Abstract
The article considers current teachers’ participation in educational research in England and whether Stenhouse’s perception that such involvement was necessary to stall the political undermining of democratic teacher professionalism has been addressed. Stenhouse instigated the emergence of the teacher-as-researcher movement, whereby teachers engaged with a process that created knowledge and practice. From 1979, when the Conservative Margret Thatcher became Prime Minister, the increasing dominance of globalised knowledge economies turned knowledge away from being a process into a product. Teacher and student education became controlled and consumed by increasingly competitive educational institutions. Learning became aimed at assuring the attainment of higher grades to increase the country’s economic growth and profit, leading to democratic teacher professionalism being undermined. However, contemporary research by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has indicated that teacher professionalism should involve teachers in conducting classroom-based individual or collaborative research. In addition, a recent academic inquiry by the British Education Research Association has concluded that teachers as researchers, in both literate and practical terms, will have a positive impact on learner outcomes by developing an education system that has the internal capacity to direct its own progress. At the same time, the Department for Education in England commissioned a two-year study to assess progress towards an evidence-informed teaching system. Taking a systematic literature approach, the present article considers the extent to which current teacher education and practice encourage teacher research as a form of developing pedagogical practice, in other words, praxis, in order to re-establish democratic teacher professionalism in England. It also explores whether there are alternative practices to create the same, or a similar, outcome.
Highlights
Teacher professionalism is defined by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as the knowledge, skills and practices that teachers must have in order to be educators
In England, Masters in Education courses – and not initial teacher education (ITE) courses – have the key role in the development of teachers as researchers. This is confirmed by a Department for Education (DfE) research report (2017) that states that the few teachers who were confident in carrying out their own research and introducing its findings into their practice had undertaken higher level academic study
If the DfE wants to take into account the OECD’s proposal that education policies should consider “supporting teachers in conducting classroombased individual or collaborative research” (2016, p. 23) in order to achieve an evidence-informed teaching system influenced by robust research evidence, there would need to be fundamental changes in teacher education
Summary
Prispevek obravnava trenutno udeležbo učiteljev pri raziskovanju izobraževanja v Angliji in preverja, ali je bilo naslovljeno Stenhousovo dojemanje, da je takšna vpletenost nujna za zadrževanje političnega spodkopavanja demokratične učiteljske strokovnosti. Stenhouse je sprožil nastanek gibanja učitelja kot raziskovalca, s čimer so se učitelji vklopili v proces, ki je ustvaril znanje in prakso. Cilj znanja je bil zagotoviti doseganje višjih ocen, s katerimi bi se povečala gospodarska rast in dobiček države, kar pa je vodilo v spodkopavanje demokratične učiteljske strokovnosti. Prek sistematičnega pregleda literature prispevek obravnava, kako trenutno izobraževanje učiteljev in praksa spodbujata učiteljevo raziskovalno dejavnost kot obliko razvoja pedagoške prakse zaradi ponovne vzpostavitve demokratične učiteljske strokovnosti. Ključne besede: pedagogika, praksa, strokovnost, kritična refleksija, raziskovanje c e p s Journal | Vol.10 | No3 | Year 2020 13
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