Wooden dolls and disarray: rethinking United States’ teacher education to the side of quantification

ABSTRACT

According to the 2013 report by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), most teacher education programs are failing in the United States. These programs, NCTQ insists, are not preparing new teachers with sufficiently ‘scientific’ methods and are, in the process, failing to properly train prospective teachers how to ‘lead the classroom’ (p. 2). In the deficit discourses employed by NCTQ, teacher education programs have become a cesspool of ‘mediocrity’ (p. 1) where the overall findings ‘paint a grim picture of teacher preparation in the United States’ (p. 17). We actually agree that things are grim, but for very different reasons and in very different spaces. Using NCTQ’s ‘Teacher Prep Review: A Review of the Nation’s Teacher Preparation Program’ as an entryway, the authors argue that the report typifies not only an alarmist approach usually found in conservative attempts at social policy and reform, but also further reifies quasi-empirically based research as the best (indeed the only) method by which to measure effective teacher education programs. The authors deconstruct the taken-for-granted assumptions within the NCTQ text, challenging quantification as a research/policy paradigm while arguing for the value of newly imagining educational possibility through risk and creation.     

Towards a collaborative methodology: An ethnography of widening educational participation

This paper examines my attempts to develop a collaborative methodology, and critically considers the limitations and possibilities of this approach. It draws on a small-scale ethnography of widening educational participation undertaken for my doctoral degree. I worked with a group of access students in a UK further education college to develop the methods and methodology, to identify research questions and key areas of focus and, to a lesser extent, to analyse the data. Post/structural analytical tools enabled co-participants to deconstruct hegemonic neo-liberal discourses of widening participation. Feminist theory enabled the refashioning of radical discourses that are concerned with destabilising unequal relations of power in research and in education. In the paper I consider issues of power, research relationships, author-ity, reflexivity and ethics in collaborative methodology.     

Framing secondary teachers’ perspectives on the inclusion of students with autism spectrum disorder using critical discourse analysis

Research on the role of teachers in supporting students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in schools in the Republic of Ireland has largely focused on primary and special schools rather than secondary school settings. This study examined the theoretical and practical knowledge base of Irish secondary teachers regarding the inclusion of learners with ASD using an ecological critical discursive perspective. Findings revealed teachers’ strong desires to include students with ASD in their classrooms. Teachers’ discourses exposed their sense of low self-efficacy in relation to pedagogical skills required to meet the needs of learners with ASD. At a school level, teachers positioned themselves outside the dominant school discourse on special education needs. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA), teachers’ narratives re-focus the spotlight on issues such as ineffective legislation and inadequate policies at national level, and identified the impact that these have at a micro-analytical level on teachers’ practices in relation to inclusion.     

Cricket fast bowling performance and technique and the influence of selected physical factors during an 8-over spell

The aims of this study were to determine the influence of an 8-over spell on cricket fast bowling technique and performance (speed and accuracy), and to establish the relationship of selected physical capacities with technique and performance during an 8-over spell. Fourteen first-grade fast bowlers with a mean age of 23 years participated in the study. Physical capacities assessed were abdominal strength, trunk stability, selected girth and skinfold measures. During the delivery stride, bowlers were filmed from an overhead and lateral perspective (50 Hz) to obtain two-dimensional data for transverse plane shoulder alignment and sagittal plane knee joint angle respectively. Ball speed was measured by a radar gun and accuracy by the impact point of each delivery on a zoned scoring target at the batter's stumps. Shoulder counter-rotation did not change significantly between overs 2 and 8 for all bowlers, but was significantly related to a more front-on shoulder orientation at back foot impact. When the front-on fast bowlers (n = 5) were isolated for analysis, shoulder counter-rotation increased significantly between overs 2 and 8. Ball speed remained constant while accuracy showed some non-significant variation during the spell. Shoulder counter-rotation was significantly related to accuracy scores during the second half of the 8-over spell. Chest girth and composition and body composition were significantly related to ball release speed at various times during the spell.     

Stories of family in working-class graduates’ early careers

How do young graduates view the role of immediate families in influencing/supporting them as they start their working lives and how do those reflections affect how they think of themselves as graduates? Social, political and economic changes have led to many young people being dependent on family for longer, but how does this play out in their reflections? This article addresses these questions by reporting upon findings from qualitative research with 14 young people from working-class backgrounds, who were part of a larger study of recent graduates. Figured Worlds theory illuminates data, with a consideration of the role that family plays in the ‘space of authoring’ and understanding of ‘positionality’. Findings capture vivid stories of the enabling but also limiting role of family. In our analysis of data, we borrow the words ‘salience’ from Holland and her co-authors and ‘distinction’ from Bourdieu, which help capture different depictions of family. Both articulations of ‘salience’ and a search for ‘distinction’ emerge in how graduates’ stories respond to family. We argue for a greater appreciation of the differing family resources of working-class graduates, and reject an emphasis on what they may lack, compared to their peers, which has tended to be the case in some media and policy commentary. There are implications for educators to foster student reflexivity about family sensitively, and to be aware of how family backgrounds may influence graduate career paths and students’ awareness of wider inequalities.     

Discursive constructions of equity in Australian higher education: Imagined worlds and the case of people seeking asylum

There is a strong rationale for people seeking asylum and refugees given temporary protection to be key beneficiaries of Australian higher education equity practices. However, despite the extreme precarity they face, this group remains among the most educationally disadvantaged populations in Australia. Here, we use critical discourse analysis to examine the publicly available statements of 38 Australian universities to identify discursive representations of equity practices and connections, with our analytic gaze focused through the lens of people seeking asylum. Using a three-part analytic heuristic examining ‘statements’, ‘practices’ and ‘connections’, we offer a critical discourse analysis of how each public university expresses its commitment to the equity agenda in powerful stakeholder-facing documents—such as annual reports, strategic plans and media releases—and we compare this analysis against institutional stated practices with regard to people seeking asylum. In identifying misalignments between equity statements and stated practices, we suggest that institutional equity narratives articulate ‘imagined worlds’, in which all marginalised groups can access higher education. We argue that now is the time to move beyond these ‘imagined worlds’, to enact stated commitments to universal education, by instituting real and effective practices to facilitate equitable access to Australian higher education for people seeking asylum.