Tensions and Contradictions in Teacher Education: An Activity Theory Analysis of University-School Partnerships

• In Event: Leveraging Cultural Historical Activity Theory in Higher Education to Re-Mediate the University

Abstract

Purpose
The benefits of collaboration between teacher education programs (TEP) and K-12 schools are well documented in the literature (e.g., Cochran-Smith, 2008; Darling-Hammond, 2010; Goodlad, 1988). However, extensive research points to a gap between the university and the K-12 school system (Martin, Snow, & Franklin-Torrez, 2011), and the university-school divide remains a perennial problem faced by college- and university-based TEPs (Smagorinsky, Cook, & Johnson, 2003; Zeichner, 2012).

This paper examines the university-school relationship by conceptualizing TEP as a collective of partnerships whose activity is oriented toward the shared object of preparing teachers. By drawing on cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) to analyze found tensions and contradictions within and across partnerships, paper two speculates a re-imagination of teacher training in which contradictions are leveraged for transformative change.

Theoretical Framework
This study conceptualized the university and K-12 school system as separate yet interconnected organizations with potentially shared goals. Third generation activity theory, an expansion of CHAT (Engeström, 2001), served as the conceptual framework as it helps make sense of interactions between multiple activity systems. Informed by Marxist dialectical materialism, CHAT emphasizes the dynamic transformation of human activities through collaborative endeavors and human agency and focuses on the “enactment of the future in the present” (Stetsenko, 2020, p. 11).

Methods & Data Sources
Following systematic qualitative methodology (Merriam & Tisdell, 2009) and drawing on multiple case study design, where a collection of individual cases each share a common concern (Yin, 2009), the study examined three large programs. Study participants included members of the programs, districts, schools, and partner organizations. Data from 43 participant interviews, program artifacts, and informal observations were triangulated through data gathering and critical review (Stake, 2008). The research was conducted in compliance with ethical standards and institutional review board approval.

Results
Activity systems “harbor inner contradictions” (Roth & Lee, 2007, p. 203). Contradictions emerge and evolve within any human activity, and are the driving force of transformation (Engeström, 1987). In activity theory terms, the university-school relationship in teacher education can be understood as the joining of two or more activity systems in the collective object-oriented activity of teacher preparation. Interactions between activity systems in this study brought forth several themes of contradictions across the cases. This paper focuses on two findings: multiple/competing goals and variance in opportunities for object-transformation. A full graphic summary of Engeström’s (2001) model for two or more interacting activity systems was used to depict the findings.

Scholarly Significance
Just as individuals acting in collective practices or communities cannot be reduced to “sums of individual action” (Engeström & Miettinen, 1999, p. 11), the university-school relationship in teacher education is not reducible to sums of individual action, it involves organizational and systemic structures. The object or the ‘problem area’ to which the activity is directed can give meaning to the other systemic elements. Findings from this study suggest benefits of creating and sustaining university-school relationships through engaging in shared object formation.

Author

• Boris Krichevsky, University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire