Session Information
Contribution
This paper analyses the context for one research capacity building initiative in teacher education research, which is a collaboration between the British Educational Research Association (BERA), the University Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET), and the Teaching and Learning Research Project (TLRP). Phase 2 of the TLRP Capacity Building Programme is working to produce on-line research training resources (Baron, 2005). A Teacher Education Reference Group (TERG) has been established to work alongside this programme with the aims of identifying how the resources need to be supplemented to ensure relevance and the development of research capacity in the field.Drawing on recent and historical analyses of the contested place of research in teacher education (see, inter alia, Furlong et al 2000; Goodson, 1995; Mahony and Hextall, 2002; Taylor, 1969), the paper identifies and explores some of the issues, which have arisen during the course of the initiative about research capacity building and its relevance to teacher education in the UK (Baron, 2005; Pollard, 2006).The first part of the paper will offer a critique of the rise of the 'capacity building' discourse in the field of educational research and the structural context in which academics are being urged to change their practice. It will trace the origins of the capacity building discourse in the critiques of educational research promulgated in the 1990s and argue that capacity building runs the danger of carrying the stigmata of those critiques: a pathology model; a highly programmatic definition of research capacity; and the individualisation of structural problems.The paper will then map major initiatives to build capacity in education, both as a discrete area of study and as part of the social sciences. These will include the TLRP's Phase 1 Research Capacity Building Network, the TLRP's Phase 2 Capacity Building Strategy and wider programmes in the social sciences (e.g. The Research Methods Programme; the National Centre for Research Methods and its nodes; the Researcher Development Initiative) and their provision for educational researchers. This part of the paper will conclude with a critique of the ESRC Demographic Review of the UK Social Sciences (ESRC, 2006) which will set the framework for the next phase of capacity building.The paper will then turn to the restructuring of teacher education in the UK which provides the context in which colleagues are being urged to build their research capacity. It will analyse the impact on the labour process of educational academics of multiple policy innovations from institutional mergers, through the impact of processes such as the RAE to the staffing policies of HEIs. This second part of the paper will describe the initial processes of TERG, reporting on the development of the group's work. This includes a mapping exercise which aims to identify and review teacher education research conducted in the UK. TERG believes that the production of a comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography will contribute to capacity building in the field, although it does not claim that this will solve all the problems.In conclusion, the paper outlines the methodology used for the mapping exercise and presents a thematic overview of its key findings on the current trends in teacher education research in the UK.Words 545 Baron, S. (2005) TLRP's Phase 2 Research Capacities Building Strategy. Research Intelligence, issue 93, autumn 2005, pp. 14-17.Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) (2006) Demographic Review of the UK Social Sciences. London: ESRC. Furlong, J., Barton, L., Miles, S., Whiting, C., & Whitty, G. (2000). Teacher Education in Transition. Buckingham: OUP. Goodson, I. (1995) Education as a Practical Matter: some issues and concerns, Cambridge Journal of Education 25(2), pp. 137-148. Mahony, P. and Hextall, I. (2000) Reconstructing teaching: standards, performance, and accountability. London; Routledge. Pollard, A. So how then to approach research capacity building? in Research Intelligence, issue 97, autumn 2006, pp. 18-20.Taylor, W. (1969). Society and the Education of Teachers. London: Faber and Faber.
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