4 research outputs found
Enacting professional identity:an exploration of teacher educators’ entanglement with educational technologies in FE
This study focuses on the technology practices of teacher educators in further education (FE) colleges as a site for the negotiation of professional identity. As the culture of performativity and accountability has grown across the English education system, FE has become progressively standardised, centrally mandated and regulated. This has led to debates about teacher professional autonomy and the underlying values of an education system ostensibly oriented towards neoliberalist consumer markets. Policymakers present both the professionalisation of the FE workforce and the effective use of technology as crucial to achieving educational objectives. However, amid substantial interventions into FE teacher education and practice, decisions about educational technology use are seemingly entrusted to teaching professionals. Drawing on the analytical resources of sociocultural and sociomaterial theory, this qualitative case study of three teacher education teams explores how teacher educators negotiate professional identity within the figured worlds of FE. Although underrepresented in research, the literature indicates that this group has an important role in achieving government objectives for improved learner outcomes. This study’s findings suggest that teacher educators identify with the key discourses of their context and professional role to different degrees, and seek to reconcile competing versions of professionalism. Teacher educator work is replete with technology and the appearance of professional choice in many technology practices is illusory. This is found to affect perceptions of technology as integral to teacher educator expertise and the extent to which technology is used in the politically desired ways. Adding to the growing body of research on teacher educator professionalism and higher education (HE) in FE contexts, this thesis foregrounds the influence of the FE culture and conditions of employment on the (re)formation of teacher educator professional identity and demonstrates the potential of technology practices as an access point for further identity research
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Further education college leaders: securing the sector’s future
This article examines the ways in which actions taken by the leadership teams of further education (FE) colleges in the UK are consistent with leaders’ beliefs of the role and value of the sector, exploring the extent to which such actions might bring about desireable futures. The future of the sector has been an ongoing concern for commentators as austerity drives extensive cuts in funding that force leaders to make difficult decisions regarding students, staffing and curriculum. Drawing on interview data from a case study of 10 leadership teams, the article utilises three previously identified scenarios of potential future worlds of education to assess the implications of leadership decisions for colleges. Our analysis suggests that leaders experience a policy-driven tension between two ethics of survival: survival as a financially viable institution and survival as a representation of the core values of FE. The paper concludes that while leadership actions may contribute to the further political devaluing of the sector and its designation as a labour-market skills provider, some attempts are made to preserve its wider contribution to society, offering a basis for the creation of a more socially just future for FE
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Further Education, Leadership and Ethical action: thinking with Hannah Arendt
In this paper, we work with the philosophy of Hannah Arendt to explore ethics and leadership in further education (FE), focusing on how leaders define the ethical compromises implied by austerity. Using questionnaires, interviews and observations we developed 10 case studies. It is not our intention to elaborate upon ethical leadership as a construct. Instead, we are concerned with how leaders in FE frame the challenges they face. Three narrative strands were identified in our data. Inspired by Arendt’s (1958) political anthropology, we used her distinction between labour, work and action as a conceptual frame to ground the storied accounts. We conceptualised ethical labour and ethical work as two pervasive but nonetheless constraining modes of ethical deliberation. A third construct, ethical action enabled us to envision a more expansive mode of ethical reasoning. Our conclusion suggests a way out of what we view as the ethical impoverishment of FE. A more secure ethical future for FE colleges is possible when leaders engage in expansive modes of ethical deliberation, ones that appreciate ‘plurality and natality’ (Arendt, 1958): what we have in common and what makes each of us unique. In such spaces staff, students and interested others make meaning of their work together, developing shared commitments to educational flourishing