Engaging with Engagement: Interrogating Preservice Teachers’ Theories of Engagement in Their Literacy Planning and Reflection

Abstract

ABSTRACT The term engagement is widely used in teacher education and professional development. There is, however, a lack of consensus about the meaning of this term: it is defined in numerous ways with various theoretical underpinnings. This article employs a postqualitative approach to explore conceptualizations of engagement and their implications for teaching and learning. Specifically, we examine written teaching reflections from one cohort of preservice teachers, asking: 1) How did preservice teachers use the word “engage(ment)” in their planning for and analysis of one-on-one literacy instructional events? and 2) What conceptualizations of engagement did these usages reflect? Through the analytic approach of thinking with theory, we plug these data into four theoretical perspectives that are relevant to preservice teachers’ talk about engagement: 1) First Generation Activity Theory, 2) Reader Response Theory, 3) Self-Determination Theory, and 4) Inter-Comprehension Theory. We explore how each perspective illuminated our data, as well as questions that emerged. We conclude by (re)imagining engagement through a languaging relations perspective, arguing that this lens shifts toward a more humanizing conceptualization of engagement by centering the ongoing (re)making of relationships as people teach and learn.