Session Information
Contribution
The provision of induction and professional development opportunities for teacher educators in England has been accused of being ad hoc and uninformed by research on teacher education faculty (Murray 2005; Boyd et al 2007). This paper aims to contribute to redressing this situation. We draw on an empirical study and a broadly sociological framework to argue that teacher educators' identities and their modes of knowledge formation are closely inter-related. We argue that teacher educators have multiple identities and that induction and professional development programmes need to take this multiplicity into account. Teacher educators' work is, we argue, best understood as that of 'second order practitioners' (Murray, 2002:10). Our analysis draws on previous work on teacher educators' identities and knowledge bases in many national contexts (see, inter alia, Acker, Dillabough and Webber 2005; Arreman & Weiner, 2005; Day, 1995; Ducharme, 1993; Furlong et al., 2000; Koster & Dengerink, 2001; Maguire, 2000).In part 1 of the paper we briefly report on the Knowledge and Identity in Teacher Education (KITE) project which explored how teacher educators involved in Higher Education-based, pre-service courses in England constructed their identities and knowledge bases. This was an interpretive study, drawing on established qualitative research methods for embedded case studies and conducted along ethical guidelines. The study included semi-structured interviews with a sample of 44 teacher educators working in two universities. Data analysis used a systematic coding system, developed in a previous study of teacher educators with emergent codes used by independent raters to obtain measures of inter-rater reliability.The findings of the KITE study indicated that the 'academic tribe' (Becher & Trowler, 2002) of teacher educators was far from homogeneous. Although these teacher educators shared some common understandings of what it meant to be second order practitioners, they also constructed and utilised differing shades of academic and professional identities for themselves. We identified three broad groups of teacher educators, with differentiations based around the identities constructed and 'played out' in work, varying patterns of engagement in the research/scholarship/teaching/service nexus of academic life, the institutional contexts and the number of years which individuals had worked in higher education.In part 2 of the paper we discuss the implications of the study for the creation of high quality induction and professional development programmes for teacher educators. We argue that teaching, scholarship and research activities (we use the acronym SARA to denote the combination of Scholarship and Research Activities) and service to the school and higher education sectors are all part of the missions of teacher educators as second order practitioners, and that programmes must take account of this. We draw on Marilyn Cochrane-Smith's (2005) assertion that 'part of the task of the teacher educators is functioning simultaneously as both researcher and practitioner', drawing on the 'reciprocal, recursive and symbiotic relationships' (p.219) between SARA and teaching. We argue that achieving such symbiosis is vital in professional development programmes. A first step towards this is finding learning structures which interrogate the place of both personal pedagogies and SARA in teacher educators' work. But we also assert that programmes cannot be 'one size fits all'. Rather they need to take into account the institutional diversities and differentiations in English teacher education. The universities providing teacher education vary greatly and the academics working within them face varying imperatives for teaching and research engagement and may perceive their identities, knowledge and work in differing ways.. Professional development programmes need to reflect these factors as well as the varying professional biographies, aspirations and senses of agency of individual teacher educators. This paper is currently informing the development of induction programmes for new teacher educators in England, funded by the Higher Education Academy. The authors are also part of a European network, developing professional development programmes for new and experienced teacher educators across Europe. Acker, S., Dillabough, J-A., & Webber, M. (2005). Gender Politics and Masculine Domination in Teacher Education. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Conference, Montreal April 2005.Arreman, I., & Weiner, G. (2005). Gender and the Research Culture for Teacher Education: European Dimensions. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Conference, Montreal April 2005. Becher, T., & Trowler, P. (2002). Academic Tribes and Territories: intellectual enquiry and the culture of disciplines. Buckingham: SRHE and OUP. Boyd, P. Harris, K. and Murray, J. (2007) Becoming a Teacher Educator: Guidelines for the induction of newly appointed lecturers in Initial Teacher Education. Bristol: Higher Education Academy / ESCalate Cochrane-Smith, M. (2005). Teacher Educators as Researchers: multiple perspectives. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21(2), 219-225. Day, C. (1995). Qualitative Research, Professional Development and the Role of Teacher Educators: Fitness for Purpose. British Educational Research Journal. 21(3) 162-181. Ducharme, E. (1993) The lives of teacher educators. New York: Teachers College Press. Furlong, J., Barton, L., Miles, S., Whiting, C., & Whitty, G. (2000). Teacher Education in Transition. Buckingham: OUP. Koster, B., & Dengerink, J. (2001). Towards a professional standard for Dutch teacher educators. European Journal of Teacher Education, 24 (3), 343-354. Maguire, M. (2000). Inside/Outside the Ivory Tower: Teacher Education in the English Academy. Teaching in Higher Education. 5(2), 121-139. Murray, J. (2002). Between the Chalkface and the Ivory Towers? A study of the professionalism of teacher educators working on primary Initial Teacher Education Courses in the English education system. Collected Original Resources in Education (CORE). 26(3) 1-503.Murray, J. (2005) Investigating Good Practices in the Induction of Teacher Educators into Higher Education. ESCalate / HEA.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.