(Re-)Formation in Initial Teacher Education in Ireland: Reconfiguring (Clinical) Practice and Theory

• In Event: Clinical Approaches to Teacher Education: Connecting Research in Ireland, the United States, Scotland, and Australia

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to:
• Investigate and critically discuss the principal discourse(s) in national policy rhetoric(s) on accreditation of initial teacher education against the backdrop of dominant global trends with an emphasis on how practice is re-calibrated within theoretical frameworks
• Identify the manner in which the dominant discourses are inscribed into policy and accreditation documents with a shaping influence on student teachers’ formation processes and placement experiences
• Document the perspectives of key insider actors in teacher education on the above, particularly through the lens of the accreditation process
• Discuss the clinical experience through a lens of preparing for professional responsibility.

In the Irish context, recent decline in PISA performance (OECD, 2010) has precipitated a new policy emphasis on literacy and numeracy (2011), while The Teaching Council (www.teachingcouncil.ie) recently published a policy on the ‘Teaching Continuum’ (2011), and ‘Criteria and Guidelines’ for Initial Teacher Education (2011). Within this policy context, we discuss teaching as a profession (Evetts, 2003), in light of the traditional ideal of professionals (Durkheim, 2001; Parsons, 1951, 1968), and contemporary focus on moral and political dimension of professionalism - ‘social’ (Brint, 1994), ‘civic’ (Sullivan, 2005) and ‘critical’ (Barnett, 1997).

This is a two-phased design—critical analysis of policy and accreditation documents, followed by detailed analysis of in-depth interviews with key insiders in the 7 programmes accredited by the Irish Teaching Council; abductive data analysis combined with contemporary literature (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Fairbanks et al., 2010; Hargreaves & Shirley, 2009; Leonard et al., 2010; Sugrue & Solbrekke, 2011).

Sources include—policy documents, accreditation reports, and interviews with key insiders in the eight institutions whose initial teacher education programs have already been accredited and selected literature.

Initial tentative conclusions suggest that programs should better cater for models that broaden the professional knowledge, skills and capabilities appropriate to teaching. Initial policy analysis in light of pertinent literatures (Sockett, 2008; Solbrekke & Sugrue, 2011) give rise to concerns regarding the relative absence of teachers’ moral and societal roles, and whether or not a more prescriptive approach to placement experience promotes better emphasis on professional responsibility or ‘tricks for teachers’ in a more technical transmission mode. The threads of our analysis will be drawn together with particular reference to what formation might look like in Initial Teacher Education from a (clinical) practice to theory perspective

This work gains significance from moving from periphery to centre, from Ireland to mainstream international literature on Initial Teacher Education reform. In addition to addressing the specific questions above, it will also identify salient features of formation in Initial Teacher Education and the dynamics of formation processes in their institutional contexts. How teacher educators navigate and negotiate a via media between prescriptive centralised policy mandates regarding (clinical) placement experience or practice, their personal and professional commitments to beliefs, values and dispositions, is likely to be a distinct contribution to the scholarly literature on (clinical) formation of student teachers.

Authors

• Ciaran Sugrue, University College Dublin

• Tone Dyrdal Solbrekke, University of Oslo