming the School Workforce: Pathfinder Project, conducted immediately prior to the launch of the National Agreement in 2003, indicates that initial concerns about the ways in which TAs were being deployed are still very apparent. Here the authors focus on management and professional development issues arising from TAs adopting more pedagogical roles in schools.     

Patriotism in British schools: teachers’ and students’ perspectives

Because there are good arguments both for and against loving one’s country, patriotism should be taught as a controversial issue in schools. But is this pedagogical approach practically viable in the British educational context? Here we report on a small‐scale survey of teachers and students in secondary schools and show that their perspectives and practices are highly compatible with our recommended approach.     

Challenging control: inclusive teachers’ and teaching assistants’ discourse on students with challenging behaviour

Describing students with disabilities as presenting ‘challenging behaviour’ is common in US schools. The purpose of this paper is to reveal the discourse utilised by teachers in order to understand their beliefs and practices surrounding young students considered to present challenging behaviour. This study examines teachers’ language in four ways: which discourses they draw from, the consequences of engaging in the discourse on practice, what maintains the use of such discourse and finally the possibilities for change. The critical discourse analysis unpacked that teachers begin labelling the students as challenging, not the behaviour. Consequences of this thinking emerged as teachers excluded the students, or what they consider ‘the problems’ from the classroom. Exclusion was found to be the ‘necessary’ response when control is prioritised in the classroom. In sum, the discourse of control is available for shaping how teachers understand and support students. Developing a relationship with students empowers teachers to see past the labels, the control discourse, and truly support students in inclusive classrooms. Finally, implications for practice are shared to improve the experience of inclusive education for both student and teacher.     

Teaching circles: a way forward for part-time teachers in higher education?

Part-time teachers represent a growing challenge to universities' quality assurance and developmental processes. This paper describes an attempt to meet this challenge through the adoption of 'teaching circles' (TCs) in four contrasting case-study schools. Analysis of outcomes enables identification of the variables affecting the apparent success of TCs as a strategy, some of which are associated with the particularities of context. Underlying these particularities, however, the general question of how participants come to feel 'ownership' of change initiatives emerges as a central issue. Three inter-related processes are shown to be involved: leadership, attribution of causation and social integration. The paper concludes that this analysis has implications beyond the TC project and provides both key practical pointers and, potentially, a useful analytical tool for researchers studying programmes of organizational change.     

Trainee teachers,gender and becoming the ‘right’ person for the job: care and authority in the vocational habitus of teaching

Drawing on a qualitative study of 32 UK student teachers, this paper asks what constitutes the vocational culture of teaching by exploring contradictory discourses of care and authority as they are presented to, and interpreted by, trainee teachers along their journey to becoming newly qualified teachers. Introducing the concept of ‘vocational habitus’ in relation to teaching, ‘ideal teacher narratives’ recounted by respondents are examined and mismatches between the expectations of individuals, institutions and wider policy contexts are explored. The later part of the article focuses specifically on three trainee teachers who struggled more than other research participants with their new roles as teachers. Their experiences suggest that simultaneous and gendered notions of caring and commanding respect can present considerable obstacles for the acquisition of a ‘successful’ vocational habitus. In light of proposed changes to teacher training in England, this paper argues that for government teacher education policies to be successful, they need to demonstrate an awareness and consideration of these contradictory notions.     

Investigating the factors influencing teachers’ use of ICT in teaching in Bruneian secondary schools

The primary focus of the research study described in this paper was to assess the status quo of teachers’ use of Information and Communication Technology in teaching in terms of the factors that influence their use. Using a survey questionnaire, data was collected from a total of 1,891 secondary school teachers in all government schools in Negara Brunei Darussalam. Structural equation modelling, using AMOS 5.0 software, was employed as the major statistical analytic technique for a series of data analyses and assessment of the Theory of Planned Behaviour, the theoretical model that underpinned the study. Findings presented in this paper indicate that Bruneian teachers’ use of ICT in teaching was influenced by their personal (attitude), social (subjective norms), and control (perceived behavioural control) factors.     

‘I was kind of teaching myself’: teachers’ conversations about social justice and teaching for change

This article shares teachers’ conversations within teacher inquiry groups and considers how this reflective approach has potential for transforming teachers’ practices. Conversations took place at the early stages of a longer teacher inquiry project and centred on the critical interrogation of social justice-oriented children’s literature. These conversations served as a forum to help teacher professional learning communities and to reconcile understandings about social justice, action and agency within larger political and cultural forums of teaching. The teacher inquiry sessions shared in this paper explore teachers’ beginning struggles with conceptualizations of social justice, and the teacher’s role in imparting values to students. Teacher participants imparted their experience and practice as they negotiated their own understanding and implementation of social justice education in their schools. The teacher inquiry groups provided a needed supportive space where classroom teachers’ struggles were shared alongside their beliefs and pedagogical approaches so that a social justice agenda could be achieved.     

Teaching in the ‘margins’: rekindling a passion for teaching

The data for this paper are drawn from a qualitative research project involving a number of alternative education sites in Australia and the United Kingdom. In this paper, we focus only on the motives and teaching philosophies of a sample of teachers who have chosen to work in alternative education sites despite, for some, the prospect of uncertain employment conditions and lower salaries. A thematic approach is used with the data so as to structure participant perspectives on a range of teaching-related issues. We argue that the experiences and perceptions of these teachers provide a starting point for reflection about the impact of many current educational policies that have been shaped or influenced by market-driven neo-liberal paradigms emphasising disciplinary accountabilities for teachers.     

Learning in and for cross‐school working

In this study we report some of the outcomes of a study of professional learning that took place in cross school partnerships as they worked towards promoting creativity in schools. The methodology developed by Engeström and his colleagues at The Centre for Developmental Work Research in Helsinki was adopted. This form of intervention involves the preparation and facilitation of workshops in which the underlying structural contradictions that are in play in emergent activities are highlighted and articulated in such a way that participants may engage with what may otherwise remain hidden and unexamined tensions. This approach is based on the writings of the early 20th‐century Russian school of social scientists—Vygotsky, Luria and Leontiev. A principal claim is that the development of creativity requires tools and contexts for such innovatory forms of practice. This study suggests that this claim is a partial representation of the development of creative activity.     

Lesbian and gay teachers’ experiences of ‘coming out’ in Irish schools

Lesbian, gay and bisexual teachers have struggled with managing their sexual identities in contexts where heteronormative policing has resulted in deep silences and misrepresentation. However, many teachers have tried to counter this by ‘coming out’ or engaging with a process of disclosure. This paper draws on qualitative research with eight self-identified lesbian and gay teachers in primary and second-level schools in Ireland. Findings suggest that, for these teachers, the process of disclosure is valuable and fulfils a desire for openness and honesty. However, they continue to struggle with their teacher identities and aspects of their school culture. This paper argues that the complexities faced by these teachers in negotiating the process of disclosure are an illustration of the privileged position afforded heterosexuality in the Irish education system and the dividends that accrue to those who occupy a ‘normal’ sexual identity.     

University students’ and teachers’ conceptions of teaching and learning in the biosciences

In this study we compare university teachers’ and first-year students’ conceptions of teaching and learning at the Faculty of Environmental and Biological Sciences. The conceptions were analysed using data from open-ended questionnaires. The results showed that at the beginning of studies the gap between teachers’ and students’ conceptions of teaching and learning is substantial. This finding has important implications for the educational process. In order to enhance successful studying from the beginning of students’ university careers, it is important for teachers to become aware of the differences between students’ and teachers’ conceptions of learning.     

Chinese tertiary teachers’ goal orientations for teaching and teaching approaches: the mediation of teacher engagement

This study investigated the effects of Chinese tertiary teachers’ goal orientations for teaching on their approaches to teaching mediated by teacher engagement. In a survey of 597 Chinese tertiary teachers, the respondents placed particular emphasis on relational and mastery goals and expressed a preference for student-focused approaches to teaching. An emphasis on mastery goals was found to predict a preference for student-focused teaching, whereas ability-approach and work-avoidance goal orientations predicted a preference for teacher-focused teaching. Ability-avoidance and relational goals were found to be positively related not only to teacher-focused approaches but to student-focused approaches to teaching as well. In addition, teacher engagement was found to significantly mediate the effects of ability-approach, mastery and work-avoidance goals on teacher-focused intention, student-focused intention and student-focused strategy. These results have significant implications for Chinese higher-education institutions in light of their transition from teacher-focused to student-focused approaches to teaching.     

Articulating choice and deliberation in conducting research – researchers ‘working in the interpretive zone’

In recent years, there has been a significant growth in the volume of research production in education ethnography in Scandinavia due partly to a regionally financed network. The present article makes some comparisons between Scandinavian and other education research contexts in relation to aspects of general ethnographic design to try to analyse this production. It suggests some typical points of identity for Scandinavian educational ethnography, such as a distinct role for theories in fieldwork. But it also suggests that these characteristics are even apparent outside Scandinavia. Some blind-spots in ethnography are also suggested around quantitative aspects, but again, these are not unique. Scandinavian ethnographic research in education is broadly influenced by a range of different traditions in different parts of the region that have travelled with key people and from place to place, but it is also noted that there is seepage between ethnography and other traditions.