A secure seat at the academic high table? An exploratory study of the field of university-based teacher education for post-compulsory education and training in England: a Legitimation Code Theory analysis

Abstract

As a specialised field of study in English universities, teacher education for the post-compulsory education and training sector (TE-PCET) is under-researched and under-theorised. By portraying the views and perspectives of teacher educators (TEds) about their knowledge context, practices and beliefs at a time of considerable flux for the PCET sector and for university provision of teacher education (TE) generally, the thesis makes a significant contribution to the empirical and theoretical literature for this field. Extensive interviews and programme documentation provided insight into its current state and security of tenure in the academy. Analysis and implications of the findings drew on Maton’s (2014) Legitimation Code Theory, an innovative analytic explanatory framework in which organising principles of knowledge practices were conceptualised. The findings suggest that TEds constructed their field as one of relative low autonomy with little collective agency to insulate itself from external sources of power and influence. It also lacked legitimacy and was marginalised in the academy. Absent a distinctive specialised pedagogy of TE-PCET to articulate an academic TEd identity, there was considerable ambivalence as to the focus and conduct of academic TE-PCET research. This influenced the field’s ability to develop a cohesive, distinctive community of scholars with implications for the framing of curricula and pedagogy. In sum, knowledge and knower specialisation were relatively weak in the intellectual and educational domains. In a circular way, this rendered TE-PCET as a specialism susceptible to extrinsic pressures. Analysis drew attention to the potential for TEds to raise the status of university-based TE-PCET; to strengthen its intellectual autonomy and the epistemic power of its knowledge base; and cultivation of a distinctly TEd disposition that would serve to enhance its cumulative knowledge-building potential. This could be achieved by a sustained focus on a distinctive ‘higher’ TE disciplinary discourse