Exploring the moral imagination through relational pedagogies in pre-service teacher ethics (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Moral Imagination in Pre-service Teachers’ Ethical Reasoning
Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 2013
This paper will discuss findings from a teaching project pilot study designed to investigate the ways in which pre-service teachers understand and reason through ethical tensions perceived to arise during their final professional experience situation. The project utilised an assessment strategy based on the 'community of inquiry' model to document the ways in which pre-service teachers understand and reason through ethical tensions perceived to arise in their profession. Whilst there is significant research examining the pedagogical development of pre-service teachers' knowledge and skills after their internship experience, there is little research examining their experience of ethical tensions, nor ways to further enhance pre-service teachers' ethical reasoning. This research aims to provide points of reflection regarding how pre-service teachers process and reason through situations and indicates directions learning opportunities more aligned with their experiences and expressed needs
Reading the im/possibility of ethics in pre-service teacher professional experiences
2013
This work begins to deconstruct the ‘obligations’ pre-service teachers name and not-name in a reflection on a collection of ‘ethical events’ articulated in a capstone teacher education course that explored their philosophies of teaching and applied ethics. Obligation is more of a “matter of being claimed, in which something has a hold on us… that has us before we have it” (Caputo, 1993 p. 31) rather than the holding of a value or principle or claim for the enduring Good. In an attempt to recognise the explosiveness of the problem of respecting alterity in writing about ethics one has an obligation to consider the ethical demands of interpretation and the groundlessness of ethics itself. Deconstruction provides the im/possibility of writing about proper names and particularities which are the condition for allowing us to speak about justice. Acknowledging the variety of contemporary research in the area of ethics in teaching my analysis of these pre-service teachers’ writings traces major concepts and traditions in modern ethics that may have been used in alternative readings to characterise these subjective phenomena and potentially bring deeper meaning to the role morality of teaching. Reading these texts for the ‘possibility of ethics’ one might see implications for the devolution of ethical standardisation in teaching as what it means to take responsibility for responsibility as a teacher educator.
Ethics education in initial teacher education: pre-service provision in England
Professional Development in Education
Ethics education exists in most professions internationally, yet is less prevalent in teacher education. The paper reports on research that explores how ethics education is provided in university courses of initial teacher education (ITE) in England, and was conducted as the second phase of an international survey study that considered the prevalence of ethics education in teacher education in five countries. Participants from the initial survey, all involved in the delivery of ITE programmes in English universities were interviewed for this second phase of the research. Our key findings are that ethics is not offered as a standalone course in any institution, but is embedded in various ways within the curriculum. Ethics education is diffused among different areas of the curriculum and the activities used to develop ethical understanding are diverse. Barriers to providing ethical education include student resistance, lack of time, the complex nature of the provision and external demands.
Moral education and the challenge of pre-service professional formation for teachers
Journal of Moral Education
As teaching, irrespective of its geographical location involves personal relationships, all teachers are in some sense moral educators through the 'hidden curriculum', or learning which takes place through the process of being educated. However, teacher education (TE) in many parts of the world is increasingly preoccupied with content and academic attainment for its own sake, rendering it insufficiently attentive to those fundamentally human concerns that characterize teaching and through which teachers educate their students. This paper attends to those elements that professional formation must include to support teachers as moral educators effectively, whether or not they identify as curriculum specialists in this area. I conclude by outlining three specific examples of initiatives which address current deficiencies in practical terms through reclaiming 'leaky' spaces within conventional preservice programmes: 'Philosophy for Teachers' (P4T), 'Shared Space' and 'Going Global'.
A five-country survey on ethics education in pre-service teaching programs
Journal of Teacher Education, 2016
Despite a broad consensus on the ethical dimensions of the teaching profession, and longstanding efforts to align teacher education with wider trends in professional education, little is known about how teacher candidates are being prepared to face the ethical challenges of contemporary teaching. This paper presents the results of an international survey on ethics content and curriculum in initial teacher education (ITE). Involving five OECD countries—the United States, England, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands—the study’s findings shed light on teacher educators’ perspectives on the contribution of ethics content to the education of future teachers and provide a snapshot of how well existing programs line up with their aspirations. The results showed that 24% of the ITE programs surveyed contain at least one mandatory one standalone ethics course. The meaning of the results vis-à-vis opportunities for expanding ethics education in pre-service teaching programs is also discussed.
1998
This paper describes an Australian university teaching development project aimed at improving the quality of student thinking about and for values and ethics in the profession of teaching. The project involves the design, development, implementation, evaluation, and refinement of the teaching methods and materials of a compulsory undergraduate subject for teacher education students at Griffith University. The subject, called Values in Education, uses philosophical inquiry as its core teaching method and draws upon theories and ideas from the study of applied ethics for its content.
Global Studies of Childhood
This introductory commentary on the special issue 'Contemporary ethical tensions: Situated cases of ethical tensions when working with children and young people in educational contexts' focuses on elaborating educational ethics as an emerging disciplinary area within the field of education and teacher education. In this context, we are using the term 'educational ethics' as a term to refer to a specialist area of applied ethics encompassing the study of the ethical complexity of working with children and young people across varying educational settings such as schools, early childcare, digital spaces, universities, civic places and research environments. Work by those arguing for and about educational ethics conceptualise the emerging subdiscipline to embrace, the history and development of educational policies with a particular focus on its potential or actual ethical implications for school administration, teachers, school students, school communities and others; the analysis and articulation of teacher ethical obligations including but not limited to codes of conduct and ethics in teaching; research relating to ethical conduct, manner and the moral life of schools, the investigation of models and theories of ethical beliefs and decision-making in relation to tertiary, school and child care education; and pedagogical dimensions, interventions or curriculum for teaching and learning professional ethics with initial and in-service teachers. (https://educationalethics.org/) Educational ethics as a concept was discussed by Jerrold Coombs just over two decades ago to bring together a 'field' of ethics for education that encompassed an array of studies from teacher professionalism to the ethics of education. At that point, Coombs (1998) argued that educational ethics was defined by two approaches: it either sets forth an ethical theory or set of ethical principles for educators to follow and instructs them on how these principles are to be applied, or attempts to improve the reasoning educators engage in when deliberating about ethical problems. (p. 555
Ethics Education in Australian Preservice Teacher Programs: A Hidden Imperative
This paper provides a snapshot of the current approach to ethics education in accredited Australian pre-service teacher programs. Methods included a manual calendar search of ethics related subjects required in teacher programs using a sample of 24 Australian universities and a survey of 26 university representatives. Findings show a paucity of required standalone ethics subjects in the pre-service teacher training programs despite recent accreditation requirements by AITSL. When analysed by program type, the prevalence of an ethics related subject requirement in pre-service teacher programs revealed a concerning trend; post graduate programs, as a general rule, had a much lower prevalence of a mandatory ethics-related subject, including those subjects which are traditionally used as vehicles for embedding ethics, such as the Foundations of Education. Notwithstanding, all respondents agreed that the value of ethics in pre-service teacher programs is irrefutable. Implications for further research are discussed.
British Educational Research Journal, 2019
Assisting student teachers to understand the ethical nature of their work and developing the moral vocabulary to deal with ethical dilemmas of practice are vital components of initial teacher education. The study explores ethical dilemmas experienced by 100 student teachers in their final year of their teaching degrees while on practicum. The data examined were written reflective statements of each of the 100 students’ ethical dilemmas. The study found that, while some types of ethical dilemmas seem universal, a more situated theory of initial teacher education ethics is required to understand the particular sociocultural factors that inform the nature of teacher practice in context‐specific environments. Our study highlights the need for preservice teacher education focusing on student teachers finding their own authentic ethical voice, through the examination of ethical dilemmas via critical thinking and the wider examination of the political, historical and social contexts that l...
Teaching Through Ethical Tensions: Between Social Justice, Authority and Professional Codes
Rethinking Reflection and Ethics for Teachers
This chapter focusses on how preservice teachers in particular can develop an ethical sensitivity to situations they find themselves in while at the same time responding critically to their unexamined assumptions and intuitions to ensure that their responses may be socially just. As the author argues, making moral decisions is not easy at the best of times and ethical dilemmas are strange things, not amenable to easy description or formulaic construction or resolution. The pedagogical value of a dilemma for teacher professional development is not necessarily to be found in sensational confrontation. Instead, every day and often very subtle or complex tensions and situations that can be easily overlooked, may provide instructive ethical stimuli. This chapter identifies key tensions that occur between teachers' sense of moral agency and values with a focus on questions of justice. Teachers struggle with questions of distributive justice and educational disadvantage including deficit thinking, resource allocation, streaming, stereotyping, dehumanising 'behaviour management' of student bodies, and encounters with power inequities and school hierarchies. Examples and analysis of preservice teachers are presented in order to explore different ways of understanding justice and modes of ethical authority. Forster argues that social justice is the 'bottom line' for teacher education and this chapter raises questions about justice and who is most deserving to explore different conceptualisations arising in preservice teacher ethical reflections. Making moral decisions is not easy at the best of times, and ethical dilemmas themselves are strange things; not amenable to easy description or formulaic construction. The pedagogical value of a dilemma for teacher professional development is not necessarily a measure of sensational confrontation; rather, mundane, every day and often very subtle or complex tensions and situations that can be easily overlooked as 'ethical' provide instructive stimuli (Lyons, 1990; Levinson & Fay, 2016). This chapter identifies key tensions that occur between teachers' sense of moral agency and values, the moral authority of the regulatory instrument and implementation