The Moral Involvement of Novice Teachers in Primary Education: Exploring Moral Dialogues

Abstract

Novice teachers working in primary school experience in their practice, impact the contemporary multicultural, knowledge-based society. This article aims to gain insight into novice teachers' retrospection on their actions, using the modes of Moral Involvement, based on a post-modern stand on morality and a dialogical narrative approach to teachers' moral meaning-making. The modes describe the “mixed moral atmosphere” as the congruities and incongruities between two perspectives, the “I” and the “Other” of the dialogical “Self.” Moral Involvement frames the reciprocity of influences of the workplace, the others and teachers' inner argumentation to balance self-interest, mutual interest and personal attachment to principles. Transcripts of interviews with novices in primary education were analyzed to categorize how novices reflect on their work and how they use different perspectives to explore their Moral Involvement. The results show that novice teachers mainly discuss their achievements from the I-position and use the Other-positions when elaborating on collaborating, alignments or uncertainty about their work. The conclusion is drawn that retrospection on moral issues during Teacher Education and workplace learning supports learning to deal with complex moral issues experienced in school practice.