Negotiating managerialism: professional recognition and teachers of sustainable development education

Policy strategies to reward teachers for field-specific expertise have become internationally widespread and have been criticized for being manifestations of neoliberal globalization. In Scotland, there is political commitment to such strategies, including one to award recognition to teachers for expertise in sustainable development education (SDE). This study examined 22 application forms for that award, conducted face-to-face discussions with 8 successful teacher applicants, and with two policy-making actors and analyzed the websites of relevant policy institutions. The study asked how the concept of ‘the professional teacher of SDE’ was negotiated through the policy. In both policy and teacher discourse, there was a struggle to reconcile the constructions of the teacher as an individualized generic manager and as committed to SDE as a networked, disciplinary field of endeavor. Managerialism is a neoliberal technology, so these tensions are interpreted as traces of neoliberal ideology. Moreover, their negotiation is interpreted as de- and re-bordering engagements with globalization. The critical potential of these interpretations is in the revealed incompleteness of the engagements, leaving teachers and policy-makers with scope to manage responses to neoliberal globalization in SDE.     

Attitudes of Dutch and German preschool teachers towards professional childcare: a cultural comparison

This study explores educators' reflections on professional childcare practice in different national contexts. The data were collected by showing video clips of classroom activities in Japanese, Dutch and German pre‐schools to experienced German and Dutch pre‐school teachers. The clips were used to elicit their opinions on playing and learning in educational settings through a standardized questionnaire completed immediately after viewing each clip. The participants were also invited to rate the strength of cognitive, social, physical and emotional developmental domains during the activity. These data were analysed by classifying the questionnaire responses into four categories: remarks related to teachers, to children, to peers and to context. The frequencies of the categories and the ratings of developmental domains were computed and compared by t‐tests between the German and the Dutch sample. The findings revealed that pre‐school teachers offered more elaborated perspectives on the content of the foreign video clips than on the clips from their own country. There were also some differences with regard to developmental domains. With regard to pre‐school teacher training it was concluded that the teachers' knowledge base should be used as an input for their professional practice.     

Multiculturalism in schools: The professional absorption of immigrant teachers from the former USSR into the education system in Israel

The purpose of this research was to determine the professional absorption of immigrant teachers from the Former Soviet Union in comparison to veteran teachers¹ working in the same schools in Israel. Findings are based on data from 272 questionnaires. The sample included 117 teachers working in Israeli schools who immigrated from the Former Soviet Union between the years 1989 and 1996, 115 veteran Israeli teachers working in the same schools and 40 principals of the same schools.Significant differences between the two groups were found on all items: immigrant teachers belong less to professional organizations, participate less in school decision-making forums, hold less positions (such as homeroom teachers, subject coordinators or grade-level coordinators) and partake less in professional enrichment courses. The picture that emerges from this research is one of “barriers “in the education system that hinders the absorption of immigrant teachers and fails to utilize the potential contribution of immigrant teachers, despite the general opinion that immigrant absorption is a national priority.     

Teaching the teachers: emotional intelligence training for teachers

A growing body of research in recent years has supported the value of emotional intelligence in both effective teaching and student achievement. This paper presents a pre–post, quasi-experimental design study conducted to evaluate the contributions of a 56-h “Emotional Intelligence” training model. The model has been developed and studied in an attempt to address educators’ growing needs to practice and implement “emotionally intelligent” learning environments. One hundred eighty-six teachers from ten elementary schools in Israel participated in this study. Findings indicated an increase in emotional intelligence and empathic concern from the beginning to the end of the course. Further regression indicated that both expression and regulation of emotions predicted empathy at the end of the course. Participants’ reflective assignments indicated an increase in self introspection, emotional awareness, emotional regulation and understanding others.     

Multiculturalism and moral education: individual positioning,dialogue and cultural practice

Multicultural education can be seen as generally premised on two assumptions. The first is often made explicit: that children should learn not to discriminate unfairly on grounds of ethnicity or culture. To this degree, multiculturalism is clearly morally educative, encouraging children to see others in terms of their common humanity rather than their cultural differences. The second is more implicit and diffuse: that sensitivity to cultural and ethnic difference ipso facto promotes social justice and/or harmony between people(s) and thus is morally educative. Further implicit in this is that persons with different cultural practices are ipso facto ‘more different’ than those in similar relationships (such as neighbour, friend, customer, employee or whatever) but belonging to the same cultural groups, in terms of their lived experience. The concept ‘more different’ implies that ‘difference’ can be measured, and as a basis for policy, it further implies that such measurement can be objective. This article challenges this latter set of assumptions, drawing on ideas from nihilism, existentialism, poststructuralism and discursive psychology. If degrees of difference in lived experience cannot be objectively (or even intersubjectively) measured, then assumptions about how culture ‘fixes’ life experience may have undesirable, rather than desirable effects, and may counter, rather than reinforce, the explicit aim of multicultural education to reduce ethnic and cultural discrimination. Individual positioning may be as important as cultural heritage in determining differences in life experience, and thus possibilities for moral action, yet learners may not be able to respond to persons as individuals on the basis of an understanding of collective cultural differences.     

Novice teachers as organisational people: expectations of a professional work environment,collegiality, recognition and respect

This study introduces a model of novice teachers’ expectations together with supporting empirical evidence. The model is sectorial, distinguishing novice teachers’ expectations according to their reciprocal relations with their partners in the school. The study investigated 237 teachers attending internship programmes at five large teachers training colleges in Israel, using a self‐report questionnaire. The findings revealed that: (1) the expectations of novice teachers are based on a sectorial organisational view of the school, as proposed by role theory; (2) novice teachers have very high expectations of their organisational work environment; and (3) their highest expectations are for public recognition of the importance of teaching, while the lowest expectations are for receiving support and backing from the partners in the educational process. The article discusses novice teachers’ views of their function as organisational people and of the school as an arena for developing and nurturing their organisational selves.     

Within and beyond a grow-your-own-teacher program: Documenting the contextualized preparation and professional development experiences of critically conscious Latina teachers

ABSTRACT

This study provides an account of seven Latina teachers’ select educational, professional, and personal experiences over the past 10 years as they completed a grow-your-own-teacher program, became licensed teachers, and established themselves in Latinx minority–majority public schools within their rural, mid-western community. More specifically, as a Latina researcher and participant observer, I sought to better understand the culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) Latina teachers’ process-oriented engagement and conscientization over time. Far from being ‘ready-made’ conscientized teachers, in this work I discuss the ways CLD Latina teachers’ multiple and developing identities as bilingual learners, mothers, racialized minorities in schools, and educated professionals serve as both burdens and gifts in their engagement and processes of conscientization for teaching CLD students. Through the use of critical literatures, and life and professional story methodologies informed by Chicana feminist epistemologies, I sought to privilege Latina teachers’ narratives as well as uncover the mechanisms and experiences that proved most impactful for their development and sustainment within white normative educational spaces. Findings illustrate an emergence of racialized, identitarian resources among Latinas and implicate a nuanced, culturally contextualized, pedagogical approach to pre-/in-service CLD teacher professional development that engages participants in reflective storying, critical inquiry, and restorative community building.     

论师德智慧的科学开发

师德智慧其实质是一种充满爱的价值观念,包括师德认知、师德情感和师德艺术三位一体的师德智慧系统.现代师德建设应遵循教师劳动的复杂性和创造性,着眼于培养和激发蕴藏在教师身上的师德智慧.     

关于高等职业学校幼儿教师专业数学课程内容设计的思考

幼儿教育是整个教育的开端,其幼儿数学教育仍然处于薄弱地位,幼儿的数学教育关键取决于幼儿教师的数学素养,通过分析高等职业学校幼儿教师专业学生的数学学习现状,从而了解改革数学课程内容的必要性。而数学课程内容的设计关键在于内容的选择和确定上,从新课程的教学目标探讨幼儿教师数学课程内容必须遵循的原则:数学内容必须与幼儿教育、实际生活、生产相联系,在掌握未来工作需要的基本数学知识的基础上,增加数学文化的内容,从而达到提高高等职业学校幼儿教师专业学生数学素养的目的。     

On Collaboration: teachers,self‐assessment and professional journals

... educational reformers have responded to the crises in public education by primarily offering solutions that either ignore the roles of teachers in preparing learners to be active and critical citizens, or they suggest reforms that ignore the intelligence, judgement and experience that teachers might bring to bear. (Aronowitz & Giroux, 1985, p. 23)     

开放式的师资培训方式与教师专业发展

近年来,理论界在反思传统教师评价方式弊端的基础上,提出了旨在促进教师发展和提高教学水平的"发展性教师评价"理念.为适应教师评价理念的改变,促进教师的专业发展,需采取开放式的培训方式,对教师(包括未来教师)进行多角度、多层次的培训.     

The work,perceptions and professional development of teachers

This article presents work from an ongoing investigation, where the objective is to understand the impact of recent Portuguese legislation – the Teaching Career Statute and its respective Evaluation of Teacher Performance regulations – on the (re)construction of teacher identity, the teaching career and professional development. From an analysis of the results obtained, it can be noted that the aforesaid legislation had a negative impact on the perceptions of teachers about their professional development, which is evidenced in their pedagogical practice, the educational success of their students, team work and professional investment for a significant percentage of teachers.     

Toward Expert Thinking: How curriculum case writing prompts the development of theory-based professional knowledge in student teachers

The present paper explores what, and how, student teachers may learn about theory and practice from writing cases, and examines some pedagogical features that may contribute to these results. Drawing on data collected from our course "Principles of Learning for Teaching", including student cases from outline to final drafts and students' course reflections, we found that students' successive case drafts demonstrated a development from naïve generalizations to sophisticated, theory-based explanations of the issues at play in their cases. In particular, we suggest that students' cases demonstrated some of the moves that Berliner (1986, 1991) identified as characteristic of more "expert" thinking about teaching. We propose that reading theory in context with writing cases, that sharing cases with peer readers, that specific, theoretically grounded, and concrete feedback from instructors, and that providing multiple opportunities for revision may have been most useful in helping student teachers learn to think like a teacher.     

New teachers,mentoring and the discursive formation of professional identity

This paper considers the implications of mentoring for the discursive formation of professional identities of newly graduated teachers. The site for this analysis is the Teacher Mentoring and Induction Program, in Victoria, Australia. The paper draws attention to the effects of mentoring as conceived in this context on the construction of new teacher identities, the close relationship between professional standards and mentoring, the relationship between mentoring and the performative culture of schools, and what it means to be ‘a good teacher’ within this culture. The aim is to reposition mentoring as a product of its contexts and times, and in so doing contribute to the development of a more theoretically informed and critical platform from which to conduct research into its effects and benefits.     

Advanced skills teachers: professional identity and status

The teaching profession continues to struggle with defining itself in relation to other professions. Even though public opinion positions teachers second only to doctors and nurses in terms of their professional status and prestige research in the UK suggests that teachers still believe that they have much lower status than other professions. With teacher job satisfaction considerably lower today than the past and on-going issues with teacher recruitment and retention, new government policies have set out to enhance the status of teachers both within and outside of the profession. The Advanced Skills Teacher (AST) grade was introduced in 1998 as a means to recognise and reward teaching expertise and was framed as a way of also raising the status of the teaching profession. As to what a teaching professional should look like, the AST was in many ways positioned as the embodiment. Using survey data from 849 ASTs and in depth interviews with 31, this paper seeks to explores the ways that the AST designation impacts or not on teachers’ perceptions of their professional identity. In particular, the paper considers whether such awards contribute in positive ways to a teacher’s sense of professional identity and status. The results from the research suggest that teaching grades that recognise and reward teaching excellence do contribute in important ways to a teachers’ professional identity via an increased sense of recognition, reward and job satisfaction. The results from this research also suggest that recognising the skills and expertise of teachers is clearly important in supporting teacher retention. This is because as it allows highly accomplished teachers to remain where they want to be and that is the classroom.     

Performance Government: Activating and regulating the self-governing capacities of teachers and school leaders

This article analyses ‘performance government’ as an emergent form of rule in advanced liberal democracies. It discloses how teachers and school leaders in Australia are being governed by the practices of performance government which centre on the recently established Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) and are given direction by two major strategies implicit within the exercise of this form of power: activation and regulation. Through an ‘analytics of government’ of these practices, the article unravels the new configurations of corporatized expert and academic knowledge—and their attendant methods of application—by which the self-governing capacities of teachers and school leaders are being activated and regulated in ways that seek to optimize the performance of these professionals. The article concludes by outlining some of the dangers of performance government for the professional freedom of educators and school leaders.     

Culture and child maltreatment: cultural competence and beyond

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this article is to comment on current issues in the relationship between culture and child maltreatment. METHOD: A review of the literature on culture and child maltreatment is the basis of the article. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: While attention has been directed to the relationship between culture and maltreatment for more than 20 years, there is a need for further development in this area. Efforts need to be made to "unpack" culture, to promote understanding culture in context, and to enhance research on child maltreatment and culture.     

Exporting professional courses: cultural and educational implications

Since the introduction of the Overseas Student Program (OSP) in 1985, courses have been marketed, often quite aggressively, by Australian universities. In most cases, overseas students have responded by coming to Australia. The cultural implications of the OSP are evaluated using a hypothetical case—Hong Kong Registered Nurses undertaking a post-graduate Public Health Nursing program in a higher education institution to prepare them for work with Vietnamese people in Hong Kongs refugee camps. The evaluation is based on an application of Dunns jurisprudential metaphor and transactional model of argument to a consideration of the contextual and cultural issues which arise from an examination of the impact of the course. It was concluded that the course would not be appropriate. Moreover, arguments developed from the hypothetical case were found to be generalisable to the export of other professional courses, and the relevance of many offerings were questioned.