Continuities and discontinuities in the life histories of teacher educators in changing times

Abstract

Although teacher education has undergone radical reforms in many jurisdictions, who teacher educators are, their lives, and their work, continue to be a somewhat underexplored area internationally, while remaining a ‘secret garden’ in the Irish context. In order to address this lacuna in Irish research, this paper adopts a life history, phenomenological approach to the exploration of teacher educator identities. It considers the articulation of identity relative to prior teacher identity and current roles and institutional context. From nine in-depth interviews with teacher educators in a college of education in Ireland, we examine continuities and discontinuities between past and present roles and responsibilities, and identities. We tentatively explore the diverse pathways, values and experiences that construct them as teacher educators in the present, and gain insight in to the strength of former teacher identities: the old overshadowing the ‘new’. We conclude that privileged primary school teacher identities continue to shape teacher educator practices and values despite global and diverse influences at play. The implications of these findings for initial teacher education are considered.

Keywords:

• teacher educator identity
• good teacher
• transitions
• practice

Notes on contributor

Dr Maeve O’Brien is Coordinator of Human Development and a senior lecturer in Sociology in St Patrick’s DCU. Dr Catherine Furlong is Director of the BEd and MEd programmes and principal lecturer in Education at St Patrick’s DCU.