This article reports on a systematic review of the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices research literature published between 1990 and 2012. Self-study research refers to teacher educators researching their practice with the purpose of improving it, making explicit and validating their professional expertise and, at the same time, contributing to the knowledge base of teacher education. Reflecting our analysis, we defined self-study as a research approach in the field of teacher education which can be typified by the following characteristics: self-study research focuses on one's own practice; for this reason, it privileges the use of qualitative research methods; collaborative interactions play a central role in the research process; and its validation is based on trustworthiness. Furthermore, we identified two tensions inherent in the self-study work, on which researchers always and continuously need to position themselves for self-study inquiries to achieve its purposes: the tension between relevance and rigour on the one hand, and that of effectiveness and understanding on the other hand.
h i g h l i g h t sThe relation between teacher educators' positioning and their practices. Professionalism manifests itself in teacher educators' actions and behaviors. A close examination of teacher educators' normative beliefs is essential.
a b s t r a c tThis study connects to the international call for research on teacher educator professionalism. Combining positioning theory with the personal interpretative framework, we examined the relationship between teacher educators' positioning and their teacher education practices. The interpretative analysis of qualitative data from twelve experienced Flemish teacher educators revealed three teacher educator positionings: a teacher educator of 'pedagogues', a teacher educator of reflective teachers, and a teacher educator of subject teachers. Each positioning constitutes a coherent pattern of normative beliefs about good teaching and teacher education, the preferred relationships with student teachers, and valuable methods and strategies to enact these beliefs.
This article reports on a two-year study of a self-study research group facilitation. The research group was designed as a professional development project in which six experienced teacher educators investigated their practices using a selfstudy approach. The pedagogical rationale of the facilitation was based on four broadly shared theoretical principles on how teacher educators can effectively work on their professional development. These theoretical principles were translated in a series of propositions ('if … then …') making clear the implications these principles held for the interventions of facilitators of teacher educator professional development. Qualitative content analysis of the audiotapes of the research group meetings, the facilitators' logbooks and all the written materials produced during the project serves as an empirical validation and refinement of these principles. The findings are presented as amendments to the original propositions. By interpretatively discussing why these propositions functioned as they did in practice, we contribute to the development of a pedagogy of teacher educator professional development.
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