Teacher education and the global research imaginary: Unpacking a paradox

• In Event: Globalization and teacher education II: Global imaginaries, norms and practices of teaching

Proposal

The paper discusses the critical role of comparative and international education research in making sense of the complex relationship between globalization and teacher education and training. Assuming the vital importance of incorporating globalization theory in the analysis of contemporary developments and for “reimagining the education of teachers” (Tatto, 2011), the paper interrogates the status and capacity of the research field in contributing to the improvement of education for a more equitable world.
The paper provides a theoretical contribution to CIES 2023. Adopting James and Steger’s (2014, p.423) notion of imaginary defined as “patterned convocations of the social whole” and “ways of imagining how ‘we’ are related to each other in concrete communities or entities of belonging”, the paper argues that the field of teacher education research takes ‘the global’ for granted in a largely pre-reflexive manner. This implies a neglect of the analysis of globalizing processes, the normative and ideological implications that come with global research imaginaries, as well as reflexivity concerning positionality and research ethics.
The argument is based on review of literature on the relationship between teacher education and globalization (e.g. Bruno-Jofré & Scott Johnson, 2014; Hamilton & Pinnegar, 2013; Paine & Zeichner, 2012; Paine, Blömeke, & Aydarova, 2016; Paine, Aydarova, & Syahril, 2017), including findings from a major research review (Author, 2021), that together point to the limited number of studies and the general lack of reflection about globalization in teacher education research.
To support the argument, the paper points to three reasons for why the dearth of research about teacher education and globalization is paradoxical and unfortunate. The first reason relates to teaching practices and curriculum. Teachers and teacher educators around the world are increasingly asked to purposefully prepare students to respond to complex challenges of a transnational and global nature, such as migration, climate change, social justice, economic crisis and digital transformation. Second, there is a mismatch between the increasingly global character of knowledge exchange about teacher education and the lack of reflection concerning the implications of globalizing processes for the field. The research imaginary has thus become increasingly globalized, indicated by a surge in the number of studies since the 2000s about teacher education, training and professional development, supported by an expanding infrastructure of international journals, conferences, and networks (Menter, 2017). Third, the lacuna of studies weakens the capacity of teacher education researchers and teacher educators to play an active role in the debate on the future of teacher education, teachers and teaching (Paine et al, 2017). This is all the more remarkable given the long-standing aspiration among teacher educators and teachers for critical inquiry to form a foundation for the active contribution to teacher education policy and practices (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009). In conclusion, the paper reflects on emerging research agendas, the challenges of establishing more inclusive research dialogues less characterized by geographical and linguistic bias (Connell, 2007), and the need for moving beyond methodological nationalism as well as methodological globalism in the study of teacher education and globalization (Takayama & Lingard, 2021).

Author

• Tore Bernt Sorensen, Hertie School - The University of Governance in Berlin