Change in teacher education and educational research

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La politica del locale. Valori nazionali e politica sociale in Scozia [The politics of place: national values and social policy in Scotland]

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Teacher Preparation in Scotland, 1872-1920

This chapter examines the inauguration of the university study of Education in Scotland and its relation to teacher education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The chapter outlines moves to establish Education as a disciplinary field in higher education and the junctures at which this movement aligns with and is in tension with concurrent moves to advance teaching as a profession. Academisation and professionalisation are the twin poles of this debate. This is not a parochial or obsolete debate. The place of teacher preparation in higher education has been the focus of sustained discussion across Anglophone nations. Three examples – the inauguration of chairs and lectureships, the governance of teacher education, and deliberation on the content and purpose of a degree in Education - are used to help explain the apparent paradox between the historic place of education in Scottish culture and identity, and the relatively recent full involvement of Scotland’s universities in the professional preparation of teachers. Investigating the activities of the first academic community of educationists in Scotland may help to understand continuing struggles over jurisdiction and authority in this contested and yet neglected field

Between a rock and a hard place:leading university teacher education in England

Processes of market-making and regulation are recalibrating the work of teacher education. While an established body of research has examined changes to the content and control of teacher education in the UK and internationally, the impact of audit-based accountability on the work of academic leaders is neglected. This study explores the career transitions, experiences and commitments of leaders in professional education at a time of jurisdictional challenge. Drawing on interviews with Heads of Department of 10 large-scale university providers of pre-service teacher education in England, the analysis addresses the impact of multiple accountabilities on professional agency, identity and efficacy. The study finds participants’ need to demonstrate compliance with policy directives in a highly volatile operating context diminishes possibilities for critically reflexive leadership practice and policy activism

The politics of place - national values and social policy in Scotland

[Italian] A partire dal 1999 la devoluzione ha creato nuovi spazi di divergenza politica all’interno del Regno (sempre più dis-)Unito. Nell’ambito del discorso politico, i «valori nazionali» vengono sistematicamente chiamati in causa per suscitare fedeltà e solidarietà con le «comunità immaginate» (Anderson B., 2000). Il presente articolo riconosce l’eterogeneità presente nelle varie delimitazioni nazionali e l’interconnessione delle quattro nazioni che compongono il Regno Unito. I confronti tra le varie nazioni indicano che le attitudini sociali non divergono in maniera radicale e sono rifratte da specifiche policy communities, istituzioni civiche e sistemi di competizione politica tra partiti a nord e a sud della frontiera anglo-scozzese. I sistemi di sicurezza sociale e i servizi pubblici sono luoghi chiave per la contestazione quando si deve optare tra politiche alternative. Nell’ambito del comunitarismo di centro-sinistra il dibattito sul welfare, sulla coesione sociale e sulla «buona società» fa emergere tensioni irrisolte fra la virtù di una società civile pluralista e le concezioni di «comunità forte» del nazionalismo unionista e di quello secessionista. Da questo punto di vista, il ravvivare la «nazione dei cittadini» (Colley L., 1999) risulta un progetto maggiormente produttivo rispetto al recupero dello stato-nazione. [English] Devolution from 1999 has created new spaces for policy divergence within the disUniting Kingdom. Within political discourse «national values» are routinely deployed to evoke allegiance and solidarity with «imagined communities» (Anderson, 1991). This article acknowledges heterogeneity within borders and the interconnectedness of the four nations of the UK. Cross-national comparisons indicate that social attitudes do not diverge radically and are refracted by distinctive policy communities, civic institutions and systems of party political competition north and south. Welfare and public services are key sites of contestation in deliberation on policy alternatives. The debate on welfare, social cohesion and the «good society» raises unresolved tensions within centre-left communitarianism between the virtue of pluralist civil society vis-a-vis notions of «strong community» in both unionist and secessionist nationalism. From this perspective the revivification of the «citizen-nation» (Colley, 1999) is a more productive project than the recovery of the nation-state

Research to support Schools of Ambition

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

To teach or to research – is that the question? A case study from the Schools of Ambition

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Reclaiming accountability through collaborative curriculum enquiry:new directions in teacher evaluation

Teacher evaluation and teachers’ professional learning are too often confined to separate areas of research and professional practice. Rather than approach evaluation and enquiry as distinct or irreconcilable, this paper applies the ideas of Stenhouse to explore new possibilities for the reappropriation of mandated appraisal in ways that support teachers’ professional growth. Illustrative case studies of laboratory schools in the United States and England are used to examine the interaction of local and lateral forms of professional accountability with external and hierarchical regulatory frameworks. The article reports the design and enactment of change in two schools (a U.S. kindergarten through twelfth grade school and a UK high school) connected through the International Association of Laboratory Schools (IALS) that purposively redesigned appraisal over a three-year period to build capacity for collaborative curriculum enquiry. Attention is afforded to the space for manoeuvre between advisory and mandatory guidance, and the challenges to relational trust and collective responsibility posed by performance-based accountability systems. The findings provide new insights into how teacher-led collaborative enquiry (curricular co-design) can address the unintended consequences of test-based accountability and rubrics-based observation as principal drivers of educational improvement