The post-industrial society inherited the massive, linear and uniform educational systems of the industrial era; an educational paradigm inadequate to meet the needs of the new social model or to prepare young people for the non-linear, differentiated societies of the future (Robinson, 2011). Thus, modern educational systems, as well as teacher education programs, are transformed to meet the needs of the post-industrial society. On the other hand, the underlying assumptions that inscribe modern pedagogical priorities are ambiguous, as they are given different meanings, depending on how they are used and what purposes they serve.

But what pedagogical priorities are shifting in the 21st century? The idea of ​​rigid academic knowledge and the practices of conventional schooling are losing their meaning. Information is available anywhere and at any time. Distance and open education are considered more appropriate in the new context, as the idea of knowledge as use replaces the idea of knowledge as unquestionable truth, and the focus shifts from teaching to lifelong learning.

The student-centered turn of the late 20th century is extended by the concepts and practices of multiliteracies, especially digital literacy. The internet is considered to facilitate the democratization of the learning process (Giddens, 2002), allowing students to draw on sources of information beyond textbooks and teachers, to open up to collaborations and to exploit diverse learning opportunities, in order to live a life oriented towards learning outside of school (Fischer, 2000). Concurrently, free choice in learning, that is, the learning style where individuals have control over what, when, where, with whom and with what learning happens (Falk & Dierking, 2002), exploratory and collaborative learning, creativity in learning, education for reinforcing democratic values and enchasing social inclusivity come to the fore (Council of Europe, 2024). The new priorities are also influenced by management reasoning and the psychologization of educational theory and practice, mainly through the overdevelopment of the Positive Psychology movement (Fejes & Dahlstedt, 2013).

Many of the above were also pedagogical priorities of the 1960s and 1970s, when Critical Pedagogy and the anti-authoritarian education movement made autonomy, creativity, and imagination central axes of criticism in the industrial era school. Now, however, they are being reframed differently. E.g. collaborative learning, which echoes the fundamental dogma of sociocultural learning (Vygotsky, 1994), along with creativity, or lifelong learning, were initially aimed at the development of the individual and social subject (Hartlep & Hensley, 2015). A common question is if nowadays they are being deployed to link education to the values ​​and practices of entrepreneurship and markets, that is, to values ​​and practices that are entirely profit-oriented (Gutiérrez, 2021; Williamson, 2021).

The main argument of this paper is that, as pedagogical concepts are constantly transformed for various uses and purposes, contemporary pedagogical priorities inscribe underlying discourses, and therefore educational purposes, that are ambiguous and often contradictory. Teachers are also overwhelmed by ambiguous messages regarding the nature and purpose of education in the 21st century, without, however, having become familiar, during their studies, with multiple pedagogical discourses and criteria, allowing them multiple readings of educational theory. On the contrary, pre-service teachers have a more adequate familiarity with all of these through their new University Curriculums.

Thus, the present research aims to explore the emerging educational theory of 24 pre-service teachers after their two-semester practicum in a postgraduate teacher education program. Specifically, it focuses on highlighting a) whether any of the previous pedagogical priorities are reflected on their reflective discourse and which are these and b) whether any underlying educational theory inscribed in their reflective discourse and which are these.

The participants of our research were 24 pre-service teachers of Greek Language and Literature enrolled in a postgraduate teacher education program of the Department of Educational Studies (NKUA). The duration of the program was four academic semesters, two of which were dedicated to practicum in secondary school settings. The data analyzed were, first of all, the reflective essays of these 24 pre-service teachers which they had to draw up after the completion of their practicum in secondary schools. These reflective essays are structured around the axes of the description of four hourly teaching implementations, which had been planned and carried out by them as well as the reflection concerned their teaching goals, practices and all kinds of teaching options. The participants of our research should teach the following school subjects: Modern Greek Language, Greek and World Literature, Greek and World History, and Ancient Greek Language and Literature. The recorded speech of 15 of the previous participants in a focus group was also analyzed. In addition, the literature that each participant mentioned in his/her reflective essay was also taken into account. For the analysis of the reflective essays and interviews, the principles of thematic analysis, which aims to systematically identify, organize and highlight a set of data into patterns of meaning (themes), were adopted (Braun & Clarke, 2012). Repeated reading of the data created codes from frequently appearing or synonymous words, similar meanings, or different perspectives of the same meaning, like digital literacy, pleasant and entertaining learning, teacher as animator, and education for reinforcing democratic values. The codes were then grouped together to create broader themes (King 2004). Each theme was studied separately by the two researchers in order to search for any subthemes or patterns of meaning within it and to create a coherent pattern between excerpts (Braun and Clarke 2006). The analysis followed a combination of deductive and inductive approaches; specifically, we drew from theoretical constructs underpinning our research, but we also constructed codes mainly through the data we gathered from the participants’ statements (Tsiolis, 2011). Thus, the elaboration of the theory and the empirical investigation did not constitute distinct stages of the research, but “conversed” throughout the research dialectically.

Although the analysis of the data is ongoing, four patterns seem to emerge that correspond to four profiles of pre-service teachers, regarding their emerging educational theory: a) Resistance to theory: Here, pre-service teachers perceive theory as an unfriendly and threatening academic object, or as a set of rules that they must apply. They therefore “de-legitimize” it, along with many pedagogical priorities of the 21st century, in the name of teaching archetypes, based on their own school experiences. b) Eclecticism: With the argument that the teacher chooses what works each time according to the dynamic characteristics of his own teaching context (Brown, 2002), pre-service teachers seem to make superficial use of some teaching practices: e.g., digital literacy is mainly understood as searching for information on the Internet. c) The psychologization of educational theory: it echoes the discourse of Positive Psychology, which has shifted the focus from dealing with weaknesses and deficits to strengthening positive individual capabilities, which cultivate optimism and favor success (Meyers & Nastasi, 1999). There are also dark spots in its background that are worth questioning. d) The reflective emergence of an essentially student-centered educational theory: it records deep assumptions in relation to knowledge and the purposes of education, which are inspired by some pedagogical priorities of the post-industrial era, but not to serve them uncritically. Democratic engagement, collaboration and negotiation of assumptions with classmates, presupposes the development of an educational theory that will potentially transform them into active educational agents, who make decisions and shape a learning framework, modern but mainly oriented towards the formation of emancipated individual and social subjects. In addition to the characteristics of these categories and their possible consequences, questions that emerge for further research are also discussed.

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