The micropolitics of teacher induction. A narrative-biographical study on teacher socialisation (original) (raw)
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Teacher Professional Socialisation: Objective Determinants
Orbis Scholae, 2018
Entry into teaching is generally recognised as a crucial phase in the professional life of a teacher. The initial years at school can be a critical part of a teacher's career having long-term implications for teacher effectiveness, job satisfaction and also career length. The problem of a high drop-out rate of novice teachers has gradually become a global issue. Therefore, teacher professional socialisation as a specific field within a larger body of research into occupational socialisation has received increased attention in the last decades. The paper presents a brief overview of teacher socialisation research paradigms within which both the anticipatory socialisation (pre-service) and the workplace (organisational) socalisation are investigated. Further on, the focus is specifically on the latter and on the factors that determine the processes of workplace socialisation of novice teachers. While recognising the significance of subjective determinants, we aim to survey mainly the objective ones in this article. Three layers of social context are addressed: interactive (pupils and classrooms), institutional (school culture, staff, and leadership) and cultural (local social community as well as broader economic, political and cultural environment).
Novice Teachers: The Process of “Anchoring” in the Teaching Profession
2015
The process of novice teacher’s transition/integration is rarely the subject of consideration and research in the education field in general and teacher training in particular. The dominant, functionalist manner of thinking about the professional role focuses mainly on problems associated with the teacher’s adaptation to the workplace and is usually limited to a statistical diagnosis (more or less successful) of how the “newcomer” conformed to existing, externally adopted standards. Such analyses, however, ignore various contexts that are extremely important from the point of view of becoming a teacher, i.e., contexts formed at the intersections of interactions between individual and individual, individual and professional group, and individual and institutional culture. This paper will present preliminary results of research devoted to the process of becoming a teacher in the period of transition/integration of teachers (novices) into their professional group, based on concepts tha...
An exploration of the impact of school culture on professional forming of beginning teacher 2016.pdf
Doctorate Studies Essay, 2016
New teachers have joined a profession burdened under the weight of state pressure of external accountability and a lack of autonomy consistent with a culture of bureaucratic professionalism (Berkel & Knies, 2013) where many argue the balance is tipped in favour of de- professionalisation (Wits 2005 pp. 33). The beginning teacher today must grapple with two discourses (Sach, 2001) as they seek to discover and assert their own professional identity. The first discourse; is one of accountability and conformity that leaves little room for a traditional personal concept of being a professional. The other discourse is an emerging one of a democratic professional where teachers are community facilitators and leaders of learning and where their professionalism is defined by how effectively they can deploy their specialised knowledge in a collaborative setting. In the absence of personal professional autonomy and with a deficit of national collective autonomy, the challenge for Headteachers is to build a school with a collaborative culture. In the absence of this sort of culture a school runs the risk of preventing their trainees from fully professionalising as it has been shown that teachers training in schools with a managerialism dominant culture are more likely to less reflective and accept top down policy uncritically. When a beginning teacher trains in a school with a highly collaborative culture they are more likely to show characteristics of the progressive democratic professional. This is the sort of teacher that will be able to use discretionary judgement confidently and engage in the type of professionalism Freidson (2001) said was essential for the protection of public work.
Despite the wealth of commentaries on teacher education, there is little empirical research focused on teacher educators themselves (Ducharme 1993; Ducharme and Ducharme 1996; Acker 1996; Maguire 1994; John 1996; Grundy and Hatton 1995; Reynolds, 1995.). In particular, few studies look at the professional experiences and induction needs of new teacher educators, entering Higher Education (HE) work from schools. This omission means that new teacher educators are an under-researched and poorly understood occupational group. This paper investigates the challenges faced by beginning teacher educators in establishing their new professional identity as academics in the English university sector. The definition of professional identity used here is that this is the point at which the new member feels confident and competent in their job, thus experiencing feelings of comfort and effectiveness in regards to the demands of the position. This paper makes a contribution, therefore, to understa...
On teacher beliefs, self-identity and the stages of professional development
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), 2018
This article describes teachers as a professional group, focusing on preservice teachers and refining their profiles on the basis of the studies carried out in educational research. Personality as a major contributor to beliefs and teacher presence in the classroom in a more general sense help to building teacher identity over the period of first becoming and then being a fully-functioning classroom practitioner. Teacher self-concept and identity are developmental in nature and undergo constant fluctuations. They make for the success and/or failure, enthusiasm or burnout of every individual teacher, irrespective of his/her teaching contexts. New teachers who enter classrooms for the first time do not enter them empty-handed. They hold beliefs which have various origins and enjoy varying degrees of sustainability over time and the experiences they encounter. These are discussed here, both theoretically and by means of illustrative studies. When considering teachers over their whole careers, clear developmental stages can be distinguished. These are shown in the form of different models presented in the literature on teacher training and development. The article concludes with a brief description of pre-service teachers` profiles.
European Educational Research Journal, 2009
The study of teacher identity developed greatly during the 1990s and, in a way, replaced other studies on teacher professionalism. Highlighting the interactions, emotions and cognitions in their everyday expression, these studies contributed to making visible the role of specific communities of professionals in valuing and improving professional action. However, after almost two decades, it became clear that the study of the construction of teacher identity could not be based solely on the description of the interactions, but in fact also required a macro-sociological analysis. Coordinating these levels of analysis is important for developing the construct of the teacher as a professional, a profile that inspires current teacher training policies in Europe. Based on theoretical contributions such as the 'construction of professional identities for real social change' (Claude Dubar), and the idealtypical model of professionalism (Eliot Freidson), this article aims to present the construction of teacher identity as a subjective dimension of the process of teacher professionalisation, viewing it as an ecological construct. To this end, the article presents the results of research carried out during the 1990s and the early twenty-first century, in order to shed some light on the dynamics inherent to each of the levels of analysis and the interactions which are established between them. The article concludes with a discussion of the advantages of this approach for teacher training and research.
This article presents the results of an exploratory research study into induction practices of novice teacher educators in six different countries. The study was a project carried out by members of the Association of Teacher Educators Europe (ATEE) Research and Development Centre Professional Development of Teacher Educators. Induction is seen as a process of becoming a teacher educator and encompasses two levels. Firstly, it refers to the organizational induction into the teacher education institute. Secondly, it is about becoming a member of the profession (professional induction). Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with 11 beginning teacher educators. The findings indicated that induction is quite problematic. None of the teacher educators experienced a satisfying induction into their institute and the profession as well. The article concludes with recommendations for improvement of induction practices and further research. This collaborative research project also revealed a lack of shared language in communicating professional issues and the need to further develop this within international communities like the ATEE.
Micropolitical literacy: reconstructing a neglected dimension in teacher development
International Journal of Educational Research, 2002
Teachers' professional learning takes place in an organisational context, in which issues of power, influence, and control can play an important part. In this article, we argue that learning how to deal with these inevitable micropolitical aspects of their work lives, constitutes an ...