Researching teacher educators’ preparedness to teach to and about diversity: investigating epistemic reflexivity as a new conceptual framework

ABSTRACT

There is growing international concern about the extent to which teachers are prepared to work with an increasingly diverse student (and community) population. To date, research into the relationship between teacher preparation and preparedness to teach diverse learners has not focused on teacher educators’ understandings about teaching to/about diversity. Such understandings can be informed by epistemic aspects of professional work. Epistemic cognitions (cognitions about knowledge and knowing) allow professionals to generate perspectives necessary to tackle new and old challenges.

The social lab reported in this paper investigated 12 Australian teacher educators’ perspectives about teaching to/about diversity using the 3R-Epistemic Cognition (EC) framework. The findings showed that the 3R-EC framework could be useful for capturing epistemic reflexive dialogues about teaching to/about diversity, although some aspects of the framework were identified by the teacher educators as challenging. On the basis of these identified challenges, refinements concerning communication and use of the 3R-EC framework were identified. The feedback also led to some refinements of the social lab methodology for use in the larger national study.

KEYWORDS:

• Epistemic cognition
• epistemic reflexivity
• teacher education
• teacher educators
• teaching to diversity

Ethics statement

Ethical approval was granted by the participating university’s ethics Committee (Approval Number 1700000105), and participants gave informed consent.

Notes

1. Refers to the social lab transcript line number that appears at the beginning of the participant’s response.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Office of Education Research, Queensland University of Technology [Seed funding 2017].

Notes on contributors

Jo Lunn Brownlee

Jo Lunn Brownlee Professor Jo Lunn, School of Early Childhood & Inclusive Education, Queensland University of Technology researches teacher educators’ reflexive decision making and social justice.

Leonie Rowan

Leonie Rowan Leonie Rowan is a Professor in the School of Education and Professional Studies, Griffith University. Her research relates to gender in higher education, teacher education and schooling.

Mary Ryan

Mary Ryan Professor Mary Ryan, head of the Department of Educational Studies at Macquarie University, researches pre-service teachers’ epistemic reflexivity and their enabling and constraining conditions.

Sue Walker

Sue Walker Dr. Susan Walker is a Professor in the School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education at the Queensland University of Technology and a key researcher in the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Living with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Terri Bourke

Terri Bourke Dr Terri Bourke, Senior Lecturer and Academic Program Director at the Queensland University of Technology researches professional standards, professionalism and accreditation processes.

Peter Churchward

Peter Churchward Peter Churchward is a PhD student researching the effect of the current Australian policy environment directed at teacher quality on the development of early career teachers.