Higher Education-based Teacher Educators Research Articles

Diversity-responsive teacher educators in Flanders

ABSTRACT Higher education-based teacher educators are a unique group of practitioners: not only what they teach, but also how they teach is of instructional significance to students who want to become teachers themselves. Nonetheless, they are often overlooked in the research on inclusion, equity and social justice in education. This explorative study expands the knowledge base on teacher educators’ contribution to education that genuinely serves all students, here referred to as diversity-responsive education. Specifically, semi-structured interviews (n = 14) were conducted to pursue three objectives: (1) understanding perceptions of the concepts of diversity and approaching diversity; (2) mapping individual teacher educators’ practices to approach diversity; and (3) uncovering personal and contextual determinants for the implementation of diversity-responsive practices by teacher educators. Alongside its theoretical contribution, this study offers practical inspiration for practitioners, and both national and institutional policymakers operating in different regional contexts, guiding context-tailored professional development initiatives.

Higher education-based teacher educators’ researcherly disposition: An international perspective

ABSTRACT By presenting the results of a large-scale international study, this study targets a better empirical understanding of teacher educators’ researcherly disposition or the teacher educators' habit of mind to engage with research to improve their practice and contribute to the knowledge base on teacher education. Data was collected from an international sample of 1158 higher education-based teacher educators in six countries, most of them being European. The first part of the article reports on the development of iTERDS, i.e. the international Teacher Educators’ Researcherly Disposition Scale. This 16-item scale distinguishes three subdimensions: (1) Valuing research (6 items), (2) Being a smart consumer of research (5 items), and (3) Being a producer of research (5 items). Goodness of fit estimates indicate good fit. The second part of the article explores differences in teacher educators’ researcherly disposition by means of cluster analysis. Four different clusters of teacher educators were found: Cluster 1 ‘inactive to research teacher educators’, Cluster 2 ‘well-read teacher educators’, Cluster 3 ‘researching teacher educators’, and Cluster 4 ‘teacher educator-researchers’. Post hoc analyses on these clusters explore relevant background differences between the clusters in terms of qualifications and work context.

Teacher educators’ professional trajectories: evidence from Ireland, Israel, Norway and the Netherlands

ABSTRACT This study describes higher education-based teacher educators’ professional trajectories, i.e. their professional activities and learning as developed throughout their career. Semi-structured interviews were held with 41 teacher educators from Ireland, Israel, Norway and the Netherlands. Findings show that teacher educators were recruited mainly from schools and universities. As novices, they received some, but no formal, support. Research and teaching are the main areas for on-the-job learning. Most teacher educators have positive attitudes towards research, are active researchers and contribute to teaching. However, they believe their respective institutes are not sufficiently appreciative of teaching, given that institutes do not prioritise practice-oriented research, nor align their policies with research findings. While socially coherent and idealistic attitudes are present among teacher educators, they are predominantly responsive to institutes’ perceived individualistic and pragmatic expectations. Such expectations include contribution to their institutes’ academic status through their academic publications.

The hidden professionals? An interview study of higher education-based teacher educators´ professional identity

This article investigates teacher educators’ self-understanding by asking how they explain their professional identities as teacher educators, based on socialisation and further professional development. Teacher educators facilitate learning from the initial teacher education phase to in-service teachers’ further professional development. The data consists of thirteen qualitative semi-structured interviews and two focus-group interviews with teacher educators from two universities in Norway. Using Bryman’s four-stage approach of analysis, 15 categories were re-organised into three main categories: (1) Recruitment and socialisation, (2) Professional identity, and (3) Professional development. The findings illustrate that teacher educators have different understandings of being a professional. For some, their identity is rooted in the discipline in which they were educated. However, others have built identities as teacher educators supplementary to their primary careers. This knowledge has implications for how universities can and should support teacher educators in the development of their identities. This can apply to educational strategies, institutional leadership and the role of teacher educators themselves. Their further professional development can be facilitated by a clearer understanding and appreciation of this profession reflected in educational policy.
 Norsk sammendrag
 Norsk tittel: Den skjulte profesjonen? En intervjustudie av lærerutdannere og deres profesjonelle identitet
 Formålet med denne studien er å studere lærerutdanneres selvforståelse med problemstillingen: Hvordan uttrykker lærerutdannere sin profesjonsfaglige identitet basert på sosialisering inn i rollen og sin videre profesjonelle utvikling? Lærerutdannere er definert å være de som underviser lærerstudenter og lærere både i grunnutdanningene og i videreutdanningene. Profesjonell identitet beskriver utviklingen av personlig identitet knyttet til utøvelsen av en profesjonell rolle. Datamaterialet består av intervjuer av lærerutdannere fra to universiteter i Norge. Tretten kvalitative semi-strukturerte forskningsintervjuer er gjennomført og to fokusgrupper er modellert. Datamaterialet er analysert i fire trinn. Gjennom analysen ble 15 kategorier arbeidet frem. Disse ble så i iterative prosesser samlet til tre hovedkategorier. De er (1) rekruttering og sosialisering, (2) profesjonell identitet, og (3) videreutvikling av profesjonsutøvelsen. Funnene viser at lærerutdannerne har ulike forståelser av det å definere seg tilhørende en profesjonsgruppe. Flere hadde fremdeles sin identitet i den fagdisiplinen eller profesjonen de først ble utdannet til. Studien fant at noen i utvalget hadde utviklet en sterk identitet som «lærerutdanner». Denne kom da som et supplement til deres første karriere. Studiens resultat har implikasjoner for universitetene og på hvilke måter lærerutdannere blir støttet i sin utvikling av identiteter. Det kan gjelde både utdanningenes strategier, dets ledere og lærerutdannerne selv. For lærerens videreutvikling, er det behov for en tydeligere utdanningspolitisk forståelse og verdsetting av det er å være lærerutdanner.

A difficult realisation: the proletarianisation of higher education-based teacher educators

Written collaboratively with research participants, this article reports the main findings of the Work of Teacher Education project that studied the labour of 13 higher education-based teacher educators in England and Scotland over the course of a year. The priority of maintaining relationships with schools (and between schools and student teachers) is noted and ‘relationship maintenance’ is advanced as a defining characteristic of teacher educators’ work. Policy changes and their impact on institutional structures and roles, variations in organisational arrangements and research activity are also discussed. The paper concludes by arguing that a new conceptualisation of the work of teacher educators as academic work is essential for the discipline and higher education institutions as a whole.

Introduction to the special issue on the work of teacher education: policy, practice and institutional conditions

This special issue of the Journal of Education for Teaching focuses on the practical activities and material conditions of higher education-based teacher educators’ work. The articles address questions of concept and practice, discourse and labour and the ways in which teacher education as an activity of higher education is related to the institutional contexts within which the activity is located. The material conditions of academic work have become the focus of much renewed interest in higher education as a series of intellectual, cultural and economic trends (Hartley 2009) have converged so as to question the roles and responsibilities of teacher educators as a category of academic workers. Generally, research suggests that partnership teacher education, in which universities and colleges work with schools to train teachers, is highly successful and there is plentiful evidence in support of this fact (e.g. Iven 1994; Christie et al 2004; Ellis et al. 2011). However, concerns about changes to initial teacher education towards more school-led approaches persist internationally. Much contemporary policy discourse has been framed around the belief that schools are best placed to train teachers and, while there may be an implied consensus of intention to support beginners in their learning during practice, the discussions do little to suggest that the notion of a research-informed teaching profession is an aim worth addressing. Troublingly, as Christie et al. (2012) recognise, the erosion of the role of higher education in teacher education may not only lead to volatility and reductions in funding and employment opportunities in education departments but is likely, by extension, to impact adversely on research capacity in teacher education institutions. Clearly, research which explores the activities and perspectives of teacher educators, their expertise and yet their increasingly difficult positioning within higher education more generally, has the potential to inform the development of the profession from within and, importantly, the strengthening of an academic culture of teacher education.

Beginning 'Close Encounters': on starting to teach in colleges

This brief article reviews the nature of the anxieties and expectations of beginning teachers on one particular course of initial teacher education for the post-compulsory sector. It attempts to contextualise the concerns of these new entrants to the college sector by providing an overview of some of the more striking transformations that have been witnessed within it since 1993. Some strategics that Higher Education-basedteacher educators and college-based mentors might consider as appropriate and helpful in the support of relatively anxious beginning teachers are proposed.