Repositioning Students in Initial Teacher Preparation: A Comparative Descriptive Analysis of Learning to Teach for Social Justice in the United States and in England

Discussions of learning to teach for social justice generally focus on the social commitments, institutional structures, course content, and pedagogical processes that support prospective teachers. Missing from this array of foci is a consideration of how school students are positioned within teacher preparation and how their positioning and participation can inform prospective teachers’ preparation to teach for social justice. In this article, the authors present a comparative descriptive analysis of two projects, one based in the United States and one based in England, that provide opportunities through which prospective secondary teachers are prepared to teach for social justice through direct dialogue with secondary students focused on issues of teaching and learning

Repositioning Students in Initial Teacher Preparation: A Comparative Descriptive Analysis of Learning to Teach for Social Justice in the United States and in England

Discussions of learning to teach for social justice generally focus on the social commitments, institutional structures, course content, and pedagogical processes that support prospective teachers. Missing from this array of foci is a consideration of how school students are positioned within teacher preparation and how their positioning and participation can inform prospective teachers’ preparation to teach for social justice. In this article, the authors present a comparative descriptive analysis of two projects, one based in the United States and one based in England, that provide opportunities through which prospective secondary teachers are prepared to teach for social justice through direct dialogue with secondary students focused on issues of teaching and learning

Promoting collaborative practice and reciprocity in initial teacher education: realising a ‘dialogic space’ through video capture analysis

This paper explores the potential of video capture to generate a collaborative space for teacher preparation; a space in which traditional hierarchies and boundaries between actors (student teacher, school mentor and university tutor) and knowledge (academic, professional and practical) are disrupted. The study, based in a teacher education department in an English university, is contextualised in the policy context of school–university partnerships. Video capture is used as a vehicle to promote dialogue and collaborative practice between partners during school-based elements of a teacher preparation course. Analysis highlights the power of this space to promote reciprocal learning across the partnership

Silenced voices: the disappearance of the university and the student teacher in teacher education policy discourse in England

The teacher preparation landscape in England has been subject to radical policy change. Since 2010 the policy agenda has repositioned initial teacher preparation as a craft best learnt through observation and imitation of teachers in school settings. Simultaneously a market based approach to the recruitment of pre-service teachers has led to significant changes for prospective entrants to the profession. In the enactment of policy between 2010-2015, the roles of universities and voices of prospective teachers were systematically silenced. Using critical discourse analysis we demonstrate how both actors have been positioned in, and have accommodated and resisted, the current policy discourses. These findings highlight the importance of problematizing and understanding these emerging issues at local and international levels

Move over Nelly: lessons from 30 years of employment-based initial teacher education in England

Recruiting, preparing and retaining high-quality teachers are recurrent themes of local, national and international education agendas. Traditional university-led forms of teacher education continue to be challenged, and defended, as nations strive to secure a teaching force equipped to achieve high-quality learning outcomes for all students. One commonly adopted policy solution has been the diversification of teacher preparation routes: the alternative certification agenda. In this article, we examine the entire history of one alternative route in place in England from 1997 to 2012, the Graduate Teacher Programme. Using one example of an employment-based programme, we argue that opportunities to engineer innovative and creative spaces in the face of the current teacher preparation reform agenda need to be seized. This case study, which is contextualised in both the international debates about alternative teacher certification routes and the current policy agenda in England, demonstrates the extent to which successive administrations have failed to learn from the lessons of the past in the rush to recycle policies and claim them as their own

The Impact of Quality Assurance on Mentor Training in Initial Teacher Education Partnerships: A UK Perspective

Over the last two decades, reforms to initial teacher education in England have formalised the partnership agreements between universities and partner schools, and increased the emphasis on quality assurance of the system. These changes are discussed within the context the University of Nottingham Partnership and in relation to the role of its school-based mentorship programme in particular. The processes for collecting routine, but formal evaluation data for quality assurance purposes are described. As the partnership has matured, positive relationships between university tutors and mentors have enabled mentors to develop within a less formal framework, and thereby to improve the quality of the course