(Re)imagining the Futures of Teaching and Teacher Education: Whose Voice is Heard?

• In Event: Teachers at the Center: Reimagining Education Through Voice and Vision

Abstract

This paper looks at teacher educators’ positioning towards recent teacher education (TE) policies. It focuses on the analysis of policy documents as well as on data from a survey with teacher educators (n=39) coming from different higher education institutions and different TE programs. Findings suggest that teacher educators’ voice in policy design was mostly reactive, rather marginal and largely invisible. Public consultations are often done under time pressures that prevent institutions from undertaking ample internal discussions and reaching a solid consensus. There is a need to forge interinstitutional partnerships that might strengthen their positions and amplify their voice and to increase political participation and collaboration in which issues of mutual trust between different stakeholders have to be sought.

Author

• Maria A. Flores, University of Minho