Teacher Educators: Constructions of Identity and Professional Knowledge Teacher Educators: Constructions of Identity and Professional Knowledge

Author(s):

Jean MurrayPatti Barber

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 03 C, Research on Professional Identity, Beliefs and Understanding of Teaching and Learning in Teacher Education

Paper Session

Time:

2009-09-28

14:00-15:30

Room:

NIG, HS 3D

Chair:

Jennifer Harrison

Contribution

Over the last fifteen years the intensification of work in teacher education in England may have caused changes in the academic identities of those teaching on teacher education courses (Furlong et al 1996), but the nature of these changes have not been researched in depth. Subsequently, English teacher educators are often seen as an under-researched and poorly understood occupational group (John 1996; Murray 2002). Policies and practices in the recruitment, induction and professional development of teacher educators are uninformed by evidence-based studies of how faculty members see their knowledge bases and identities. The Academic Tribes and their Territories project aimed to redress these omissions in existing research. The specific objectives of this project were: firstly, to provide an evidence-based study of how teacher educators view their academic and professional identities and knowledge bases; secondly, to identify if they saw any changes within these identities and knowledge bases in the last three years; thirdly, to consider how any such changes had impacted on their working lives and on the perceived quality of the student learning experiences. Particular emphases included exploring the effects of changes in the research/teaching/scholarship /service nexus in the academic life of teacher educators. The study drew on a pilot study and previous work on teacher educators’ identities and knowledge bases in the UK context, including research by Furlong et al (1996; 2000), John (1996), Maguire (2000) and Murray (2002), and on relevant research from other national contexts (see, for example, Acker, Brock and Dillabough 2005; Arreman and Weiner 2005; Ducharme 1993). No existing theoretical frameworks offered a precise ‘fit’ for this study. We therefore harnessed a substantial body of research to theorise teacher educators’ identities and the effects of any changes on student learning, including Wenger’s (1998 ) concept of communities of practice, Henkel’s (2000) study of academic identities, and Becher and Trowler (2002) analysis of academic tribes and territories. A conceptual framework for analysing teacher educators’ work as second order practitioners, developed in previous research (Murray 2004), was also used.

Method

This is an interpretive study, drawing on established qualitative research methods for case study (Yin 2002) and conducted along ethical guidelines, provided by BERA. The institutional sample of three universities enables us to take some account of the diverse HE settings for teacher education in England. All HE-based teacher educators working on the relevant ITE courses were asked to complete questionnaires. The sample group was 28 members of academic staff across the three institutions. Three follow-up focus group interviews in each university, with a representative sample of staff, were also used to explore resulting issues in more depth. These interviews were semi-structured in format. Data analysis used a systematic coding system, developed in a previous study of teacher educators (Murray 2002) with emergent codes used by independent raters to obtain measures of inter-rater reliability.

Expected Outcomes

Data analysis is still at the early stages, but findings indicate some complex patterns in the ways in which the teacher educators’ contructions of identity and professional knowledge are related. Certainly, in this small study, there would seem to be suggestions that the ‘academic tribe’ (Becher and Trowler 2002) of pre-service teacher educators in England is far from homogeneous (Ducharme 1993). The project is leading to a greater elaboration of knowledge of how teacher educators see their professional identities and knowledge bases. The study aims to make a contribution to the growing European literature on teacher educators (Korthagen et al 2005). The study has already informed discussion of national policies and practices for pre- and in-service courses.

References

References Acker, S. & Feuerverger, G. (1997). Doing Good and Feeling Bad: the work of women university teachers. Cambridge Journal of Education, 26 (3) 401-421. Acker, S., Dillabough, J-A. and Webber, M. (2005) Gender Politics and Masculine Domination in Teacher Education. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Conference, Montreal April 2005. Arreman, I and Weiner, G. (2005) Gender and the Research Culture for Teacher Education: European Dimensions. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Conference, Montreal April 2005. Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) (2002). Standards for teacher educators. Available at: www.edu.departments/coe/ate/standards/TEstandards.htm (Accessed June, 2004). Bassey, M. (2004) Analysis of the Research Assessment Exercise: Assessment Unit 18 (Education). Research Intelligence 16.1 Becher, T. and Trowler, P. (2002) Academic Tribes and Territories: intellectual enquiry and the culture of disciplines. Buckingham: SRHE and OUP. Ducharme, E., & Agne, R. (1989). Professors of Education: Uneasy Residents of Academe. in R. Wisniewski & E. Ducharme (Eds.), The Professors of Teaching, . Albany: State University of New York Press. Ducharme, E. (1993). The lives of teacher educators. New York: Teachers College Press. Ducharme, E., & Ducharme, M. (1996). A Study of Teacher Educators: Research from the United States of America. Journal of Education for Teaching. 22(1). Furlong, J., Barton, L., Miles, S., Whiting, C., & Whitty, G. (1996) Partnership and the Changing Work of the Higher Education Tutor: The Challenge to Academic Expertise (working paper). Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Conference, Lancaster University, 1996. Furlong, J., Barton, L., Miles, S., Whiting, C., & Whitty, G. (2000). Teacher Education in Transition. Buckingham: OUP. Henkel, M. (2000) Academic Identities and Policy Change in Higher Education. London: Jessica Kingsley. John, P. (1996). The subject-method seminar and the role of the teacher educator. In J. Furlong & R. Smith (Eds.), The role of higher education in initial teacher training (pp. 119-138). London: Kogan Page. Korthagen, F., Loughran, J. and Lunenberg, M. (2005) Teaching teachers – studies into the expertise of teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher Education 21.2. Korthagen, F. (2001). Teacher education: A problematic enterprise. In Kessels, J., Koster, B., Lagerwerf, B. & Wubbels, T. (Eds.) Linking practice and theory: The pedagogy of teacher education pp. 1-20). Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers. Koster, B. & Dengerink, J. (2001). Towards a professional standard for Dutch teacher educators. European Journal of Teacher Education, 24 (3), 343-354. Loughran, J. (1996). Developing reflective practice: Learning about teaching and learning through modelling. London: Falmer. Maguire, M. (1994). The Job of Educating Teachers. Unpublished Ph.D thesis, Kings College, University of London, London. Maguire, M. (2000). Inside/Outside the Ivory Tower: Teacher Education in the English Academy. Teaching in Higher Education. 5(2). 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) volume 26, number 3. October 2002. Murray, J. (2004) Professional Educators in the English University Sector: a comparison of teacher educators’ professional practices with those of medical, social work and nurse educators. Commissioned and published in London by the University Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) Murray, J. (2005) Investigating Good Practices in the Induction of Teacher Educators into Higher Education. York: The Higher Education Academy. Russell, T. (1997). Teaching teachers: How I teach IS the message’. In J. Loughran & T. Russell (Eds.), Teaching about teaching (pp. 32-47). London: Falmer Press. Teacher Training Agency (2002) Qualifying to Teach. London: The Teacher Training Agency. Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: CUP. Yin, R. (2002) Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Newbury Park: Sage

Author Information

Jean Murray

University of East London

Cass School of Education

London

Patti Barber

University of London, Institute of Education

Early Childhood and primary Education