The moral nature of teaching and teachers’ ethical responsibilities have been explored for decades (Schjetne et al., 2016). Nevertheless, the implementation of teacher morality remains challenging in practice. Teachers’ insufficient understandings of teacher morality has been identified as a significant contributing factor to this issue. For instance, many teachers rely on formal codes of professional ethics as the basis for understanding teacher morality. But this approach tends to be far from adequate when it comes to complex educational activities in practice (Campbell, 2008).

Pre-service teachers are prone to be confused under such circumstances due of their limited practical educational experiences. Their perceptions of teacher morality heavily depend on what they have been taught. However, despite the inclusion of moral education in teacher education programmes worldwide, there is a lack of emphasis on the extent to which pre-service teachers are able to internalise and construct their personal understandings of teacher morality. Teacher educators tend to impart moral norms and theories relevant to the teaching profession, with relatively little attention to the cultivation of individual values and the resolution of ethical dilemmas (Willemse, Lunenberg, & Korthagen, 2005; Pantić & Wubbels, 2008).

Therefore, there is need for exploring innovative approaches that can foster the development of pre-service teachers’ perceptions of teacher morality. Embodied pedagogy has emerged as an effective approach to enhancing learning. It emphasizes the integration of learners’ body, cognition and context, providing a new approach to developing pre-service teachers’ perceptions of teacher morality (Nguyen & Larson, 2015; Liu et al., 2022). Previous research has also revealed the impact of embodied experiences, such as physical actions, tactile sensations, and visual stimuli on cognitive activities relevant to morality (Schaefer et al., 2014, 2015; Gan, Fang, & Ge, 2016). However, most of the studies on incorporating embodied pedagogy into teacher education are theoretical studies, and there remains a lack of empirical evidence collected from educational practice. Therefore, this study aims to explore how do pre-service teachers’ perceptions of teacher morality develop through embodied pedagogy.

The conceptual framework is constructed based on embodied cognitive theory and conceptual metaphor theory. Embodied cognitive theory emphasizes the integral role of body in cognitive processes, suggesting that our cognition is shaped by our bodily experiences within certain contexts (Wilson, 2002). Conceptual metaphor theory conceptualises cognition as a “mapping” process from a familiar and concrete “source domain” to an unfamiliar and abstract “target domain” (Lakoff, 2006).

According to this conceptual framework, embodied pedagogy is interpreted as a transformative process where pre-service teachers actively engage their bodies in classroom activities, and therefore construct new understandings of teacher morality. They participate in various activities and gain direct embodied experiences, i.e., concrete source domain. Then teachers gradually go through the mapping process under the guidance of teacher educators, including connecting their present embodied experiences with past and future educational practices, as well as combining concrete activities with abstract theories. Consquently, they reach deeper and more comprehensive understandings of teacher morality, i.e., abstract target domain. Their perceptions of teacher morality are characterised through two dimensions: one focuses on the abstract concepts of moral values that the teaching profession requires, while the other involves teachers’ moral behaviours in educational practice.

This research was conducted in a course on teacher morality where embodied pedagogy was utilised at B University in China. The study participants involve all the nine pre-service teachers enrolled in this course. Multiple qualitative data collection methods were employed, including classroom observations, focus group interviews, teachers’ written assignments and reflective reports. The data was analysed and compared to gain insights into the development of pre-service teachers’ perceptions of teacher morality through embodied pedagogy.

A qualitative research paradigm was employed to explore the development of pre-service teachers’ perceptions of teacher morality. This research was conducted in a course named “Theory and Practice of Teacher Morality: Based on Embodied Pedagogy” at B University in China. This course was offered during the autumn semester in 2023, spanning for 12 hours in total. It was an elective course for students pursuing a master’s degree in education. The research involved all the nine students who enrolled in this course. They were in their first year of postgraduate studies and expressed their intention to become secondary school teachers after graduation. Therefore, they are referred to as “pre-service teachers” in this study. It is worth noting that these pre-service teachers had some prior practical educational experiences. The teacher educator responsible for delivering this course is a professor at B university, with several years of research experience in the fields of teacher morality and teacher embodied learning. The research data was collected through multiple resources. Firstly, classroom observations served as the main source to uncover pre-service teachers’ experiences. The researcher was present during all classroom activities, capturing significant moments using field notes and video recordings. Secondly, teachers were requested to submit a series of written assignments, including analyses of a practical case relevant to teacher morality. Additionally, they also need to submit their reflective reports at the end of each session. Thirdly, two focus group interviews were conducted to learn about pre-service teachers’ experiences and understandings from their own perspective. One took place at the beginning of the first session, and the other after the course was completed. The guideline of the first interview involved some basic questions regarding their general views on teacher morality, while some questions were added to the second interview based on the observations and textual data described above. The collected data was organised and analysed aiming to derive meaningful insights. Different types of data were integrated to comprehend pre-service teachers’ experiences from different perspectives. Classroom observations and assignments provided valuable information for the research to interpret teachers’ perceptions, while interviews and reflective reports being employed to listen to teachers’ voices from their own perspective. Furthermore, a qualitative comparative analysis was conducted following a chronological pattern. This contributes to exploring how embodied pedagogy triggered changes before and after embodied pedagogy.

Results demonstrate that the changes in pre-service teachers’ perceptions of teacher morality triggered by embodied pedagogy are mainly reflected in three aspects. Firstly, embodied pedagogy contributes to the development of a cross-domain mapping from pre-service teachers’ concrete bodily experiences to abstract teacher morality. It begins with their embodied experiences during classroom activities, which serve as the basis for their perceptual development. The interactions between their bodies and the classroom environment, teaching and learning tools, and bodily interactions with other pre-service teachers and the teacher educator are also significant. Subsequently, they are able to construct embodied representations of abstract teacher morality based on their bodily experiences. Secondly, pre-service teachers tend to establish a double-directional connection between abstract concepts of moral values and practical moral behaviours. On one hand, they use practical moral behaviours in educational settings as a means to describe the performances and connotations of abstract moral values that teachers should possess. On the other hand, they identify, comprehend and explain the abstract concepts of moral values in practical behaviours in certain cases. Thirdly, through embodied pedagogy, pre-service teachers connect the acquired knowledge relevant to teacher morality with their past and future educational practices. More importantly, they construct their own personal understandings and individual meanings of teacher morality. With regards to the past, pre-service teachers interpret and analyse their existed educational experiences based on their understandings of teacher morality. In terms of the future, they are able to envision the values that they aspire to possess and anticipate their potential responses when faced with ethical dilemmas, respectively representing moral values concepts and practical moral behaviours. Here, they reproduce and re-interpret their prior and anticipated future experiences, facilitating a shift from a focus on the present moment to a consideration of future circumstances.

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