Session Information
10 SES 07 A, Research on Professional Knowledge and Identity in Teacher Education
Paper Session
Contribution
This paper explores how novice teachers train and enter their first employment within the context of the hyper-rapid and diverse influence of the city. The research that this paper describes depicts the boundary crossing of novice teachers as they join a teacher education programme in east London, UK, moving through their training in familiar and unfamiliar urban settings. It explains how these novice teachers, working in the lifelong learning sector, accommodate and change their values, assumptions and identities through their ‘boundary crossing’ processes and how the urban context situates these processes.
Rapid change in the global metropolis has resulted in the ‘dramatic transformation’ of the London context for learners and teachers in the past 20 years (Lupton and Sullivan, 2007). Writing specifically about the east London context in the UK, it has already been suggested that the landscape and backdrop of the city is a dramatic and highly significant socialising experience for learners and teachers alike (Czerniawski, 2010) and that London teachers in particular need to accommodate both the ‘changing identities’ of pupils and that of their own ‘teacher self’ (Ang and Trushell, 2010). In addition, the deprivation of many east London areas represents in itself a ‘major challenge’ for lifelong learning in particular (Lupton and Sullivan, 2007). Along with the diversity and change associated with the urban east London context, the lifelong learning sector across the UK has been portrayed as post-Fordist in nature (Avis, 1999), with rapid policy hyper-fluency and workplace reform resulting in shifting platforms for practice and identity construction (Avis and Bathmaker, 2009). Previously the boundary crossing practices of new teachers as they move from training to employment has been described as a ‘transition shock’ (Veenman, 1984) – experienced by teachers as they enter their first employment. This paper explores how the diverse urban context of east London intensifies this ‘shock’ and subsequent fluid identity-work undertaken by new teachers.
Heggen (2008), writing within the Norweigan context, has made the claim that there is a gap between professional practice and what professionals are taught about this practice. For Heggen, this makes teachers ‘boundary crossers’ – they are members of different horizontally segregated communities of practice. This polycontextuality informs identity and professional socialisation but the ‘realities’ of the field constitute a stronger pull. Following the same European context, Van Oers (1998) argues that knowledge learned on training programmes needs to be recontextualised before it can become of practical use in the field. This research illustrates the polycontextuality and the re-working of tacit knowledge of the urban novice educator – surrounded by the city as an ever-present context for social relations and identity formation. It explores how the city influences the rapidly changing identities of novice teachers and their habitual practices. The paper explores how these teachers-in-the-making accommodate the unfamiliar, the esoteric and the infraordinary (Perec, 1997; Ang et al., 2010) in their emerging practices and teacher identities. These stories are organised by the realties of urban education providing a background which orchestrates habitual routines and social practices and community memberships.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Ang, L., and Trushell, J., (2010). ‘Learning and Teaching in a Metropolis: Introduction’ in L., Ang, J., Trushell, and P., Walker, (Eds) (2010), Learning and Teaching in a Metropolis: Volume 60 At the Interface ‘The Idea of Education’. RODOPI: Amsterdam, New York. (p1-12) Avis, J and Bathmaker, A-M., (2009). ‘Moving into Practice: transitions from further education trainee teacher to lecturer’, Research in Post-Compulsory Education. 14(2) 203-217. Avis, J., (1999). ‘Shifting Identity: new conditions and the transformation of practice – teaching within post-compulsory education’, Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 51(2) 245-264 Bourdieu, P., (1990). The Logic of Practice. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Charmaz, K., (2006). Constructing Grounded Theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis. London: Sage. Czerniawski, G., (2010). ‘Constructing and Deconstructing Newly-Qualified Teachers’ Values in an Urban Context’ in L., Ang, J., Trushell, and P., Walker, (Eds) (2010), Learning and Teaching in a Metropolis: Volume 60 At the Interface ‘The Idea of Education’. RODOPI: Amsterdam, New York.. (p83-100) Heggen, K., (2008). ‘Social Workers, Teachers and Nurses – from College to Professional Work’, Journal of Education and Work, 21(3) 217-231. Lave, J., and Wenger, E., (1991). Situated Learning. Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Layder, D (1998) Sociological Practice: linking theory and social research. London: Sage. Lupton, R., and Sullivan, A., (2007). ‘The London Context’ in T., Brighouse and L., Fullick, (Eds) (2007). Education in a Global City: Essays from London. Bedford Way Press, London. (p.8-38). Perec., G (1997). ‘Approaches to What?’ in G., Perec and J., Sturrock., (Eds)., Species of Spaces and Other Pieces. Penguin Books, London. Van Oers, B., (1998). ‘The Fallacy of Decontextualization’, Mind. Culture and Activity, 5(2) 135-42. Veenman, S., (1984). ‘Perceived Problems of Beginning Teachers’, Review of Educational Research, Vol 54-2, p.143-178.
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