Agency and conformity in school-based teacher training

Concern has been expressed that the current climate in schools militates against trainee teachers' self-directed development. This article explores the issue of trainees' capacity for self-direction through the analysis of interviews with 32 trainees, investigating their perceived proactive social strategies. Three proactive strategies were identified: 'tactical compliance', personalising advice, and seeking out opportunities to exercise control. It is argued that these strategies are indicative of trainees' drive to establish a personal teaching identity through self-directed development and the creation of individual development agendas. The article concludes by emphasising the importance of the development of proactive social skills in beginning teachers. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

An Examination of the factors that shape the subjectivities of female art students in Initial Teacher Training

The school subject of Art and the profession of the primary school teacher are gendered female and both are considered low status within the field of Education and other professional areas of society. A number of sociological studies have examined the impact of gendered socialisation and habitus on females’ career choices and various educational initiatives have been put in place over the years to encourage females to select subjects and/or pursue career paths normally associated with males. Yet Art and primary school teaching continue to be a popular choice with middle class girls. Based on a critical ethnographic study of female BAED Art students, who are training to be primary school teachers, this study is an examination of the many factors, historically and contemporaneously that have shaped and continue to shape the subjectivities of females and frame their aspirations and ambitions. Within this discourse significant aspects of the history of Art and Art Education that have contributed to and influenced the construction of the female artist, and their consequent impact on artistically talented females’ personal identity as artists, are also examined.

How initial vocational education and training (IVET) teachers in Sweden perceive their prospects of being able to prepare upper secondary school pupils for a future occupation

Vocational teachers in Swedish upper secondary schools are a heterogeneous category of teachers, connected to different types of trade. These teachers represent a broad set of trade skills varying in content and character. In their teacher role, they continue to wear the clothes, speak the language, share the culture and remain mentally in their former professions. Still, it is central that they keep up this contact to be able to school the pupils into the environment of the trade in question, but also to help them to understand what skills a profession demands. However, the individual teacher also has to distance himself from the negative elements in the culture of the profession: patterns and habits that, for various reasons, have to be broken or changed. This paper draws attention to the ways in which a group of vocational teachers, who were participants in a project that aimed to train unauthorized vocational teachers, expressed their ambitions to prepare the pupils for a future professional career. When collecting information, we used the degree dissertations they produced and discussed in seminars, and informal dialogues. The result shows that it is important that the instruction location resembles a real working site as far as possible. These places are more or less realistic copies of a garage, a restaurant kitchen, a hairdressing salon, and so on, in order to give the pupils a realistic setting for instruction. However, the fact that these simulated workplaces lack the necessary support functions that exist in a company creates problems, problems which make a lot of extra work for the teachers. Vocational teachers also have to instruct the pupil in the experienced practitioner’s professional skills and working situation, but the pupil herself/himself must learn the job by doing it in practice. Some vocational upper secondary programs lack relevant course literature and the businesses give little support. This also makes extra work for the teachers. Moreover, the distance between the vocational programs and the trainee jobs was experienced as being difficult to overcome. One reason seems to be differences between businesses and differing preconditions between small and big companies’ abilities to take care of these pupils. The upper secondary school vocational programs also play a role in cementing existing gender roles, as well as perpetuating class-related patterns on the labour market.

Must teachers be social workers, as well …? : Reflections on the current teacher role in the Swedish upper secondary school and how it affects teacher training

The Swedish upper secondary school has made a transition from a school for the elite to be a school for everybody. When almost every youth nowadays chooses to continue studying, for some of them this is not what they want to do most of all. However, as there in practice is no choice, there come up problems and many upper secondary school teachers experience a growing frustration. We will here discuss some aspects of the following questions: -  How do upper secondary schoolteachers handle their working-conditions in a new situation? - What possible consequences do this have on teacher education?

How initial vocational education and training (IVET) teachers in Sweden perceive their prospects of being able to prepare upper secondary school pupils for a future occupation

Vocational teachers in Swedish upper secondary schools are a heterogeneous category of teachers, connected to different types of trade. These teachers represent a broad set of trade skills varying in content and character. In their teacher role, they continue to wear the clothes, speak the language, share the culture and remain mentally in their former professions. Still, it is central that they keep up this contact to be able to school the pupils into the environment of the trade in question, but also to help them to understand what skills a profession demands. However, the individual teacher also has to distance himself from the negative elements in the culture of the profession: patterns and habits that, for various reasons, have to be broken or changed. This paper draws attention to the ways in which a group of vocational teachers, who were participants in a project that aimed to train unauthorized vocational teachers, expressed their ambitions to prepare the pupils for a future professional career. When collecting information, we used the degree dissertations they produced and discussed in seminars, and informal dialogues. The result shows that it is important that the instruction location resembles a real working site as far as possible. These places are more or less realistic copies of a garage, a restaurant kitchen, a hairdressing salon, and so on, in order to give the pupils a realistic setting for instruction. However, the fact that these simulated workplaces lack the necessary support functions that exist in a company creates problems, problems which make a lot of extra work for the teachers. Vocational teachers also have to instruct the pupil in the experienced practitioner’s professional skills and working situation, but the pupil herself/himself must learn the job by doing it in practice. Some vocational upper secondary programs lack relevant course literature and the businesses give little support. This also makes extra work for the teachers. Moreover, the distance between the vocational programs and the trainee jobs was experienced as being difficult to overcome. One reason seems to be differences between businesses and differing preconditions between small and big companies’ abilities to take care of these pupils. The upper secondary school vocational programs also play a role in cementing existing gender roles, as well as perpetuating class-related patterns on the labour market.

Special Education and the Risk of Becoming Less Educated in Germany and the United States. CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 05.1, 13 December, 2004

Over the twentieth century, a growing group of students has been transferred into considerably expanded special education systems. These programs serve children with diagnosed impairments and disabilities and students with a variety of learning difficulties. Children and youth “with special educational needs” constitute a heterogeneous group with social, ethnic, linguistic, and physical disadvantages. An increasingly large percentage of those students at risk of leaving school without credentials participate in special education, a highly legitimated low status (and stigmatizing) school form. While most countries commit themselves to school integration or inclusive education to replace segregated schools and separate classes, cross-national and regional comparisons of special education’s diverse student bodies show considerable disparities in their (1) rates of classification, (2) provided learning opportunities, and (3) educational attainments. Analyzing special education demographics and organizational structures indicates which children and youth are most likely to grow up less educated and how educational systems distribute educational success and failure. Findings from a German-American comparison show that which students bear the greatest risk of becoming less educated depends largely on definitions of “special educational needs” and the institutionalization of special education systems.

Teacher training in the university high school

Mode of access: Internet.

Farm purchasing and marketing, study units. Bureau of Vocational Curriculum Development and Industrial Teacher Training.

Mode of access: Internet.

Influencing human interaction in public schools : studies of IPR effectiveness as an inservice teacher training program /

Research performed under contract with the National Institute of Mental Health.

Teacher training : status and participants' views of Delta Teachers Academy : report to Congressional requesters /

"B-361474"--P. 1.

Child study for teacher-training,

Mode of access: Internet.

Special Education Teachers’ Narratives on Literacy Support for Bilingual Students with Dyslexia in Swedish Compulsory Schools

The aim of the study is to investigate how special education teachers talk about their teaching in relation to bilingual students with dyslexia within Swedish compulsory schools. Data consist of transcripts from in-depth interviews with 15 special education teachers. According to the teacher narratives, the special education services appeared to be biased against bilingual students, as the support provided to bilingual students with dyslexia was revealed to be more or less the same as that provided to monolingual Swedish-speaking students with dyslexia. This bias is discussed in relation to the notion of difference blindness as well as in relation to practical constraints. Nevertheless, the teachers strongly advocated collaborative work with mother tongue teachers in order to facilitate dyslexia identification in bilingual students and to gain a more comprehensive picture of their language and literacy competencies, which is a desire that contrasts and contests a pedagogical monolingual master model within special education services.