Tercer fase: gobierno de Rafael Correa

Research on demographics identifies age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic backgrounds and academic abilities as factors that influence learning to teach (DET., 2004; Hodgkinson, 2002; Ingvarson, Beavis, & Kleinhenz, 2004; Lortie, 1975; McInnis et al., 2000; McKoy-Lowery & Pace, 2002; Sanford, 2002; Scottish Executive, 2005; Sharplin, 2002). The demographics reported here are generalised, so caution should be taken because learning to teach takes time and is contextualised, unpredictable and often idiosyncratic (Darling-Hammond, 2006; Hammerness et al., 2012).

Typically and traditionally, pre-service teachers (of various nationalities) are aged between 19 and 30 (DET, 2004; Hodgkinson, 2002; Lortie, 1975; McInnis et al., 2000; McKoy-Lowery & Pace, 2002; Sanford, 2002; Scottish Executive, 2005; Sharplin, 2002). While this has remained fairly constant over the last 40 years, some evidence from Western countries have shown increases in minority groups entering teaching—low socioeconomic, Indigenous/First Nations, mature age or career switchers (Guarino, Santibanez, & Daley, 2006; Tigchelaar et al., 2014; Wagner & Imanual-Noy, 2014). In relation to the mature-age demographics, Watt and Richardson (2008)

reported that mature-age and career switchers represented approximately one-third of pre and postgraduate teacher education candidates in their 2006 data from Australia.

Motivation changes during a person’s life, and is influenced by cognitive, socio- emotional, personality and moral development (Baltes, 1987; Curuso, 2002; Erikson, 1968; Havighurst, 1972; Kolhberg, 1981; Maslow, 1954). Erikson (1968) asserted that pre-service teachers were generally either exiting the identity phase, or entering the intimacy phase. In the identity phase, pre-service teachers have established a career pathway and made a personal commitment to the career, whether in training or studies. However, they may also be in the intimacy stage, in which they seek to establish

stage may be revisited in later adulthood. Similarly, Havighurst’s (1972) social phases theory proposed that the pre-service teachers were in the early adulthood phase, which involved social roles to do with career and vocation, home and family, personal

development, enjoyment of leisure time, health and community living (Knowles, 1980). According to Maslow’s (1954) hierarchy of needs, pre-service teacher may be in the self-actualisation or transcendence phases, needing to fulfil and realise their potential, and as a result help others, namely children. Finally, Kohlberg’s (1995) work on stages of moral development contended that pre-service teachers were in the post

conventional-autonomous and principled phase. In this phase, adults have strongly held moral views of right and wrong, which make beliefs more difficult to change or modify. So, age might affect the pre-service teacher’s motivation towards their coursework in the form of commitment, persistence and resilience. Age also alludes to the fact that there may be competing priorities in terms of time spent on study, in employment, and establishing a significant relationship or family commitments. Having strongly held beliefs might also influence their willingness to embrace ideas that are different to their own.

Researchers have noted that pre-service teachers in Western contexts are predominantly female, white, Anglo-Celtic and lower-middle class (Commonwealth of Australia, 2007; DET, 2004; Ingvarson et al., 2004). Wylie (2000) conducted a survey for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries to determine levels of feminisation in the primary school teaching profession, and found that in 11 out of 20 countries, 70 per cent of teachers were female, a finding consistent with Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST, 2004) statistics in Western Australia (71 per cent). In 2010, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported a national average of 81 per cent female teachers in primary schools. Drudy (2013) predicted that this global phenomenon would be likely to continue.

The significance of gender is its effect on pre-service teachers’ reasons for choosing teaching and it is also believed to affect pre-service teacher’s approach to learning. Drudy, Martin, Woods, and O'Flynn (2005) surveyed 1049 final year school students and 457 pre-service teachers in Ireland, to identify the reasons why more women entered teaching than men. The most common response was the perception of teaching as women’s work related to the role of a mother, and that women were more suited to the job. Wylie (2000) claimed that attraction to the teaching profession was associated with nurturing dispositions, compatibility with motherhood and increases in women’s employability.

Baxter Magolda (1992) conducted a longitudinal study on American male and female college students’ epistemological beliefs about ways of knowing and approaches to teaching and learning interactions. She concluded that there were developmental changes in how students reasoned, and what they valued in the teaching/learning interaction. Within the first and least sophisticated stage, described as ‘absolute knowing’, male students were more motivated to mastery, whereas female students relied more on received knowledge. In her ‘transitional’ stage, Baxter Magolda found males were more inclined towards an impersonal style, and female students preferred an interpersonal style. In the ‘independent’ knowing stage, males favoured individual styles, while females preferred inter-individual styles. However, in the final, most sophisticated stage—known as ‘contextual’ knowing—there were no substantial differences between genders. Both genders, in the evaluative contextual knowing phases, approached learning based on contextual factors and multiple sources of information to form a constructed meaning. This implies that in their first year at university, females and males may have different expectations of their coursework, and different approaches to their roles and responsibilities, and that these differences are likely to change during their coursework period. The pre-service teachers’ expectations

about their roles and responsibilities as learners are also relevant to this study because it will influence their approach to studying and learning.

Gender, therefore, has potential implications for this study in terms of sample of participants and the pre-service teachers’ decision to teach. Ideally, the sample or participants in the study should be from both genders or at least representative of the male/female ratios in pre-service teacher education. The decision to teach has implications because pre-service teachers may feel their personalities, qualities or skills—such as compassion and caring—are more suited to the profession. The compassionate and caring dispositions may also influence their beliefs and

understanding about teaching and teacher’s work as being somewhat intuitive and natural and based on teacher personality rather than academic and pedagogical knowledge (Sheridan, 2013). Hence, it is important to identify pre-service teachers reasons for wanting to teach and skills they believe they have that are suited to teaching.

The ethnicity and socioeconomic status of pre-service and in-service teachers show that currently, they are a homogenous group: white, Anglo-Celtic, monolingual and lower-middle class (DEST, 2004; Hodgkinson, 2002; McInnis et al., 2000; McKoy- Lowery & Pace, 2002; Ryan, Carrington, Selva, & Healy, 2009; Scottish Executive, 2005). However, in the USA, the typical classroom that newly graduated teachers will face, 25 per cent of students live in poverty, 10–20 per cent have learning difficulties, 15 per cent are speakers of languages other than English and approximately 40 per cent are members of a minority race or ethnic background (Darling-Hammond, 2006; Sleeter, 2001). Kumar and Hamer (2012) reported that the US predicts that by 2035, half of the school aged population will be students of colour, while the majority of teachers will remain white, monolingual, middle class and female. The significance of this gap between pre-service and in-service teachers and their students is its effect on their expectations and approaches to teaching diverse students.

According to Kumar and Hamer (2012), pre and in-service teachers have very little cross-cultural background, knowledge or experiences. Other studies have found pre-service teachers often harbour stereotypical views of diverse students’ attitudes to school and learning (Decastro-Ambrossetti & Cho, 2011; Kumar & Hamer, 2012; Ryan et al., 2009), limited visions of multicultural teaching and many pre-service teachers are unsure and apprehensive about teaching diverse students (Down & Wooltorton, 2004; Lee, 2001; Ryan et al., 2009; Sharplin, 2002). Sleeter (2001, p. 95) also refers to this as ‘colour blindness’ and it depicts a deficit view of learning, which implies that some pre- service teachers form the opinion that certain students have personal histories and preconceived abilities based on ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic background that predisposes them to learning difficulties. As such, pre-service teachers may often believe any learning difficulties are situated with the learner (McKay, Carrington & Iyer, 2014). A number of researchers have found that pre-service teachers tended to have lower expectations of students from diverse backgrounds, influencing pre-service teachers provision of instruction (Darling-Hammond, 2006; Decastro-Ambrossetti & Cho, 2011; Jordan, 1995; Kumar & Hamer, 2012; Lowery & Pace, 2002).

McKay, Carrington, and Iyer (2014) conducted a single case study of an Australian pre-service teacher’s journey to becoming an inclusive educator, and revealed it was a ‘messy’ transformation that was neither one-dimensional nor linear, but rather ‘rhizomatic: growing and changing, sometimes returning to the original forms and then growing and changing in a new direction or remaining dormant ready to grow at another time’ (p. 190). McKay et al. (2014) concluded that their pre-service teacher’s journey required negotiation and critical reflections on the structural, political and personal obstacles, in order to create an inclusive learning climate. McKay et al. (2014) claimed being a critical and reflective practitioner was important for pre-service

influences that impede the development of an inclusive learning environment, professional growth and teacher identity.

In Australia, inclusivity legislation and teacher registration standards indicate that teachers need to learn to teach increasingly diverse groups. Pre-service teachers’ ethnicity is relevant to my study because I need to understand their perceptions of diverse students—in the form of stereotypical and biased views based on ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic background. Additionally, it would also be important to identify the degree to which the pre-service teachers report learning about the impact of gender, inclusivity, equity and multicultural teaching approaches as advocated in the pre-service teacher education programs. Finally, ethnicity may need to be reflected in the sample of participants in the same way as gender, ideally represented in the same ratios as is common in the population of pre-service teachers.

Discussion of the academic backgrounds of pre-service teachers included years of schooling and entry requirements for teacher education programs (DET., 2004; Lanier & Little, 1986; Lortie, 1975; McInnis et al., 2000). McInnis et al. (2000) claimed that 74 per cent of Australian undergraduates had completed 12 years of schooling. In Western Australia, the most common entrance requirement for teacher education was the year 12 aggregated exam score, commonly referred to as the Tertiary Entrance Exam (TEE) pre-2000, and the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) post-2001. Recently, Australian and teacher education institutes around the world have accepted entry to university through university preparation courses, acknowledgement of prior learning or via interviews to ascertain suitability. According to Fenwick and Cooper (2013) and Lortie (1975), pre-service teachers’ recent school experiences or extensive, emotional memories of school experiences have a significant influence on their

approach to university learning and their beliefs about teaching and teachers. Fenwick and Cooper (2013) call this a ‘habitus that has been extensively defined by the culture

and social contexts of the family as well as educational experiences within school environments’ (p. 99). Views about teaching are based on experiences with authority figures such as parents, coaches and teachers (Feiman-Nemser & Remillard, 1994; Hammerness et al., 2012).

Lortie (1975) described the 12 years of prior schooling experience as an

‘apprenticeship of observation’, whereby pre-service teachers have witnessed models of teaching, teachers’ communication skills, how children (themselves included) learn and what should be taught. School experiences of pre-service teachers often view content or subject matter as being a fixed set of facts, concepts and skills and teaching as

transmission of information (Walker, Brownlee, Exley, Woods, & Whiteford, 2011). A number of studies have found these beliefs and models of teaching to be well-

established and implicit, and often remain stable throughout the pre-service teacher education (Moulding, Stewart, & Dunmeyer, 2014; Rinke et al., 2014; Weiner & Cohen, 2003). Indeed, both positive and negative school experiences are often the catalyst for deciding to teach (Cheng, Tang, & Cheng, 2014; Wagner & Imanual-Noy, 2014). Rinke et al. (2014) concluded that it was paramount for teacher education programs to identify, acknowledge and perhaps disrupt preconceived ideas about teaching, learning and knowing in order for more transformative understanding about teaching and learning to develop.

Identifying prior school experiences and the degree to which pre-service teachers believe their prior schooling has influenced their concept of teaching and learning will also be relevant to my study. Additionally, it will be important to ascertain the impact of teacher education coursework and delivery on pre-service teachers’ beliefs about teaching and whether they experience any disruptions to their beliefs as a