Professional Identities in Initial Teacher Education PDF
Preview Professional Identities in Initial Teacher Education
Denise Mifsud ////////// Professional Identities in Initial Teacher Education ////////// The Narratives and Questions of Teacher Agency Professional Identities in Initial Teacher Education “Understanding aspirant teachers – what motivates them, how they perceive themselves, how they negotiate the diverse demands made on their personal and professional lives, and how they express their ‘best loved selves’ in the crucible of everyday classroom life – is at the heart of this important new book. By provid- ing us with theoretically informed, and vivid, original and multi-perspectival portraitures, Mifsud does a great service to an underrated profession, and to education as a whole.” —Professor Ronald Sultana, Director, Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Educational Research, University of Malta, Malta Denise Mifsud Professional Identities in Initial Teacher Education The Narratives and Questions of Teacher Agency Denise Mifsud Ministry of Education and Employment Gozo College, Gozo, Malta ISBN 978-3-319-76173-2 ISBN 978-3-319-76174-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76174-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018934897 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Front cover image © mrs / Getty Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Acknowledgements To Joseph, who gave me the necessary space to write this book. To my parents, for their dedication and upbringing thus making me who I am today. To my brother Kevin, who supported me through his constant interest in the book’s progress and is asking when I will start my third monograph. To all the Scottish ITE students whose shared narratives enabled me to craft this particular monograph. May you all succeed in your professional career trajectories in education. To my particular lecturing experience at a Scottish university which inspired me to write this book. v Contents 1 S etting the Stage for Student Teacher Identities in Initial Teacher Education 1 2 I nitial Teacher Education and Its Representation in Literature: Global Policy Narratives 21 3 T he Attractiveness of the Teaching Profession and Possible Links to Career Choice Motivations 35 4 I Always Wanted to Become a Teacher Because… Exploring Career Choice Motivations from the Lens of Actor- Network Theory 57 5 W ho Am I? Student Teachers and Their Narratives of Identity Perception, Construction and Performance 87 6 T he Presentation of Personal and Professional Selves: A Goffmanesque Perspective of Student Teachers’ Identity Crises 127 vii viii Contents 7 Exploring the Role of School Placement from a Foucauldian Perspective: The Theory-Policy-Practice Divide 159 8 Professional Standardization and Teacher Agency? What Space for Leadership Development? 187 9 Concluding Remarks 219 Index 231 List of Tables Table 1.1 Four ways to view identity 7 Table 2.1 Teacher education reform initiatives 25 Table 3.1 Reflexivity and the attractiveness of the teaching profession 50 Table 5.1 Tensions experienced by beginning teachers 90 Table 5.2 The contribution of ITE to teacher identity formation 91 Table 7.1 Feelings generated by the practicum 175 ix 1 Setting the Stage for Student Teacher Identities in Initial Teacher Education The Role of ITE Along My Career Trajectory: A Personal Narrative of Interest and Experience I don’t feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the begin- ning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think you would have the courage to write it?…The game is worth- while in so far as we don’t know where it will end (Foucault 1988, p. 9) The above quote reflects my lifeworld, the particular reason why I embrace the philosophy of post-structuralist/postmodernist French theorist Michel Foucault, with a particular affinity for his ‘trident’ espousing scepticism, critique, and problematization, moreover, when coupled with my particular interest in and experience of initial teacher education (ITE) along the various stages of my personal and professional trajectory in both local and international contexts. My resolve to become a teacher never wavered throughout my com- pulsory education years, despite guidance teachers regarding this as a ‘waste’ and urging me to take up law or medicine, instead, claiming that my intellect was better suited for such ‘challenging’ careers and that © The Author(s) 2018 1 D. Mifsud, Professional Identities in Initial Teacher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76174-9_1 2 D. Mifsud teaching could be pursued by more ‘mundane’ students who did not need to be highfliers like I was, back then. My childhood dream was to become a teacher, mainly because of my love for books (passed on to me by my mother and further bolstered by the home environment literally littered with books), my insatiable appetite for learning anything new (especially if this went beyond my ‘supposed’ age level), as well as the excellent teach- ers who left an indelible imprint on me in both my compulsory and further education years. Due to English being the first language I was exposed to from birth, and my preferred language of interaction, as well as the language I read books in, I enrolled for a Bachelor of Education course and graduated as a secondary teacher of English with First Class Honours in 1999. During my four-year undergraduate degree, we had study units in both methodology and foundations of education, as well as a teaching practice session in our last three years, building on weekly observation in schools from the first year. Early on, I discovered that there was quite a distinct gap between theory at university and practice in the classroom, as well as our interaction with our university tutor and the class teacher. I cannot deny that it was my initiation into the rite of pas- sage leading to professional teaching, but the main focus was not on the teaching and learning process per se, but on the teaching practice file, on following the advised lesson plan format, on having as many resources as possible, on covering the curriculum content assigned by the class teacher, and mostly on ensuring that one gave a good performance on each of the four visits conducted by the assigned university tutors in order to obtain a pass mark in teaching practice, and thus graduate at the end of the four- year degree and hopefully get a job. The six-week teaching practice block was an intense race of lesson planning and resource preparation at a time when modern technology was inexistent and where communication with our tutors was restricted to the visit period, while the class teacher was concerned with syllabus coverage – with the result that mentoring was lacking from both the higher education and school environment. It was a ‘sink or swim’ situa- tion that was repeated in the initial period as a newly-qualified (NQT) teacher where you enter the teaching profession full time, are bestowed with a permanent teacher’s warrant by the Ministry of Education and Employment, and the ‘probation’ period is considered to be over at the
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