The Absent Pedagogic Elements In Policy Inceptions Of Teacher Effectiveness, Teacher Capability And Teacher Quality.
Author(s):
Andrew Skourdoumbis (presenting / submitting)
Conference:
ECER 2017
Network:
23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Format:
Paper

Session Information

23 SES 06 A, Curriculum Policy Reforms and Their Implications (Part 2)

Paper Session continued from 23 SES 05 A, to be continued in 23 SES 07 A

Time:
2017-08-23
15:30-17:00
Room:
K4.02
Chair:
Jon Kjaran

Contribution

The redesign of school education and teaching in particular in recent times is characterized by two directions of reform, professionalism or bureaucracy (see Firestone & Bader, 1991). The former respects the ambiguities and complexities accompanying teaching and learning, viewing them in terms that requires professional judgment which draws upon a field specific research base mindful of the situational considerations of context. Bureaucracy conversely conceptualizes teaching in standardized ways. It assumes that teaching is a field founded on certainties with a scientific evidence base and that all pedagogic conditions including the problems of contemporary school education are solvable by invoking ‘what works’ practical solutions. Current attempts to standardize education systems have also re-configured teacher preparation programmes so that the productivity of school education is measured against the effectiveness of instruction delivered by capable, effective and quality teachers. The research presented in this paper explores how a major school education report on teacher education/preparation from Australia, and a strategic framework document prepared by the European Commission (EC) on the activities considered priority areas in education and training for member states of the European Union (EU), each with an influence on school education policy (a) contribute to a reductive pedagogy emphasizing conformity and accountability, and (b) put at risk the affective labour of teachers as ‘carers’ of students’ learning and development.

The research is guided by the following research question: what are the pedagogic implications of school education reforms geared towards minimalist expressions of teacher capability, teacher effectiveness and teacher quality?

The key objective of the study is to critically theorise terms such as capability, effectiveness and quality, their ‘enactment’ (Braun, Ball, Maguire & Hoskins, 2011) in major education/training reports and strategic framework documents and to identify the implicit factors of ‘performativity’ (Ball, 2003) and classroom based practice that connects these terms to the productivity of teachers’ pedagogy and school education systems more generally. The conceptual basis around school education reform hinges on a change and improvement rationale (Hursh, 2015), a major aim of which is the redefinition of what constitutes ‘good teaching, effective schooling and quality learning’ (Ball, 2005). A missing element in any conceptual link between (a) teacher capability, teacher effectiveness and teacher quality and (b) student achievement is a qualitative exposition of the pedagogic components embedded in each of these expressions. Indeed, a possible consequence of major transnational education/training reports and strategic frameworks championing reform is to situate school education within a ‘dialectic of crisis and recovery’ (Slater, 2015) resulting in a reification of pedagogy that diminishes the complex and contingent.

The paper is framed theoretically on several concepts connected to the school improvement and effectiveness literature including (a) the reorientation of school education to economic functions (Ball, 2008), (b) the ‘abstracted empiricism’ which ignores questions of context (Lauder, Jamieson & Wikeley, 1998), and (c) the mobilisation of a crisis rhetoric in school education and teacher preparation/education (Rowan et al. 2015; Ball, 2006).

Method

Methodologically the paper is grounded in a critical understanding of school education policy and is located in the field of critical educational policy studies (see Winton, 2013). Critical educational policy studies understands the issues linked to school education policy as social constructions. School education is complex and has political and values based connotations (see Bowe, Ball & Gold, 1992). Language has a core role in producing and promoting the social constructions of school education policy and critical educational policy studies not only challenges inequalities, it also examines the dominant and prevailing logic of existing knowledge about what defines school system improvement and successful teaching in contemporary times. There are two data sources upon which the study is based. The Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers Report (2014) from Australia, and The Education and Training 2020 (ET 2020) strategic framework prepared by the European Commission (EC) for the member states of the EU. The Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers Report (2014) prepared by the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) was commissioned by the national government of Australia in 2014 and provided advice to government on the substantive changes needed in teacher education across Australia. The latest in a plethora of studies into teacher education/preparation in Australia (see Rowan et al. 2015), the Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers Report focused its critique on the direction of initial teacher education (ITE), claiming that the evident decline of Australian school student performance on international tests warrants examination of current teacher preparation/education practice/s. The Education and Training 2020 (ET 2020) strategic framework builds on its 2010 predecessor, where four core principles including the necessity of high quality teaching, aim to further develop the education and training systems of the EU member states along a series of performance indicators and benchmarks. The paper uses discourse analysis in the Foucauldian tradition (1977; 1984; 1997) as its method of analysis borrowing from his theoretical toolbox to critically interrogate each of the documents mentioned. Discourses developed from within a particular policy “regime of truth” (Foucault, 1980, p. 131) are “bearers of knowledge” (Jäger & Jäger, 2007, p. 18) with the capacity to control, prioritize and determine importance. Thus, the analysis will help explicate how the restrictive logic of contemporary school education policy with its emphasis on teacher effectiveness, teacher capability and teacher quality overlooks the interwoven elements of a heterogeneous and modern pedagogy.

Expected Outcomes

The paper reveals the evaluative effects and theoretical interdependencies at work in abstract conceptions of the work of teachers, and contributes to critical debate about the nature of intrusive education reports and strategic frameworks that draw on international comparisons to reform school education systems and the education/preparation of teachers. Furthermore, the paper will contend that a conceptual driver of proposed reforms in school education across Australia and member states of the EU is a preoccupation with how knowledge about school systems and classroom pedagogy is to be evaluated and researched. A central element in this endeavour is the “instrumental use of knowledge” (Giroux, 2011, p. 33) where technical rationality increasingly delineates the boundaries of teaching and learning. The primary contribution of the paper however is to affirm the important contributions that a robust and dynamic teacher education has to offer so that teachers can move beyond the constrictions of contemporary global capitalism and grapple with many of the policy absolutes that shape their behaviour and impede their true work.

References

Ball, S. (2008). The education debate. Bristol: Policy Press. Ball, S. (2006). Discipline and chaos: The new right and discourses of derision. In S. Ball (Ed.), Education policy and social class: The selected works of Stephen J. Ball (pp. 26–42). London: Routledge. Ball, S.J. 2005. Education Policy and Social Class: The Selected Works of Stephen Ball. 1st ed. Hoboken, NJ: Taylor & Francis. Ball, S. J. 2003. “The Teacher’s Soul and the Terrors of Performativity.” Journal of Education Policy 18 (2): 215–228. Bowe, R., S. Ball, and A. Gold. 1992. Reforming education and changing schools. London: Routledge. Braun, Annette., Ball, Stephen J., Maguire, Meg & Hoskins, Kate (2011) Taking context seriously: towards explaining policy enactments in the secondary school, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32:4, 585-596. Education & Training (2020). Retrieved from http://www.oidel.org/doc/Doc_colonn_droite_defaultpage/ET%202020%20RESUME.pdf Firestone, W. A., & Bader, B. D. (1991). Professionalism or Bureaucracy? Redesigning Teaching. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 13, 67–86. Foucault, M. (1997). The Politics Of Truth. New York: Semiotext(e). Foucault, M. (1984). The order of discourse. In Shapiro, M. (ed.), Language and Politics. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Foucault, M. (1980). Truth and power. In C. Gordon (Ed.), Power/knowledge. selected interviews and other writings. 1972–1977. Michel Foucault (pp. 109–133). New York: Pantheon Books. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish. The Birth Of The Prison, UK: Penguin Books. Giroux, H. (2011). On Critical Pedagogy. New York: Continuum. Hursh, D. (2015). The End of Public Schools: The Corporate Reform Agenda to Privatize Education. London: Routledge. Jäger, S., & Jäger, M. (2007). Deutungskämpfe. Theorie und Praxis Kritischer Diskurskanalyse.Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. Lauder, H., Jamieson, I., & Wikeley, F. (1998). Models of effective schools: Limits and capabilities. In R. Slee, & G. Weiner (Eds.), School effectiveness for whom? (pp 51-69). London: Falmer. Slater, Graham B. (2015) Education as recovery: neoliberalism, school reform, and the politics of crisis, Journal of Education Policy, 30:1, 1-20. Rowan, L., Mayer, D., Kline, J., Kostogriz, A. & Walker-Gibbs, B. (2015) Investigating the effectiveness of teacher education for early career teachers in diverse settings: the longitudinal research we have to have, Australian Educational Researcher, 42: 273-298. Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group Report (2014) Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers. Retrieved from https://www.studentsfirst.gov.au/teacher-education-ministerial-advisory-group Winton, Sue (2013) Rhetorical analysis in critical policy research, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26:2, 158-177

Author Information

Andrew Skourdoumbis (presenting / submitting)
Deakin University
Education
Melbourne

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