Reinterpretation and Enactment of Teacher Education Policies in Chile

• In Event: 81.033 - MTCC Roundtable Session 38
  In Roundtable Session: 81.033-6 - Analyzing Teacher Education Accountability Policies: Multiple Voices and Different Contexts

Abstract

Purpose and Theoretical Framework
In 2016, the Chilean government approved the System of Teacher Professional Development after strong teachers’ opposition. It included four regulations for TE: mandatory accreditation, increasing programs’ selectiveness, a renewal of TE national standards, and mandatory tests for teacher candidates. This paper examines the tensions and similarities between Chile’s Ministry of Education (MOE) discourse and TE program coordinators’ interpretation and enactment of policy. To critical analyze policy, we used the perspective developed by Ball (Ball, Maguire, & Braun, 2012; Braun, Ball & Maguire, 2011). We examined two contexts of policy: 1) Text production: the official policy discourse and the context in which it was created; 2) Practice: the local context where policy is interpreted/translated, enacted, and changed. We used authors’ (2018) framework to examine accountability policies, which includes three clusters: foundations; the problem of teacher education (diagnostic and prognostic); and power relationships.

Methodology and Data Sources
We analyzed 75 normative and dissemination documents published between 2014 and 2018 that communicated the official discourse of the MOE. We also conducted 40 interviews with program coordinators in TE. The sample was selected based on programs’ geographic location, selectiveness, quality levels (accreditation results), type of administration (public, private, and traditional private universities), and students’ diversity. All information was analyzed using content analysis guided by authors’ (2018) framework.

Preliminary Findings
Similar to the MOE discourse, program coordinators (PCs) from private universities interpret policy purposes as improving teacher quality and national development, focusing on teaching skills for classroom demands. PCs from public and traditional private universities criticize policy’s emphasis on technical aspects of teaching, market ideology, outcomes and standardization, and its lack of attention to critical reflection. PCs from regional universities also criticize scant attention to sociocultural diversity.
In line with MOE, PCs believe policy aims at reverting programs’ heterogeneous quality, establishing minimal requirements. However, PCs from institutions with large number of students from rural or urban areas also identify teacher candidates’ low academic abilities as a TE problem and provide supports.
Despite MOE’s emphasis in civil participation as source for policy legitimacy, PCs argue teacher educators only were asked to give their opinion, while those from institutions with higher prestige and located in the capital city participated in decisions. While standards were used by most PCs to adjust their curricula, public and traditional private universities incorporate these guidelines without losing their distinctive features. Some private universities generated activities to prepare students for tests. Accreditations are valued because they promote self-evaluation and improvement, but PCs from private universities perceived these requirements are pushing them out of the market.
 
Significance
This study contributes to understand the relevance of universities’ administration and location in policy interpretation/enactment. PCs from traditional private and public universities criticize the market and standardization ideology of policy, while PCs from private universities focus on adjusting their programs to survive. Only PCs from regional universities show concern about lack of policy attention to sociocultural diversity.

Authors

• Maria Beatriz Fernandez Cofre, Universidad de Chile

• Loreto Fernandez, Universidad de Chile