Book Chapter

Who cares? Tensions and conflicts from the field of teacher education

Sarah Davey Chesters, Donna Pendergast, Rachael Dwyer, Susanne Garvis, Jayne Keogh

2012

Overview

In Australia, teacher education is characterised by ever-increasing regulation, from teacher registration bodies, government policy directives, and university administration and procedures. Teacher educators' responsibilities to these stakeholders, as well as to their students and the mentor teachers and schools that act as hosts for field placements, create a complex working environment with, at times, conflicting interests. This complex environment has a significant impact on teacher educators' professional identities. They are required to be directed by what is happening in the industry and be subject to directives issued by governing bodies. As such, teacher educators may act as conduits between major stakeholders as both gatekeepers for the profession and as teachers of student teachers. This chapter explores some of the tensions and conflicts within the lived experience of a particular group of teacher educators. Each story is underpinned by conflicting notions of care for the stakeholders involved, highlighting the pressures inherent in this caring role. The chapter discusses two notions of care: both the concept of an 'ethic of care' for stakeholders that underpins the process of decision-making in the narrative, and the care that is displayed between tertiary educators in supporting each other through these tensions. The chapter takes the form of a Bakhtin-inspired polyphonic narrative, providing snapshots of the group members' stories, woven into a larger fictional narrative. The resultant narrative is constructed around the respective co-constructed stories of three fictional teacher educators over the course of an academic year. The chapter considers the influence of their experiences on these narrators' identities as teacher educators along with their associated dilemmas and tensions. The stories show the importance of mentoring, talking and sharing stories of experience in order to validate each other's experiences. [Author abstract, ed]

• Subject: Academic staff university relationship / Bakhtin (MM) / Duty of care / Higher education / Mentoring / Peer relationship / Preservice teacher education / Professional identity / Reflective practice / Role conflict / Self care skills / Stakeholders / Student teacher relationship / Teacher certification / Teacher education programs / Teacher educators / Teacher responsibility / Teaching experience
• ISBN: 9789462091627, 9462091625