This paper reports findings from a study of support provided by non-school-based mentors of secondary science teachers in England. It focuses on the identity development of beginning teachers of physics, some of the recipients of the mentoring. Drawing on the analysis of interview and case study data, and utilising third space theory, the authors show how external mentors (experienced, subject specialist teachers who were not based in the same schools as the teachers they were supporting) facilitated opportunities for mentees to negotiate and shape their professional identities, and made valuable contributions to three distinct and important aspects of beginning teachers' identity development. The paper argues that non-judgemental support from external mentors enhances beginner teachers' professional learning and identity development through the creation of a discursive 'third' space in which mentees are able to openly discuss professional learning and development needs, discuss alternatives to performative norms and take risks in classrooms. Opportunities for beginner teachers to engage in such activities are often restricted in and by the current climate of schooling and teacher education within England.Keywords: beginning teachers; external mentoring; teacher identity; teaching physics; third space Introduction This paper is based upon an analysis and theorisation of a subset of data generated for an original study of external mentor support for teachers in England (Hobson et al. 2012). We use the term 'external mentor' to refer to an experienced teacher who has the same subject specialism but is not employed in the same school as the teacher they are supporting. The interaction between external mentor and mentee may take place within and/or outside of the mentee's school, and may be face-toface and/or remote. The data analysed relate to mentoring support on two programmes. First, a pilot programme of regional mentoring for participants undertaking the Physics Enhancement Programme, a subject knowledge enhancement (SKE) programme for non-specialist beginning teachers of secondary physics (Shepherd 2008 'how teachers define themselves to themselves and to others ' (Lasky 2005, 901). In particular, we show how working with a subject specialist educator operating in a purely supportive role can enable beginning teachers of physics to overcome challenges associated with three important features of identity development. In so doing, we suggest that 'third space' (Bhabha 1990) provides a valuable theoretical lens to 10 understand how external mentors facilitated the emergence of new dialogic spaces, within which the beginner teachers were enabled to better understand and negotiate their professional identities. Understanding how pre-service and early career teachers shape and can be helped to develop their professional identities is an important consideration to all who work with them, not least because of the interplay between tea-15 cher identity and teacher resilience, teacher well-being and teacher effective...
The teacher preparation landscape in England has been subject to radical policy change. Since 2010 the policy agenda has repositioned initial teacher preparation as a craft best learnt through observation and imitation of teachers in school settings. Simultaneously a market based approach to the recruitment of pre-service teachers has led to significant changes for prospective entrants to the profession. In the enactment of policy between 2010-2015, the roles of universities and voices of prospective teachers were systematically silenced. Using critical discourse analysis we demonstrate how both actors have been positioned in, and have accommodated and resisted, the current policy discourses. These findings highlight the importance of problematizing and understanding these emerging issues at local and international levels.
This report presents the findings of our review of the evidence base on comparative practices of teacher selection and recruitment, specifically on the different mechanisms countries use to assess teacher readiness to take up teaching posts, with particular emphasis on testing or examinations.1 It is intended that the report will be helpful to countries or states that are looking to review their existing methods of recruiting and selecting teachers, and to those who are advising them.
This article reports a study of the barriers faced by headteachers seeking to include young people categorised as asylum seekers and refugees into secondary schools in England. We trace the new discourses and assemblages of authority created at city level by recent policy changes. Drawing on in-depth interviews with headteachers, we share their experiences of navigating layered ecologies of systemic challenges to their inclusive stance towards provision for newly arrived children. We argue that structural and policy moves in England towards greater emphasis on controlling (im)migration and economistic measures of educational performance, alongside centralised funding and governance and the reduction of place-based regional autonomy, have led to greater invisibility of ASR pupils and to greater vulnerability and visibility/accountability of school leaders. These changes have had an adverse impact on inclusion in English schools and cities.
Within the current global refugee crisis this paper emphasises the fundamental role of education in facilitating the integration of young new arrivals. It argues that a humanitarian crisis of such scale requires a commensurate humanitarian response in the form of socially-just educational policies and practices in resettlement contexts within Europe. Utilising the theoretical concepts of Fraser's 'participatory parity' and Kohli's 'resumption of an ordinary life' we explore educational policy making in Sweden and England, noting how the framing of these policies indicates how different nation states view their role in the global migration crisis. In England, child refugees are rendered invisible and not a legitimate focus of national educational policy whereas in Sweden they are foregrounded in policy discourse though not necessarily in policy enactment. The paper concludes that newly arrived future citizens of Europe require socially-just policy and practice to best serve their and their resettlement context's best interests.
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