MATRÍCULAS DE COMERCIO

Whilst the analysis of data arising from each of the four case studies helped to illuminate similarities, as well as differences, in approach, it highlighted what appeared to be different drivers for their retrospective pedagogical practices. Thus, it appeared that the participants’ personal histories and belief systems impacted profoundly upon their individual interpretations of ITE pedagogy, and how far they had developed this from their school practice and habitus. The ways in which they perceived or acknowledged, and the extent to which they had accommodated, the complexities and issues represented in Figure 2 (p36) within their meta-pedagogical practice, differed significantly from case to case. Factors in the process leading to their personal iterations of meta-pedagogy are represented in Figure 319 below, and these are explored and interpreted through a Bourdieusian lens.

Figure 3: Factors in the development of the participants’ meta-pedagogy

First to second order practice: the dual identities as first and second order practitioners appeared to underpin the meta-pedagogy for the four participants – predominantly as ‘teacher’, and progressively

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The image in the innermost circle of this diagram symbolises the D oste effe t , and represents the move from first to second order practice. The teacher identity is represented by the largest of the Droste figures, and that of the teacher educator by the (first) image on the box she is holding. (*This is then repeated, ostensibly ad infinitum). This notion was taken from a presentation which I co-presented with Anja Swennen at IPDA 2011, a d efle ts “hul a s o se atio on the cover of Loughran (2006): I Plato s Republic, the philosopher asks,

ho ill gua d the gua dia s? I this i po ta t ook, Joh Lough a asks, ho ill edu ate the tea he edu ato s a d ho should that o k p o eed? Ho e e , the latte ould i deed e ide tified as third order practice – see * above.)

as ‘teacher educator’ as they move seemingly slowly (perhaps even reluctantly) towards what McKeon & Harrison (2010) refer to as “self-perception as a teacher educator with expertise about teaching”, rather than as “a teacher involved with teacher preparation” (p36). This appeared to impact upon their perceptions of the relative importance of (curriculum) subject knowledge and PCK. In Bourdieusian terms, first and second order practice can be viewed as two fields, demanding different forms of habitus. As experienced (and successful) first order practitioners, the participants’ habitus would have been well-developed, conferring cultural capital and therefore standing in that field. As newcomers to university-based ITE, they may initially have experienced “disjunctures between habitus and field” (Reay 2004:438), causing them to resort to practices with which they were familiar, and which had proved successful in school.

Values and beliefs: there were marked similarities with respect to these, including a commitment to teaching/education, professionalism, and sensitivity to student needs. Their understandings about the process of learning per se also broadly concurred. However, there was less agreement regarding the role of student teachers and teacher educators in the learning process, ranging from what Taylor (2008) refers to as a ‘cascading expertise’ approach to a more holistic view of ‘student as teacher and learner’. Perhaps most significantly, their values and beliefs underpinned what was driving the participants’ meta-pedagogical practice in each case. Habitus is underpinned by values and beliefs, as well as the “deeply rooted dispositions and assumptions” (Green 2012:396) about practice, which arise from spending time in a particular field. The similarities observed with respect to these could be attributed to the fact that first and second order practice may be viewed as sub-fields within the field of education. This may also explain the discrepancies with regard to perceptions of their role in the learning process, if there are differences in levels of recognition of the discrete nature of each of these sub-fields.

Development of practice and identity: there was general acknowledgement that their knowledge and skills transferred from the school classroom needed to evolve to a greater or lesser extent. All cited reading and reflecting as being key to this developing practice, and Bill also acknowledged a clear distinction between pedagogy and meta-pedagogy. However, although studying for the Ed D appeared to have had a recognised impact on the practice of three of them, none appeared to have experienced structured professional development for, or in, the role. It appeared to be their attitudes towards, engagement with, and understandings of ‘theory’ which had the most profound effect upon the degree to which their practice had developed, and the consequential nature of their meta- pedagogy. As the participants have engaged in the new field, they can be seen to have developed a new habitus to differing degrees. This will have come about through the self-questioning demanded by the new situation they found themselves in, and the disjunctures they experienced. For at least one of the participants, this appeared to have led to transformation in terms of the practice, and an

acceptance of a new, theoretically driven, discourse within the field of university-based ITE. This could reasonably be expected to lead to increased cultural capital in the second order field.

Enacted meta-pedagogy: for all of them, this incorporated a wide range of teaching and learning strategies, including (largely implicit) modelling and constructivist approaches, although the evidence of anecdotes and transmission increased in inverse proportion to the length of experience as teacher educator. The degree of compliance also seemed to lessen as they gained in experience in the role, as well as their perception of constraints – most notably, time – which meant that the pedagogical practice of two participants (Julie and Steve) was said to be not always what they might want it to be. The findings suggest that, while there were similarities and common threads displayed in the pedagogical practice of the participants, there appeared to be few shared understandings of what might constitute effective meta-pedagogy, and why. The participants’ first order habitus was particularly evident in the range of teaching and learning strategies, although the use of anecdotes and transmission suggested a proclivity towards ‘show-casing’ their former practice rather than developing and expanding their habitus for the second order field. This perhaps clouded those participants’ vision of what a pedagogy of ITE may be, as distinct from a school-based pedagogy.

The intention of this study had been to see how teacher educators develop their distinct pedagogy of ITE beyond the first three years in the role, as my previous study (Field 2012) had revealed that the new teacher educator participants tended to simply transfer their school pedagogy into the university field. That this tendency was also apparent in the practice of two (and, to a certain extent, three) of the four more experienced teacher educator participants in this study demanded an exploration of why this may be the case, particularly as the remaining participant appeared to buck this trend. Whilst what appeared to be the individual drivers in the other three cases could be seen to be linked to practical, rather than theoretical, concerns, consideration of aspects of participants’ practice in terms of continua (Table 2, pp127-8) suggested that theory and theorising practice may indeed be key.

Therefore, whilst maintaining a focus on Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field and cultural capital, this cross-case analysis considers and interprets the individual case studies through the lens of the discourse of theory in ITE, as a way of addressing the three main research questions:

1. What do teacher educators understand by a pedagogy of ITE, and (how) does this differ from school teaching? What does this look like in practice?

2. How and when do teacher educators develop their pedagogy of ITE?

3. Are there common understandings of ITE pedagogy? If so, what are they? Would it be possible to move towards shared understandings across the ITE community?

An exploration of what is meant by ‘theory and practice’ in ITE, and how this was understood by the participants, is presented in Section 5.2. The impact upon their meta-pedagogical practice and habitus is then considered, in terms of the practitioner culture (Section 5.3), the privileging of practical wisdom above other forms of knowledge (Section 5.4), and ‘cloning’ as a default approach (Section 5.5). The implications of this are considered in Section 5.6.