Teacher Education in England: Competing Conceptions and Unresolved Tensions

• In Event: Policy, Governance, and Quality in Teacher Education Systems: Four Cases

Abstract

1. Objectives

Given the direction of teacher education policy in England under the 2010-15 Coalition Government and the likelihood that this will not change significantly following the election of a Conservative majority government, the findings and recommendations of the Carter Review of Initial Teacher Education (Carter, 2015) represent an important contribution to the policy debate. This paper will analyse these key findings and recommendations and the influence of the Review on subsequent teacher education policy.


2. Perspective(s) or theoretical framework

Drawing upon previous work that traces the complex interaction of different elements of neoliberal policy in teacher education (Childs and Menter, 2013), this paper provides a critical examination of the Carter Review and identifies the particular directions that it has taken in negotiating and arbitrating between competing conceptions of teacher quality and of professional learning.

3. Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry

The paper adopts an historical socio-cultural approach to the analysis of policy, using discourse analysis to examine key documents and network analysis to analyse the changing dynamics of key players within the communities of policy and practice (Furlong, 2013). Drawing on the framework developed by Cochran-Smith (2005) to delineate key features of ‘the new teacher education’, construed as a ‘policy problem,’ we examine the ways in which the specific tensions that Cochran-Smith highlighted play out within the recommendations of the Review (and in the government’s response to it) and highlight other unresolved contradictions that it reveals within current initial teacher education policy development in England.

4. Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials

Data are drawn from the Carter Review itself, which is considered in relation to particular antecedents in government policy statements and in relation to views expressed in a range of fora in which the authors participate, including professional associations and learned societies (BERA-RSA, 2014). This allows us to assess the meaning and significance of the Carter Review in its historical policy context.

5. Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view

The analysis illuminates the extent to which the Review conforms to certain characteristics of the ‘new teacher education’ while challenging others, and draws out their implications for teacher education policy and practice in England. In particular it examines the tension between a simplistic view of teaching (and of learning to teach) which necessitates the acquisition of specific knowledge and skills, and an acknowledgement of the complex level of understanding required in order to be able to teach (and to learn to teach) effectively. It also identifies further tensions between notions of teaching as a ‘noble profession’ characterized by the ‘moral purpose’ of teachers and much narrower conceptions of professional behaviour.

6. Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work

The paper deepens our understanding of policy-making in England and identifies the ways in which the locus of power continues to shift, with profound implications not only for teacher educators but also for researchers (Burn and Mutton, 2013).

Authors

• Katharine Burn, University of Oxford

• Ian Menter, University of Oxford

• Trevor Mutton, University of Oxford