Guest editors' introduction to special theme issue [of Teaching and Teacher Education]: marginalised pedagogues?

Abstract

[Background and Rationale]: Writing in the International Handbook of Teachers and Teaching, Good, Biddle and Goodson (1997) referred to “the recent flowering of works on the lives of teachers” (p. 672). Although this “flowering” can be traced to earlier publications (see for example in the Australian context Connell, 1985 and Turney, Eltis, Towler & Wright, 1986), its existence is reflected in the creation and expansion of Special Interest Groups in various Educational Research Associations: Lives of Teachers in the American Educational Research Association; Teachers’ Work and Lives in the Australian Association for Educational Research; Primary School Teachers’ Work in the British Educational Research Association; and Continuing Professional Development for Teachers and Leaders in Schools in the European Educational Research Association. In addition, there is the publication of texts such as the 2 collections edited by Goodson and Hargreaves (1996) and Tattam (1998), entitled respectively Teachers’ Professional Lives and Tales from the Blackboard; books like Huberman with Grounauer and Marti’s The Lives of Teachers (1993) and Muchmore’s A Teacher’s Life: Stories of Literacy, Teacher Thinking and Professional Development (2004); and texts written by authors who have contributed to this volume, including June A. Gordon’s The Color of Teaching (2000) and Beyond the Classroom Walls: Ethnographic Inquiry As Pedagogy (2002). There are also the cinematic representations of educators’ lives, from Robin William as John Keating in Dead Poets Society (1989) to Julie Walters’ memorable portrayal of Dame Marie Stubbs in Ahead of the Class (2005). These developments are manifestations of the recognition of the crucial links between what educators do and who they are – that is, between their work and their identities. Given the “flowering” noted by Good and his colleagues (1997), it is timely to interrogate those links in relation to a particular topic: the impact on educators of teaching so-called ‘minority’ learners. By this term we mean the diversity of individuals and groups who by one measure or another are defined as ‘different’ from the ‘mainstream’, including on the basis of age, ethnicity, gender, location, political and/or religious affiliations, and socioeconomic position. Given that ‘difference’ often shades into ‘deficit’ and ‘discrimination’, it is necessary to consider the extent to which educators teaching these learners see themselves as ‘marginalised’ – and/or perhaps as ‘privileged’ to be working with these learners, as ‘innovators’ because they are away from the surveillance directed at ‘mainstream’ education and so on. Through a close examination of several incarnations of this ‘difference’, we have sought to explore in this special theme issue of Teaching and Teacher Education the character and existence of “marginalised pedagogues” through posing such questions as the following: What attracts educators to teaching learners who are ‘different’ or ‘minority’? What distinctive challenges and opportunities for the educators’ work arise from their interactions with ‘minority’ learners? What are the effects of such interactions on the educators’ identities? What are the implications of these international studies for extending understandings of both educators’ lives and the education of ‘minority’ learners? The aims of the special theme issue have been as follows: to represent a broad diversity of international studies of the work and identities of educators teaching ‘minority’ learners to investigate whether and how these educators construct themselves as ‘marginalised’ and/or as other kinds of pedagogues to link that investigation to the broader literature on educators’ lives and the education of ‘minority’ learners