The experience of boundary-crossers within teacher residency partnerships in two Californian teacher education programs

• In Event: Teacher Education in Transition: Equity, Innovation, and Professional Formation

Proposal

In the United States and around the world, underserved communities face high shortages of effective educators and compound educational inequities facing students and communities (e.g., Carver-Thomas et al., 2021; Dee & Goldhaber, 2017; Murphy et al., 2003). Growing research also points to the lack of diversity of the teacher workforce in the U.S. and its negative impact on students, particularly Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) students (e.g, Carver-Thomas, 2018; Dee, 2004; Boser, 2014). This study investigates a particular model of teacher preparation that has been rapidly expanding across the United States to address these challenges: teacher residencies.
Teacher residencies have emerged as researchers and teacher educators called for a more cohesive preparation experience for teacher candidates (e.g., Darling-Hammond, 2000). These partnerships have been termed a “third space” within teacher residency preparation, bridging the divide that has so often existed between local education agencies (LEAs) and universities (Klein et al., 2013; Beck, 2016; Zeichner, 2010). This multiple case study relies on two major frameworks, that of boundary crossing (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011; Wegner, 2000) and Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) (Cole & Engeström, 1993; Engeström, 2014) to investigate the enactment of partnerships at points of intersection. The findings illuminate the successes and tensions inherent in these partnerships as experienced by those working daily in the boundary-zone between LEA and university.
California is a setting rife with opportunity and research on Teacher Residencies. As a state, it employs over 300,000 teachers (California Department of Education, 2023) and is the second-largest employer of teachers in the United States (NCES, 2022). In fact, almost 1 in 10 of all those who completed a teacher preparation program nationally attended a California preparation program (Patrick et al., 2023). As of 2021, teacher residencies prepare roughly 10% of new teachers in the state of California (Patrick et al., 2023). California residency programs now include those with an explicit focus on preparing bilingual teachers (Lambert & Stavley, 2023; Herrera, 2022), grow-your-own (GYO) residencies with a focus on diversifying and supporting BIPOC Teachers, such as the Black Educator Teacher Residency (Marks, 2022), and rural teacher residencies (Valente et al., 2022; Valente et al., 2023).
While the rise in these teacher residencies is promising, further research is required that closely examines the implementation of these models across stakeholders, particularly in the clinical space (Zeichner, 2010; Zeichner, 2021). The focus of this study is placed on those who cross boundaries (Waitoller & Artiles, 2016; Zeichner, 2015) and are situated within the third space (Beck, 2016; Klein et al., 2013; Zeichner, 2010) within two Teacher Residencies in California. The research addresses the following questions:
What is the experience of boundary-crossers in navigating teacher residencies?
How do boundary-crossers perceive their role and agency within the teacher residencies?
How do boundary crossers’ experiences differ across geographical and institutional contexts?
What perspectives do boundary-crossers share about the nature of partnerships within teacher residencies?
The study is a narrative multiple case study design. The study employed surveys, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis as key methods of data collection. The two cases chosen intentionally provide an urban and rural context in which to create a comparative examination of partnerships in teacher residencies. The analysis includes descriptive statistics from survey responses, thematic coding of semi-structured interviews, and document analysis.
Initial findings of the preliminary interviews show that those sitting at the intersection of the teacher residency partnerships often hold the position of ‘knowledge-keeper’ essential to bridging the LEA and university space. This held true for both cases and across all interviews. Interviews shared that boundary-crossing was a place for exploration in which diversity of background, knowledge, and positionality generates possibility, and that the residency offered a unique level of contextualized support as teacher candidates earned their credentials.
Boundaries are the edges of communities, and within this research, refer to the edges of a landscape of practice or of shared knowledge (Wegner, 2000). These ‘knowledge-keepers’ sat within the edges of both the LEA and university space. They created an integral sense of continuity and were the people residents, mentors, and staff turn to in times of discontinuity. An important facet of this framework that guides this research is that boundary-crossing does not view difference as something that should be overcome or avoided, but rather one rife with possibility. And indeed, the findings showed that the third space created space for deep learning.
At the same time, a pattern of similar tensions also arose. These challenges included: limits on capacity and time, a lack of embedded tools in which to facilitate the partnerships, and a reliance across stakeholders on one to two people in the residency for support. For the analysis of the semi-structured interviews, I first utilized thematic narratives in an inductive process to identify key themes (Bhattacharya, 2017) and then employed the CHAT Framework to code for specific aspects of the activity within the transcripts. Most often, the ‘tools’, ‘division of labor’, and ‘community’ were referenced. The ‘rules’ or parameters and training were missing and/or underdeveloped. The findings also showed a pivotal difference in the size of the residency and how that impacted the number of structural supports that were embedded in the program. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, the smaller residency program had a larger dependency on the ‘knowledge-keeper’ rather than institutional systems.
This study elucidates insights into the shared third space (Beck, 2016; Klein et al., 2013; Zeichner, 2010) that TEPs are increasingly operating in. As we navigate “education and peace in a divided world,” a deep and nuanced understanding of partnerships on a personal and institutional level is vital in much the same way the partnership of the different, but related worlds of TK12 schools and universities presents an opportunity for richer, more complex teacher education. By centering stakeholders who have not historically been centered in TEP evaluations, including residency clinical advisors/coaches and mentor teachers, findings point to the need to more proactively approach partnership work, support those navigating the boundary-zone, and increase institutional scaffolding of partnerships that reduce the burden on boundary-crossing staff.

Author

• Amanda Spiegelberg, Claremont Graduate University