Abstract:
Socially-just education is reliant upon high quality teachers, who in turn need high quality teacher education. However in initial teacher education (ITE) scale is often situated as counter to quality: ITE programmes can proclaim their quality through reference to high levels of personalisation, coherence and stakeholder partnership which are only achievable at a (relatively) small scale. However, as Cohen and Ball (2007) note, scale has both a qualitative and quantitative dimension: widespread adoption can be superficial, and meaningful adoption must permeate practice.
Much research on teacher education can be inward-looking, and parochial (see Menter, 2017). Quality in teacher education is often confused with accountability and can underplay aspects, such as social justice, with are difficult to measure. Cochran-Smith et al. (2018) illustrate how accountability measures may be poor proxies for quality. All notions of quality are underpinned by discourses about what is a “good” teacher (see Moore, 2004).
Through a detailed case study of one large-scale provider in England (focusing specifically on three post-graduate programmes: Primary, Secondary education and Teach First), the research focuses on the question of ‘What are the features of high-quality, large-scale initial teacher education provision?’. Using Weaver-Hightower (2008)’s policy ecologies as a framework for analysis, the research design includes collecting interview data from teacher educators, provider-specific programme documentation and contextual (secondary) evidence to describe, in a rich and textured way, how the teacher education provider ‘does’ teacher education. The data is analysed under the four categories of the framework (actors, relationships, environments and structure, and processes) and mined for micro-ideologies (Pachler et al. 2008) to reveal the motivations and positionality of the actors involved. Exploring micro-ideologies reveals the different registers held by individuals, and how this may influence their understanding and calls for action and reveals the anomalies, policies and discourses which can affect their practice.
The findings reveal that different approaches to leveraging scale has implications for how notions of quality, and in particular those orientated around social justice are variously interpreted and enacted. Whilst each programme leverages scale in different ways, the approach reflects beliefs about forms of professional learning, priorities and hierarchies in teacher education pedagogies, and financial and accountability constraints. These approaches have implications for the professional identity of teacher educators, how partnership is conceived and enacted, and curriculum design and “delivery”. These research findings raise significant questions about how we position teacher education within debates on social justice and equity.
Much research on teacher education can be inward-looking, and parochial (see Menter, 2017). Quality in teacher education is often confused with accountability and can underplay aspects, such as social justice, with are difficult to measure. Cochran-Smith et al. (2018) illustrate how accountability measures may be poor proxies for quality. All notions of quality are underpinned by discourses about what is a “good” teacher (see Moore, 2004).
Through a detailed case study of one large-scale provider in England (focusing specifically on three post-graduate programmes: Primary, Secondary education and Teach First), the research focuses on the question of ‘What are the features of high-quality, large-scale initial teacher education provision?’. Using Weaver-Hightower (2008)’s policy ecologies as a framework for analysis, the research design includes collecting interview data from teacher educators, provider-specific programme documentation and contextual (secondary) evidence to describe, in a rich and textured way, how the teacher education provider ‘does’ teacher education. The data is analysed under the four categories of the framework (actors, relationships, environments and structure, and processes) and mined for micro-ideologies (Pachler et al. 2008) to reveal the motivations and positionality of the actors involved. Exploring micro-ideologies reveals the different registers held by individuals, and how this may influence their understanding and calls for action and reveals the anomalies, policies and discourses which can affect their practice.
The findings reveal that different approaches to leveraging scale has implications for how notions of quality, and in particular those orientated around social justice are variously interpreted and enacted. Whilst each programme leverages scale in different ways, the approach reflects beliefs about forms of professional learning, priorities and hierarchies in teacher education pedagogies, and financial and accountability constraints. These approaches have implications for the professional identity of teacher educators, how partnership is conceived and enacted, and curriculum design and “delivery”. These research findings raise significant questions about how we position teacher education within debates on social justice and equity.