The gender agenda in secondary ITET in England: forgotten, misconceived or what?

Abstract

The restructuring of secondary initial teacher education in England has seen a shift in both the focus and location of training, with an emphasis upon tightly defined competences and standards and upon more school‐based work. In this paper, I discuss the impact of such changes on newly qualified teachers’ (NQTs) knowledge of gender issues, through a review of the experiences and understandings of around 100 trainees at the end of their training, and identify grounds for hope and for disquiet. Particularly, I reflect upon the extent to which important issues in the gender debate, relating to gender relational approaches, continuing disadvantage of girls and issues of homophobia, appear to be either forgotten or misconceived in current secondary teacher education, and conclude by suggesting that all teacher educators in England with research interests in gender need to (re)engage with the debate about the desirable threshold knowledges which NQTs should possess about gender issues.

Notes

1. The Teacher Training Agency (TTA) was the body which regulated the supply, funding and nature of initial teacher training courses in England; in September 2005, it assumed a wider remit, to include continuing profession development of teachers and workforce reform, and became the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA).

2. ‘Successful’ at least in terms of Ofsted inspections: secondary ITET courses in England are inspected by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) on a three‐yearly cycle, and grade on a ‘1’ (very good–excellent) to ‘4’ (unsatisfactory) scale. This particular course has regularly been awarded grade 1s for all subjects.