Australian teacher educators responding to policy discourses of quality

ABSTRACT

Political appetite for neoliberal education policy has problematised teacher education in a number of countries, including Australia, the US and England. In Australia, dominant policy discourses of quality normalise the regulation and standardisation of teacher education and position teacher educators within a deficit model of education reform. Such positioning has been shown to have a deleterious impact on professional status, dismantling complex conceptualisations of teacher educators’ work. Framed by key tenets of positioning theory and conceptualisations of policy enactment, this study investigated, using online semi-structured interviews, the ways in which 16 teacher educators in one Australian university positioned policy as “other”, and the ways in which they felt they could or should respond. It found that teacher educators position policy, and engage in the policy process, in complex and varied ways. While many positioned policy as an intruder, with the potential to do harm to the profession, others had made choices that positioned policy as a tool for innovative imagining for programme renewal. Findings also highlight the potential appetite for collaborative positioning between policy makers and teacher educators as partners. These findings have significant implications for future approaches to re-shaping the teacher education policy space both in Australia and beyond.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher educator
• positioning
• discourse
• quality
• standards
• education policy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Australia is comprised of six states (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania) and two territories (Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory). Constitutional responsibility for school education rests with state and territory governments. Each state or territory has its own government based regulatory authority responsible for ITE accreditation processes using the Program Standards.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA) Early Career Researcher Grant [2020].