Initial Teacher Education for High-Poverty Schools: A National Australian Teacher Education Program

• In Event: 68.040 - SALEACOM Network: Sharing Global Knowledge to Improve Learning for the Most Disadvantaged Youth

Abstract

Objectives
This Australian case study reports on a national Australian mainstream model of Initial Teacher Education for high poverty schools. It aims to demonstrate the degree to which the program, now in its 7th year and offered in 7 universities across Australia, has been successful in preparing teachers for culturally diverse, high-poverty schools and why it was identified as a global Successful Educational Action (Flecha, 2015)

Theoretical Framework
The Australian case study Initial Teacher Education program is grounded in sociocultural theories of educational disadvantage (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977) and social justice (Cochran-Smith, 2009) and seeks to prepare teachers for teaching students whose backgrounds are different from their own. Within Australia, Indigenous educators such as Sarra (2011), Price (2012) and others influence our understandings of how to narrow the achievement gap through quality teaching, high expectations and teachers who believe they are agents of change.

Methods and data sources
Drawing upon seven years of qualitative semi-structured, in-depth interviews, surveys and graduate destination data in relation to the program, this paper highlights how critical reflection with pre-service teachers can be woven into an Initial Teacher Education curriculum targeting high poverty schooling.

The paper analyzes graduate destination data from the program, as well interviews with pre-service and graduate teachers and principals in high-poverty urban, rural and remote schools across Queensland, Australia. The data demonstrates shifts in the teachers’ attitudes about their students and the schools and how such factors as race and social class intersect in these distinct settings.

Results
Prior to its expansion nationally, the program was the only Australian mainstream 4-year Initial Teacher Education program targeting high poverty schooling. Seven years of evidence suggests that it is possible to reverse an existing trend where high achieving graduating teachers are either promptly employed by more privileged schools or simply fail to consider directing their skills to the high-poverty, culturally diverse settings where they are greatly needed. The paper outlines the manner in which the program overtly addressed teacher capacity in high poverty schools through a cohort-model of social-justice education where pre-service teachers are equipped to teach and encouraged to select employment in low SES schools. This research contributes evidence of how a mainstream Initial Teacher Education program can influence both the preparedness of teachers to work in high poverty, culturally diverse schools as well as redistribute the highest achieving graduate teachers to the schools that need them most. In Australia, approximately 90% of NETS graduate teachers now teach in low socio-economic schools and is considered an example of an educational program perceived to have made a systemic difference in teacher education for social justice.

Scholarly significance
There is widespread agreement about the growing need for culturally responsive, quality teachers in schools (Delpit, 2012). This paper sets out how one such model has responded in innovative ways to the challenge and argues that the program has had a significant impact within both Australian teacher education and the high-poverty schooling sector.

Authors

• Bruce Munro Burnett, Australian Catholic University

• Jo Lampert, La Trobe University