Anna Beck - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Anna Beck

The Palgrave Handbook of Imposter Syndrome in Higher Education

Teacher Preparation in Scotland

Her research interests span education policy, education reform and professional learning. She dra... more Her research interests span education policy, education reform and professional learning. She draws on network ethnographic methods in order to uncover policy processes, with a particular focus on the representation of teacher voice. Her current research explores the rise of evidence-based practice in Scotland, England and Germany and the politicisation of teacher research. She is a Co-Investigator on the Scottish Government funded MQuITE project. Dr Paul Adams' work is primarily concerned with theoretical expositions on education policy. He has published widely in the areas of English and Scottish education policy, in particular when applied to pedagogy and on heuristic proposals for an understanding of policy processes and research. His work uses theoretical positions such as Positioning Theory, and philosophy to examine the ways in which policy might be better understood as an essentially intersubjective experience. He is currently Co-Principal Investigator on the Scottish Government funded MQuITE project.

Journal of Education for Teaching, 2022

Education Studies: An Issues-based Approach

No abstract available

The aim of this research was to explore the implementation of the recommendations from a recent t... more The aim of this research was to explore the implementation of the recommendations from a recent teacher education policy in Scotland, ‘Teaching Scotland’s Future’ (TSF; Donaldson, 2011), in ‘real time’, as the policy was alive and continuously evolving. Shortly after the publication of TSF, the Scottish Government set up a partnership model, the National Partnership Group (NPG) to refine and begin to implement a number of its recommendations in partnership between key organisations in Scottish education. The membership of the NPG consisted of representatives from these key organisations, as well as a small number of individual teachers. The NPG, its structure, membership and the multiple ways in which it operated, was the main focus of this research. Taking a critical policy analysis approach, this research set out to investigate the representation and participation of actors within the policy process and identify the voices that were not heard within the NPG. The research employed ...

In 2016 the OECD published ‘Improving Schools in Scotland’ (OECD, 2016). The re-view made a stron... more In 2016 the OECD published ‘Improving Schools in Scotland’ (OECD, 2016). The re-view made a strong case for a new evaluation framework to measure performance across all system levels, including ‘direct measures’ of school curriculum effectiveness, pupil attainment and teacher performance. The Scottish Government responded by creating the ‘National Improvement Framework’ (NIF; Scottish Government, 2016), which, as recommended, gathers data on all aspects of the education system. Central to this was a re-introduction of pupil standardized as-sessments, which was strongly opposed by teachers across Scotland. Of equal concern was a move to measure teacher performance and the development of new governance and accountability structures (Scottish Government, 2017). The OECD review explicitly overlooks teachers as actors of knowledge creation, instead highlighting the potential for ‘independent agencies’ to gather evidence on the system. It is therefore unsurprising that the Education Endow...

Countries across the world are reforming their systems of teacher education. Although this often ... more Countries across the world are reforming their systems of teacher education. Although this often takes different forms, one common theme across countries appears to be an increased focus on enquiry, evidence based teaching and teacher research (Kennedy, 2015), and Scotland is no exception. In 2011, the report ‘Teaching Scotland’s Future’ (TSF; Donaldson, 2011) was published. This policy proposed a radical redesign of teacher education provision in Scotland, at the centre of which was the ambition for teachers to become “reflective, accomplished and enquiring professionals” (Donaldson, 2011, p. 14). Central to this vision was the claim that teachers should be ‘agents of change’ and this increasing focus on ‘teacher agency’ also appears in recent curriculum policy in Scotland and internationally (Biesta, Priestley and Robinson, 2015; Priestley, 2011). Over the last five years, the vision of the teacher promoted by TSF has come to be associated with the idea of teachers becoming more a...

Teachers are often considered to be the most important agents in reforming education and in bring... more Teachers are often considered to be the most important agents in reforming education and in bringing about change in practices (Lieberman & Mace, 2008). Since the publication of ‘Teaching Scotland’s Future’ (Donaldson, 2010), the teacher education sector in Scotland has gone through significant changes. One of the key changes is to allow teachers to develop as reflective practitioners. Reflection on one’s own perceptions, experiences and practices is at the heart of all activities that teachers do. Reflective practice enables learning by thinking back and articulating the acquisition of knowledge and strategies. For teachers at the pre-service stage, this can be particularly powerful and even transformative (Kramarski & Kohen, 2016). More recently, researchers have argued that the development of reflective skills can be enhanced by combining reflection with professional dialogue (Simoncini et al., 2014), enabling teachers to ‘maintain an awareness of their learning and be attuned bo...

Scottish Educational Review

Against a backdrop of increasing pressure globally to enhance the quality of teacher preparation,... more Against a backdrop of increasing pressure globally to enhance the quality of teacher preparation, and a corresponding push to ‘measure’ this performatively, we present a context-specific framework for identifying the quality of initial teacher education (ITE). The framework derives from a project involving all Scottish ITE providers. It adopts a vernacular globalisation perspective, drawing on international literature and local knowledge to create a mutually agreeable framework. In sharing the process, as well as the product, we offer a unique perspective on how one jurisdiction has reconciled global neoliberal pressures with a national educational ideology which values democratic approaches to schooling.

This paper emerges from a larger study that traced the development and implementation of a recent... more This paper emerges from a larger study that traced the development and implementation of a recent teacher education policy in Scotland, ‘Teaching Scotland’s Future’ (TSF; Donaldson, 2011). Shortly after the publication of TSF, the Scottish Government set up a partnership model, the National Partnership Group (NPG) to refine and begin to implement a number of it’s recommendations. The membership of the NPG consisted of representatives from these key organisations, as well as a small number of individual teachers. This ‘partnership’ approach to policy-making is often celebrated as a long-standing feature of Scottish education and claims are often made about the democratic, inclusive, and participative nature of Scottish education policy processes. Although some researchers have hinted that there is a degree of ‘mythology’ associated with such claims (e.g. Menter & Hulme, 2011), there is very little research that examines this in any depth. This research therefore seeks to fill this ga...

Edinburgh University Press, Jul 31, 2018

The development of the MQuITE framework has been based on the associated literature review (Rausc... more The development of the MQuITE framework has been based on the associated literature review (Rauschenberger et al., 2017) which considered studies that focused on either (1) ITE programmes, their component dimensions and effectiveness in preparing teachers as measured in various contexts, and/or (2) teacher effectiveness as related to ITE and related routes into teaching. The majority of contemporary literature on measuring the quality of teacher education programmes either correlates individual teacher data to student attainment data, mapping this back to the teacher’s teacher education programme (Kirabo Jackson et al., 2014), or reviews programme documentation, teachers’ educational background and absence figures (Jacob & Welsh, 2011). While such methods may be possible in the Scottish context, they do not align with the cultural and political context of teacher education in contemporary Scotland, nor do they provide the richness and depth necessary to understand nuances of context...

Drawing on Basil Bernstein’s (1996, 1999) analysis, Whitty and Furlong (2017) identify two academ... more Drawing on Basil Bernstein’s (1996, 1999) analysis, Whitty and Furlong (2017) identify two academic knowledge traditions in the study of education. Singulars include hermeneutic-philosophical German educational thought, whilst an example of a regional is the new science of education (NSE) which promises to find out ‘what works’ through the application of rigorous research, typically in the form of randomised controlled trials and systematic reviews. Academic traditions contrast with practical traditions, amongst them the ‘competencies and standards’ model ascendant under neoliberalism and integrated traditions which try to bring the academic and the practical together.Both singular and regional academic knowledge traditions are more distant from practice than practical or integrated ones. In this study, we apply Bernstein’s (1990, 1996) account of the pedagogic device to the pedagogising of academic knowledge, by which it is selected and adapted by various intermediaries or brokers ...

The Palgrave Handbook of Imposter Syndrome in Higher Education

Teacher Preparation in Scotland

Her research interests span education policy, education reform and professional learning. She dra... more Her research interests span education policy, education reform and professional learning. She draws on network ethnographic methods in order to uncover policy processes, with a particular focus on the representation of teacher voice. Her current research explores the rise of evidence-based practice in Scotland, England and Germany and the politicisation of teacher research. She is a Co-Investigator on the Scottish Government funded MQuITE project. Dr Paul Adams' work is primarily concerned with theoretical expositions on education policy. He has published widely in the areas of English and Scottish education policy, in particular when applied to pedagogy and on heuristic proposals for an understanding of policy processes and research. His work uses theoretical positions such as Positioning Theory, and philosophy to examine the ways in which policy might be better understood as an essentially intersubjective experience. He is currently Co-Principal Investigator on the Scottish Government funded MQuITE project.

Journal of Education for Teaching, 2022

Education Studies: An Issues-based Approach

No abstract available

The aim of this research was to explore the implementation of the recommendations from a recent t... more The aim of this research was to explore the implementation of the recommendations from a recent teacher education policy in Scotland, ‘Teaching Scotland’s Future’ (TSF; Donaldson, 2011), in ‘real time’, as the policy was alive and continuously evolving. Shortly after the publication of TSF, the Scottish Government set up a partnership model, the National Partnership Group (NPG) to refine and begin to implement a number of its recommendations in partnership between key organisations in Scottish education. The membership of the NPG consisted of representatives from these key organisations, as well as a small number of individual teachers. The NPG, its structure, membership and the multiple ways in which it operated, was the main focus of this research. Taking a critical policy analysis approach, this research set out to investigate the representation and participation of actors within the policy process and identify the voices that were not heard within the NPG. The research employed ...

In 2016 the OECD published ‘Improving Schools in Scotland’ (OECD, 2016). The re-view made a stron... more In 2016 the OECD published ‘Improving Schools in Scotland’ (OECD, 2016). The re-view made a strong case for a new evaluation framework to measure performance across all system levels, including ‘direct measures’ of school curriculum effectiveness, pupil attainment and teacher performance. The Scottish Government responded by creating the ‘National Improvement Framework’ (NIF; Scottish Government, 2016), which, as recommended, gathers data on all aspects of the education system. Central to this was a re-introduction of pupil standardized as-sessments, which was strongly opposed by teachers across Scotland. Of equal concern was a move to measure teacher performance and the development of new governance and accountability structures (Scottish Government, 2017). The OECD review explicitly overlooks teachers as actors of knowledge creation, instead highlighting the potential for ‘independent agencies’ to gather evidence on the system. It is therefore unsurprising that the Education Endow...

Countries across the world are reforming their systems of teacher education. Although this often ... more Countries across the world are reforming their systems of teacher education. Although this often takes different forms, one common theme across countries appears to be an increased focus on enquiry, evidence based teaching and teacher research (Kennedy, 2015), and Scotland is no exception. In 2011, the report ‘Teaching Scotland’s Future’ (TSF; Donaldson, 2011) was published. This policy proposed a radical redesign of teacher education provision in Scotland, at the centre of which was the ambition for teachers to become “reflective, accomplished and enquiring professionals” (Donaldson, 2011, p. 14). Central to this vision was the claim that teachers should be ‘agents of change’ and this increasing focus on ‘teacher agency’ also appears in recent curriculum policy in Scotland and internationally (Biesta, Priestley and Robinson, 2015; Priestley, 2011). Over the last five years, the vision of the teacher promoted by TSF has come to be associated with the idea of teachers becoming more a...

Teachers are often considered to be the most important agents in reforming education and in bring... more Teachers are often considered to be the most important agents in reforming education and in bringing about change in practices (Lieberman & Mace, 2008). Since the publication of ‘Teaching Scotland’s Future’ (Donaldson, 2010), the teacher education sector in Scotland has gone through significant changes. One of the key changes is to allow teachers to develop as reflective practitioners. Reflection on one’s own perceptions, experiences and practices is at the heart of all activities that teachers do. Reflective practice enables learning by thinking back and articulating the acquisition of knowledge and strategies. For teachers at the pre-service stage, this can be particularly powerful and even transformative (Kramarski & Kohen, 2016). More recently, researchers have argued that the development of reflective skills can be enhanced by combining reflection with professional dialogue (Simoncini et al., 2014), enabling teachers to ‘maintain an awareness of their learning and be attuned bo...

Scottish Educational Review

Against a backdrop of increasing pressure globally to enhance the quality of teacher preparation,... more Against a backdrop of increasing pressure globally to enhance the quality of teacher preparation, and a corresponding push to ‘measure’ this performatively, we present a context-specific framework for identifying the quality of initial teacher education (ITE). The framework derives from a project involving all Scottish ITE providers. It adopts a vernacular globalisation perspective, drawing on international literature and local knowledge to create a mutually agreeable framework. In sharing the process, as well as the product, we offer a unique perspective on how one jurisdiction has reconciled global neoliberal pressures with a national educational ideology which values democratic approaches to schooling.

This paper emerges from a larger study that traced the development and implementation of a recent... more This paper emerges from a larger study that traced the development and implementation of a recent teacher education policy in Scotland, ‘Teaching Scotland’s Future’ (TSF; Donaldson, 2011). Shortly after the publication of TSF, the Scottish Government set up a partnership model, the National Partnership Group (NPG) to refine and begin to implement a number of it’s recommendations. The membership of the NPG consisted of representatives from these key organisations, as well as a small number of individual teachers. This ‘partnership’ approach to policy-making is often celebrated as a long-standing feature of Scottish education and claims are often made about the democratic, inclusive, and participative nature of Scottish education policy processes. Although some researchers have hinted that there is a degree of ‘mythology’ associated with such claims (e.g. Menter & Hulme, 2011), there is very little research that examines this in any depth. This research therefore seeks to fill this ga...

Edinburgh University Press, Jul 31, 2018

The development of the MQuITE framework has been based on the associated literature review (Rausc... more The development of the MQuITE framework has been based on the associated literature review (Rauschenberger et al., 2017) which considered studies that focused on either (1) ITE programmes, their component dimensions and effectiveness in preparing teachers as measured in various contexts, and/or (2) teacher effectiveness as related to ITE and related routes into teaching. The majority of contemporary literature on measuring the quality of teacher education programmes either correlates individual teacher data to student attainment data, mapping this back to the teacher’s teacher education programme (Kirabo Jackson et al., 2014), or reviews programme documentation, teachers’ educational background and absence figures (Jacob & Welsh, 2011). While such methods may be possible in the Scottish context, they do not align with the cultural and political context of teacher education in contemporary Scotland, nor do they provide the richness and depth necessary to understand nuances of context...

Drawing on Basil Bernstein’s (1996, 1999) analysis, Whitty and Furlong (2017) identify two academ... more Drawing on Basil Bernstein’s (1996, 1999) analysis, Whitty and Furlong (2017) identify two academic knowledge traditions in the study of education. Singulars include hermeneutic-philosophical German educational thought, whilst an example of a regional is the new science of education (NSE) which promises to find out ‘what works’ through the application of rigorous research, typically in the form of randomised controlled trials and systematic reviews. Academic traditions contrast with practical traditions, amongst them the ‘competencies and standards’ model ascendant under neoliberalism and integrated traditions which try to bring the academic and the practical together.Both singular and regional academic knowledge traditions are more distant from practice than practical or integrated ones. In this study, we apply Bernstein’s (1990, 1996) account of the pedagogic device to the pedagogising of academic knowledge, by which it is selected and adapted by various intermediaries or brokers ...