Making Accommodations: Policy Tensions and Research as an Object of University-Based Teacher Educators' Work

• In Event: International Perspectives on the Lives of Teachers

Abstract

This paper draws from a project investigating the work of university based teacher educators (TEs) in New Zealand (NZ). As part of an international study within a cultural historical activity theory frame, we examined institutional constructions of teacher educators’ work through recruitment materials, interviews and a deep investigation of the actual work of fifteen teacher educators. Our findings suggest a troubling bifurcated approach to recruitment evident in TE recruitment practices. Futhermore, even when TEs are formally dissuaded from pursuing research, the privileging of research within universities and the interests of the profession means TEs accommodate to fit research into their actual work life.

Authors

• Mary F. Hill, University of Auckland

• Alexandra Gunn, University of Otago

• David A.G. Berg, University of Otago

• Mavis Haigh, The University of Auckland