Transcript PCET etc. in SDP

Stepping Out Programme
Professionalism
in Lifelong Learning sector
Teacher Education
Supporting Teacher Educators Partnership
Professionalism in LL Teacher Education
Gender balance
• FE teachers in general are, in addition to being mainly
white and middle-aged, predominantly female.
• As FE teacher educators are overwhelmingly drawn from
this constituency, in some ways it would seem logical
that they too are mainly women. (Simmons and
Thompson 2007)
• LLUK workforce data (LLUK 2010) - percentage of FT FE
teaching staff who are female has been about 59% since
2004/5.
• Teacher Ed – some 77% of LLS Teacher Educators are
female (Crawley 2010)
Professionalism in LL Teacher Education
The LL Sector context
• The FE teacher educator is highly likely to be a woman;
to have a heavy and varied teaching load; to be
implementing a curriculum over which she has had little
influence; and to be grappling with the problems
imposed by limited resources.
• Although she may value the consonance between the
qualities perceived to be required by her role and her
constructions of feminine professional identity, she is
positioned as an operative within an increasingly
mechanistic, performatively focused model of teacher
education. (Simmons and Thompson 2007: p 530)
Professionalism in LL Teacher Education
The LL Sector context
• Critically, unlike schools ITT, where the pre-service
model predominates, FE teacher training is
predominantly based upon an in-service system, as is
HE. ITT is a consequence of becoming employed in a
college, usually after many years of gaining experience in
another occupation.
• FE teacher training qualifications have evolved to meet
the needs of a much more diverse group of
trainees.(Lucas and Nasta 2011: p 446)
• The fragmented and impoverished professional culture in
FE is well documented … many college workplaces
present a barrier to professional development. (Lucas
and Nasta 2011: pp46.7)
Professionalism in LL Teacher Education
The ‘making’ and ‘taking’ of professionalism
• Both present and past governments have tried to
professionalise teachers by imposing national standards
and regulations.(Lucas and Nasta 2011: p 448)
• Gleeson (2005: p 446) uses the term ‘making’ to refer to
the external structural forces, most significantly
interventions by government to shape professionalism.
• The term ‘taking’ refers to the role of the agency of FE
teachers as unwitting recipients of external policy
imperatives in shaping and defining their own definitions
of what it means to be a professional FE teacher.
Bibliography
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Crawley, J. (2010) Infinite patience and the capacity to
challenge self and others' actions and values . Presentation at
UCET National Conference. London: UCET
Gleeson, D. 2005a. On the making and taking of
professionalism in the further education workplace. British
Journal of Sociology of Education 26, no. 4: 239–46.
Lucas, Norman and Nasta, Tony(2010) 'State regulation and
the professionalisation of further education teachers: a
comparison with schools and HE', Journal of Vocational
Education & Training, 62: 4, 441 — 454
Simmons, R. and Thompson R. (2007) Teacher educators in
post-compulsory education: gender, discourse and power.
Journal of Vocational Education and Training Vol. 59, No. 4,
December 2007, pp. 517–533