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h i g h l i g h t s
The relation between teacher educators' positioning and their practices.
Professionalism manifests itself in teacher educators' actions and behaviors.
A close examination of teacher educators' normative beliefs is essential.
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 7 May 2014
Received in revised form
18 July 2014
Accepted 19 August 2014
Available online 13 September 2014
This study connects to the international call for research on teacher educator professionalism. Combining
positioning theory with the personal interpretative framework, we examined the relationship between
teacher educators' positioning and their teacher education practices. The interpretative analysis of
qualitative data from twelve experienced Flemish teacher educators revealed three teacher educator
positionings: a teacher educator of pedagogues, a teacher educator of reective teachers, and a teacher
educator of subject teachers. Each positioning constitutes a coherent pattern of normative beliefs about
good teaching and teacher education, the preferred relationships with student teachers, and valuable
methods and strategies to enact these beliefs.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Teacher educator
Positioning theory
Pedagogy
1. Introduction
The need for a competent teaching force as a warrant for high
quality education remains a central concern in many countries
(e.g., Commission of the European Communities, 2007; DarlingHammond, 2010). Critical discussions of teachers and their education can be found in the media, policy documents, and
educational literature. However, empirical research focusing
directly on the professional lives and needs of teacher educatorsdthose who teach teachersdremains scarce (a.o., Bates,
Swennen, & Jones, 2011; Ben-Peretz, Kleeman, Reichenberg, &
Shimoni, 2011; Davey, 2013; Edmond & Hayler, 2013; Grossman,
2005; Swennen, Jones, & Volman, 2010). In a special issue of the
Journal of Education for Teaching the unanswered questions
needing immediate attention were highlighted:
118
construct the knowledge and skills for the enactment of this task.
This study contributes to this issue.
2. A combined theoretical framework
This study was based on a concept of practice-based
(Kelchtermans, 2013) or enacted professionalism (Ball & Cohen,
1999; Evans, 2008; Frelin, 2013; Grossman & McDonald, 2008;
Munby, Russell, & Martin, 2001). A practice-based approach starts
from and gives center stage to actual teacher education practices in
conceptualizing and studying teacher educator professionalism.1 In
other words, professionalism is conceived of as manifesting itself in
teacher educators' actions and behaviors in practice. It is reected
in four questions: what happens?; why is this happening?; what
do we think of this and why?; and should we try to change this
practice and why would this change be an improvement?. The
judgment (or evaluation) of a practice is postponed: it is not until
the third question that teacher educators' particular normative
stances are made explicit (including the goals they strive for, the
assumptions about good teaching and teaching about teaching, and
the beliefs about the instruments or interventions that may result
in the desired outcomes).
Studying enacted professionalism, with its emphasis on actual
practices, implies that one acknowledges the contextualized character of teacher education, as well as its intrinsic relational character (a.o., Biesta, 2004; Frelin, 2013; Grossman & McDonald, 2008).
Education has indeed a relational character, that it doesn't exist in
any other sense than as a relation and in relation (Biesta, 2004, p.
21). Teacher educators cannot but be in relation with student
teachers. Furthermore these relationships do not operate in a vacuum, but are always embedded in the context of a particular
teacher training institute, that is characterized by particular
structural (e.g., the available resources, organizational structure,
student teacher population) and cultural (shared assumptions
about good teacher education) working conditions.
In the theoretical framework of our study, we tried to do justice
to the enacted (practice-based), relational and contextualized
character of teacher educator professionalism. On the one hand, we
build on our former work on professional development, and more
in particular the concept of the personal interpretative framework
(Kelchtermans, 1993, 2009; Kelchtermans & Hamilton, 2004). On
the other hand, we conceptually enriched our theoretical lens with
, 2001; Davies
insights from positioning theory (a.o., Adams & Harre
, 1990, 1999; Harre
& van Langenhove, 1991).
& Harre
2.1. The personal interpretative framework
The personal interpretative frameworkdas dened by
Kelchtermans (1993, 2009)drefers to the set of cognitions and
beliefs that operates as a lens through which teacher educators
perceive their job situations, give meaning to, and act in them. It
can be seen as the always temporary mental sediment of the
learning and development processes that span one's career and
result from the socially meaningful interactions between the
teacher educator and his/her professional working context. Kelchtermans distinguished between two interrelated domains in the
content of the personal interpretative framework: on the one hand
the representations of oneself as a teacher educator (professional
self-understanding) and on the other hand the personal system of
knowledge and beliefs about teaching (subjective educational theory). Professional self-understanding is composed of ve components: self-image, self-esteem, task perception, job motivation, and
future perspective.
The self-image refers to the ways teacher educators typify
themselves (descriptive). It is largely based on self-perception, but
also reects what others mirror back to teacher educators (e.g.,
comments from student teachers, colleagues, department heads).
The self-image has to be understood as closely related to the
evaluative component of the self-understanding. Self-esteem refers
to the way teacher educators evaluate their actual teacher educator
behavior (how well am I doing?).
Teacher educators' personal conceptions of their professional
task and responsibilities constitutes the third component, the task
perception. This normative component of the self-understanding
encompasses teacher educators' personal answer to questions
such as: what are the tasks I have to perform in order to have the
justied feeling that I am doing well?; what do I consider as
legitimate duties I have to perform and what do I refuse to accept as
part of my job (and why)?. The task perception highlights the fact
that teacher education is not a neutral endeavor, but always implies
value-laden considerations and choices. It encompasses deeply
held beliefs about what constitutes good education, about one's
moral responsibilities and duties toward student teachers.
The job motivation is the conative component and refers to the
motives or drives that make teacher educators choose to become a
teacher educator, to stay in the profession, or to change careers.
Again, it is rather easy to understand that the task perception, as
well as the working conditions that allow or impede educators to
act according to their personal normative program, are crucial determinants for their job motivation.
Finally, self-understanding includes a prospective component,
the future perspective, revealing teacher educators' expectations
about their future in the job. These expectations highlight the dynamic character of the self-understanding. It is not a static, or xed
essence, but the result of the ongoing meaningful interactions of
teacher educators with their working contexts. This needs to be
understood in relation to human temporality: people's actions are
embedded in their personal histories. Teacher educators' actions and
sense-making in the present are inuenced by meaningful experiences in the past, as well as their expectations toward the future.
The second domain within the personal interpretative framework is the subjective educational theory. It encompasses the personal system of knowledge and beliefs on teaching and teacher
education and how to enact these. It contains teacher educators'
technical know-how, the basis on which they ground their decisions for actions in particular situations. It reects their personal
answer to the questions: how can I effectively deal with this
particular situation? and why would this work that way?.
2.2. Positioning theory
1
Conceiving of professionalism in terms of its manifestations in practice opposes
a blueprint approach (Kelchtermans, 2013) or a concept of demanded professionalism
(Evans, 2008) in which professionalism is conceived of in general and contextindependent terms, listing and prescribing the knowledge, skills, and attitudes
deemed critical for professional behavior. The standards for teacher educators (e.g.,
Association of Teacher Educators, 2002; Koster & Dengerink, 2008) or the knowledgebase for teacher education (e.g., Murray, 1998) are examples of this approach:
these function as a blueprint or a presumably exhaustive list of knowledge, skills,
and attitudes that individual teacher educators need to master or strive for in order
to legitimately consider themselves as professional teacher educators.
While the concept personal interpretative framework acknowledges that its content (professional self-understanding and
subjective educational theory) results from the meaningful interactions with the working context, it primarily refers to an (always temporary) product in the person of the teacher educator. In
order to acknowledge the relational and situated process of teacher
educator professionalism, we combined this line of work with in, 2001; Davies &
sights from positioning theory (a.o., Adams & Harre
119
120
Table 1
Overview of the respondents.
Name
Institute
Qualication
Jean
Beth
Helena
Jenny
Catherine
HEC
HEC
HEC
HEC
HEC
Tasha
HEC
Nicky
Lester
Mark
CAE
CAE
CAE
Grace
Igor
Tim
CAE
CAE
CAE
3 years in TE
38 years in TE, 20 years in in-service training of teachers
7 years in TE, 1 year in research
6 years in research, 1 year in upper secondary education, 8 years in TE
2 years in non-prot organizations, 10 years in lower and upper
secondary education (English, Dutch, history), 2 years in drama
academy (recital), 8 years in TE
10 years in upper secondary education (Dutch, English), 2 years as
a principal, 22 years in TE
11 years in TE
26 years in upper secondary education (Dutch, English), 10 years in TE
1 year in secondary education, 3 years as a special needs coordinator,
13 years in TE
2 years in lower and upper secondary education, 25 years in TE
8 years in lower secondary education, 27 years in TE
3 years in lower and upper secondary education, 12 years in TE
Note. TE Teacher Education; HEC Higher Education College; CAE Center of Adult Education. Pseudonyms were used.
their student teachers, and how this relates to their teacher education practices and student teachers' possibilities for learning. In
this phase, we used Spradley's (1980) taxonomic analysis. This
analysis focuses on generating more inclusive categories in the data
by grouping segments of data as items in a subset of a more inclusive term. In this study, this included combining different contents of teacher educators' professional self-understanding, as well
as their conceptualizations of (their relationship with) student
teachers, and their pedagogical knowledge and skills (i.e., subjective educational theory). This implied several rounds of interpretative reading and categorizing of the proles, building stacks of
systematically similar cases. This resulted in three interpretive
stacks of data, which were then labelled, by dening and describing
in a cleardand mutually exclusive waydthe different teacher
educator positionings. These positionings do not merely represent a
way of working with student teachers or enacting a pedagogy of
teacher education, but refer to what Bullough and Gitlin (2001, p. 3)
have called a preferred way of being with and relating to students. Each positioning refers to a coherent pattern of normative
beliefs about good teaching and teaching about teaching (the
respective positions of student teachers and teacher educators), the
preferred relation with student teachers, and valuable methods and
strategies to enact these beliefs in practice. All teacher educator
positionings were noted in the taxonomy and described in detail
until an exhaustive list of positionings was achieved. When this
process was completed, all the interviews were read once more and
checked for full comprehension according to the taxonomy.
3.4. Ethical considerations
At the outset of the study all respondents were fully informed
about the purpose of the study, the methodology and what it would
require from them to participate. All respondents agreed that their
participation was entirely voluntary and gave their consent to
participate in the study as designed. Furthermore, all contributions
were recorded and the respondents were explicitly reminded that
they could stop the tape at any time. Finally, for both methodological and ethical reasons, the interpretative reports (proles)
were fed back to the respondents for their approval or potential
amendment.
4. Findings
Our qualitative-interpretative analysis resulted in the identication and description of three teacher educator positionings: the
121
Table 2
Overview of the taxonomic analysis.
Teacher educator
(Student) teacher
positioning
Pedagogue
Reective teacher
Responsive
Student teacher controlled
Interactive
Student teacher and teacher
educator controlled
Catherine, Grace
Subject teacher
teacher educator of pedagogues,2 the teacher educator of reective teachers, and the teacher educator of subject teachers. Table 2
provides an overview of the constitutive elements of each positioning which will be discussed in detail below.
4.1. Positioning 1: the teacher educator of pedagogues
4.1.1. Position of the student teacher
Central in the beliefs about good teaching of the teacher educators of pedagogues was the student as a whole person and not
only as a learning being (Tim). Teaching, for the teacher educators
of pedagogues, thus not only concerns teaching subject matter
knowledge, but supporting children in their personal growth and
development.
Of course it's valuable to be an excellent [mathematics] teacher,
but that's such a missed opportunity to have an impact on
children in different ways. In my opinion, children not only need
to learn a lot about mathematicsdteachers need to develop
children's critical thinking, recognize the value of things, and
truly engage with them. (Tim)
The phrases have an impact on children in different ways and
truly engage with referred to the essential relational qualities of
teaching for the teacher educators of pedagogues, alongside
instrumental or technical aspects (i.e., subject matter knowledge
and didactical knowledge). Obviously, it remains imperative/
desirable that teachers commit themselves fully to achieving
learning results with their students. However, professional teaching for the teacher educators of pedagogues hingesdrst and
foremostdon the moral commitment of the teachers to their students, and not on subject matter knowledge. Decits in the latter
are easily remedied, according to Jenny. A teacher does not have to
know everything, but needs to pay close attention to the children.
Facts can always be checked afterwards. It's absolutely ne to say I
was wrong.
As a consequence, the teacher educators of pedagogues positioned their student teachers not (only) as students of a specic
subject discipline (e.g., students of mathematics), but (also) as
teachers of children that have been entrusted to their care and with
whom teachers build a relationship of moral commitment and responsibility. They stressed the moral responsibility of their job
anddas a consequencedthe high demands it placed on the
training of these pedagogical teachers. A teacher has the power to
make or break children. I'm exaggerating a little bit, but we must
set the bar high for our student teachers when it comes down to
this personal level (Helena).
2
Although pedagogue is uncommon in English educational literature, we
used itein line with the European pedagogiek-tradition-to refer to the relational, moral, and social aspects in education, in addition to technicalinstrumental ones.
Directive
Teacher educator controlled
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123
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educators of reective teachers, as highlighted by Mark, were always willing to call into question this judgment.
4.2.4. Pedagogical enactment
The teacher educators of reective teachers strived for congruence
in their teacher education practice or teaching in ways consistent
with the demands they themselves placed on their student teachers'
teaching (see also Berry & Russell, 2013; Loughran, 2006). They were
fully aware that their teaching was always visible to their student
teachers, and that the ways they were actually teaching sent out
strong messages to their students (Russell, 1997). The way in which
Idlets call itdstand in front of my class, crucially determines student teachers' behavior in their future classrooms. Teach as you
preach. What they see you doing ends up in their classrooms
(Tasha). Tasha refers to the mechanism Lortie (1975) labeled the
apprenticeship of observation or the recognition of the fact that
teachers teach the way they were taught (Heaton & Mickelson,
2002, p. 51). As such, modeling effective and high quality teaching
approaches in line with their normative theoretical stances was a
central element in their pedagogy.
However, modeling for the teacher educators of reective
teachers was not limited to setting the example. It also included
thinking aloud (Loughran, 1995, 2006) and stepping out (Swennen,
Lunenberg, & Korthagen, 2008). The teacher educators of reective teachers made explicit why they chose specic actions in their
practice as an opportunity to explore teaching and pedagogical
decision-making together with student teachers.
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