The Place of Women in Teacher Education: discourses of power

Abstract

This paper is divided into four sections. Section one considers the variety of discourses which have emerged historically in education and the shifting position of women within them. The next two sections provide an overview of the position of women in teacher education in the UK from the late 19th century to the present day. The fourth section draws on recent empirical work from three sources; a study of women and black managers in education (Powney & Weiner, 1992), a study of women teacher educators (Maguire, 1993) and current work looking at staffing policy in higher education in the UK (Weiner, 1993). We conclude the paper with a brief outline of some possible strategies for improving the status of women in teacher education although it is acknowledged that ‘disrupting power balances’ (Lather, 1991) is a highly complex matter. Throughout the paper we will be drawing on discourse theory, in particular on post‐structuralist and feminist theoretical frameworks.