The Moral Vacuum: What Do the Latest U.S. Standards, Research, and Policy Reports Tell Us?

• In Event: The Moral Vacuum in Teacher Education: International Perspectives on Research, Policy, and Practice

Abstract

In our recent chapter for the NSSE Yearbook (2013), we not only drew upon the international research literature which documents a moral vacuum in teacher education, but also analyzed a number of high-profile teacher education research and policy documents produced in the first decade of the 21st century in the U.S. (e.g. Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005; National Research Council, 2010). That analysis supported the claim of a moral vacuum in teacher education research and practice, and provided a basis for some initial observations regarding how that vacuum is manifest in the U.S. context.

In this presentation, we extend our analysis of the moral vacuum in teacher education research and practice in examining the latest high-profile documents addressing the research-base for teacher education and policies vying to guide teacher education reform. Specifically, we examine the recent report on transforming teacher preparation from the Council of Chief State School Officers (2013), the newly recommended standards for the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (2013), and the Standards and Indicators for the National Council on Teacher Quality (2013). Thus, our methods are a combination of textual and conceptual analyses, comparing the views of teaching stated and implied by these texts with those that view teaching as a moral enterprise.

Our analysis for this paper finds support for our initial suggestion that the moral vacuum in teacher education is not simply an absence of moral language and transparent moral purpose—but an active process of removing and replacing moral language and purpose for our conception of what teaching is and how it is supported in teacher education.

We use this extended analysis as a basis for engaging the international research literature, and for discussing with our international colleagues what patterns and themes shed light on the limitations of our current understanding of the moral vacuum, the research innovations needed to overcome those limitations, as well as any policy and practice shifts that might return us to more holistic, meaningful, and well-grounded programs of teacher education research and practice.

The scholarly significance of this presentation, and the session, lies in our understanding of the nature and scope of teaching and teacher education, and our ability to construct research, policy and practice innovations that effectively enable their explicit and meaningful pursuit as moral endeavors.

Authors

• Matthew N. Sanger, Idaho State University

• Richard D. Osguthorpe, Boise State University