Abstract:
The University of Western Sydney requires Secondary pre-service teachers to complete a practicum in a non-traditional educational context. Our partnership with the Dusseldorp Skills Forum (in 2004 with the Learning Choices Expo, and in 2005 through the Next Generation project) enables pre-service teachers to work with "students at risk" in innovative and non-traditional projects. This paper explores the impact of this experience on pre-service teachers perceptions of their own developing subjectivities as teachers and of young people who are more often seen in schools as "difficult".