Knowledge management, production and recontextualisation in Australian teacher education

Author(s):

Marie BrennanLew Zipin

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

23 SES 09 E, Reforming and Researching Teacher Education

Paper Session

Time:

2009-09-30

10:30-12:00

Room:

HG, HS 45

Chair:

Terri Seddon

Contribution

This paper proceeds from Bernstein’s (1990) conception of educational knowledge as encompassing two fields: knowledge production (KP), largely through universities; and knowledge recontextualisation(KR), largely through teacher education’s work around pedagogies. In countries such as Australia, so-called ‘vocational’ disciplines such as teacher education have tended historically to work across both fields, with blurred boundaries that have seen teachers engage in research and teacher-educators work on curriculum and policy initiatives alongside school and government agency actors. Refashioning and extending Bernstein’s lens in new globalising contexts, and building on his insights around the growth of performative institutions, we posit the emergence of a third field: ‘knowledge managing’ (KM). This field, we argue, is more than simply an extension of policy arms of the state: it has altering effects on both KP and KR processes. Marked by strong intervention from government bureaucracies suffering senses of declining power under normalising discourses of ‘globalisation’ (e.g. individualism, marketisation, human capital theory, credentialism), the KM field is only loosely conversant with KP and KR field complexities. It relates to these fields through gross political-ideological simplifications, which nonetheless have powerful effects.

Method

The paper is conceptual- analytic, focussing on the oeuvre of Basil Bernstein, using his conceptual framing to undertake critical policy analysis that takes the theoretical analyses read against and in conjunction with contemporary developments in Australian teacher education. The policy context for the analysis includes a range of policy developments, such as a parliamentary inquiry into teacher education, educational research policy shifts for the university system, teacher registration, new accreditation systems for teacher education programmes and reform of teacher education programmes at the institutional level.

Expected Outcomes

Our analysis suggests that universities and schools, and teacher education running between them, are debilitated in their KP and KR functions, with new tensions and gaps between KM, KP and KR fields. The standards used to judge and accredit teachers and teacher education programs, it is argued, accrete past knowledge in ways that seriously impede both knowledge production and knowledge recontextualisation activities of teacher education in universities. While the data on which we draw Is largely Australian, the trends are shared with many countries, particularly members of OECD and European union where issues of knowledge management, often through standards, is valued as the basis of knowledge work in teacher education.

References

Atkinson, P., Delamont, S. & Davies, B. (1995) (eds) Discourse and Reproduction: Essays in honor of Basil Bernstein. Cresskill, NJ, Hampton Press. Bernstein, B. (1990). The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse. Routledge. Bernstein, B. (1996). Pedagogy, Symbolic Control, and identity. Routledge. Brennan, M. & Willis, S. (2008). Sites of contestation for teacher education in Australia. Teachers and Teaching. Volume 14, Issue 4 August 2008, pages 295 – 306. Brennan, M. (2006) Infrastructure supporting teachers in the country: questions of equity arising from downsizing and restructuring. Education in Rural Australia.16(1) 3-12. Brennan, Marie & Zipin, Lew (2008) Neo-colonization of cultural struggles for justice in Australian education and teacher education. In Anne Phelan and Jennifer Sumsion (Eds) Critical Readings in Teacher Education: Invoking Absences. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. 99-114. Furlong, J., Cochran-Smith, M. & Brennan, M. (2008) Editorial. Special issue on International perspectives on teacher education. Teachers and Teaching.14, 4 August 2008, pages 265 – 269. Maton, K. & Muller, J. (2007) A sociology for the transmission of knowledges, in Christie, F. & Martin, J. (eds) Language, Knowledge and Pedagogy. London, Continuum, 14-33. Moore, R., Arnot, M., Beck, J. & Daniels, H. (eds) (2006) Knowledge, Power and Educational Reform: Applying the sociology of Basil Bernstein. London, Routledge. Morais, A., Neves, I., Davies, B. & Daniels, H. (2001) (eds) Towards a Sociology of Pedagogy: The contribution of Basil Bernstein to research. New York, Peter Lang. Muller, J., Davies, B. & Morais, A. (2004) (eds) Reading Bernstein, Researching Bernstein. London, RoutledgeFalmer. OECD. (2005). Teachers matter: Attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers. Paris: Author Reid, J. and Santoro, N. (2006) ‘Cinders in Snow? Aboriginal teacher identities in Australian Schools’, Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education. Vol. 34, No. 2. pp. 7-18. Zipin, L. (2006). Governing Australia’s universities: The managerial strong-arming of academic agency. Social Alternatives, 25(2), 26–31.

Author Information

Marie Brennan

University of South Australia

School of Education

Mawson Lakes

Lew Zipin

University of South Australia

Education

Norwood

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