Teachers’ voice,power and agency: (un)professionalisation of the early years workforce

This article examines Slovak early years teachers’ concerns with conceptions of teacher professionalism. It suggests that there is a mismatch between understandings of professionalism, policy aspirations and the attitudes of teachers to their own professionalism, and that this mismatch fuels early years teachers’ sense of agency. These tensions between conceptions of professionalism, teaching practice and actual working conditions have led to a ground-up approach to self-governance within the early years teacher workforce. We analyse teachers’ discussions in an early years online forum of 12,500 members that was started and remains governed by the teachers themselves. It represents in itself a very particular attitude and response to the need to determine what it means to be a professional teacher. This analysis examines intersections of policy, quality and professionalism, and highlights considerations of power and voice, and the complexities of uncertainty and change. The article concludes with the suggestion that teacher attitudes, power and agency are impacted in unpredictable ways by the policy landscape.     

Talking about education: exploring the significance of teachers’ talk for teacher agency

Abstract

The interest in teachers’ discourses and vocabularies has for a long time been studied under the rubric of knowledge, most notably teachers’ professional knowledge. This interest can be traced back to Shulman’s distinction between different kinds of teacher knowledge and Schwab’s interest in the role of practical reasoning and judgement in teaching. Within the research, a distinction can be found between a more narrow approach that focuses on teachers’ propositional or theoretical knowledge and a more encompassing approach in which teachers’ knowledge is not only the knowledge for teachers generated elsewhere, but also the knowledge of teachers. This is the ‘stock of knowledge’ gained from a range of sources and experiences, including teachers’ ongoing engagement with the practice of teaching itself. In this paper, we focus on the role of teachers’ talk in their achievement of agency. We explore how, in what way and to what extent such talk helps or hinders teachers in exerting control over and giving direction to their everyday practices, bearing in mind that such practices are not just the outcome of teachers’ judgements and actions, but are also shaped by the structures and cultures within which teachers work.     

‘Complete freedom to choose within limits’ – teachers’ views of curricular autonomy,agency and control in Estonia,Finland and Germany

ABSTRACT

To examine different approaches to teacher autonomy in nation-states, three countries were selected for a comparative study: Estonia, Finland and Germany. The emphasis of the study lies on the subjective perceptions of upper secondary school teachers (n = 33 semi-structured interviews) regarding their curricular autonomy and experiences of being controlled by the system. The article discusses different concepts of teacher autonomy and agency theoretically and concludes that they are partly overlapping, but not the same. Agency can be understood as the realistic actualization of autonomy within the constraints of the teaching profession, while autonomy is, in theory, more liberating, focusing on self-directedness, capacity for autonomous action and freedom from control. The data analysis showed that the expectations of teachers as to the amount of desired autonomy varied greatly. While the Finnish teachers in the study perceived control over teachers’ work to be unnecessary, due to their high professionalism, the Estonian and German teachers did not advocate absence of control, instead preferring to ‘have complete freedom to choose within limits.’     

校本教师培训与教师专业发展

校本教师培训作为教师专业化重要途径的必要性,可以从教师知识构成、教师专业发展阶段及当前我国中小学教师在职教育中存在的问题等方面进行分析;同时为使校本教师培训真正成为必要途径,必须要注意中小学与大学之间的伙伴关系、校本教师培训的制度化、校本培训效果的评价等问题.     

规限的专业性:香港及中国内地教师评鉴工作比较

香港及中国内地两地在上世纪90年代末起均积极推动教育改革,以发展优质/素质教育为主要的发展方向,以期培养适切的人才,提高两地的国际竞争力。基于此,两地均强调课程改革,引入新的教学法,如专题研习/研究性学习,强调问责性的评核机制。面对教与学的种种改革,教师的工作出现了新的转变及挑战,本文比较两地在教改情境下,如何透过教师评鉴保证及提升教育质素,两地教师如何以不同策略作响应,呈现两地教师在工作评鉴下的处境。     

Teacher unions’ participation in policy making: a South African case study

This article contends that teacher unions’ participation in policy making during South Africa’s political transition was characterised by assertion of ideological identity (unionism and professionalism) and the cultivation of policy networks and alliances. It is argued that, historically, while teacher unions were divided along political and ideological lines, they have demonstrated flexibility in contesting for influence in the policy arena. In this regard, teacher unions’ agency plays an important part and is reflected in changes in organisational strategies to ensure their independence or prevent marginalisation. The article highlights the threat of state co-optation for teacher unions and suggests that a framework for managing teacher union–state relations based on ‘professional unionism’ could potentially contribute to more effective education service provision. Comparisons with teacher unions’ experiences elsewhere in the world are also made, while recognising the specificity of the South African situation.     

广西高职高专院校教师专业化相关理论与特点研究

专业分工促进了专业化,教师的专业发展带来了教师专业化,形成了教师的专业化标准：专业知识与技能应用、职业伦理、专业自主、专业联盟。在这些标准下,广西高职高专院校教师专业化的特点应当主要体现在：面向地方、面向企业、工具性语言的应用和民族心理资源的影响等诸多方面。     

Changing pedagogic codes in a class of landscape architects learning ‘ecologically sustainable development’

Professional discourse in education has been the focus of research conducted mostly with teachers and professional practitioners, but the work of students in the built environment has largely been ignored. This article presents an analysis of students’ visual discourse in the final professional year of a landscape architecture course in Brisbane, Australia. The study has a multi‐method design and includes drawings, interviews and documentary materials, but focuses on the drawings in this paper. Using the theory of Bernstein, the analysis considers student representations as inter‐relations between professional identity and discretionary space for legitimate knowledge formation in landscape planning. It shows a shift in how students persuade the teacher of their expanding views of this field. The discussion of this shift centres on the professional knowledge that students choose rather than need to learn. It points to the differences within a class that a teacher must address in curriculum design in a contemporary professional course.     

音乐教师教育专业化存在的问题与对策研究

近百年来,我国音乐教师教育在办学机构、政策法规、课程设置等方面做了大量的基础性工作,但距离专业化标准要求还有很大差距。如办学单位专业水准低、法规建设不够健全、课程设置不够合理等。重新评估音乐教师教育办学单位、继续建立健全音乐教师教育法规、尽快全面实施科学合理的课程方案等,是加快我国音乐教师教育专业化进程、提高其专业化水平的当务之急。     

教师专业化要求下的教师素质——以音乐教师为例

教师专业化问题是一个关涉教师教育目标的大问题,专业化培养是教师教育的必然选择.在教师专业化要求下,音乐教师的素质在教育思想、专业理想、专业知识、专业能力、专业自我以及心理品质等方面有了更高的要求.     

美国教师专业主义述评

教师专业主义是对美国教师专业发展中传统的工会主义与科层主义的驳斥,荟萃着教师的知识与能力、权利与职责、理想与精神、地位与功能,表征着教师工作的高质量、高标准以及社会对教师的高度认可。美国教师专业主义经历了四个发展阶段:前专业主义时期\"被限制的专业主义\"、自主专业主义时期\"被许可的专业主义\"、新专业主义时期\"同伴合作的专业主义\"和后现代专业主义时期\"多元共生的专业主义\"。展望未来,以专业伦理为核心的教师专业主义将成为美国教师专业发展中的主流取向。     

Teacher beliefs in ‘testing’ times: a lesson from Singapore

International benchmarking and national testing of students at all levels of schooling have provoked teachers to critically reflect on their place in this endeavour. Many of the curriculum and pedagogical approaches associated with this type of assessment and accountability conflict with long-held beliefs about the role of teachers and the work of schooling. Singapore is recognised for significant achievement in the international schooling arena and also has a long history of national testing. This study draws specifically on positioning theory to investigate teacher beliefs and positioning in these times. A large qualitative research project located in Singapore sought the ways experienced teachers positioned themselves and their work as they negotiated multiple and sometimes conflicting discourses of teaching. A rigorous process was used to elicit teacher beliefs and resultant teacher positions.     

论教师专业化

教师专业化作为教师教育的目标,既是提高教育素质、改善教育质量的一条重要途径,也是现代教育发展的一个必然趋势。关于教师专业化的内涵,应该从动态和静态两个角度来理解:教师自身素质与客观环境是教师专业化的两大方面标准;教师的专业成长主要可分为五个阶段:准备阶段、求生阶段、巩固阶段、更新阶段和成熟阶段,各阶段的发展内容和侧重点不同。教师专业化的范式是多种多样的,主要包括“能干型实践者”、“研究型实践者”和“反思型实践者”等,各范式间彼此联系、交互作用,共同构成一个多元化、多层次的教师专业化发展体系。     

教师专业发展的内涵与历史发展

通过对教师专业化、教师专业发展、教师专业性等相关概念的内在逻辑关系及其发展演变的梳理,关于教师专业发展内涵的各种诠释以及它们之间的历史转承,可以得到清晰的重构。教师专业发展是对教师专业化理路加以扬弃的选择,而教师专业性的诉求则是教师专业发展的内在依据和根本动力。教师专业发展的持续开展也有助于提升教师专业化的程度。