Reforming teacher education in England: ‘an economy of discourses of truth’

This paper is an attempt to think aloud about the current policy proposals in circulation in England that address pre-service teacher education. Rather than dealing with details of policy and points of specificity in practice, the focus of this paper is with how propositions are justified and the overall ways in which meanings are being managed; a fundamental aspect of policy analysis.     

Narratives of ‘doing,knowing, being and becoming’: examining the impact of an attachment-informed approach within initial teacher education

The Scottish Government’s vision of improving outcomes for children prioritises attachment theory and research in promoting children’s well-being across children’s services. This theme is also noted as increasing international relevance. Our narrative research springs from the experience of designing and delivering the first course within initial teacher education in Scotland to focus on the application of attachment theory to the role and identity of the teacher – particularly, in supporting children vulnerable through experiences of trauma and adversity. We capture students’ ‘real time’ learning moments through reflective journaling during school experience within the analytic ‘Doing, knowing, being and becoming’. Emergent themes include: looking behind and responding to behaviours, making links with ‘lived lives’, understanding teachers’ potential as attachment figures and ‘secure base’, understanding the relevance of adult attachment theory and resilience/self-care to teachers’ emotions and their own attachment experiences.     

Contested discourses of teacher professionalism: current tensions between education policy and teachers’ union

This article addresses constructions and redefinitions of teacher professionalism by focusing on the discursive negotiations between the government and the teachers’ union in Norway. Based on an examination of three white papers on teacher education from the past 15?years and policy documents put forth by the Union of Education Norway during the past decade, the authors argue that new constructions of teacher professionalism are produced both by the government and from within the teachers’ union. However, there are differences between the government and the teachers’ union concerning what the main aspects of teacher professionalism are. The government emphasises teacher accountability, research-based practice and specialisation. By contrast, the teachers’ union highlights research-informed practice, responsibility for educational quality and professional ethics. There are three main areas of discursive struggle focused by the teachers’ union: the resistance to accountability policies, the redefining of research-based practice and the lengthening of teacher education. The authors argue that the teachers’ union is adopting an increasingly more active approach, thereby also challenging the idea that the teachers’ union is less interested in developing and taking responsibility for the quality of school education.     

‘RE teachers do get drunk you know’: becoming a religious education teacher in the twenty-first century

In terms of the attention that they have attracted from researchers, and in comparison with teachers of other subjects, religious education specialists would seem to be a neglected and marginalized group. This paper looks at some of the reasons why this might be and also describes a study that is using a life history approach to explore what it is like to be a religious education teacher at the turn of the millennium.     

‘Start treating me like a Dad!’ The impact of parental involvement in education on the paternal identity of fathers in the English prison system

Notwithstanding the increasing number of UK and international studies focused on parental involvement in education and parental imprisonment there remains little focus upon the involvement of imprisoned fathers in children’s education and the impact of this upon paternal identity. Despite the now accepted perspective that parental imprisonment often impacts negatively on family functioning, child outcomes and parental identity, this qualitative study is distinctive in drawing on the discourse of parental involvement in education, using the lens of identity theory to examine the experiences of 15 imprisoned fathers regarding their involvement in their children’s education and their parenting possible selves as educators. Participants demonstrated limited identity standards in relation to education and sometimes a reduced commitment as a result of this. All offered a vision of their possible selves as educators if contextual barriers were addressed. Possible implications are suggested.     

Deploying the post-colonial predicaments of researching on/with ‘Asia’ in education: a standpoint from a rich peripheral country

Against the current infatuation with Asia in Australian education, this article rearticulates the notion of ‘Asia literacy’ to explore new ways of researching on/with/through Asia. Drawing on the post-colonial critique of Western social science knowledge, I first demonstrate the problematic nature of Australian knowledge production on and with Asia in social science and education. And yet, I also highlight the contribution that Australian scholars have made to decolonizing knowledge work, with particular attention to their critique of internationalization of cultural studies in the 1990s. In so doing, I identify the particular epistemic standpoint of Australian scholarship, which has emerged out of its ambivalent location in the global politics of academic knowledge production. Then, I identify three types of engagement by Asian researchers with Western knowledge. Situating Australian education scholarship among them, I explore what ‘Asia literate’ education research might look like from the vantage point of Australia.     

‘Cruel optimism’: teacher attachment to professionalism in an era of performativity

Abstract

This study provides a critical exploration of the way teachers’ attachment to notions of professionalism may facilitate a process whereby teachers find themselves obliged to enact centralised and local education policies that they do not believe in but are required to implement. The study argues that professionalism involves an entanglement of (past) occupational and (present) organisational discourses and that the remainders of the former facilitate the enactment of the latter. The study draws on Berlant’s notion of cruel optimism to help understand this process, whereby teachers’ attachment to professionalism may assist them in undermining the very values they believe it embodies.     

Being a ‘professional’ primary school teacher at the beginning of the 21st century: a comparative analysis of primary teacher professionalism in New Zealand and England

This article analyses findings from two studies conducted collaboratively across two educational settings, New Zealand and England, in 2001–2002. These studies examined the impact of national educational policy reforms on the nature of primary teachers’ work and sense of their own professionalism and compared these impacts across the two countries. Adopting a policy ethnography approach, using in‐depth interview data from samples of teachers in each country, it is argued that there have been discursive shifts in the meaning of the three key terms, autonomy, altruism and knowledge, embodied in the classical professionalism triangle. These shifts reflect policy‐makers’ moves from a ‘professional‐contextualist’ conception of teacher professionalism towards the ‘technocratic‐reductionist’ conception that accompanies neo‐liberal educational reforms in many countries. Teachers in both countries experienced increasing constraints on their autonomy as they became far more subject to ‘extrinsic’ accountability demands. Whether these demands were perceived as enhancing or diminishing teacher professionalism depended on the manner in which they were filtered through the profession’s defining quality, namely teachers’ altruistic concerns for the welfare of the children in their care.     

Agency in the darkness: ‘fear of the unknown’, learning disability and teacher education for inclusion

This paper proposes inclusion phobia as a sharper and more operative definition of the ‘fear of the unknown’ often cited as an explanation for resistance to inclusive education. Using ‘severe and profound learning disability’ as the paradigm case, we situate the phobia surrounding this label in its social and historical context. Our hypothesis is that resistance to inclusion for this group is not rational but amounts to a thought disorder in a psychiatric sense. Using qualitative case studies of pre-service teachers on practicum and headteachers engaged in decisions about admissions, we demonstrate the workings and impact of inclusion phobia. We illustrate its trajectory from a general social dysfunction, to the systems that channel it to the individuals caught up in it. Our aim is to expose inclusion phobia so that, teacher educators, teachers and pre-service teachers might, in knowing it, find new ways to remedy it. In doing so, long standing resistance to inclusive education is made more tractable. We conclude with our own proposals for an anti-phobic curriculum for teacher education.     

Making sense of the minus sign or becoming flexible in ‘negativity’

This article focuses on the kinds of conceptual changes that occur when students have to deal with negative numbers in elementary algebraic operations. Interviews were carried out with twelve 8th-grade level students who were selected on the basis of their results in a test where they were required to reduce polynomials. The questions applied to their strategies and to the meaning they gave to the minus sign.The analysis of the students’ oral and written discourse attests to the presence of two major kinds of conceptual change: the first one results from students’ attempts to reconcile their arithmetical presuppositions about natural numbers and the algebraic rules required to operate with negatives. The nature of the second kind of conceptual change relates to the minus sign and develops through an enlarged understanding and a flexible use of what we called ‘negativity’. We argue that these two kinds of conceptual change cannot fully occur without the students developing a meta-conceptual awareness of their symbolizing activities.     

The teacher as a ‘colony’: a case study of agentive responses to ‘colonising’ education policy in Vietnam

Neo-liberal educational policies that are being implemented globally work to foster competition among schools and teachers, as well as among children. In this situation, teachers must often come to accept the dominant representations of curricular policy developed by higher authorities. In this study, a case study design is used to describe how one school in Vietnam shifted away from this state of ‘colonisation’ by reforming the school under the framework of lesson study for learning community (LSLC). This paper subsequently argues that there is a need for school-level policies that democratise school culture and practices, resisting the negative impacts of colonising policies.     

Chinese student teachers’ perspectives on becoming a teacher in the practicum: emotional and ethical dimensions of identity shaping

This research examines the emotional and ethical dimensions of identity shaping in student teachers’ teaching practicum. By interviewing seven Chinese student teachers who had just finished their student teaching practice, the research examines the participants’ emotional experiences and the ethical dilemmas they encountered in their practicum. Specifically, for the emotional aspect of professional identity formation, the student teachers experienced eagerness and anxiety at the beginning of the teaching practicum, shock and embarrassment once teaching, and guilt and regret towards the end of the practicum. Alongside the influx of emotional experiences in the practicum, the researcher identified four paired ethical dilemmas that the participants were trapped within: (1) tensions between classroom authority and the ethic of caring; (2) acting as a community member or an ‘outsider’; (3) working as an office assistant or a ‘real teacher’; (4) conflicting pedagogies regarding teaching different tracks of students. Finally, implications for teacher education are briefly discussed.     

Higher education in further education: delivering higher education in a further education context—a study of five South West colleges

This paper comprises a summary of research into the teaching of higher education (HE) courses in further education (FE) learning environments. A comprehensive study of college management and teaching staff attitudes together with teaching practices, pedagogy and research was carried out with six partner colleges of the University of Plymouth where a substantial amount of HE teaching was delivered. A questionnaire was developed, piloted and distributed to all staff teaching HE in the colleges, with a similar but separate questionnaire being used for management. Five colleges responded. We present data relating to the differences in teaching practice and pedagogy between FE and HE teaching and the problems of realizing these in FE learning environments. We also look at the ways in which independent study and critical reflection among learners are developed. The questions of research and scholarly activity and their relevance to HE teaching are addressed. Considerable challenges are faced by staff teaching mainly FE courses, on standard FE teaching contracts, being expected to deliver HE courses effectively. We also consider the challenges of delivering ‘a real HE experience’ in FE environments and those involved with going on to university afterwards.     

From LSA to teacher: the value of classroom experience in shaping a ‘teacher’ identity

Routes into teacher training have expanded in recent years, accompanied by a growing interest in schools ‘growing their own’ teachers from amongst support staff. However, little attention has been paid to their transition to the role of teacher. This article investigates influences on identity development and the extent to which personal values are reconciled with professional demands and socially constructed facets of educational practice. Participants were nine staff in one secondary school for pupils with moderate learning difficulties who had undertaken the transition from LSA (learning support assistant) to teacher. Qualitative data were obtained through an online survey and focus group discussion. Findings show that extensive opportunities to experiment with provisional and possible selves, immersion in educational discourse, classroom agency and staff collaboration engender a ‘teacher’ self-concept and positive motivations for LSA career development, and that self-esteem and self-efficacy are strengthened by how an individual’s values align with those of the setting in which they work. Findings may inform school leaders as to the value of training teachers ‘in-house’ and support career development decisions of LSAs, a pathway of potential significance given the current pressures on teacher recruitment and retention.     

‘Society has taught us to judge’: cultures of the body in teacher education

The body is a powerful symbolic form and all bodily activities are expressions of culture. The look, size, shape and physicality of bodies are perceived by all and compared to particular cultural standards. In this way the body is inscribed with culture and can serve as a site for social control. Various discourses of the body, including those around appearance, health and fitness, circulate within societal institutions and through relations of power these impact on the way in which we come to understand bodies. In times marked by individualised responsibility for all aspects of life, the body and technologies of self around bodywork are also significant in relation to self-formation and self-government. This research investigates the impact of various cultures of the body, on pre-service physical education teachers' understandings and meaning making about bodies, fitness, health and personal engagement in bodywork. Implications for future practices in teaching, relationships with school students and messages for teacher educators are also considered.     

Marxist state theory and state autonomy theory: the case of ‘race’ education in initial teacher education

Abstract

In recent times, there have been a number of critiques of Marxist and neo‐Marxist analyses of the state and education policy. These have drawn on postmodernist, ‘quasi‐postmodernist’ and state autonomy perspectives. While the postmodernist and ‘quasi‐postmodernist’ approaches have attracted critical response, to date, the state autonomy perspective has, to our knowledge, gone unchallenged. To address this theoretical lacuna, this paper analyses one writer's attempt, via an historical case study, to uphold state autonomy theory by detailing the ongoing relationship between one quasi‐state agency and the practice of ‘race’ education in initial teacher education. We argue that there are serious conceptual weaknesses in this latest attempt to apply state autonomy theory to educational policy analysis. The arguments in the case study under consideration are seriously compromised by a basically flawed hypothesis, a misrepresentation of contemporary (neo‐) Marxist education policy analysis and by a failure to look at ‘the big picture’.     

‘What’s in a name? The power of the English language in secondary school science education’

Cultural Studies of Science Education - The global dominance of the English language has led to intense debates with the emergence of studies of English as a lingua franca. These debates can be...     

Handling challenge and becoming a teacher: an analysis of teachers’ narration about life competence education

Abstract

This article takes an interest in how teachers handle new challenges. The challenge in focus is a nonmandatory yet widespread subject in Swedish education called Livskunskap, Life Competence Education (LCE). The purposes of the present study are to identify and discuss notions of being a teacher actualized in teachers’ narratives about the challenge of LCE, and to discuss how narration may help teachers to handle and reflect upon professional challenges. Seven teachers were interviewed about their experiences from teaching LCE. The analysis showed how acts of defending, exploring, presenting, or resisting LCE were performed in the teachers’ narratives. LCE seems to actualize a narrative tension between two dominant aspects of teacher identity. On the one hand, there is an image of a socially committed teacher who cares about the emotional well-being of and relations to his/her students. On the other hand, there is an image of a knowledge-oriented teacher who connects with the students mainly by focusing on subject matters. Drawing upon the theoretical work, mainly by Michalinos Zembylas, I found that the teachers had opportunities to use narration as an arena for personal agency, but these opportunities were not necessarily taken in the present narratives.