653/156
• • • • • •
professional standards, training and qualifications for FE and HE teachers; the nature of their knowledge, work and practices; professional identities and communities; opportunities and strategies for professional development and renewal; key debates in the literature and the most significant policy developments; the main challenges currently facing the teaching profession in further and higher eduaction.
The shape and nature of professional standards for FE and HE teachers are changing constantly. This book provides an up-to-date account of developments and brings together arguments and debates about both groups of teachers in an attempt to challenge some strongly held beliefs. Student teachers, teacher trainers, practitioners, academics and policy-makers within the field of post-compulsory education and training will find it valuable reading.
HIGHER EDUCATION / FURTHER EDUCATION
Teacher Professionalism in Further and Higher Education Challenges to culture and practice
JOCELYN ROBSON
Jocelyn Robson is Reader/Principal Research Fellow in post-compulsory education, Institute for Policy Studies in Education, London Metropolitan University, UK.
Teacher Professionalism in Further and Higher Education
Focusing on aspects of teachers’ professionalism, this book considers what ‘professionalism’ may mean and ways in which ‘profession’ has been studied. It goes on to consider:
Challenges to culture and practice
It is very rarely that teachers from both further and higher education are considered together. This book explores the differences and contrasts that exist across and within both groups.
JOCELYN ROBSON WWW.ROUTLEDGE.COM/EDUCATION PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
Teacher Professionalism in Further and Higher Education: Challenges to culture and practice
It is very rarely that teachers from both further and higher education are considered together. This book explores the differences and contrasts that exist across and within both groups. Focusing on aspects of teachers’ professionalism, this book considers what ‘professionalism’ may mean and ways in which ‘profession’ has been studied. It goes on to consider: •
professional standards, training and qualifications for FE and HE teachers; • the nature of their knowledge, work and practices; • professional identities and communities; • opportunities and strategies for professional development and renewal; • key debates in the literature and the most significant policy developments; • the main challenges currently facing the teaching profession in further and higher education. The shape and nature of professional standards for FE and HE teachers are changing constantly. This book provides an up-to-date account of developments and brings together arguments and debates about both groups of teachers in an attempt to challenge some strongly held beliefs. Student teachers, teacher trainers, practitioners, academics and policy-makers within the field of post-compulsory education and training will find it valuable reading. Jocelyn Robson is Reader/Principal Research Fellow in post-compulsory education, Institute for Policy Studies in Education, London Metropolitan University, UK.
Teacher Professionalism in Further and Higher Education Challenges to culture and practice
Jocelyn Robson
First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Taylor & Francis Inc 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2006 Jocelyn Robson Typeset in Times and Gill Sans by Taylor & Francis Books Printed and bound in Great Britain by The Cromwell Press, Trowbridge, Wiltshire All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0–415–33166–8 (hbk) ISBN 0–415–33167–6 (pbk) ISBN 13 9–78–0–415–33166–8 (hbk) ISBN 13 9–78–0–415–33167–6 (pbk)
Taylor & Francis Group is the Academic Division of T&F Informa plc.
To my students
Contents
Acknowledgements Introduction 1 Meanings of professionalism
viii 1 7
2 Standards, training and qualifications
25
3 Teachers’ work
45
4 Teachers’ communities and identities
65
5 Continuing development for teachers
83
6 Encountering the future Glossary Bibliography Index
106 127 131 144
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to colleagues who have contributed thoughts and information (in some cases unwittingly!) to the accounts and arguments in this book. In particular, I wish to thank Simon Appleton, Sue Saxby-Smith, Geoff Stanton, Dan Taubman and Paul Tosey. I am particularly grateful to Bill Bailey, my (fearless) critical reader, for his attention to detail and his encouragement throughout. The responsibility for any errors remains mine.
Introduction
My job is not my work. (Schied and Howell, 2003, p. 9)
This is a book about teachers. It is about teachers who typically think of themselves as something more or something different, as academics or lecturers, as engineers, nurses, geographers, personnel managers, chemists, designers, philosophers or chefs. They teach and deliver courses (or parts of courses) that may be full-time or part-time, distance or attendance, virtual, credit based, modular, work or classroom based. These courses may be professional and interdisciplinary; they may be academic. The staff are based in colleges and universities but may teach also in prisons or in the workplace. They may be teaching in teams or quite independently of others. They may be teaching small groups of students or individual students in tutorials; they may be teaching groups of several hundred. They teach basic skills, such as literacy or numeracy; they also teach doctoral students. With the exception of some in further education (who now teach 14–16 year olds), these teachers work with adults and young adults who are above the school leaving age. Older students (over the age of 19) now comprise over three-quarters of those in further education (LSC, 2004a) and are also entering higher education in larger numbers than previously (NCIHE, 1997). The received wisdom is that these students have all chosen to be there, and it is this that often draws the trainee teacher to the post-compulsory educational environment. However, there are some choices that are hard to make and some that are not, and for many young people the alternative to continuing in education or training, for example, may be unemployment with no entitlement to benefit. The alternative to university may also be less attractive and more difficult to access than it once was, with evidence that many employers increasingly tend to regard a degree as the minimum qualification for work (Wolf, 2002). My imagined readers are probably teachers themselves, or people with a close interest in the work and experience of teachers, such as policy-makers. My reader is someone who, like me, has found themselves questioning the
2
Introduction
ambiguities and inconsistencies that exist in the world of post-compulsory education and training, from the teacher’s perspective. The book is not an attempt to answer or clarify all the questions that arise. I am concerned in the first place to identify and map the contrasts and differences, and where possible, to suggest explanations and explore their meanings and impacts. I became a teacher by accident. In pursuing a subject that interested and still interests me, I sought work as a means of support. That work was teaching. In this regard, I am like many of my peers. My first teaching appointment was as a part-time tutor in an adult education institute, in inner London. I moved to a full-time teaching job at a further education college mostly to secure a salary in order to finish my doctorate. From there, I moved into higher education and took up training teachers for post-compulsory education, most of whom, like me, had earlier felt committed to something else. My experience of higher education began in a college of education, which merged with a polytechnic and, in 1992, became a ‘new’ university. I moved a few years ago to a so-called ‘old’ university and recently returned to a ‘new’ university. I still work with teachers, both new and experienced. As I have moved across the range of institutions and curricula that constitute the post-school phase of education, I have frequently been struck by differences in the understandings of what it means to be a teacher in these places. At times, there has seemed to be little commonality or coherence in these understandings and most would conventionally accept that a clear divide does (and should) separate those who work in further education, for example, from those in higher education. In its creation of a Learning and Skills Sector for England, embracing all post-16 education and training except that carried out in universities, the government has apparently underlined this separation. In April 2001, the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) and its 47 local LSCs took over responsibility for funding, on a regional basis, both FE colleges and government-supported workplace training in England, as well as post-16 provision in schools and sixth form colleges and adult and community learning. The LSC, unlike the Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) which previously funded the FE colleges, has planning powers and responsibilities and the potential at least to create effective links between local labour market needs and local education and training provision (Stanton and Bailey, 2001). The FE colleges form by far the largest part of the new sector. The teachers in other parts of the new sector come from backgrounds that are just as diverse and may be employed by private companies, schools or adult education institutes. They may be self-employed. There is certainly a case for exploring the professionalism of all these teachers, but in this book I have chosen to focus on teachers in further education and to compare and contrast their situation with that of teachers in higher education, because these sectors best reflect my interests and my professional experience.
Introduction
3
For similar reasons, I focus on England and on teachers in English further and higher education. Though it is often appropriate to make mention of UK-wide developments and policies, there is no attempt to draw comparisons with other countries in a systematic way. However, I hope readers outside England may nevertheless find the chapters interesting and may be able to draw on their own experience to make analogies. There have always been some similarities in the nature of the teacher’s work and experiences across further and higher educational environments in England and some things have always marked them apart from school teachers. The similarities amongst them are increasing with, for example, the growth of HE work in FE colleges, the advent of jointly delivered Foundation Degrees and an increasing number of collaborations and regional partnerships. Both HE and FE have experienced more official scrutiny in recent years, in the form of inspections and audit. Both have come under recent pressure to deliver a skilled workforce for economic competitiveness. A joint Sector Skills Council (called Lifelong Learning UK) has now been launched; this is an employer-led body claiming to embrace the interests of all those involved in post-compulsory education and training, including universities. All the teachers I am concerned with here teach adults or young adults. Currently, there is pressure on universities to widen access to greater numbers from the lower socio-economic groups. Though patterns of HE participation according to social class still appear fairly stable, mature student numbers are increasing, as noted previously, particularly in the post1992 universities. This group (aged 19–30) are less likely to have (or to be required to have) traditional entry qualifications (Archer et al., 2003). To the extent that such students may be older, may not have A levels or may have experienced disruptions to their schooling, they are becoming more like their peers in further or adult education. Where did the differences between FE and HE teachers originally come from? Lowe (2002) describes the way the establishment of technical colleges by the new local education authorities at the beginning of the twentieth century met demand for technical training at a local level. Some of these colleges offered University of London external degrees and were thus able to soak up demand for vocational courses that the new ‘redbrick’ universities of the time were not willing or able to meet. Thus, Lowe argues, hierarchies were built in at the start and sustained for much of the twentieth century. He quotes from the 1945 Percy Report on higher technological education: ‘industry must look mainly to universities for the training of scientists, both for research and development; it must look mainly to the technical colleges for technical assistants and craftsmen’ (cited in Lowe, 2002, p. 81). In this way, it was envisaged, the needs of a stratified employment market could be met and class interests protected. During the early decades of the twentieth century, in their pursuit of status as they perceived it, some
4
Introduction
of the redbrick universities drifted away from their original purpose of meeting local employment needs. In contrast, the majority of technical colleges retained their local character (Bailey, 2000). Their students were typically (but not exclusively) already in work and often attended college on release from their employment. This contrasted with the residential pattern of full-time attendance at the national universities, which even now remains an important ‘rite of passage’ for many young middle-class people. In Britain, only certain kinds of knowledge have conventionally been valued. The defining characteristic of FE for so long was that it provided vocational education. It is this aspect still (notwithstanding recent moves to put vocational subjects into schools) that marks it as different from the school sector. Some argue it is this feature, too, that accounts most for its low status, in a culture that favours the academic over the vocational (DES, 1991; Raggatt and Williams, 1999). There is, of course, a rich tradition of vocational higher education, including sandwich degrees, work placements and professional training, for example, in subjects such as clinical medicine and engineering (Brown et al., 2004) but to the extent that the newer, redbrick universities (and more recently those institutes that were set up as polytechnics after 1966) have been able to develop their academic as opposed to their vocational provision, they have come to be seen as more serious players. Although it is clear that policy-makers are determined to enhance the status of vocational provision in England (Stanton and Bailey, 2001), there is also a danger that in any attempted unification of the curriculum, academic norms (for example, in relation to assessment) will predominate. As pupils and students move through the education system in Britain, they experience not only enhanced levels of study but also an increasingly diversified curriculum. In primary school, for example, there is little subject differentiation; in secondary school, such differences become clearly marked. In the post-compulsory sectors of twenty-first-century Britain, it seems it is possible to study almost anything. Misconceptions about the greater difficulty of teaching subjects at ‘higher’ levels of the post-school curriculum may engender snobbery about what the work entails. In addition, as specialisation increases, and bodies of knowledge become more complex, the lack of a common purpose, sense of professionalism or culture amongst the teachers of those subjects becomes more evident. In contrast, the existence of a National Curriculum, compulsory pupil attendance and a graduate-only entry to the profession make for greater coherence and more commonality of interest amongst school teachers. Both higher and further education in the UK now have distinctly fuzzy boundaries. The recent arrival of 14–16 year olds in some FE colleges (usually on vocational courses) has put some teachers in a quite anomalous position with regard to their training and qualifications. Though FE colleges comprise by far the largest part of the new Learning and Skills Sector in England, they now compete for students and funding with other post-compulsory provision in their area, such as
Introduction
5
local sixth form colleges, adult education institutes or private training providers. Higher education is not a unified concept either. In England, for example, the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE) funds 131 higher education institutions, of which only 77 are universities; it also funds work in 162 further education colleges, where degree courses are on offer. More than three times as many students attend FE colleges as universities, but the ‘royal route’ to higher education dominates debate about 14–30 education and training (Brown et al., 2004). My rationale for looking at both further and higher education together is itself, therefore, based on a particular understanding of the current landscape. The two are not usually discussed together; writers about further education (and the Learning and Skills Sector) do not usually concern themselves with higher education, and the same is true in reverse: writers about higher education are not usually conversant with issues facing further education. There are a few exceptions (for example, work by Zukas and Malcolm (2002a, 2002b) on pedagogies for lifelong learning, which attempts to straddle this divide) but in general, when writers refer to post-compulsory education or even lifelong learning, there is a tendency for them to exclude higher education altogether. The field of ‘higher education studies’ is new and still emerging (Tight, 2004) but it has grown quickly and developed fairly discreet preoccupations, with these tending to be couched in specific terms that do not transfer easily to the other culture (for example, the ‘scholarship of teaching and learning’, a concept that is discussed in Chapter 3). A set of ideas encompassed by the word ‘profession’ provides the framework for the book, a way of thinking about teaching as an occupation. Thus, following a discussion of the meanings of professionalism, I have looked at professional standards, training and qualifications for FE and HE teachers, at the nature of their knowledge, work and practices, at their professional identities and communities and at their opportunities and strategies for professional development and renewal. My approach is to review the key debates in the literature and the most significant policy developments, comparing and contrasting the assumptions and preoccupations, attempting both a synoptic and a critical stance. As well as seeking to challenge underlying prejudices or the unwitting perpetuation of confusions and inequalities, for example, my purpose is also to provide an up-to-date account of recent developments, and this has not been easy. At the current time, writing about professional standards for FE and HE teachers, their organisations or their training is like trying to bottle moonshine – the shape and nature of these things are changing constantly and the reader will need to bear this in mind. In the final chapter of the book, I take a step back and attempt a more detailed analysis of the reasons for the differences and inconsistencies that set the two groups of teachers apart. I also set out challenges, as I see them, for the immediate future, drawing on the content of the previous chapters and
6
Introduction
elaborating a selected set of topical concerns (marketisation, the shifting boundaries between sectors, training requirements, new technology, and the ever-changing configuration of our various professional organisations). Inevitably, therefore, this is a book about contrasts and differences. It is an attempt to address the meaning and impact of differences (in knowledge, practice and status) from the perspective of the teachers themselves. It is also my hope that groups of teachers, previously separated by ideologies and ways of thinking related to the nature of their subject or to its ‘level’, or by the historical positioning of their institutions, will be encouraged to share experiences and expertise.
Chapter 1
Meanings of professionalism
It is paramount that whatever meaning of professionalism is circulating, its meaning is generated and owned by teachers themselves in order that it should have currency among teachers and be useful in improving their public image and social importance. (Sachs, 2003, p. 17)
Introduction This chapter begins with a brief examination of key sociological contributions to an understanding of professionalism in modern, industrial democracies. It is suggested that ‘profession’ is a socially constructed and contested concept, meaning different things to different people at various times. Debates about teacher professionalism, which have traditionally focused on school teachers, are explored here in relation to teachers in the post-compulsory phase of education and training. It is their perspective that informs this discussion. Three constituent ideas of professionalism (autonomy, professional knowledge and responsibility) are discussed in detail and explored in relation to the variety of contexts in which these teachers work.
Sociology and the professions Sociologists have an interest in the activities of groups, amongst other things, and in the distribution of status and power in society, as well as in processes of social change and advancement. The professions have been studied by sociologists from a range of shifting and diverse theoretical viewpoints over a number of decades. In the 1950s, some sociologists stressed the functional importance of the professions in helping to maintain order in society. Those adopting the ‘attribute’ or ‘trait’ approach to the study of professions took to listing the key characteristics of ‘true’ professions (such as ‘autonomy’, ‘altruism’, ‘specialist knowledge’ and ‘responsibility’) and to measuring actual occupational groups against such lists. Becker (1970) identifies the origins of this approach in the work of Flexner (1915). In comparing groups
8
Meanings of professionalism
according to fixed criteria, it was hoped to establish a definitive list of those occupations that might rightfully call themselves ‘professions’. The approach was a sterile one and was widely discredited. Typically, medicine and law tended to be used as the ‘paradigm’ professions and little account was taken of differences in the nature of work amongst occupational groups, or of changes in organisation, social perception and understanding that occur over time. Almost by definition, other occupations would be found wanting. As Dingwall (1976) remarks, ‘the logical outcome of this approach is that a profession is nothing more or less than what some sociologist says it is’ (p. 332). A shift towards a more sceptical interest in the actions and interactions of professional groups was typified by Boys in White, a famous observational study of trainee physicians by Becker et al. (1961). These investigations into the social world of medics revealed more cynicism than altruism and more concern with the power of doctors than with the social good. The new focus on interaction, on what professions actually do in everyday life and within the larger social structure, to negotiate and maintain their special position, was characterised by a refusal to accept at face value the image which professions presented of themselves. Thus Becker (1970) argued that ‘profession’ was not a neutral and scientific concept but a symbol used in many ways by different kinds of people for different reasons. The symbol itself may be divorced from the reality of professional practice. It should be seen as ‘part of the apparatus of the society we study, to be studied by noting how it is used and what role it plays in the operations of that society’ (p. 92). Saks (1983) criticises this interactionist approach to the study of professions for its sporadic and superficial use of empirical data. In addition, he claims, partly because it characteristically dealt with individual practitioners, it failed to explore the structural conditions affecting the growth of professions or their more significant institutional features. The work of Freidson (1970) (which derived from interactionism) attempted to address such structural shortcomings in examining how the medical profession had attained its autonomy. His work became an important model for sociology of the professions in the USA (Macdonald, 1995) but has been criticised for falling into the same trap as that of the attribute theorists, professional autonomy having become, for Freidson, a fundamental criterion for identifying professions (Dingwall, 1976). In Britain, Johnson (1972) was also concerned with the power of professional groups and to the extent that his work focused on exploitative relations between the producer and consumer of professional services, he is seen as coming from a Marxist tradition. Sociologists writing about the professions have also been influenced by Max Weber’s work, particularly his concept of social closure. According to Weber, in seeking to further their own interests, social groups (however they have originated) will attempt both to exclude others from their group and to usurp the privileges of other groups (Weber, 1978). Larson (1977), building
Meanings of professionalism
9
on the work of Weber, formulated the concept of the ‘professional project’. Put simply, this term suggests that the occupational group can seek prestige through its possession and control of a body of abstract knowledge, provided there is a market or potential market for the practical application of that knowledge. In her account, professionalisation is seen as a collective and coherent attempt to translate scarce cognitive resources into social and economic rewards. As Macdonald (1995) elaborates, one aspect of the professional group’s exclusivity is cognitive exclusivity and one important means of achieving closure is credentialism. Thus, such groups certify their members in terms of the knowledge they have acquired, and try to ensure that this knowledge is difficult to obtain. Saks (1983) comments that the neo-Weberian approach gave the opportunity for examining the historical aspects of professionalisation, and for empirical analysis of the socio-political conditions under which groups become professions. However, he claims that the promise of the neo-Weberian school has not been fulfilled since, like the neo-Marxist school, it has not consistently engaged in empirical analyses that might have provided substantiation for arguments put forward.
Professionalism as discourse There is, however, another strand of work emerging in relation to the professions and this draws principally on the ideas of the French philosopher Foucault (1972). The view that knowledge is historically and culturally specific is fundamental to Foucault’s work. He also stresses the constructive power of language and the way language is structured into a number of discourses (Burr, 1995). According to Parker (1990), a discourse is an interrelated set of texts, a coherent system of statements that constructs an object and brings it into being. Discourses are not static (Foucault, 1972) and many can be drawn on simultaneously. They can conflict with other discourses; they support institutions and reproduce power relations (Parker, 1990). Thus, in this context, professionalism is recognised as a constitutive and regulatory ‘discourse’, a cultural and social practice for organising individuals and institutions (Seddon, 1997). Larson (1990) articulates the notion of professionalism as discourse. As mentioned, in her earlier analysis the professional project is seen as the collective attempt by an occupational group to secure control of a body of knowledge and to ensure the translation of this resource into economic returns. If this is to happen, the state must guarantee this relationship through universities, for example, which effectively authorise and credential particular cultural resources as learned and codified discourse. Groups and individuals must then deploy these discourses to create and protect scarcity. Hierarchies will exist because, even within the discursive community itself, only some will have the authority to define what is and is not valid knowledge (Seddon, 1997).
10
Meanings of professionalism
As noted earlier, Becker (1970) described ‘profession’ as a collective symbol that (despite surface disagreements) consists of a set of ideas, or interrelated characteristics, about which there is substantial agreement. As a symbol, ‘profession’ does not describe any actual occupation; rather, it provides a way of thinking about occupations. This is similar to the suggestion by Clarke and Newman (1997) that profession operates as an occupational and organisational strategy. McCulloch et al. (2000) note that “‘profession” is a socially constructed, dynamic and contested term’. It ‘represents judgements that are specific to times and contexts’ and that ‘reflect the different stances of different people and groups in society’ (p. 6). Dingwall (1976) similarly rejects the assumption that ‘profession’ has a fixed meaning. ‘All we can do is to elaborate what it appears to mean to use the term and to list the occasions on which various elaborations are used’ (p. 335). In this sense, discourses of professionalism can be seen to assert particular realities and priorities; at any one time, such a discourse may compete with other discourses, such as that of managerialism, for example. Several recent studies in further education have adopted a discourse analysis approach. Shain and Gleeson (1999), Clow (2001) and Robson et al. (2004) all analyse interview data from FE teacher respondents, around understandings of teacher professionalism. A discourse of professionalism will position subjects in particular ways and offer particular identities through which people come to view their relationships with the different loci of power (Clarke and Newman, 1997; Sachs, 2001). From the postmodernist perspective, commonsense notions of ‘autonomy’ and ‘responsibility’ also come under scrutiny, since they may assume the existence of a unified ‘person’ with unproblematic agency (Burr, 1995). Similarly, the notion of a neutral and fixed body of knowledge for professionals or anyone else (rather than many different kinds of knowledge) is rejected. But such ideas do feature strongly in many accounts of teaching and they are a part of the public understanding of what it may mean to be ‘professional’. Accordingly, they form the basis of the discussion about teaching in the next section.
Teaching as a profession Debates about teacher professionalism have tended to focus on school teaching. In recent years, however, some writers have started to explore the concept in relation to the post-compulsory sectors (e.g. Robson, 1998a; Avis, 1999; Shain and Gleeson, 1999; Light and Cox, 2001; Hodkinson, 2002). The term ‘profession’ is widely contested, as noted already. The traditional concept (of an occupation possessing certain fixed, defining characteristics) is unhelpful and lacks credibility. The approach taken here will be akin to Becker’s (1970) in which a profession is seen as a set of ideas, or a way of thinking about occupations, rather than as a description of any one occupation
Meanings of professionalism
11
itself. Though there may be broad agreement about some of the underlying ideas, these concepts are not fixed or static either and, as Furlong et al. (2000) observe, changes in the nature of knowledge, autonomy and responsibility, for example, can alter the nature of teacher professionalism itself. In the following section, these constituent ideas are discussed from the perspective of teachers in the post-compulsory environment. The interest here lies in the persistence and change of such ideas over time and across the diverse contexts in which these teachers may find themselves. The three concepts of professional knowledge, autonomy and responsibility are often seen as closely related: It is because professionals face complex and unpredictable situations that they need a specialised body of knowledge; if they are to apply that knowledge, it is argued that they need the autonomy to make their own judgements. Given that they have autonomy, it is essential that they act with responsibility – collectively they need to develop appropriate professional values. (Furlong et al., 2000, p. 5) These three concepts form the basis of the following discussion that deals chiefly (but not exclusively) with the post-compulsory sectors of education. I will consider autonomy first. Autonomy Opponents of the idea that teaching should be considered a profession (or those arguing that we have recently seen a significant de-professionalisation of teachers) have often cited the lack of teacher autonomy over what should be taught. In schools, the advent of the National Curriculum in England was thought to have limited teachers’ freedom (Hoyle and John, 1995). More recently, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) has put the school curriculum online, thereby ensuring public access to what was previously known only to teachers and examiners. In the Learning and Skills Sector, the introduction of competence-based vocational programmes (following the establishment of the National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ) in 1986) is widely held to have reduced teacher autonomy (Hyland, 1992; Last and Chown, 1996; Hodkinson, 1997; Randle and Brady, 1997; Elliott, 1998; Shain and Gleeson, 1999). This debate has stirred feelings like no other and I will return to it in Chapter 2. My own view, however, is that claims about loss of autonomy amongst further education teachers, resulting from the introduction of competence-based programmes, must be tempered by an understanding of how little autonomy they have had historically, particularly in relation to the curriculum. Unlike teachers in universities, they have traditionally worked to the requirements
12
Meanings of professionalism
of external examining bodies, delivering and assessing programmes designed and validated by others. The concept of autonomy has a particular salience amongst university teachers. We have only to turn to the pages of a publication such as The Times Higher Education Supplement to notice a preoccupation with autonomy and with the related concept of academic freedom. In this context, Barnett (1990) makes a helpful distinction between institutional and individual autonomy. He notes that higher education institutions experienced a significant loss in their autonomy with the advent of funding councils, initially separate ones for universities and polytechnics. Dearlove (1997) similarly observes that there has been a shift away from allowing universities to regulate themselves, with the funding council (one for all of higher education was set up in 1992) judging both the quality of teaching (initially through teaching quality assessments (TQA), and more recently through institutional audits) and the quality of research (through the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE)). Further education colleges, since incorporation in 1993, have found themselves free of local authority control only to have their funding more closely tied to the achievement of particular targets than it ever was before. In relation to the autonomy of individual teachers, some in universities would argue that this, too, is under threat. The purpose and impact of teaching standards will be discussed in Chapter 2. In relation to the content of what is taught, although most teachers in universities are still free to decide the precise detail, within parameters, the arrival of national ‘benchmarking’ and the QAA, and its consequent attempts to describe ‘graduateness’ within particular disciplines, may represent a curtailment of personal autonomy. Of course, greater consistency in what is being taught may be desirable and, as Barnett (1990) observes, not all such interventions are damaging. Within research, too, some academics perceive tensions. In the Learning and Skills Sector, the research agenda is strongly influenced by the priorities of the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and the Learning and Skills Council. There is also some evidence of a belief that the RAE has impacted on the autonomy of researchers in English universities. McNay (1997) reports that 58 per cent of staff in his sample believed that the research agenda was increasingly being set by others. Of the interviewees who took part in an empirical study carried out by Henkel (2000), those working in the sciences seemed most conscious of a threat to their individual autonomy posed by collaborative working and by their dependence on external research funding. The interviewees who came from the social sciences and the humanities, however, were less dependent on such funding and appeared less restricted in their choices: ‘The ideal in the humanities and the social sciences remained that of the individual scholar pursuing his or her own interests according to his or her own rhythms’ (Henkel, 2000, p. 195).
Meanings of professionalism
13
Thus, the idea of autonomy features prominently in contemporary discussions about the position and work of teachers. In some HE contexts, especially those still identifying their management structures as ‘collegial’ in some sense (see Dearlove, 1997), individual autonomy may be a mixed blessing. Some would argue that there is an increasing need for the direct management of staff time, for example, in situations of restricted resources, such as now exist in many university departments. Where individuals have to depend on their colleague networks (for example, to ensure that cover is arranged for study leave) serious inequities may result. Women, for example, who are seriously outnumbered in British universities (West and Lyon, 1995) may find opportunities closed to them simply because they are excluded from such networks or because their female colleagues are already amongst the most heavily burdened, in relation to administrative and pastoral work (Bagilhole, 1993). Although the autonomy of individual professional practitioners is always in reality negotiated, and may be restricted, especially in organisational settings (Hoyle and John, 1995; Becker, 1970), autonomy as an idea remains seminal. Those seeking to retain an understanding of teaching as a profession, most of whom have written about schools, also point to the high indeterminacy of teaching as an activity. In post-compulsory contexts, far less is known (and written) about the teaching itself, about what actually happens in classes, tutorials and lectures. The professional practice of teachers in post-school contexts and the nature of their professional knowledge will both be discussed again in Chapter 3. However, notwithstanding the introduction of standards for teachers in all phases of education (see Bailey and Robson, 2002), it is still the case that the activity of teaching itself remains relatively ill defined and its goals diverse and uncertain. In teaching situations, as with other professional practices, a degree of unpredictability is inherent. Conventionally, teachers’ autonomy still allows them freedom to resolve the uncertainties they are presented with, at least at the level of the classroom, workshop or lecture hall. Professional knowledge I turn now to a consideration of the importance of professional knowledge to claims about teachers’ professionalism. The significance of systematic knowledge to the status of professions generally has frequently been noted (e.g. Macdonald, 1995; Hoyle and John, 1995). As mentioned earlier, Larson (1990) defined ‘the professional project’ as a collective attempt to secure control of a body of specialised knowledge and to seek the translation of that into economic rewards. The increasing tendency to require the knowledges of occupational groups and professions to be specified (in the form of standards, outcomes or competences) is a marked feature of recent decades. Academic interest in
14
Meanings of professionalism
the nature of (other people’s) professional and vocational knowledge has also been growing, at least partly in response to the political pressures to codify knowledge in these sorts of ways (Stevenson, 2001). This codified or public knowledge is then subject to quality control, scrutiny and debate and is given status by its incorporation into educational programmes and examinations (Eraut, 2000). Codifying knowledge allows for the certification and credentialing of knowledge that, in turn, facilitates the drawing of boundaries around occupational groups. Though post-school teachers have resisted attempts to codify their pedagogical knowledge, partly because of the nature and form of those attempts, codifying professional knowledge remains a key strategy for protecting and enhancing the status of the professional group. When we come to consider teachers’ professional knowledge, we find that they are in a unique position. Unlike engineers, lawyers or nurses, for example, who all acquire specialist knowledge that is directly related to their field of practice, most teachers in post-compulsory education are faced with first acquiring specialist knowledge of their chosen subject, and then the knowledge of how to teach it. This duality is most marked amongst teachers in the post-school phase. (Indeed, it may hardly exist amongst primary school teachers.) It undoubtedly helps to explain the resistance of some to training programmes and to engaging with learning about teaching in meaningful ways. The assumption has been (and in many quarters is still) that if I know my subject, I can, by definition, teach it to others. The knowledge and expertise that really matters to most teachers in the post-compulsory sectors is the knowledge of their specific discipline or occupational area; indeed, it is this that gives them the credibility they need for their educational role and, historically, they have prioritised it over, for example, their knowledge, role and identities as teachers (Tipton, 1973; Venables, 1967; Robson, 1998a). Recent changes in the policy and practice of the training and development of further and higher education teachers will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 2. The important point to make here is that expertise or knowledge of teaching itself is for many (especially in universities) still a secondary concern, if it is a concern at all. Even in relation to school teaching, a serious or scholarly interest in the nature of the teacher’s knowledge was slow to develop. Simon (1981) argues that, in England, the approach to educational theory and practice, to pedagogy (or the science of teaching) has historically tended to be amateurish and pragmatic. In his view, this is partly because the influential and prestigious public schools were more concerned in the late nineteenth century with the socialisation of their pupils, with character formation to support imperialist projects, than they were with the intellectual development of those in their care. The prestigious universities of Oxford and Cambridge were closely linked to the public schools and they, too, neglected pedagogy. In addition, between the wars, selectivity became the central focus for the school system in England and a rationale was sought and found in the
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‘triumph of psychometry tied in with a new stress on individualism’ and ‘a kind of reductionist biologism’ (p. 133). In other words, the individual’s abilities were inherited and fixed; with appropriate testing, they could be precisely measured. Such views, Simon argues, deny the creative function of education. The focus on the individual child made it impossible to develop a pedagogy that, by definition, would begin from what children have in common and thence elaborate general principles for effective teaching. Later, Simon (1994) wrote that the arrival of comprehensive schooling in England, Wales and Scotland, the advent of the GCSE and a National Curriculum for both primary and secondary education in England represented attempts to define common objectives and had therefore helped to create a more positive climate for the development of pedagogy. For Simon, it is the discipline of psychology that will be central in the development of a ‘science of teaching’. However, conventionally, teaching (like social work) has suffered in the prestige stakes since its knowledge base has been perceived as being more humanistic than scientific, more common sense than expertise. Writing about the school sector, Hoyle and John (1995) claim that traditionally, teachers’ knowledge was characterised in terms of the four social science disciplines of psychology, sociology, philosophy and history. Teacher training programmes may have been more diverse than this suggests, however, with those accredited in the UK by the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) perhaps being rather less dominated by the four disciplines. Certainly, there was a radical change in the way teachers’ professional knowledge was characterised, with an increasing realisation by the late 1970s and 1980s that the four disciplines’ approach to professional knowledge, particularly as it was applied in initial teacher training for schools, was largely irrelevant to the current and future needs of novice and experienced school teachers (Hoyle and John, 1995). Importantly, it was not taken up by teachers themselves, however much educational researchers may have continued to adhere to the disciplinary frameworks. Newer conceptions of professional knowledge (such as that embodied in the action research movement, for example) attempted to place practitioners at the heart of the enterprise and to construct an understanding of knowledge that was context-specific, growing out of the systematic study by practitioners of their own practice. Hoyle and John (1995) suggest that researchers and practitioners in schools have recently begun to focus on the intuitive, creative, practical, highly personalised nature of teachers’ knowledge, on knowledge that defies codification. Research into what teachers know (and might need to know) in the postschool phase is scarce, by comparison. Though teachers need to know many things, the focus in this discussion is on what they know (or might need to know) about how their students learn. Despite the lesser importance of such knowledge to many teachers in universities particularly, as already noted, the practice of teaching and research into teaching and learning undoubtedly
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has a higher profile now than previously. Funding from HEFCE has encouraged universities to put in place strategies that are designed to raise standards of teaching and learning. This has led to a range of activities, including the widespread establishment of ‘centres’ within universities, variously titled, often linked to central management or human resource functions, whose remit is broadly the enhancement of teaching and learning across the institution. In further education, the establishment of a link between the retention and achievement of students and funding in 1993 has also helped to stimulate new interest in processes of teaching and learning and in the quality of the student experience. Despite this, we appear to be a long way from any coherent pedagogy of teaching and learning in post-compulsory education. One impression gained from the literature is that some theories and models have been especially influential in particular contexts – for example, a distinction between deep and surface approaches to learning, made by Marton and Saljo in Sweden in the early 1970s. This has been developed in Britain by Ramsden (2003) amongst others, and in Australia, by Biggs (1999) and has proved popular amongst staff developers in English universities, in particular. There is also a growing body of work in universities around what is called the ‘scholarship of teaching’ which has its origins in the work of Ernest Boyer in the USA (and is discussed again in Chapter 3). Boyer (1990) focused on teaching as part of academic work, but his descriptions of ‘scholarly teaching’ are limited to notions of a teacher being well informed (Trigwell et al., 2000). Though others have since developed Boyer’s ideas (see for example Rice, 1992), there is still only the vaguest understanding within the academic community of what might just as well be called good practice. A recent survey carried out for HEFCE (Gordon et al., 2003) found that many staff working in higher education development units had limited familiarity with the terms ‘pedagogical research’ and ‘pedagogical development’. Further, reported responses from research councils’ representatives and from those receiving recognition for their teaching expertise (the National Teaching Fellows) indicated unfamiliarity and discomfort with the term ‘scholarship of teaching’. This is not to say that universities and other stakeholders are not now interested in the quality of teaching and learning that takes place; undoubtedly they are. The problem is that there is little consensus about how the knowledge of teaching should be represented, researched or theorised. Programmes of professional education (including the education of teachers for further and higher education) have often relied heavily on notions of ‘reflective practice’ to provide a rationale for the content and approach adopted. Here, Schon’s (1987) work has been particularly influential. Teaching portfolios, for example, usually require ‘reflection’ on practice, and this may take a variety of forms. However, Schon makes a distinction between ‘reflection-inaction’ and ‘reflection-on-action’. The first (thinking in the midst of an action without interrupting it) allows the expert practitioner to re-shape and
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re-frame what they are doing while they are doing it. In this way, the uncertainties inherent in professional practice can be resolved. It is this intuitive, implicit process that lies at the core of intelligent practice. It is however, usually only the second kind of reflection (reflection that takes place after an event) that student teachers are expected to demonstrate and the full value of Schon’s distinction is often missed. Bleakley (1999) claims that ‘reflective practice’ is in danger of becoming a catch-all phrase. In his development of Schon’s model of reflective practice as ‘artistry’, he puts forward an alternative proposal for ‘holistic reflexivity’, which encompasses both an ethical and an aesthetic dimension. Hoyle and John (1995) are also critical of some more ‘technical’ approaches to reflection within professional practice. The notion of reflection (as a component of good practice) is discussed again in Chapter 3, and in Chapter 5 there is a focus on its role in professional development. Another recurrent strand in the literature on teaching in higher education focuses on uses of problem-based, inquiry-based or ‘discovery’ learning (e.g. Boud and Feletti, 1991) and another body of work concerns itself with disciplinary differences, of all kinds. There are quite fundamental distinctions across disciplines in methods, concepts and forms of argument (Becher and Trowler, 2001). Further, just as students are believed to adopt differing orientations to study according to discipline (Makinen and Olkinuora, 1999; Slaats et al., 1999; Jarvis and Woodrow, 2001) so their teachers also are thought to vary in their approach. The amount of time spent preparing for teaching, the value placed upon it as an activity, and the methods employed (including methods of assessment) may all differ across disciplines (Smeby, 1996; Neumann, 2001). In further education, interest in differences also appears strong. Here, there is a preoccupation not with discipline-specific differences so much as with individual learning styles, building on the work of Entwistle (1988), Honey and Mumford (1992) and others. As with deep versus surface approaches to learning, a handy inventory or questionnaire can, in theory, help a teacher ascertain what kinds of students he or she has to teach; are they reflectors or theorists? pragmatists or activists? A publication from the Further Education Development Agency (Lockitt, 1997) focused on learning styles within the context of information technology: A combination of flexible learning styles, an understanding of efficient learning strategies, supported by information learning technologies within a flexible, supported environment will produce a learning experience which suits individual styles and maximises the learner’s potential. (p. 21) Many teachers in colleges have been enthusiastic about this approach. It has seemed to chime with further education’s commitment to learner autonomy
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and to inclusivity (as embodied in the FENTO values, for example) (see FENTO, 1999) and with the colleges’ need to improve their retention of students in order to secure funding. However, like the emphasis in universities on deep versus surface learning, and on discipline differences, the preoccupation with individual learning styles in further education has tended to obscure the importance of context to learning and the importance of social interaction. As Harkin et al. (2001) observe, there is solid empirical support for the notion that learning is facilitated by social interaction, by the relationships which exist between people. Hyland and Merrill (2003) also confirm the importance of social as opposed to individualistic learning. Coffield (1999), too, calls for a new social theory of learning to underpin government policies for lifelong learning, a theory that would help shift the focus away from individual cognitive processes to social relationships and networks. Some teachers in further and higher education have drawn on theories and concepts circulating in the field of adult education to support and clarify their practice. In adult education, arguably more consistent attempts have been made to elaborate the teacher’s professional knowledge (or, for our purposes, what it is that educators of adults should or do know about how their students learn). In this literature, there is a commitment to articulating the specificity of what it means to work with adults per se. Of course, adults are not restricted to particular institutions; they study in colleges, universities, institutes of various kinds and workplaces. One might expect the ideas elaborated in this field therefore to have broad applicability. Here, teaching adults appears to involve an acceptance of the student’s individuality, autonomy and status as adult; most of all, perhaps, it involves acknowledging the student’s experience, encouraging critical reflection and the scrutiny (even transformation) of beliefs and values. Some of these conceptions of the teacher’s work may sit uneasily in institutional contexts (such as colleges and universities) where concern with the student’s autonomy and status as an adult, for example, may be secondary to concerns about the reliability or validity of the assessment processes. The controversial concept of ‘andragogy’, associated with the work of Malcolm Knowles, stressed differences between the education of children and adults. Jarvis (1995) observes that, although Knowles reformulated his ideas on several occasions, which might suggest that his assumptions were open to debate, the concept of andragogy has been accepted uncritically by many adult educators in recent years. Adults, Knowles initially claimed, have an accumulated reservoir of experience that is a rich resource for learning; their self-concept is one of independence and self-direction; they are ready to learn in the problem areas with which they are confronted (Knowles, 1978). Critics of these ideas include those who argue that the principles of andragogy hold good for learning at any age. Do not children and young people also have experience that can be used as a resource for learning? Are all adults necessarily independent and self-directed? Might not
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anyone learn from their relevant problems? Tennant (1986) describes the view that adult learning is fundamentally (and necessarily) different from child learning as a myth, and Day and Baskett (1982) believe that andragogy is little more than an educational ideology. Knowles’ critics also include feminists. Stalker (1996) argues that one of the ways women are made invisible in adult education research is through the use of specific linguistic forms. (The term ‘andragogy’ itself is taken from the Greek aner, meaning ‘man’.) The deletion of women from the discourse, she argues, is not a trivial omission but a way of reinforcing society’s understanding of gender. Such understandings can be harmful to the interests of both women and men. The idea of individual autonomy underlies Knowles’ work. Paolo Freire (whose ideas have also proved popular with adult educators) similarly focuses on the humanity of the learner, but his model of learning is more structural and political in its emphasis. No education can be neutral; through reflection, learners come to understand themselves within their socio-cultural context, which they can change by acting to transform it (Freire, 1972). Other theorists who have made important contributions to the field of adult education include Jack Mezirow and Carl Rogers. Like Knowles, their work reflects broadly humanistic concerns, with considerable emphasis on the self. A detailed discussion of their respective models and theories can be found in Jarvis (1995). Despite this relatively rich strand of ideas within adult education, a coherent and systematic professional knowledge for teachers in the postschool phase is lacking overall. Some of the models are more appropriate in some contexts than others; some are more realistic than others. Further, the stress on following the needs or styles of individual learners makes it difficult to elaborate general principles. Taking individual autonomy fully into account on every teaching occasion, for example, in the large classes that now exist in both further and higher education, would be less than feasible. To the extent that it exists, the professional knowledge of teachers in postcompulsory education therefore appears to be fragmented, resisted and tending to be obscured by shifting and multiple realities. I revisit some of these debates in Chapter 3 in considering teachers’ understandings of the nature of good teaching. Responsibility In the context of a discussion about professionalism, responsibility is closely tied to notions of accountability and it comes with the granting of autonomy. It is precisely because individual practitioners have the opportunity to decide and to make choices and judgements about best courses of action, for example, that they have responsibilities to act well and in accordance with their professional values (Furlong et al., 2000). Tied into responsibility are
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Meanings of professionalism
notions of trust in professional relations, and care for others, even of altruism. ‘If the client is to trust the professional completely he [sic] must feel that there are no other interests which will be put before his in the performance of the professional activity’ (Becker, 1970, p. 95). In the compulsory school sector, where teachers are required by legislation to act in loco parentis, lines of responsibility are relatively clear. Teachers here have a duty to act in ways that are consistent with their quasiparental role. Such relationships are not static, however, and may change from time to time, as the political and social climate changes. For example, as schools have moved into a competitive market where parents have greater choice, they have become more responsive to parental concerns. In the post-compulsory environment, the situation is more complex. Some further education colleges actively seek to build links with the parents of their 16- to 18-year-old students, especially when they have found themselves in direct competition with school sixth forms or sixth form colleges. In many vocational training and education contexts, however, parents are less important stakeholders than local employers. The further education curriculum and the voluntary presence of adults and young adults in colleges and workplaces obliges teachers and trainers here to take account of a far wider range of interests. So what sorts of responsibilities do teachers in post-compulsory education have, or believe they have? Further education has conventionally been seen by those who work in it as providing a ‘second chance’ for its students. In recruiting many whose school experiences have been less than satisfactory, it has tended to attract teachers with a commitment to improving the status and attainment of low achievers, to the provision of a ‘safety net’ for those who, for whatever reasons, find themselves not suited or not able to progress directly from school to employment or university. It is not surprising, therefore, to find some empirical evidence suggesting that teachers in FE feel most responsible, in the first instance, to their students. Shain and Gleeson (1999) found that, in their five case study colleges, the majority of staff, despite their dislike for certain policies and the impact of these on their work, appeared to retain a commitment to ensuring that their students experienced a good-quality education. Concern for students was also evidenced in a study by Clow (2001), who interviewed 12 FE teachers. Her category of ‘holistic’ professionalism emphasises a commitment on the part of some teachers to act in the best interests of others, to have a fully inclusive view of the students and their needs, and to see them as whole people. Some of the FE staff who took part in a study by Ainley and Bailey (1997) were concerned that increases in their administrative loads, following the introduction of competence-based awards, had resulted in their having less time to spend with students. Indeed, Dillabough (1999) argues that the importance of the teaching relationship (wherever it is constituted) is threatened by the creation of standardised procedures in teaching, such as competences.
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Pressures to return to traditional assessment methods and whole-class teaching also jeopardise meaningful student–teacher relationships, in her view, and favour masculine ideals of professional autonomy and agency. Traditionally, higher education teachers would appear to have felt less responsibility for their students than either school or FE teachers. Though a key value or aim of higher education has conventionally been the development of the students’ intellectual and critical abilities, autonomy and character (Barnett, 1990), the assumption that students reaching this phase of their education are able to fend for themselves, both academically and socially, has nevertheless been widespread. With an increasingly diverse intake, however, including students without conventional A-level qualifications and increasing numbers of adult returners, universities are having to address their relationship with their students more actively. The advent of quality assurance policies in higher education represented a major shift away from academic self-regulation. Since 1992, such policies have also stimulated a new emphasis on the student experience (Henkel, 2000). In Henkel’s study, several respondents spoke of the greater value being placed on students as members of academic communities, of the importance of student feedback and involvement, of increased transparency and awareness of the students’ ‘right to know’. Of course, such developments have direct implications for the quality of programme delivery and process and for staff development. Teachers in post-compulsory education also hold responsibilities to other stakeholders. Employers have not conventionally been a major concern for teachers of academic subjects in either further or higher education. However, vocational teachers and trainers have different allegiances and often a strong sense of responsibility to employers in the industry for which they are preparing their students or trainees. Students’ employment prospects are frequently high in the minds of those who plan and deliver vocational programmes. Work placements will often be required, and setting these up and monitoring them will involve teachers in close liaison with colleagues in industry. In many ways, the credibility of the vocational teacher lies here, in his or her links with a world outside and beyond education. In a small-scale study of the attitudes and beliefs of teachers towards vocational programmes and qualifications, Robson et al. (2004) found that almost half of the 22 vocational teachers used a narrative of ‘protecting standards’; in this way, they positioned themselves at the vanguard of good professional practice in their industry. In their accounts, they were struggling to keep alive valued skills and practices, and thus to protect standards. Any de-skilling tendencies associated with the workplace were to be resisted. This notion of responsibility to the industry, to the first professional group from which they come, may be specific to teachers of vocational and professional disciplines; it may or may not be widespread. However, it is echoed in universities by notions of responsibility to the academic community and to the discipline itself.
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It was briefly noted previously that teachers of different disciplines tend to approach their work in different ways. Further, academics actively operate in peer groups, both formally (as in the anonymous review of articles or funding proposals) and less formally, for example in collaborative writing and research. Becher and Trowler (2001) found in their study that members of virtually every discipline recounted the existence of both inner and outer ‘circles’ of colleagues; inner circles tended to be small and characterised by tighter, stronger bonds. In establishing specific cultures, perpetuated and refined through their associations and learned societies, disciplines play a powerful role in the formation of an academic’s self-identity. It seems likely that these bonds and the responsibilities that many academics feel towards their discipline (similar to the responsibilities many vocational teachers may feel towards their industry or profession) may be stronger than their loyalties to any generic group of teachers or to any institution that employs them. For some in Henkel’s (2000) study, sustaining the discipline was an end in itself; these respondents were committed to the academic values embedded in concepts of their discipline and they sought to pass on the intellectual, social and moral qualities it represented. To varying degrees, teachers in the post-compulsory phase are also believed to have wider responsibilities to society in general. According to Barnett (1990), the aims and values traditionally associated with higher education include providing a critical centre within society and preserving society’s intellectual culture. He acknowledges that unanimity of support cannot be assumed here. Additionally, such understandings shift over time with broader social and political changes. One such change has been the ending of the binary divide in England and Wales. Since the polytechnics (with their stronger employment links and their greater vocational orientation) became universities in 1992, the role of higher education in the provision of a skilled workforce has had to be more fully acknowledged. Though many academics would still argue for a critical ‘distance’ between themselves and the world of work, politicians are increasingly emphasising the role that universities should play in meeting the needs of the labour market. Further education teachers, especially those working in vocational and professional areas, have long accepted a responsibility in this regard and for many, as mentioned earlier, a priority attaches to this aspect of their work.
Conclusion The word ‘profession’ represents a system of ideas, a collective symbol. It is a contested concept and is not used here to describe any actual occupation. Additionally, understanding professionalism as discourse facilitates a focus on the way subjects are positioned and on the particular identities that may be available to them in certain contexts.
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In this chapter, I have examined key constituent ideas underpinning the concept of ‘professionalism’. There is evidence of a strong and growing belief amongst teachers in post-compulsory contexts in their relative lack of autonomy, for example, at both institutional and individual levels. However, in classrooms and lecture halls, within the indeterminate practice of teaching itself, there is still considerable scope for autonomous decision-making. A coherent body of ‘professional knowledge’ for these groups of teachers has yet to be articulated. They are unique amongst professionals in having some other, previously established knowledge (of a subject discipline, profession or vocation) that, in most cases, is more important to them. Most university teachers regard the knowledge of how their students learn, for example, as being of secondary importance. Some theories of learning, especially within the broad field of adult education, have strong adherents, but there is resistance elsewhere to acquiring such knowledge, and some of the theories would be difficult to apply in current post-compulsory contexts. Responsibilities are felt in relation to students, to employers, to the values and practices of a discipline, vocation or an industry, and to society as a whole. Responsibilities such as those to the discipline or the vocational group may mitigate against the development of any generic professional identity. Indeed, some argue that any unified or singular notion of a professional teacher (whether in compulsory or post-compulsory contexts) is harmful to the extent that it functions to suppress different teaching identities, such as those adopted more readily by women, for example (see Dillabough, 1999). In the postmodernist view, notions of ‘personality’ or of a single unified self (as embedded in traditional psychology, for example) are open to challenge (Burr, 1995). Related concepts such as ‘autonomy’, and ‘responsibility’ are also critiqued to the extent that they assume unproblematic agency on the part of the individual (Bleakley, 1999). Further discussion of the plurality of identities of teachers in the post-school phase can be found in Chapter 4. Etzioni (1969) classifies teaching as a semi-profession, as an occupational group where the status of profession ‘is neither fully established nor fully desired’ (p. v). Others resist the term ‘profession’ altogether because of its negative connotations, which include, for example, the suggestion that professionals are primarily concerned with power and with protecting their own interests (Johnson, 1972). That professionalism is socially valued, however, and its constituent ideas recognisable, is borne out by recurrent official attempts to appropriate it for the justification of education policy or the purposes of persuasion (Hoyle and John, 1995; McCulloch et al., 2000). Further, retaining the term here facilitates references to a wider discourse of professionalism, beyond academia. This cannot necessarily be said of the notion of teacher as ‘reflective practitioner’ (Schon, 1987) or as ‘reflective professional’ (Light and Cox, 2001), or as ‘learning professional’ (Lucas, 2000), for example, since such concepts may have little currency beyond the local validation meeting or the professional education programme itself.
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The themes and ideas discussed here in Chapter 1 will thread their way through the rest of this book. In particular, the diverse understandings and experiences of teachers’ autonomy, professional knowledge and responsibility in the post-compulsory phase of education and training, as well as the sociological concepts of closure and the professional project and ideas about teacher status, will recur in later discussions. Within the book as a whole, as already noted, the word ‘profession’ is not intended to describe any particular occupation or set of occupations. Neither is there any one understanding of ‘professionalism’ within the context of post-school education and training. The discussion of professionalism and its meanings provides a way of thinking about teaching as an occupation, a framework for examining the myriad of contexts in which these groups of teachers work, and a strategy for comparing and contrasting their experiences. In the next chapter, the current training, standards and qualifications for teachers in further and higher education are explained. Key debates, contrasts and anomalies in recent attempts to formalise and certificate teachers’ professional knowledge are explored, and the chapter also includes a consideration of the training experience from the participants’ perspective.
Chapter 2
Standards, training and qualifications
Professional knowledge is only what the occupational group can annexe and hold on to. (Macdonald, 1995, p. 186)
Introduction The possession of appropriate professional qualifications (though taken for granted as the means of entering other professions) has long been a contentious issue amongst teachers in post-compulsory education. Teaching (like social work) has a relatively low status amongst the professions and it suffers in the prestige stakes from the widespread assumption that its knowledge base is ‘unscientific’ and ‘soft’. To teach well, it is often assumed, one needs little more than knowledge of the relevant subject – and common sense. As noted earlier, most teachers themselves continue to prioritise their subject knowledge over and above the knowledge, skills and understanding required to teach effectively. The more complex, academic and differentiated their subject knowledge becomes, the more obvious this separation. According to Weber, social groups will typically attempt to further their interests by excluding others and usurping their privileges. As discussed in Chapter 1, according to this analysis, professional groups will seek prestige through the possession and control of an abstract body of knowledge (Larson, 1977). Closure is likely to be attempted through requiring members to possess certain credentials. In the case of teachers working in the postcompulsory sectors, there is little agreement about what those credentials should be. Does a higher degree, an active research interest or industrial experience in the relevant subject count for more than the teaching qualification? In any case, what constitutes a teaching qualification in this environment? And is it equally important for all teachers to have it or more important for some than others? Where are the boundaries to be drawn? The existence (since 2001) of the requirement for all new teachers in FE to train (and the concomitant requirement that all such awards should meet specified standards and be endorsed by FENTO) has offered at least the
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opportunity for that group to sign up to a coherent body of professional knowledge and to tighten their boundaries. However, there are increasing numbers of part-time teachers in FE and their status in relation to the training requirement is still unclear, several years after its introduction. In addition, some colleges are now employing significant numbers of ‘learning support workers’ who are not formally covered by the legislation and who appear to be carrying out duties in many cases broadly similar to those of their colleagues on teaching contracts (Bailey and Robson, 2004). In response at least partly to some of the anomalies, further reforms to the initial training of FE teachers were announced late in 2004 (DfES, 2004a) and these will have a major impact on training and standards in this area. They are outlined below (under ‘New Developments’). In universities, the picture is even more variable, with a far greater emphasis on discipline-based research than on teaching per se. (This is discussed more fully in Chapter 3.) The requirement for new university lecturers to become members of the new HE Academy (which replaced the ILTHE in 2004) operates in a number of universities now and this may eventually become a national requirement, in line with recommendations from the Cooke Report (Cooke, 2003). This is unlikely to happen overnight, however, and it will certainly be resisted; during its five years of life, the ILTHE attracted only about 10 per cent of eligible academic staff to membership. Overall, therefore, there is little consistency in the professional regulation of teachers in the post-school phase of education. Expectations and requirements may vary considerably according to institution and employment status.
The workforce Most professions have their distinct ‘segments’ or specialised branches of knowledge and practice. However, largely because of their distinctive vocational and subject allegiances, teachers in the post-compulsory sectors may have fewer common interests than most other groups. The official data indicate that, for 2002/3, there were about 49,000 staff on full-time lecturing contracts in 417 further education colleges in England and about 85,000 on part-time lecturing contracts (LSC, 2004b). In UK universities, in the same year, the number of full-time academics (including researchers) was about 120,000 and the number of part-time academic staff (including hourly paid and casual staff) was about 26,000 (HESA, 2004). Women comprise about 56 per cent of those employed on a part-time basis in HEIs. The number of part-time staff with teaching duties in colleges and universities is increasing. Graduate students in some university departments typically combine their further study with some undergraduate teaching, and some universities also employ ‘demonstrators’ (for example, in science laboratories) and ‘tutors’ on teaching-only contracts. As noted previously, some colleges are also employing numbers of ‘learning support workers’ who may carry out some
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activities conventionally associated with teaching. It is impossible accurately to ascertain the numbers of such staff in colleges and universities in the UK. The figures portray a workforce that is hugely diverse, particularly in terms of its contractual status but also in terms of the nature of work undertaken, so far as we can know what that is. Perhaps the most striking figure is that for part-time lecturers in English FE colleges. Hyland and Merrill (2003) reported that, following incorporation, one college in their study employed 600 part-time staff compared to 200 full-timers. This led to communication difficulties, as part-timers were not usually paid to attend meetings and were often involved only marginally in college life. Numbers of part-time teachers in colleges may typically have full-time jobs elsewhere, and may be employed by the college precisely because of their industrial or commercial expertise (for example, as practising accountants, lawyers or engineers). Clearly, any provision of teacher training for those working in colleges and universities (or any requirement that these teachers should be trained or professionally regulated) has to take account of the complexity of their work situations.
Historical note Interestingly, systematic training for technical and vocational teachers was recommended as long ago as 1944, in the McNair Report (Board of Education, 1944). Although the report led to the establishment of the first three centres for full-time FE teacher training courses in London, Huddersfield and Bolton, its emphasis was nevertheless on the need for these teachers to remain up to date with their subjects in industrial or commercial settings. Any requirement for them to undertake teacher training pre-employment would, it was argued, cost too much and harm staff recruitment at a time when new recruits were needed. In 1966, a key recommendation in the second Russell Report (DES, 1966), also relating to the training of these teachers, was rejected by the Secretary of State for the same pragmatic reasons. Thus, the prioritising of the post-school teacher’s subject knowledge and the greater value that is attached to their experience in fields outside teaching can be traced back this far, at least. Expert knowledge of what it is that must be taught, relevant and current experience of the discipline or occupation – these are the things that have mattered. In universities, too, staff development activities have historically taken place on the margins and priority has been attached to subject expertise, manifested typically in a strong research profile. By the mid-1990s, most universities were involved in staff development initiatives of various kinds but, as Evans (2001) notes, provision was patchy and unsystematic. Even now, much of the work being undertaken in connection with initiatives to enhance teaching and learning in HE apparently focuses more on the needs of students than teachers. It has also been criticised for its emphasis on ‘quick-fix’ technical solutions, a practice described as ‘surface learning about teaching’ (Rowland, 2001).
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Teaching qualifications Teachers in post-compulsory education and training are employed directly by the institutions and, in contrast to school teachers, they need not have a teaching qualification before they are appointed and begin work in the classroom. Awards for teaching in post-compulsory education are offered at a range of HE levels. There is little consistency (and historically there has been little regulation) in this field; anomalies abound. Currently, 46 HEIs and 300 colleges in England and Wales are involved in FE teacher training, and an increasing number of universities are offering some form of award (usually at Masters’ level) for teaching in HE and for what is often termed ‘academic practice’. For many years, the recognised and standard award for teaching in FE has been the university-validated Certificate in Education. However, City & Guilds (C&G) also offer a range of qualifications for teachers in further and adult education at levels 2, 3 and 4 in the National Qualifications Framework (NQF). Some of these awards focus on specific aspects of teaching (such as assessing) or on the teaching of particular subjects (such as literacy or numeracy). These programmes are typically delivered by FE colleges. Conventionally, the C&G 7307 certificate (as well as its predecessors) has been accepted by HEIs as equivalent to the first stage of the universities’ own certificate awards (typically Certificates or Postgraduate Certificates in Education). Recently, City & Guilds have introduced a 7407 certificate (at NQF level 4) and this is being marketed as equivalent to a full university Certificate in Education. Teachers in adult education, police trainers and those involved in private training or community education have also enrolled in significant numbers on Cert Ed and PGCE courses run by the HEIs. For this reason, the awards frequently carry endorsements after their titles such as ‘post-compulsory education’, ‘further and adult education’ or (more recently) ‘lifelong education’. Variations in title (as well as academic level) are found across the four countries of the UK. The university-validated Certificate in Education was traditionally taken by both graduates and non-graduates, as a pre-service award (for those seeking employment as teachers) and as an in-service award (for those already in employment). With the introduction of PGCE awards, however, and a system of academic ‘levels’ into higher education, the situation became significantly more complex. Postgraduateness Many of those involved in teacher training provision in HEIs felt discomfort at the distinction (now made routinely by most providers) between their graduate and non-graduate entrants. Effectively, in the FE context, this is still largely a distinction between those with academic and those with
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vocational qualifications. The first PGCE awards for teachers in postcompulsory education came on stream in the 1980s, chiefly for marketing reasons. The title carried greater prestige and was associated (usually quite wrongly) with higher levels of study and achievement, as well as with qualified teacher status (QTS). In fact, at this time QTS did not exist in the post-compulsory sectors; it was applicable solely to school teaching and is still available only to those who complete a PGCE for school teaching (or a BEd) followed by a successful probationary year teaching in a school. Recently, however, the DfES (2004a) has announced the new status of ‘QTLS’ (or ‘Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills’) which will be in effect a ‘licence to practise’ awarded by the Institute for Learning (PCET). This development is discussed in more detail below. In addition, the notion of ‘postgraduateness’ is misleading in the context of teacher training. Teachers in further and higher education are unique amongst professional groups in having to be qualified first in something else, before they embark on their teacher training. All entrants to the profession are appropriately qualified in their subject or occupation, and they do broadly the same job, working alongside each other in the colleges and universities. To resolve the anomalies, it would be necessary to make a distinction between postgraduate study in, say, chemistry or French, and the postgraduate (or post initial qualification) study of education. The PGCE courses are, in other words, postgraduate in time rather than in content. Nevertheless, in the field of FE teacher training, PGCE courses proliferated in the 1980s and have continued to do so, particularly in England. Sometimes providers have attempted to make distinctions between their Cert Ed and their PGCE awards in terms of academic level, sometimes in terms of length or quantity of work; there is still little consistency here. Consequently, some certificate courses involve study at HE level 1 or 2; some are at HE level 3 or even Masters’ level; many are mixed. Variations in levels of awards are found in Scotland and Wales, as well as England; in Northern Ireland, the University of Ulster is the sole provider. Its courses are parttime and in-service, and currently offered at Masters’ level. Training provision is now subject to far greater official scrutiny than previously. Ofsted has recently expressed concern about the lack of common practice in defining levels and in the associated entry requirements to training programmes (Ofsted, 2003). The changes announced by the DfES (2004a) in relation to FE teacher training, if successfully implemented, will address some of these inconsistencies. Masters’ awards Qualifications for teaching specifically in higher education are more recent. Here, too, there is little agreement or regulation with regard to level or title of award and some HEIs have been taking university lecturers on to their
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Cert Ed/PGCE courses for some years now. The more common pattern emerging, however, is to offer a full Masters’ programme (with subsidiary awards at certificate and/or diploma level). In many universities, this kind of award (in whole or in part) is now required of new appointees who usually attend programmes offered in-house. A further anomaly is creeping into the picture, however, with the subsidiary certificates or ‘PGCertificates’ (variously titled as PGCertificates in ‘higher education’, ‘academic practice’ or ‘teaching and learning’, and so on). To the extent that they are usually worth fewer credit points than the conventional Cert Ed or PGCE (described before), represent significantly less study and may not actually involve any assessment of practical teaching per se, their titles are extremely misleading. In higher education, the demand for formal programmes of teacher training has been driven by the health professions. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has stipulated that all those teaching other health professionals must hold a first degree and undertake teacher training at Masters’ level (NMC, 2004). This represents an attempt to resolve the issue about ‘postgraduateness’ by opting for awards that are ‘postgraduate’ in both time and content. However, it has brought new difficulties for staff and students, since the NMC standards for lecturers are themselves very practical. A strong tension often exists in these programmes between the QAA descriptions of Masters’ level study (which are concerned with criticality and discipline-based theoretical understandings) and the professional standards, which are much more orientated towards practice (and include developing effective relationships, implementing a range of teaching and learning strategies, contributing to the development of effective assessment procedures, and so on). Though it is possible for programme design to take account of both sets of constraints, it can result in a particularly demanding experience for the student. Since health-related training and education now takes place exclusively within HEIs, this requirement from the health professions has frequently had the effect of securing these programmes for all university staff. The awards usually have accreditation both from the NMC and from the HE Academy. However, as noted, the more common pattern is for universities to make training provision for their own staff through internal staff development centres, and the courses run here, despite being pitched at Masters’ level, as noted earlier, are usually far less comprehensive than conventional teacher education programmes. Numbers qualified It is difficult to establish firmly how many teachers in colleges and universities are now formally qualified as teachers. Data collected and published by the Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) during the 1990s and latterly by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) unfortunately does not
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provide a reliable and complete account of FE teachers’ qualifications (FEFC, 1997). For example, information from all colleges is not included, and it is not possible to separate graduates whose degrees carry QTS (for schools) from those with graduate qualifications alone. Also, information on staff, and on part-time staff in particular, is not at present full and detailed. The most likely estimate is that approximately 64 per cent of full-time FE teachers and 29 per cent of part-time staff could currently hold recognised teaching qualifications (LSC, 2002). For universities, the Individualised Staff Record for 2002/3 indicates that only about 1 per cent of part-time and about 0.4 per cent of full-time academic staff hold a non-graduate initial teacher training qualification, such as a Certificate of Education. However, these figures do not accurately represent the total numbers of qualified teachers in HEIs. As I explained above, there has been a growth in the provision of awards in education at postgraduate and Masters’ level that many university employers now count as initial teacher training qualifications. Though the HESA data do record numbers of higher degrees and numbers of postgraduate diplomas and certificates held, no distinction is made between those that are qualifications in education or teaching and those that are not. That the data recording processes in both further and higher education are set up in ways that make it impossible to know how many of the teachers are fully trained may be in itself an indication of the lack of importance attached to such information. There are signs that, in response to criticism, the LSC is moving to improve its data collection systems so that it will be better able to track the FE colleges’ progress towards a fully qualified workforce. In HEIs, it is likely that the key indicator will become membership of the HE Academy (currently put at about 10 per cent of eligible staff).
Standards In this context, standards are the ‘templates’ for teacher training programmes or benchmarks that they must meet. For decades, in relation to training for post-compulsory education, HEIs were free to determine the detail of the curriculum without such external measures or constraints. In drawing up standards for training provision, the underlying assumption is that the knowledge, skills and understanding of teachers can and should be consistently specified and addressed in the training programmes. Where this is achieved, programmes receive formal recognition from FENTO (in the case of FE teacher training) and from the HE Academy (in the case of HE). Standards for FE teachers The FENTO standards (FENTO, 1999) were the first attempt to specify in detail the things that FE teachers should know, understand and be able to
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do. They were the product of a functional analysis of the FE teacher’s work. This analysis was carried out by consultants for a body called the FE Staff Development Forum; there was also some consultation with college staff. The standards are divided into eight key areas of ‘skill’: assessing learners’ needs; planning and preparing teaching and learning programmes; developing and using a range of teaching and learning techniques; managing the learning process; providing learners with support; assessing the outcomes of learning and learners’ achievements; reflecting upon and evaluating one’s own performance and planning future practice; meeting professional requirements. Areas of professional knowledge and understanding, as well as personal skills and attributes, are also identified. A set of professional values underpins the standards. Each standard is broken into down into a set of sub-skills (or elements), and for each element there is a set of performance criteria. Thus, the FENTO standards follow the structure of the conventional NVQ model for competence-based awards though they are less narrowly focused on observable behaviour than many other occupational standards. The FENTO standards were intended to be built into programmes of initial teacher training for FE, to be used in staff appraisal and continuing professional development. Legislation currently requires awarding bodies to submit details of their programmes and quality assurance procedures to FENTO, in order to obtain FENTO recognition or ‘endorsement’. At present, the endorsement procedure applies only to England, since, despite FENTO’s UK-wide responsibility, decisions about these changes in the other three countries depend upon decisions by governments in those countries. The mandatory teaching qualification based on one set of standards has brought some coherence to a previously unregulated area of provision. However, as already mentioned, academic levels of awards still vary greatly and there is little concrete evidence to suggest that the standards have themselves brought identifiable improvements in the quality of the training experience. The FENTO standards have also been criticised (by Ofsted and by others) for failing to distinguish between the knowledge, skills and understanding required of new (as opposed to experienced) teachers. In Ofsted’s view, while the existing standards ‘provide a useful outline of the capabilities required of experienced teachers, they do not clearly define the standards required of new teachers’ (Ofsted, 2003, p. 5). In addition, they are applicable only to FE teachers rather than to all those with teaching roles in the wider Learning and Skills Sector (which embraces workplace training, adult and community education as well as FE). When they came, therefore, proposals to replace the FENTO standards were not unexpected (see DfES, 2004a). They are discussed in more detail in the section later on new developments.
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Standards for HE teachers In higher education, attempts by policy-makers to intervene in the professional training and development of teachers are relatively recent and differ in character from those for school or further education teachers. Government has had to deal with the greater autonomy of universities (with regard to the curriculum, for example) and with the greater power of vice chancellors, in political terms (Bailey and Robson, 2002). Attempts to develop standards for teaching and learning in HE began formally in the late 1990s. Here, too, there was an initial occupational and functional mapping of the lecturer’s role. This was undertaken by the Universities’ and Colleges’ Staff Development Agency (UCoSDA) who reported on the mapping exercise (with reservations about its value) in March 1997. In May 1997, the (then) Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals (CVCP) set up a working party to report on policy on the formal training of lecturers. In this way, it sought to head off the compulsory licensing of academics in which Sir Ron Dearing (who was at the time leading the National Committee of Enquiry into Higher Education) was thought to have an interest. It was largely through this group (chaired by Professor Clive Booth) that the CVCP was able to exert its influence on developments (Evans, 2001). Both the CVCP and the Association of University Teachers (AUT) favoured a model for staff training that involved the accreditation of programmes by an outside agency (rather than by the universities themselves). When the Dearing Committee of Enquiry reported (NCIHE, 1997) there was, despite objections, a recommendation put forward for a new body to be called the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ILTHE). The functions of the proposed ILTHE would be to ‘accredit programmes of training for higher education teachers, to commission research and development in learning and teaching practices and to stimulate innovation’ (NCIHE, 1997, p. 43). All new academics with a teaching role should be required to achieve at least associate membership. Responses to the proposal were predictably varied. A planning group (chaired by Roger King, of the University of Lincoln) later raised the question of whether membership of the new Institute would constitute a ‘licence to practise’, a suggestion that proved particularly controversial. A number of vice chancellors attacked the idea, fearing a loss of autonomy in relation to such things as staff appointments. There were additional criticisms that the ILTHE planning group had focused on the practice of teaching at the expense of a more broadly defined concept of academic practice. No fewer than 24 teaching outcomes would have to be met for membership, an approach that was described by critics as mechanistic, based on National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) and therefore wholly inappropriate for higher education (THES, 1999). By May 1999, the proposals for 24 teaching outcomes had been abandoned. Over 300
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responses from the sector to the consultation paper had made it clear that a much lighter touch was needed; the outcomes were to be replaced with five (and later six) broad areas of teaching expertise (e.g. teaching and support of learning, curriculum development, assessment, and so on). New developments The new HE Academy is unlikely to rest there, however. As the organisation that replaced the ILTHE in 2004, it also incorporated the Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN). Its work now encompasses staff development, quality enhancement and teaching standards, and accreditation. The Cooke Report (Cooke, 2003) had proposed that accreditation for all new academic staff in HE would be in place by 2006 and the HE Academy wasted no time in setting up a full consultation exercise in the autumn of 2004 on ‘a framework of professional teaching standards’. The responses to this consultation indicated strong support for a ‘single framework comprising a small number of higher order principles’ to be applied as appropriate by each institution. There was considerable opposition to detailed competence-based frameworks; nevertheless, it is likely that the revised standards will be more detailed than their predecessors. Feedback from the consultation exercise also indicated that a new framework should incorporate professional values (however defined) and be applicable to all staff regardless of experience. It should recognise the range of academic responsibilities and include student support, research and scholarly activity, and management and administration. It should enable links to be made with existing institutional procedures, such as those for staff development and performance review. The schedule allows for implementation of the framework from 2006 (HE Academy, 2004a). As the new HE Academy sets about reform of the ILTHE ‘standards’, following this consultation, reforms are also being introduced for FE teacher training. The process and the character of the changes in FE (announced by the DfES in 2004) differ markedly from those in HE and appear to be driven in part by government’s wish to see teacher training for FE organised and regulated in ways similar to school teacher training. Aspects of the proposed reforms for FE (see DfES, 2004a) appear to address some of the concerns noted above, such as the unsuitability of many of the FENTO standards for those new to teaching and the proliferation of diversely named teaching qualifications at several academic levels. The intention is to introduce a single award in two stages, with provision for those with a ‘limited teaching role’ to exit with the ‘passport to teaching’ assessed at NQF level 3. Those who are required or wish to progress to the full qualification (whether in part-time, full-time or fractional posts) will take it at level 4 and on completion will need to register with the new Institute for Learning (IfL) to obtain QTLS (or ‘Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills’ status). QTLS will
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become in effect a ‘licence to practise’ for teachers in the Learning and Skills Sector, and FE teachers will need to maintain their registration with the IfL by completing appropriate professional development activities annually. The FENTO standards are to be replaced by ‘a set of outcome measures’ to be developed by the new Sector Skills Council for post-compulsory education and training, called Lifelong Learning UK (LLUK). Despite assurances that the LLUK will work with the Teacher Training Agency (for school teachers) and will also ‘build on, as appropriate, the higher education standards being developed by the HE Academy’ (DfES, 2004a, p. 12) a question arises once more about the nature and status of FE teacher training compared to training for school and HE teachers. The LLUK is an employer-led organisation and the new professional body for FE teachers (the IfL) is now located firmly within it. Unlike the General Teaching Council (GTC) for school teachers, the IfL is not being funded by the government; unlike the HE Academy, the employers have at least the opportunity to be directly involved in its operations. A further anomaly is evident. The LLUK has a remit that covers the whole of post-compulsory education and training, including higher education. It was set up to reflect the interests of all those involved in the post-16 sectors, including the universities. Yet the revised standards they have been asked to develop will almost certainly look more like the TTA standards than the ILTHE ones (or those destined to replace the ILTHE standards) and they are not likely to apply to HE teachers. We are likely to see the emergence of two distinct sets of standards. One set will be produced by an employer-led organisation intent on ‘upskilling’ at least part of its workforce (specifically FE teachers), and another by the organisation that has been positioned as the professional body for HE teachers and was anxious to assure members in its first newsletter that it would not take ‘a one-size-fits-all approach’ to professional development (HE Academy, 2004b, p. 1). The implications of these reforms for the training and professional development of teachers in further and higher education will only become clear with their implementation over the next few years. In their current conception, however, the differing status, level of autonomy and historical positioning of the two groups of teachers are starkly reflected. These issues are discussed more fully in Chapter 6.
Nature of the programmes The reforms described above are likely to alter the precise nature of teacher training programmes within the next few years, particularly those programmes intended for FE teachers. It is proposed that there will be more emphasis on the provision of subject-specific pedagogy, for example, and on the observation and assessment of the trainee’s teaching. Many aspects of
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current provision are likely to remain, such as the modular or unit structure, and partnership delivery. Key aspects of the nature of existing programmes are explained and discussed below. Modularity In common with most other programmes of study in higher education, teacher education and professional development programmes for staff in the post-compulsory sectors, for the most part, have now adopted modular structures. Advocates of more integrated programme designs had in the past included those who believed that modularity would fragment the learning experience and entail a separation of practice from theory. Practice needed to underpin the training; opportunities to reflect on practice were central to the student’s overall experience. These values are still firmly held by many practitioners and teacher trainers in the field. Nevertheless, it has proved possible to produce modular designs that preserve the centrality of practice and foster reflection upon it. The tension between flexibility (choice was made easier with modularity) and professional coherence has been successfully addressed by many institutions. Content The content of training programmes for further education teachers has in general changed little over the last twenty years. However, in response to the introduction of the FENTO standards, new emphases appeared; for example, a more explicit focus on the role of the teacher in supporting students. Other core topics in initial training include teaching and learning strategies (including planning and use of ICT), assessment, curriculum development, education policy and some form of professional development. The content of programmes for university teachers varies more and may also include direct consideration of non-teaching aspects of the role, such as bidding for research funds, writing for publication or preparing for audit or appraisal. In response to official concerns about attainment in literacy, numeracy and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), the government published Skills for Life (DfEE, 2000) which set out its national strategy for improving basic skills. FENTO was asked to take this agenda forward in relation to FE teachers and it developed subject specifications for teachers in these areas. Formal subject qualifications (HNDs, degrees and so on) have routinely been required of those seeking to teach engineering, hairdressing and Spanish, for example. Teachers of literacy and numeracy and ESOL, on the other hand, have in the past tended to come from a wide range of backgrounds and some have held few formal qualifications. Some have been graduates in the social sciences or the humanities with no formal study of
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models of language or communication per se, or of number. Undoubtedly, teachers with clear conceptual understandings of their subjects are more likely to teach effectively, at any level. Thus, the introduction of standards or subject specifications for new teachers of literacy and numeracy at post-16 may be seen to resolve an important anomaly and may help eventually to enhance the quality and status of teaching in these areas. An associated requirement for all teachers to meet literacy, numeracy and language specifications at level 3 upon entry to their training programme will fortunately be dropped as part of the new reforms (DfES, 2004a). This requirement had proved controversial since it exceeded that laid down for school teachers by the TTA and was likely to have made recruitment of teachers (particularly in vocational areas) even more difficult to sustain than it is currently. Needless to say, there has been no official attempt either to introduce equivalent requirements for teachers in universities, despite figures indicating that numbers of them hold no formal academic qualifications (HESA, 2004). Delivery Delivery modes for teacher education programmes include full-time, parttime and distance (usually with electronic support and some face-to-face tuition). However, most provision is part-time and in-service, for those already in post. Full-time, pre-service courses cater for the needs of those seeking employment; this is an accepted route into further education teaching. University teachers, on the other hand, tend to be recruited from doctoral programmes and on the basis of academic prowess, likely to be evidenced in publications. Some study of teaching and learning (and membership of the HE Academy, for example) is increasingly likely to be required of them once in post. Some programmes preparing staff for teaching in higher education appear to be adopting more flexible delivery patterns. In the health professions, there is a growing interest in workplace delivery (partly because of the difficulties of releasing staff from their posts to attend classes). Some HE programmes are delivered as self-study packages and some involve peer support groups or depend heavily on mentor involvement. Often there is an online component. Many programmes involve a mix of delivery methods. Delivery that allows for a significant amount of independent working may be easier to ‘sell’ to university staff who may tend to regard such training as unnecessary even if it is required of them by their employing institution. The competence model Fierce debate was occasioned by the introduction of some competencebased courses for teachers in FE. The establishment of the National Council
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for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ) in 1986 had led to the introduction of competence-based courses in many vocational areas; teachers in FE were delivering these courses and carrying out competence-based assessments in the college and the workplace. Many argued (as their peers in universities were to do a few years later, in rejecting the 24 specific teaching outcomes proposed by the ILTHE) that the introduction of competence-based assessment had reduced teacher autonomy (Hyland, 1992; Last and Chown, 1996; Hodkinson, 1997; Randle and Brady, 1997; Elliott, 1998; Shain and Gleeson, 1999). Last and Chown (1996) observed that ‘the limitations in the design of current competence-based qualifications have the potential to deskill professional practice’ (p. 27) and that ‘when the current prescriptive approach is applied to teaching, it reduces the autonomy of both teachers and learners, and redefines the nature of professional practice’ (p. 28). Hodkinson (1997) argued that the assessment strategies entailed in General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs) and National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) were an example of technical rationality and that such a regime saw ‘teachers as artisans to be controlled, rather than as professionals to be empowered’ (p. 75). However, in contrast, Wolf (1995) observed that competence-based awards were characterised, amongst other things, by a rejection of the traditional authority of professional groups and assessors. In addition, evidence from a small-scale study of college lecturers’ views (Robson et al., 2004) suggests that some vocational teachers themselves believe they exercise considerable autonomy, in their classrooms and workshops at least, in ‘going beyond’ their competence-based syllabuses, by enhancing theoretical understanding, for example. In any event, there was a further compelling reason to include at least some competence-based components in teacher training programmes at that time. It would provide trainee teachers with direct experience of a curriculum model that they would themselves almost certainly be delivering and one which was radically different from any they were likely to have experienced in their own education and training. As long as opportunities for reflection, critique and discussion about the experience were facilitated, some programme designers were prepared to promote the use of competencebased assessment. In some programmes, they were included in a ‘mixed economy’, alongside modules designed in a more conventional way with aims and learning objectives. Undoubtedly, cogent criticisms of the competence model for the training and education of teachers (and other professionals) must be allowed to stand. Professional competence is important, of course, and in this context it has tended to be much less valued than subject knowledge, as I noted earlier in this chapter. However, whilst the transparency and descriptiveness of the competence-based awards may have helped to create increased professional accountability, to delineate professional boundaries and describe professional knowledge, they did so in a too mechanistic way with
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an inappropriate emphasis on observable behaviour (Robson, 1998a). As already noted, the FENTO standards, which were published in 1999, stopped short of adopting a fully conventional competence format. The nature of the next generation of standards (currently being developed by the LLUK and the new HE Academy) remains to be seen. Partnerships Institutional partnerships of various kinds are now commonplace in the postcompulsory sectors. In the context of teacher training, such arrangements usually involve universities and local further education colleges. In some cases, the nature of the partnership is similar to that operating between HEIs and local schools, for the purposes of training school teachers. A key difference, however, is that in the maintained school sector, such collaborations were being increasingly required from the 1980s, as government introduced a series of measures designed to shift control of training (and some of the resources for it) away from universities and colleges of higher education. In the post-compulsory sector, no such requirements exist even now, though an increased emphasis on workplace training and on the practical skills of pedagogy (as evidenced in the FENTO standards, for example) has ensured that the FE college contribution to training is more highly valued than perhaps it once was. In addition, with the increased independence and accountability that came to the FE sector with incorporation, their expectations as employers have changed. In the context of reports during the early 1990s from the (then) Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) that criticised teaching quality and low levels of student retention, many FE employers welcomed opportunities for greater control and involvement in the preparation of their teaching staff (Robson et al., 1995). Control over the appointment and training of their teaching staff is taken for granted by universities. A key practical difference between colleges and universities, of course, is that universities routinely validate their own awards. Further education colleges are not awarding bodies. Their courses lead to awards that are validated by others (such as Edexcel, OCR, City & Guilds or a local university). Their case for partnership is strong. Though HEIs are increasingly seeking to collaborate with each other, and even merge in some instances, these initiatives are usually driven by resource imperatives. Training programmes for teachers in universities tend to be offered internally, on an in-house basis, and teacher training partnerships with other HEIs are largely unknown. New university teachers are therefore likely to find that they are attending these programmes with their colleagues from other departments within the same institution. This pattern results frequently in relatively small groups of staff where opportunities for peer learning and for the creation of genuine ‘learning communities’ may be reduced. Opportunities for generalising to broad pedagogical principles on
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the basis of specific experiences (for example, in diverse institutions) may also be lessened. (In Chapter 3, I comment on a growing debate in higher education about the nature of pedagogy itself, about whether it is or should be subject-specific, or whether it can be general, common to all teachers, and applicable across the HE curriculum.) School training partnerships have tended to be based on a division of the curriculum that ensures that the teachers in the schools are chiefly concerned with the development and supervision of practice and university teachers with the domain of theory (Wilkin, 1990). Teacher training partnerships in the postcompulsory phase have not tended to develop in this way and many college staff are experienced in delivery of both theoretical and practical components. There is little consistency in the design and operation of partnerships between universities and further education colleges. Students on full-time, pre-service courses of teacher education require placements, and some universities pay the colleges to provide the necessary teaching hours and appropriate mentor support. In some cases, there may be further formal input from college staff, particularly relating to the non-teaching aspects of the professional role, such as inspection or quality audit. Other forms of partnership include groups of local colleges working together with the local HEI to form a consortium for the delivery of a jointly designed programme. Here, responsibility for delivery of the programme rests with the colleges’ staff and the HEI retains a quality assurance role. There are also various models of partnership involving franchise; here, the universityvalidated programme is delivered in the college by college staff and some of the university’s income from the course may be transferred in payment. The complexity of these arrangements can be challenging to those involved. There are obvious benefits in working closely with those who will eventually employ the trainees to ensure an appropriate and relevant experience for them. However, partnerships bring challenges, particularly in relation to quality assurance. It may be difficult for the college to release staff for mentor training, for example, amidst the pressures of everincreasing teaching loads. It may be in some cases that the universities are failing fully to support and monitor the external delivery of their own awards. Certainly, some universities entered into hugely ambitious partnership operations in the 1980s and 1990s, and Ofsted’s finding that procedures for assuring the consistency and quality of training across partnerships are often inadequate (Ofsted, 2003) may not surprise many.
The training experience Perceptions of training effectiveness Official interest in the quality of training and development offered to staff in both post-compulsory sectors has been increasing over the last decade. A
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concern with standards of training, with ‘efficiency’ and with performance targets is evident, for example, in Learning to Succeed (DfEE, 1999a), Success for All (DfES, 2002) and The Future of Higher Education (DfES, 2003). HEFCE funding has been available for initiatives designed to enhance the quality of teaching and learning in universities, such as the appointment of staff development co-ordinators and the creation of ‘centres’ for teaching and learning. Training programmes for HE are normally required by their own institutions to address the HE Academy ‘standards’ (now undergoing revision), and although these are presently framed simply as broad topic areas rather than specific standards as such, the accreditation does have to be kept up to date. Official interest in the quality and effectiveness of teacher training for further education has also increased markedly, particularly with the involvement of Ofsted. In addition, a clear public research agenda is emerging. The Learning and Skills Development Agency, for example, has funded research into ‘what works best’ in the training of teachers (e.g. Harkin et al., 2003) and in post16 education generally (which they usually take to exclude higher education). Some generalisations about good teaching and learning are possible (for example, despite its persistence in many university departments, the transmission model of teaching has been thoroughly discredited now and constructivist approaches to learning arising notably from the work of Bruner in the 1960s are much more widely accepted). However, the assumption that ‘recipes’ for effective teaching at post-16 do exist or can be written and can be straightforwardly taught to others needs to be challenged. There is currently a marked preference amongst policy-makers for ‘hard’ (quantitative) data and a concern about the lack of it in much educational research (Rendall, 2003). Such data may help provide measures of participation, retention, achievement and so on, but are less successful in facilitating ‘measurements’ about the way people learn (including trainee teachers). Though quantitative research has its place, every teacher knows how limiting such an approach can be, how complex the activity in question and how variable the contexts. The nature of some current understandings about ‘good teaching’ will be discussed more fully in Chapter 3. Attitudes to teacher training and development vary and some resistance is apparent, particularly in higher education. Though there is more evidence (for example, in the educational press) that individuals are starting to engage with teaching and learning in meaningful ways, discipline-related research is still a priority in most universities, and the academic identity is still strongly tied to it. Some hold the view that effective teaching is dependent on personal attributes and so cannot be taught. Further, although centres for staff development are now common in universities, some evidence suggests that experienced staff are not being reached (Gordon et al., 2003). Not only does the low status of teaching as an activity inhibit take-up, but in addition there may not be the resource to facilitate this. Crowley and Kelly (2003)
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make the same point in relation to further education teachers. Here, initial training is now required of new staff, as noted above, but there are many fewer opportunities for experienced teachers to develop their practice to advanced levels. Those that do take up teacher training and professional development courses often value the experience, and as official scrutiny increases, pressures to demonstrate the effectiveness of provision also mount. The study referred to above by Harkin et al. (2003), which involved 244 respondents in 10 FE colleges in England, found that 90 per cent rated the experience of initial teacher training as ‘helpful’ or ‘very helpful’. In relation to HE training, in a study involving 22 universities in eight countries, Gibbs (2004) found that university teachers who took part in training programmes adopted more student-centred approaches after one year than those in a control group. Students taught by these teachers took a surface approach to learning to a lesser extent than those taught by the untrained teachers. Of interest, too, are the features of programmes that students often find the most or least valuable. Commonly, it is the practical course components, the observation of classroom or workshop teaching, the coaching and the feedback on it that attract the highest ratings. As I have frequently noted, these teachers are already trained and expert in something else. They will probably continue to see themselves first and foremost as nurses, surveyors, carpenters or managers, as historians or psychologists. This may help to explain a degree of pragmatism in their approach to the teacher training (‘I know it, I just need to teach it’). Formal theory (e.g. the psychology of learning) was valued by the respondents in Harkin et al. (2003) only when it was perceived as transformable to practice. Peer group experiences tend also to be highly valued, notwithstanding the huge diversity of backgrounds that teachers in both further and higher education typically have. Some kind of ‘gap’ between the training and the reality of professional practice is probably unavoidable. It may even be highly desirable. If the purpose of the training is to facilitate reflection on and in practice, to raise awareness of the nature of learning, and to challenge ‘folk pedagogy’ (Torff, 1999) or dominant beliefs about how learning occurs and what teachers do, then withdrawal from the practice environment will be necessary. It will also seem to be just that, to be a withdrawal from that centrally important aspect of the teacher’s professional role. And, as Zukas and Malcolm (2002a) note, despite the importance attached by student teachers to the placement, for example, these workplaces are not benign. A ‘regime of scrutiny and regulation’ (p. 232) may prevail. In addition, individual trainees on placement may feel isolated, at odds with the negativity of their more experienced colleagues and consequently marginalised in staff rooms and work rooms (Bathmaker et al., 2000).
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Learning communities Attendance on a training or professional development programme may offer an opportunity to negotiate an identity outside the bounds of an employing or placement institution. As noted above, the students often attach considerable value to their experience of the support and challenge offered by the peer group. The ‘withdrawal’ from the workplace can stimulate renewal for both experienced and new teachers. More will be said in Chapter 4 about the different ‘communities’ that these teachers belong to. Not only may they be employed by different institutions, but they will represent a huge variety of subject disciplines and professional backgrounds. In the context of a discussion about their training and development, the peer group may afford opportunities for enrichment, for the sharing of perspectives and for making personal and professional changes in a relatively safe environment. Collaboration is seen as an important strategy for post-compulsory teachers. It may help in coping with institutional and resource constraints (Shain and Gleeson, 1999). Further, following Lave and Wenger (1991), Bathmaker et al. (2000) argue that the opportunities for talk and engagement may ensure that the communities themselves are transformed and reproduced; professional identity is not simply imposed from above. However, deliberate and formal efforts to create ‘learning communities’ within the framework of the educational and training programme are relatively rare. Often a style of learning contract (or personal learning agenda) may be in use within a cohort, and this strategy may require students to form alliances, to establish links with ‘critical friends’, for example. Sometimes, there will be peer assessment, too, in relation to tasks required for formative assessment particularly. In teacher training programmes, tutors may negotiate ‘ground rules’ that will try to ensure such things as respectful dealings with others. Often there is formal acknowledgement of the intent to create learning environments for teachers and trainee teachers that will mirror those they might wish to create for their own students. Tosey (2002) describes a more considered and fully elaborated ‘peer learning community’ in use on the programme leading to an MSc in Change Agent Skills and Strategies at the University of Surrey. In the context of a programme for postgraduates who are experienced in training, management development, organisational consultancy and in similar fields, who seek to develop their skills as facilitators of change, learning and development within organisational and community settings, a dynamic peer learning community is formed that all participants sign up to on entry. The characteristics of this community include a philosophy of educating the whole person, promoting community interaction and the use of skilled facilitation (not just by programme staff). Some tensions may arise between the processes of such a learning community and the host institution and the boundaries need actively to be managed. Further, Tosey notes that the format would probably
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be less effective if simply transplanted to another social and cultural context. Nevertheless, his experiences (and those of his colleagues and students) are a strong reminder that a focus on developmental and experiential learning can reap benefits for any group of learners, especially those who will seek in their work to facilitate the learning of others.
Conclusion This chapter has focused principally on the current requirements and provision for the training of teachers in the post-compulsory phase of education. The policy agenda is evolving rapidly but its overall direction is relatively clear. There will be greater accountability of teachers beyond the school phase and more pressure on them to complete specified and certificated programmes of teacher training. However, this pressure will not be felt evenly by all members of both groups. The new reforms that are underway seem likely to perpetuate existing anomalies, and to create some new ones. They will affect teachers in both further and higher education. The overall picture remains one of confusion and fragmentation. In many cases, the necessary prior knowledge and expertise of the college or university teacher (their commitment to doing and being something else) makes for increased complexity, as is evident in the ambiguity surrounding the notion of ‘graduateness’, for example. At other times, the perceived low status of teaching as an activity or the higher status of universities (compared to further education colleges) is hampering the development of a consistent approach to standards and qualifications for teachers. The training experience is often valued by the individuals involved. Most value attaches to the more experiential or practical components. Students will often stress the benefits of working with peers and of withdrawing from the workplace to consider and reflect on practice. In Chapter 3, I take a detailed look at the work that teachers do, at the understandings that teachers have and the values they hold in relation to their daily activities. Again, contrasts and differences in practice and belief within and across the teachers’ groups are highlighted.
Chapter 3
Teachers’ work
Unlike that of the scholar-scientist or creative artist, the schoolteacher’s job is to spread other people’s butter. (Geer, 1996, p. 37)
Introduction Despite shifts in recent years towards closer definitions and more detailed contracts in some institutions, the work of teachers in all phases of education remains relatively ill defined. A shared consensus about the nature of teaching as an activity is frequently absent from debates about education, and this is particularly noticeable in the post-compulsory sectors. Interestingly, policy-makers have recently become remarkably coy in their use of the word ‘teaching’. The focus in many policy documents in postcompulsory education now is on ‘learning’, and ‘teaching’ is hardly mentioned. Although learning, of course, can and does take place without teaching, this insistence not only misrepresents the nature of the activities in question (as Coffield (1999) notes, they are elements of a single reciprocal process) but it also damages the standing of the teacher and devalues their work. In post-compulsory education, within the teaching profession itself, ‘work’ tends to be compartmentalised to a degree. Different levels of interest and importance may be attached by individuals to the teaching, to the administrative duties required of them and (within HE) to research. Becher and Kogan (1992) believed that the relatively low valuation of teaching in universities was due both to a lack of leadership from influential members of the peer group and also to an acceptance that teaching (like sex!) was largely a private matter. In a more recent study, Henkel (2000) found that research had a dominant place in the public and private identities of academics but that their educational roles were also important to them. In the post-1992 universities, the respondents tended to take the centrality of teaching for granted; they tended to see research as a developmental activity. Henkel found some evidence, too, that younger academics in the older universities were responding
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to a range of changes that were giving teaching a higher profile than before. There were also disciplinary differences in teachers’ practices reported, which I note later in this chapter. Teachers in further education have tended to value their first occupational identities and roles over and above their work as teachers (Venables, 1967; Robson, 1998a). Since so much of their credibility attaches to this prior occupational role, it is understandable that it should be greatly valued. Further, if they had not been generally successful in this work (as engineers, personnel managers or fashion designers) they would not have obtained the teaching job in the first place. Though there are as yet no formal opportunities for them to update their knowledge and expertise, they may seek various other ways to remain in contact with industrial and commercial developments in their fields and may continue to prioritise this aspect of their work throughout their careers. Of course, numbers of staff in further education do not enter the profession with such clearly defined occupational identities. They may be graduates in the humanities or the sciences, and they will probably have some form of work experience, but they may come to see themselves more clearly as educators than do many of their colleagues in vocational departments of the college. More will be said about the different identities and cultures amongst further and higher education teachers in Chapter 4. Just as there is a lack of clarity around teachers’ work, the wider goals of education are themselves diverse and diffuse (Hoyle, 2001). Attempts to reduce the ambiguity and unpredictability in the relationship between teaching and outcomes, though increasingly prevalent (and already noted as being implied in the research agenda of public bodies such as the Learning and Skills Council), are difficult to sustain. So complex are the educational and social contexts in which teachers work that attempts to attribute specific outcomes to individual teachers or teaching methods must be treated with scepticism. Further, despite the belief reported by Becher and Kogan (1992) that teaching is somehow ‘private’, most teaching actually takes place with groups (and in post- compulsory settings, these are often very large groups). Since everyone at some point in their lives experiences teaching at school, one may argue that the activity itself is relatively public. Compared to members of the major professions, school teachers particularly may retain little in the way of ‘professional mystique’ (Hoyle, 2001, p. 141). This chapter looks at what teachers in post-compulsory education do. Here, there may be more professional mystique and more public ‘deference’ in relation to their activities. Teachers’ subject specialisation increases markedly in this phase, as noted earlier, and Hoyle (2001) speculates that the higher occupational prestige of university teachers (compared to school teachers) derives from their perceived involvement in creating (and not simply transmitting) knowledge. However, there are significant differences and anomalies
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in the nature of teachers’ work across the post-school phases and in the ways they (and others) perceive it. Some of these contrasts are explored here.
The contracts There are residual and significant differences in the terms of employment for teachers in England between the pre- and post-1992 universities. Even more marked differences exist between the contracts for teachers in higher as opposed to further education. Most striking are the differences in the extent to which the principal duties (and the hours or weeks to be devoted to them) are specified. In higher education, these duties are typically teaching, research and administration. Contracts for work in post-1992 universities derive from contracts that existed within the polytechnic sector before that date. These so-called ‘flexible’ contracts were nationally negotiated and agreed with the lecturers’ union NATFHE (National Association for Teachers in Further and Higher Education) in 1991. After a ballot of the membership, they replaced conditions of service known as the Silver Book. The NATFHE contracts are significantly more detailed than the national contracts in use in pre-1992 universities which are, by comparison, short and general, allowing for a far greater degree of local interpretation. For example, the NATFHE contract stipulates that teaching responsibilities should not exceed 18 hours in any week or a total of 550 hours in the teaching year. The teaching year will take place in not more than 36 weeks, and two additional weeks will be spent on teaching-related administration. Teachers in these institutions are entitled to 35 days’ paid leave annually. There is also a requirement for staff to undertake periods of self-managed ‘research and scholarly activity’, principally (but not exclusively) during the weeks of the year that remain once teaching and leave have been accounted for. Some flexibility exists in the implementation of the contract such that, in some institutions, more research time can be ‘bought’ by a reduction in teaching and administration loads. In contrast, teaching contracts in pre-1992 universities do not refer to the amounts of time to be spent on various duties. Even leave entitlement is not always stipulated. Hours of work are usually assumed to be those necessary to undertake the required duties, and no national weightings or maximum annual teaching hours have been agreed between the AUT and the employers. A strong belief persists that teachers in pre-1992 universities do significantly less teaching than their colleagues in the ex-polytechnic sector, but without the figures, and in the context of much local variation, this is difficult to prove. If it is the case, it may help to explain the generally higher research ratings obtained by many departments in pre-1992 universities. A recent agreement between the university employers and trade unions (including NATFHE and the AUT) on a common framework linking pay
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to staff ‘contribution’ across all HEIs in the UK (JNCHES, 2004) relies heavily on local implementation arrangements. Within broad principles, it gives employers considerable flexibility in relation to working hours, progression, extra payments and so on. Thus, there is scope for the perpetuation of existing discrepancies and the growth of new ones across and within institutions, as managers gain more power and higher education institutions more independence. Certainly, inequalities are more likely to persist where precise information about workloads is not available. It has already been noted (in Chapter 1) that women academics, for example, tend to carry out more course-related administration, more pastoral and tutorial work than their male counterparts and may be disadvantaged in their careers as a result (Bagilhole, 1993). In relation to further education teachers, the employers’ organisation, the Association of Colleges (AoC), produced a ‘model’ staff contract for use following the incorporation of colleges in 1993. This model contract for fulltime academic staff runs to 16 pages and lists a huge variety of duties; in addition to formal scheduled teaching, the holder will, for example, be expected to take part in curriculum development, educational guidance, counselling, assessment and marking, marketing, consultancy, staff management, student admissions, as well as research and other forms of scholarly activity. Such hours of work as are ‘reasonably necessary’ will be required, with a minimum of 37 hours per week. No maximum is given. A holiday entitlement of 35 days per year is specified. The model contract is not binding on further education colleges who have been free to elaborate their own contracts in line with local circumstance and perceived needs. There are consequently huge variations, with some employers specifying hours of teaching, staff development activities and administration in great detail. Teaching loads are significantly greater than in universities. Whilst 37 hours per week is treated as the norm in many FE institutions, annual teaching hours may reach 800 (or 900 if the teaching takes place in a workshop). Leave entitlement varies, too. In some colleges, there is no entitlement to staff development time. Increasingly, staff not on formal lecturer contracts are being employed in both universities and colleges to undertake some teaching. It was noted in Chapter 2 that, in further education colleges, these ‘learning support’ posts are variously titled and rates of pay also vary enormously (Bailey and Robson, 2003). In some pre-1992 universities, ‘tutors’ are now employed, often on fixed salary scales, to teach and carry out administrative duties; generally, there is no expectation that these staff should engage in research. Graduate students are also routinely employed to teach undergraduates, for example. Staff called ‘demonstrators’ have been employed for many years in some universities. There seems also to have been an increase in the number of support staff who are now employed in universities to teach language or study skills to students. These developments parallel those in
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some other professions, where less well-paid and less well-qualified staff are being introduced into the professional domain to take over the less significant duties – those regarded as requiring less expertise or as being the more ‘menial’, for example. Important issues are raised for any professional group by such developments. In relation to nursing, for example, Humphreys (2000) argues that the advent of the ‘health care assistant’ (positioned below the registered nurse and undertaking work which was previously the responsibility of trainee or enrolled nurses) effectively weakened the position of nurses and eroded their occupational control. In this context, it is significant that the post-1992 universities do not, on the whole, employ ‘tutors’ rather than lecturers. Possibly the reasons for this lie in their more tightly formulated contracts. Further, it is significant that the work undertaken by the ‘tutors’ (or other similarly entitled employees) in the pre-1992 institutions (for which they may be paid significantly less) is often the teaching itself.
Assessing quality Official interest in the quality of the teaching and research undertaken by those working in the post-school phase of education and training has increased markedly in the last decade. When she was Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Estelle Morris (2001) identified the quality of teaching in universities as the central issue, fundamental to the quality of everything else. In higher education, the funding council is legally responsible for ensuring that the quality of education is assessed in the institutions it funds. It contracts the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), an independent body established in 1997 and funded by subscriptions from HEIs, to carry out quality assessment. This assessment now takes the form of an institutional audit, with a focus on the HEIs’ published procedures and information. This strategy replaced a heavily criticised and resource-intensive form of ‘subject assessment’. The quality of research in UK higher education is assessed through the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). Work is reviewed by peers within the disciplines, and the funding bodies use the results to distribute significant research funds (expected to be in excess of £8 billion over a six-year period from 2009). The format of this exercise has also changed since its inception; the adoption of departmental ‘quality profiles’ now proposed for the RAE in 2008 is intended to reduce the ‘tactical element’ in submissions (HEFCE, 2004). Since its inception, the RAE has exerted a significant influence on academic practice in the UK. An evaluation of the impact of the 1992 exercise (McNay, 1997) demonstrated, for example, that there was a belief amongst participants that the research agenda was being distorted by the pressure to publish. Teaching was thought to be suffering in the prestige stakes, and reportedly the teaching strengths of individuals were not being
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recognised. McNay (1997) makes the point that research has always had a higher premium than teaching. Although many universities now actively reward ‘teaching excellence’ with promotion, fellowships and special awards of various kinds, it is still the case that research success attracts more personal kudos. Research success is perceived as directly attributable to the individual, in contrast with success in teaching, where grades awarded by the QAA also recognise contextual factors. Further, HE institutions themselves receive no direct financial rewards in recognition of teaching quality. Further education colleges are inspected by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) and by the Adult Learning Inspectorate (ALI); both are public bodies working on behalf of the Learning and Skills Council. Ofsted (set up in 1992) was initially responsible for inspecting the quality of education in all schools in England. In 2001, they assumed responsibility also for inspecting all education and training for ages 16–19 in sixth form and further education colleges (as well as for all early years’ education and childcare). The Adult Learning Inspectorate was set up by the Learning and Skills Act in 2000 and it began work in 2001. It works closely with Ofsted and inspects mainly DfES-funded provision, including all work-based learning for people aged 16 and over, education for those aged 19 and over in further education colleges and private training establishments, and all adult and community education (ALI, 2004). It is noticeable that the HEIs, in contrast to the further education colleges, have been able to negotiate and change significantly the format of their quality assessment and inspection processes. I observed in Chapter 2 that opposition within higher education to the first set of ‘standards’ proposed by the ILTHE had resulted in a change there, and once again, the greater autonomy of the universities and the greater political power of their vice chancellors are important underlying considerations.
What is good teaching? The official view The official preoccupation with audit processes in higher education effectively means that institutions are encouraged to reach their own definitions of good practice in relation to teaching. Typically, these might include statements about such things as the nature and timing of feedback to students on their assessments and about course review processes, responses to external examiner concerns, and so on. The direct observation of teaching is still relatively rare in universities. New staff on probation are likely to be observed and the QAA’s subject assessment (also known as Teaching Quality Assessment or TQA) did involve the observation of teaching. Ofsted routinely observes classes and workshops in further education during inspections and most colleges now carry out observation of teaching as
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part of their staff appraisal or review processes, and as part of their preparation for inspection. Criteria used to assess teaching quality necessarily involve a significant degree of personal judgement in their application. The Common Inspection Framework (CIF) published by the ALI and Ofsted (ALI and Ofsted, 2001) sets out the principles that now apply to inspections of all post-16 education and training taking place outside higher education. The inspection of individual providers seeks to ascertain ‘how effective and efficient the provision is in meeting the needs of learners and why’ (p. 6). Specifically, in relation to the effectiveness of teaching, training and learning, judgements will be made about the teacher’s subject knowledge and competence, about their planning, use of methods and styles of learning and their use of assessment tasks. Judgements will also be called for in relation to the teacher’s ability to ‘challenge and inspire learners’, to ‘promote good working relationships’ and ‘to develop individual learning plans’ (p. 8). Understandings of the nature of good teaching circulating more widely in the literature and amongst practitioners themselves are diverse. The official preoccupation with measurable outcomes (pass rates, retention levels, employability) is not altogether eschewed by practitioners who may also claim that their own teaching expertise can be assessed in those kinds of ways. Vocational teachers often do take pride in the numbers of their students who find good jobs, for example. At a deeper level, however, it is a concern that so little consensus exists about the nature of post-school pedagogy. In discussing the fields of higher and adult education, Zukas and Malcolm (2002b) note that lifelong learning pedagogies are ‘marked by disjunctions’. ‘Pedagogical walls’ exist where we might expect to find continuities or ‘conceptual bridges’ (p. 203).The status accorded to teaching as an activity differs both within and across FHE institutions; notwithstanding the introduction of Foundation Degrees, there is still little real connection between further and higher education and historically, of course, teachers in these places have been positioned quite differently. In this book, I argue that a focus on teaching as a core activity has not tended to be a characteristic of either group. Collectively, and as a result of this perhaps, we seem vulnerable to ‘fashion’ in terms of our adherence to key pedagogic ideas and discourses, whose dominance should be challenged more often than it is. Later, I discuss briefly some of the main strands in the literature. Working with difference The particular conception of good teaching that any one teacher holds will, of course, be affected or even in part determined by their understanding of how people learn and their view of what it means to learn. If, for example, learning is thought of as the accumulation of knowledge, and as a
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quantitative increase in knowledge, then good teaching may be constructed in terms of how well the transmission of that knowledge is achieved. Similarly, if learning is considered in more qualitative terms, as a change in students’ interpretation or understanding or even as a change in the students themselves, such that they come to learn how they learn, for example, then good teaching is likely to be constructed as teaching which facilitates those changes and which is more student-centred. Implicit in some of the characterisations of the post-school teacher’s professional knowledge which were considered in Chapter 1 are some specific understandings of what it may mean to be a good teacher. For example, the strands of work relating to individual differences in approaches to learning, to ‘deep’ and ‘surface’ learning as researched by Ramsden (2003) and Biggs (1999) amongst others, suggest that the good teacher may be someone who systematically investigates and takes account of such differences within the student cohort. Certainly, this idea has been popular in further education in recent years, though there it is a focus more on the learning styles identified by Honey and Mumford (1992). It is worth noting, too, that the CIF (as already mentioned) currently requires a judgement to be made on the extent to which teachers and trainers develop individual learning plans based on the initial assessment of learner needs. I argued in Chapter 1 that this focus on the individual and their specific needs was tending to obscure the importance of context to learning; Haggis (2003) claims that such models ignore the richness and complexity of the individual’s multiple contexts. Further, Coffield et al. (2004) found that very few of the instruments for determining learning styles which they examined met minimal criteria for reliability and validity. They argue that too much is being expected of these simple, self-report tests and that pedagogical intervention should not be based solely on any of them. In addition, of course, it is very hard in practice to deal with large groups of students in a highly individualised way. Resources may simply prohibit it. Reflective teachers Another strand of work suggests that the good teacher may be a reflective one, someone whose practice is constantly being examined by themselves and others, a teacher for whom change is constant. Brookfield (1995) draws an opposition between ‘teaching innocently’ and adopting the habit of critical reflection. This is necessary to the teacher’s survival but it also enlivens classrooms and increases trust. A teacher who models critical thinking stimulates students to think critically, too. For this reason, Brookfield argues, ‘critical reflection should become perhaps the most important indicator we look for in any attempt to judge teachers’ effectiveness’ (p. 25). However, Hoyle and John (1995) caution against a notion of narrow, private and routine reflection. Far from emancipating teachers, reflection which is
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never tested against broader, more public perceptions and ideas may lead teachers into a sterile engagement with their own practice which is restricted to the limits of their personal knowledge. Bleakley (1999) also argues against a technical and institutionalised form of reflection for professionals, preferring instead the term ‘holistic reflexivity’. Carroll (2003) notes that although good practice is essentially the product of reflection and self-assessment, it will rarely emerge directly from something being done for the first time. Thus, an appropriate institutional climate is needed for teachers to experiment and to learn from their mistakes. In this analysis, good practice becomes as much an organisational concern as a personal one. I will return to examine the nature of educational workplaces later in this chapter. They are also discussed in Chapter 5, in relation to the opportunities they do and do not provide for teachers’ continued professional learning. Reflective practice is revisited in chapter 5. Scholarship of teaching Another cluster of studies focuses around the notion of ‘scholarship’ in teaching, taking as their starting point the work of Boyer (1990) which was mentioned in Chapter 1. Boyer’s ‘scholarship of teaching’ is one of four separate but overlapping areas of scholarship in academic work. The others are the scholarship of discovery (e.g. research), of integration (e.g. making connections across disciplines) and of application (e.g. linking teaching and research). The scholarship of teaching includes knowledge of effective ways to represent subjects, the ability to draw strands of the field together coherently, and knowledge of how to make a subject more accessible, interesting and meaningful to students. Trigwell et al. (2000) suggest that Boyer’s descriptions of scholarly teaching are limited to a view of the teacher as well informed. Kreber (2000) is critical of Boyer’s emphasis on outcomes or products (in the form of publications or teaching evaluations) at the expense of process. She argues for an expansion of the concept of scholarship to include both process and product since so much of what academics do does not result in a quantifiable product. Like Dunkin and Precians (1992), her approach is to analyse the concepts employed by award-winning teachers themselves. This work on the scholarship of teaching is concerned specifically with conceptions of teaching in higher education. Importantly, a distinction is made between ‘scholarship’ and ‘competence’ such that scholarship ‘goes beyond competence to be associated with excellence’ (Kreber and Cranton, 2000, p. 490). The debate about professional practice in FE (as in schools) has been framed noticeably more in terms of ‘competence’ than ‘excellence’ or ‘scholarship’. (See Chapter 2 for a discussion of the use of the competence model in teacher training.) Working conditions for teachers in FE differ significantly from those in higher education, as explained above. Of course, many FE teachers are engaged in activities
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like the ones Boyer (1990) describes, and the differences here may be more to do with language and perspective, culture and status than with practice. Such differences exist within higher education, too, and interestingly, as I noted in Chapter 1, some staff working in higher education staff development units appear to have limited familiarity (and limited sympathy) with the terms ‘pedagogical development’ and ‘pedagogical research’ (Gordon et al., 2003). The learning context The potential importance of context to conceptions of teaching is noted by Samuelowicz and Bain (1992). At the end of their study involving thirteen academics (some of whom were teaching at a distance and some of whom taught in a more conventional setting) they concluded that some conceptions of teaching varied according to context. For example, the students’ level may condition a teacher’s approach. Thus, teaching of undergraduate students may be thought to involve the transmission of knowledge, but at postgraduate level, teaching may be perceived as being more concerned with supporting student learning. Another study, this time of the views of a group of teachers of vocational subjects in further education (Robson, 2002), found evidence of a belief that perceptions of good teaching varied across the college curriculum, as well as amongst teachers of different levels of courses. These vocational teachers perceived ‘academic’ teaching (or the teaching of academic subjects) as elite, precious, less open to scrutiny and unchanging; in contrast, they viewed ‘vocational’ teaching as responsive to change, practical, student-centred, rooted in reality, earthy and empathetic. I will look in more detail at further disciplinary differences later in this chapter. Lave and Wenger (1991) see learning as intrinsically social, as something which cannot be separated from the rest of our activities. It is part of our lived experience of participating in the world. Wenger (1998) elaborates: Learning is something we can assume – whether we see it or not, whether we like the way it goes or not, whether what we are learning is to repeat the past or to shake it off. Even failing to learn what is expected in a given situation usually involves learning something else instead. (Wenger, 1998, p. 8) This perspective does not see learning as the result of teaching, necessarily. Accepting such a view would imply, for example, that good teaching was teaching that took account of the full social, political and historical context; it would also suggest that individuals should not be cut off from the practice in which their particular activities make sense. For learning about specific work-related tasks in particular, classrooms might be considered
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problematic (Brown and Duguid, 1993). It would also imply that collaboration with others may be important and that learning outcomes are not always predictable. Critical pedagogy Finally, there is some evidence in the literature of an interest in ‘alternative’ pedagogy. ‘Good teaching’ is sometimes constructed in these accounts as ‘creative’ or as ‘critical’, or challenging in a political sense. Avis et al. (2002a) suggest that such ideas construct the teacher as ‘a public intellectual, involved in a struggle to know and make sense of the world, one requiring political engagement’ (p. 190). Clarke (2002) describes critical pedagogy as based on the ideas of Paulo Freire and directed towards revolutionary social change. Zukas and Malcolm (2002b) find clear evidence of radical and critical pedagogic cultures in their reading of the literature on adult education, much less in the writing about higher education. Bathmaker et al. (2003) acknowledge difficulties in defining and putting into practice forms of critical pedagogy, particularly in vocational and training contexts. Malcolm and Zukas (2000) argue that the absence of understandings of the ‘critical practitioner’ from the literature on higher education pedagogy is due to the forced separation of pedagogy from the discipline itself. Criticality in educational practice, they argue, demands a critical approach not just to teaching and learning but also to the content of what is taught and to what counts as educational knowledge within a specific discipline. (Later, I note their insistence that research and teaching are both forms of knowledge production and that expertise in the discipline embraces both.) Disciplinary and pedagogic identities therefore cannot be separated but must co-exist within communities. The implication here may be that teacher education for both FE and HE teachers should move more towards the secondary school model where pedagogy may be learned and debated within broad disciplinary contexts. Further, as Malcolm and Zukas (2000) argue, we should not be educating university teachers in isolation from university departments of education, where pedagogic knowledge and practice already exist and where teachers for school, adult and further education colleges are currently trained.
Colleges and universities as workplaces As conditions of work in a global economy continue to change, across various disciplines there is renewed academic interest in the workplace as a site for learning. As Fuller and Unwin (2002) point out, this coincides with new thinking about the nature of learning, such as the social theory of learning put forward by Lave and Wenger (1991), briefly mentioned above. This theory views learning as ‘situated’, as participation in social activities,
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and here work, of course, is key. Social learning theory implies that learning is as much collective as individual (Fuller and Unwin, 2002). However, recent research into the nature of workplaces as learning environments has focused largely on learning in industrial and commercial environments. The educational organisation has often escaped notice but there are questions of interest here. What do the people who work in the colleges and universities (as opposed to their students) learn in those places? How does the organisation and design of their work affect their understandings of the nature of it? What do they learn informally about what it may mean to be a teacher or lecturer? Writing about schools, Tipton (1988) argues that it is worth looking at educational organisations as workplaces precisely because they are not sites of industrial production. How are they similar? How are they different? In the literature on organisations, ‘schools have become cast as repositories of “unproductive” or “mental” labour and thereby passed over as workplaces proper’ (p. 5). In comparison with other places of employment, the goals of schools, colleges and universities remain relatively unclear. Though most educational institutions now vaunt ‘mission statements’, and publicly declare their aims and commitments on websites, for example, these are typically couched in terms of abstract values and generalised aspiration. The lack of clarity in their aims may not be a negative feature of these workplaces. Though there are likely to be greater constraints on them now (such as hugely increased workloads, for example), Tipton (1973) noted that the obscure nature of goals set by technical colleges in the 1960s actually provided staff with opportunities for entrepreneurial activity and even promotion. What kinds of workplaces are colleges and universities today? Though research on the topic is scarce, the likelihood is that in practice there is variability. Several typologies of organisations exist in the literature, and in a development of Engestrom’s concept of ‘expansive learning’, Fuller and Unwin (2004) posit a continuum of ‘approaches to workforce development’, where the focus is, they suggest, on people and learning rather than on the organisation. The ‘expansive–restrictive continuum’ (p. 130) identifies characteristics such as access to qualifications, a gradual transition to full employment, planned time off-the-job for reflection, the valuing of teamwork and the encouragement of cross-boundary communication, as features amongst others of an expansive approach to workforce development. A restrictive approach, on the other hand, may be typified by narrow access to learning possibilities, virtually all learning carried out on the job, fast transitions, rigid specialist roles, bounded communication and a lack of support for employees as learners. Focusing more on the organisation itself, and drawing broadly on the work of David Hurst and others, Carroll (2004) posits two ‘types’ of organisation. A ‘maintenance’ type tends to ‘preserve’ and ‘defend’, and to stay where it is; the ‘development’ type of organisation is concerned with ‘prospecting’
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and ‘transforming’, with the future and with learning. Colleges may be ‘coasting’ or they may be ‘renewing’ and ‘transforming’ themselves (p. 18); presumably, they may also be doing a bit of both, or either of these things at different times. From the perspective of the employee, universities and colleges may seem to be taking a rather ‘restricted’ approach to the development of their workforce. Though there is now a requirement for all new teachers in FE colleges to be trained, there is little opportunity for them to develop their practice to advanced levels, as I noted in Chapter 2. There is no formal provision (or requirement) for them (or for their colleagues in universities) to update their industrial or commercial expertise in rapidly changing fields of work. Similarly, though many new lecturers in universities now have to complete some form of training, there is little provision for experienced staff. Further, discipline and departmental boundaries are strong, and in many colleges and universities there are few opportunities and little encouragement to work across these in meaningful ways, for anything other than purely administrative ends. Classrooms and workshops are relatively private domains still, and new staff may report feelings of isolation and alienation (Bathmaker et al., 2000; Robson, 2000). There may be little focus on the teacher’s own learning. More research is needed in this important area. The ‘learning organisation’, as defined by Watkins and Marsick (1993), is one which learns continually, and which has the capacity to transform itself. When individuals learn, under the right conditions, they take their learning back to the ‘system’ (school, hospital, government), so that it can be shared, easily accessed and utilised in the pursuance of the common purpose, whatever that might be (Marsick, 1997). Some educational organisations have declared themselves to be ‘learning organisations’, and some colleges, for example, have achieved status as ‘Beacon Colleges’, or ‘Centres of Vocational Excellence’. These initiatives may help in part to focus attention on the work of teachers, to encourage the spread of good practice and to attract additional resource. In addition, the self-confidence of those who work in institutions with such accolades may be enhanced. The real challenges, however, are likely to lie in the established culture and practices of both institutions and practitioners, in the divisions and differences across and within institutions, and in the perceptions and expectations of both employer and employee.
Disciplinary differences Despite the broad similarity of teachers’ work in contractual terms, the detail of professional practice varies considerably across disciplines and curriculum areas in both further and higher education. Becher (1994) has developed a typology of academic subjects, based on the work of Biglan (1973) and Kolb (1981). This typology has provided a
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framework for much of the research that has explored disciplinary differences in the working practices of teachers. It will be referred to again in Chapter 4, in the discussion of differences in teachers’ identities and communities. According to this classification, subjects such as history and psychology are both ‘soft pure’ disciplines, despite the differences between them. The natural sciences are described as ‘hard pure’. Engineering is classed as ‘hard applied’ and social work and teaching both ‘soft applied’. Disciplines vary in status, such that ‘hard’ disciplines and knowledge domains are more highly regarded than ‘soft’ ones and ‘pure’ disciplines are valued over ‘applied’ ones (Becher and Trowler, 2001). In addition, some writers argue that academic subjects are constructed as gendered, such that English is viewed as feminine (Thomas, 1990 and 1991), as are biology, psychology, French and sociology (Archer and Freedman, 1989). Engineering, the physical sciences and maths are viewed as masculine (Archer and Freedman, 1989). Differences between disciplines are undoubtedly more subtle and complex than such classifications may suggest. As Neumann et al. (2002) note, a given discipline may straddle two categories, may change categories over time (for example, as computer methods have gained ascendancy in linguistics, this discipline can be seen to have moved in part from soft pure to hard pure). Some disciplines may also have deviant specialisms, and Neumann et al. (2002) give the example of sociometrics which, as a hard pure discipline, is anomalous within the soft pure discipline of sociology. Thomas (1990) argues that the ‘hard’/‘soft’ duality is also articulated as ‘difficult’/‘easy’, with the subsequent devaluing of subjects more favoured by female students and women. Such dichotomies, in other words, can be seen as a way of legitimating male superiority. There are obvious differences in the content of what is researched and taught, and differences, too, in the organisation of that knowledge and in the nature of the curriculum. In hard pure disciplines, the curriculum tends to be cumulative and atomistic, linear and hierarchical; disciplinary understanding depends on established facts and demonstrable knowledge, until an advanced stage is reached. In soft pure disciplines, the curricula are spiral, reiterative and holistic in nature. Course structures are relatively open and students are encouraged to develop critical perspectives and to adopt an interpretative stance (Neumann et al., 2002). Related to these differences are documented differences in approaches to university teaching across disciplines (Smeby, 1996; Neumann, 2001). There are also subject-based differences in teachers’ approaches to assessment (Bridges et al., 1999; Yorke et al., 2001) as well as in teachers’ beliefs about learning in their disciplines, about appropriate forms of argument, paradigms and methods (Henkel, 2000; Becher and Trowler, 2001). Most of this data has been obtained from teachers’ accounts, from interviews and surveys, rather than from the direct observation of practice.
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Much less data exists about discipline differences amongst teachers in further education but they mirror those reported in universities and have been described by Tipton (1973), Gleeson and Mardle (1980) and Robson (1998a, 2002). They are perceived to influence classroom and student management, as well as staffroom layout and social relationships. Robson (1998a) describes the experiences of two of her student teachers, from different professional backgrounds, who both sought advice about how to address student lateness: The business studies teacher was advised to be more assertive with latecomers, to stress the value to the students of arriving on time, the importance to the group of a good start, and so on; the quantity surveyor was advised simply to lock his door at 9 a.m. (pp. 595–6) For students in further and higher education to be successful, they must acquire ways of knowing that are discipline-specific (Saunders and Clarke, 1997). The role of the teacher is in part to induct students into disciplinespecific modes of thought, to teach them the methods and forms of participation and inquiry, the way arguments should be generated, developed and expressed within each discipline. They must also teach appropriate working and cultural practices. In short, they must teach the would-be historian to think and make judgements like an historian, and the would-be chef to think and make judgements like a chef. There are variations by discipline in the amount of time spent preparing for teaching, the value placed upon it as an activity and the methods employed by more experienced university teachers (Smeby, 1996; Neumann, 2001). Though lectures predominate in all fields of study at university, this is not true of further education teaching. Smeby (1996) found that those in soft pure disciplines spend the most time on teaching and those in hard applied disciplines spend the least time. Those in soft pure disciplines (where much subject knowledge is open to debate) also spend the most time on preparation for teaching. Academics in soft pure disciplines spend least time on postgraduate supervision and those in hard pure and hard applied fields see supervision as integrated with their own research. These kinds of differences amongst teachers in further education are less likely to be strongly marked if only because (as noted earlier) their contract ties them to a specific quota of hours. There is, however, some evidence that college managers take into account the nature of the subject area, for example, in allocating more teaching hours to those who spend most of their time in workshops. Neumann (2001) reports on research that has revealed distinct discipline differences in modes of assessment. In keeping with their atomistic structure and relatively closed and itemised curricula, hard pure disciplines require the
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memorisation of facts and are likely to weight examinations more strongly. Soft pure disciplines, with their open and indeterminate knowledge base, use essays more widely. Multiple-choice questions are favoured in applied but not pure fields. Recent work on assessment by Bridges et al. (1999) and Yorke et al. (2001) has found discipline-related differences in the way percentages are used for marking students’ work. The key question here is to what extent approaches to professional practice, to such things as teaching and assessment, actually should vary, to reflect legitimate discipline differences (that are a necessary and valid part of what students need to learn). What changes could be made to teachers’ work that would enhance rather than detract from the students’ understanding and assimilation of the subject’s basic principles? To what extent may the differences in teachers’ practices be private indulgences, the perpetuation of closed cultures, and barriers to the genuine sharing of good practice? And how far should institutions attempt to ignore disciplinary differentiation in their quality assurance procedures, for example, in their assessment regulations? Research Teaching and research In the HE context, research is widely seen as central to academic practice. In the post-1992 universities, however, where specific funding for research is much more recent (and still falls below levels in pre-1992 universities), this perception may be less widespread. We noted earlier that Henkel (2000) had found in her study that staff in newer universities tended to stress the centrality of teaching to their roles. In spite of specific provision in their contracts (as noted earlier) for a fixed and protected entitlement of time for research and scholarly activity (which some staff in older universities might have cause to envy) the development of ‘research cultures’ in post-1992 universities has been slow and their achievements uneven. This relates, of course, not to the capabilities of individuals but to the structure, funding and perceptions of their work in the ex-polytechnics. Many of these institutions had developed strong links with local industry and businesses, and have tended to see their central role more in terms of workforce development, in applied (rather than academic) research and in industrial innovation. The relationship between teaching and research became the subject of fierce debate following the publication of the White Paper The Future of Higher Education (DfES, 2003). Sections of that document provoked considerable comment, for example, in the pages of Research Intelligence, the newsletter of the British Educational Research Association. Paragraph 4.31 in the White Paper, for example, stated:
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It is clear that good scholarship, in the sense of remaining aware of the latest research and thinking within a subject, is essential for good teaching, but not that it is necessary to be active in cutting-edge research to be a good teacher. The White Paper came on the heels of the 2001 RAE and attempted to provide a rationale for a changed distribution of funding. This would result in lower achieving institutions receiving less than in previous such exercises. The government proposed that ‘non-research intensive universities’ (those scoring 4 or below in the RAE) would concentrate on teaching. The rationale for this was that there was, as far as they were concerned, no necessary and absolute connection between the two activities. Stronach (2003) described the White Paper as itself being ‘research-free in its major contentions’ (p. 9). Bassey (2003) argued that non-researching individuals must at least work in departments with strong research cultures if they are to be aware of research and the latest developments in their subjects. He also draws attention to the relationship between good teaching and good research at an institutional level. In 2001, most universities with high scores for the assessment of their teaching quality also obtained high research scores. The English funding council later backed down on its proposal to fund only those departments scoring above 4 in the 2001 RAE , but the resultant debate was illuminating on several levels. Though the importance of research to academic identity has traditionally been accepted, the relationship between teaching and research is notoriously hard to demonstrate (Brown, 2002). McNay (1997) observes that a separation of research and teaching has been encouraged by RAE procedures (which have required, for example, the designation of some staff as ‘research active’ and others as ‘teaching only’ (though this practice is to be discontinued in 2008). The growth in use of ‘research only’ staff in some departments and universities contributes further to this separation. Brown (2002) suggests that the relationship between teaching and research is a vexed one partly because we have been encouraged (for example, by the RAE itself) to think in terms of outputs and products. He proposes that a focus on process would facilitate the development of a synergy between the student’s learning (teaching) and the teacher’s learning (research). Thus, approaches to teaching which enable interaction between teacher and students, the use of projects or problem-based strategies are more likely to foster student experiences that mirror the teacher’s experience as a researcher. Malcolm and Zukas (2000) argue forcefully that both teaching and research are fundamental to academic work. Just as we would not (or could not) separate research from its discipline base, so we should not attempt to separate teaching from that base either. Disciplinary expertise embraces
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both. Teaching is just as much a part of knowledge production as research activity. Pedagogical questions are in part questions about epistemology. In other words, in coming to understand how best to teach a student the thought processes and modes of analysis characteristic of the discipline, the teacher has to engage with fundamental disciplinary assumptions and boundaries. Kreber (2000) also insists that to facilitate student learning in their discipline, teachers need to know how knowledge of the discipline is acquired and advanced. These are compelling arguments. Dangers may exist, however, if an exclusive focus on the discipline as the site of knowledge production means that cross-disciplinary exchanges are restricted or that it is not possible or meaningful to identify ‘good practice’ in any generic sense. If all our understandings of our practice are discipline-specific, communication across cultural and subject boundaries may become more difficult and groups of colleagues more isolated. I shall look in more detail at cultural differences and their implications in Chapter 4. Research in FE There is no formal requirement for teachers in FE to undertake research. Though the AoC model contract, as noted above, includes ‘research and other forms of scholarly activity’ in its list of duties, individual college contracts vary enormously and may or may not include this. It is more likely that this section of the contract will have a developmental focus, with a stress on the individual’s professional needs or even on curriculum development. Undoubtedly, the lack of any requirement or strong expectation to undertake research as a teacher in FE contributes to the status gap between colleges and universities. As I mentioned earlier, the perception that university teachers are involved in creating and not simply transmitting knowledge tends to give them greater prestige, in occupational terms. The perception persists strongly, even though we know (for example, from RAE returns) that numbers of staff in universities are not involved in research in meaningful or measurable ways and that, similarly, some teachers in FE are thus involved. A greater priority for teachers in FE (especially those from vocational backgrounds) is that they remain up to date with technical advances or changes to working practices in their fields. Fears about losing touch with one’s professional or vocational background are real and understandable (especially amongst full-timers). Despite an official recommendation in the McNair Report (Board of Education, 1944) that regular return to industry should be facilitated so that technical teachers could refresh their skills and knowledge, as was noted at the beginning of this chapter, no such formal provision exists, even now. Some teachers interviewed recently (Robson et al., 2004) told us they used their weekends and evenings to retain links with
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the workplace. Since incorporation, however, and the introduction of new contracts bringing increased teaching hours, these links have become harder to maintain. There is an additional point, too, about the FE teachers’ own view of their work and role, in a sector that has conventionally been so firmly focused on employment. Some vocational teachers in the study by Robson et al. (2004) adopted a narrative of ‘protecting standards’ in their explanations of their work and practices. Thus, they positioned themselves at the vanguard of good professional practice, determined to resist any de-skilling tendencies associated with the workplace (or with competences and NVQs) in the interests of their trainees’ long-term prospects. Their students would be more likely to find work, they argued, if they had acquired the full range of knowledge and skills associated with membership of the relevant occupational group. They would insist on teaching beyond the specification, partly in order to give their students an edge in the market place. Thus, there is a sense in which they saw the conservation of knowledge (and not the creation of it) as an essential part of their role. In recent years, some educational research projects funded by the Learning and Skills Council and the ESRC have started to draw in FE teachers, usually on secondment. The Learning and Skills Research Network has also spawned some collaborative educational research, with universities or external consultants typically in the lead, but addressing areas of mutual interest, such as training provision. Some journals regularly publish findings from the small-scale research projects undertaken by FE teachers as part of their professional development, as dissertations for Masters’ awards, for example. It may be that the field of education is itself the most likely arena in which FE teachers could become proficient and active as researchers. Certainly, if resources can be made available, this is the best way to ensure that such research has relevance and impact. I look again at practitioner research (and FE/HE research collaborations) in Chapter 5.
Conclusion The details of the teacher’s work in post-compulsory education are likely to vary considerably, according to the nature of the institution and the teaching specialism. Contracts differ markedly in the extent to which activities and hours are set down. Conceptions of good practice may vary according to discipline and institutional culture, as well as beliefs about the nature of learning itself. Both colleges and universities (and the working practices of those employed by them) are now subject to more official scrutiny than previously. With their greater political clout, and with their strong tradition of autonomy and independence from government, HEIs have been more successful than colleges in challenging the form of inspections and assessments. As workplaces,
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both colleges and universities appear to take less interest in and make less provision for the learning of their employees than they might, and, despite some recent developments (explored more fully in Chapter 5), they seem to operate a relatively ‘restrictive’ approach to workforce development. Some research suggests that approaches to teaching and assessment may differ across disciplines. There is debate about the relationship between teaching and research in universities and about the extent to which pedagogy can or should be separated from its discipline base. Teachers in further education still lack entitlement to regular updating of their skills and knowledge in technical and industrial settings. This aspect of their work has salience for many of them and links strongly to their perceived credibility in classrooms and workshops. Chapter 4 focuses more closely on the FE and HE teachers’ communities and identities, and the implications of this diversity for practice.
Chapter 4
Teachers’ communities and identities
The bond between a man [sic] and his profession is similar to that which ties him to his country; it is just as complex, often ambivalent, and in general it is understood completely only when it is broken: by exile or emigration in the case of one’s country, by retirement in the case of a trade or profession. (Primo Levi, ‘News from the Sky’, Other People’s Trades, 1985)
Introduction The professional identities and communities of teachers in further and higher education are many and complex. Most professional groups fall into ‘segments’ or sub-groups, but in the case of these teachers the divisions may well be deeper and there may seem to be little common ground. Tensions may arise amongst the different cultures and communities in the institution, and between the differing imperatives and priorities associated with aspects of the teacher’s work. This chapter begins with a brief outline of some key features of social learning theory, since this work provides the theoretical context for much of the writing about teachers’ identities and communities that is discussed below. Next, there is an examination of the nature of disciplinary communities, and their impact on practice. The organisational and management cultures of both universities and colleges are then discussed, with a particular emphasis on the shifts that have occurred in recent years, and their effect on the way teachers are able to work. The process by which we become teachers (or fail to become teachers) is examined, with reference to our participation in multiple contexts or communities. The experiences of women, as managers, teachers and researchers, in both further and higher education are discussed next and it is suggested that marked differences in women’s approach to these tasks put them at odds with the dominant ethos of many institutions. The success or otherwise with which teachers have been found to resist cultures, values and identities associated with their educational workplaces, some of their strategies for transforming their practice and for surviving change are examined in the final section of the chapter.
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Social learning theory Here, I return to the social theory of learning put forward by Lave and Wenger (1991) and elaborated in more detail by Wenger (1998) which has provided a backdrop to a number of recent discussions of the post-school teacher’s identities and communities (e.g. Hodges, 1998; Viskovic and Robson, 2001; Zukas and Malcolm, 2002a; Avis et al., 2002b). There are four interconnected components of their theory. As well as community and identity, meaning and practice are key concepts. ‘Meaning’ refers to our ability to experience the world and our life as meaningful; ‘practice’ to the shared frameworks and resources that support action; ‘community’ to the social configurations in which our enterprises are defined as worth pursuing, and ‘identity’ to the way learning changes who we are within the context of our communities (Wenger, 1998). We produce our identities through participation in practice, through our membership of communities. The boundaries of communities of practice do not necessarily follow geographical or institutional boundaries; we all belong to several communities of practice at any given time, whether at home, work or school. Membership of such communities is seldom explicitly acknowledged and the criteria for belonging are rarely articulated. Nevertheless, communities of practice are an integral part of our daily lives. Though it is not without its critics, Lave and Wenger’s framework is conceptually rich and ‘community’ and ‘identity’ have proved particularly attractive ideas to those writing in the area of work and learning. Fuller and Unwin (2004) note that the impact of structural constraints and inequalities on learning are absent from Lave and Wenger’s framework, and that their focus is on relatively undifferentiated craft-like forms of production, which may not exist in modern workplaces. Nevertheless, the notions of identity as ‘a becoming’, as a lived and negotiated experience, rather than a fixed category or label, and of the community of practice, as created by the sustained pursuit of shared enterprises, now feature strongly in writing about postschool education and frame sections of the discussion below.
Disciplinary communities In Chapter 3, I looked at disciplinary differences in the professional practices of teachers, at what they do and how that tends to vary across subjects and institutions. Here, I focus in more detail on their contexts and the way their identities are formed and sustained through collaboration with each other and through shared activity. For many teachers, one of the more significant groups or communities they belong to is their discipline or their occupational group, whose boundaries extend beyond those of the department or institution. Becher and Huber (1990) argue that disciplines may be understood in terms of Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, as an assumed system of principles which
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generate schemata for perceiving, thinking, valuing and acting, stemming from the social situation and practice of a group to which a given individual belongs. Henkel (2000) reports that for some of the academics in her study, the discipline was a tangible social as well as an epistemological construct. I observed in Chapter 3 that disciplines are not fixed over time; their boundaries and orientations may change, as they develop new methodologies or splinter into new specialisms. They may vary from one institution to another, from one country to another. New disciplines may emerge; old ones may fade. The links between academic identity and discipline are strong and, in the university context, have been explored most notably by Clark (1983), Henkel (2000) and Becher and Trowler (2001). Becher’s classic work on the epistemological and cultural features of academic disciplines identifies some general perceived characteristics for engineers, sociologists, biologists and academic lawyers. His respondents used caricatures and stereotypes to describe themselves and others. For example, engineers were described as practical and pragmatic, but also as dull, mercenary and conformist. Some saw them as likeable, hearty and enthusiastic. Sociologists were held to be highly politicised and guilty of indoctrinating their students. They were also considered to be woolly in their thinking, jargon-ridden and inarticulate. Some saw them more positively as friendly and interesting. As Becher observes, these kinds of stereotypes say as much about the individuals using them as they do about the people they are supposed to describe. They find an echo in the views expressed by the FE teachers of vocational subjects (in Robson, 2002) about differences between themselves and teachers of academic subjects. More interesting, perhaps, are the epistemological differences between disciplines, in terms of modes of inquiry, for example. Thus, history is seen as a craft, essentially pursued by individuals, requiring skills and a knowledge of sources rather than theories (Henkel, 2000). In contrast, psychology, has a more ‘scientific’ stance, and in its more experimental forms at least, uses paradigms and methods similar to those used in the natural sciences. Allegiance to discipline or the occupational group is likely to be stronger than to the institution. Some respondents in Henkel (2000) identified their departments as a key network and others talked about their membership of learned and professional societies or other subject groups, which crossed institutional and even national boundaries. Conferences, collaborative bid writing, external examining and editorial work for journals are all likely to help provide a means of securing membership and negotiating identity within the disciplinary grouping. In the further education context, disciplinary groups within the college are just as fragmented. Despite the efforts of some colleges since incorporation, to ‘brand’ and market themselves as having specific identities, some respondents in Hyland and Merrill (2003) commented that they felt a greater sense of fragmentation following incorporation than before. In this study, those higher up the management hierarchy did tend to see their
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college as one community, but the teachers tended to see the discontinuities and the breaks. Hyland and Merrill note that those teaching HE subjects and curricula within FE colleges are likely to lead quite separate working lives from their FE colleagues. One teacher in their study comments that although hers is not a big college, there are areas she’s never really been into and she doesn’t know what goes on there. ‘I do tend to live in my little world,’ she says (p. 73). On a practical level, most further education teachers have, of course, less contractual time for making and sustaining external contacts than their higher education counterparts. Prior to incorporation, the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) funded centres or projects (where staff would be seconded from local colleges to work on various curriculum initiatives, for example) but opportunities for this kind of external involvement have decreased now. Some FE teachers work as external verifiers for awarding bodies and others return to the workplace on their own initiative and in their own time, to maintain their skills and knowledge. This undoubtedly also helps them sustain their identification and involvement with the subject they teach. This identification may be strong enough to justify going beyond the requirements of the teaching job, to teaching additional material not specified on the syllabus, or to spending extra time with the trainees. In Robson et al. (2004), a teacher of motor vehicle engineering explains his commitment: It’s beyond teaching a subject. Anyone can teach a subject. Someone who isn’t involved with motorcycles can come in and as long as they had all the information and the lesson plans there they could teach motorcycle engineering. It’s that X factor, the fact that we are motorcyclists as well as they are, there is a bond and we live, speak, eat, breathe motorcycles. (p. 189)
Changing institutional cultures University cultures The literature on institutional cultures in HE and FE contains a plethora of terms, some more familiar and more useful here than others. Many discussions on changes in HE institutional cultures make either explicit or implicit reference to ‘collegiality’, as an ideal that had its origins in the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge universities (Dearlove, 1997). Embodied in collegiality is the notion of autonomy; both the institution and the people working in it should be free of external constraint. Dearlove notes that this conception is reflected in those old university employment contracts that fail to specify hours of attendance or work (see Chapter 3). Self-regulation and peer control are important to collegiality and governance is by participatory democracy; it is assumed that consensus will emerge after debate and there
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should be no hierarchies; non-academic staff should be excluded from university governance (Dearlove, 1997). This obviously represents an ideal more than an actual institution. Scott (1995) notes, for example, that apart from Oxford and Cambridge there was significant lay involvement in the government of old universities from the beginning. At the other end of the scale from collegiality is ‘managerialism’, but Dearlove warns against a simple opposition between the two types of institutional culture. McNay (1995) also suggests that several kinds of organisational culture may co-exist within a single institution and that significant shifts may take place over time. Managerialism is characterised by a focus on the application of ideologies and techniques derived from the private sector of the economy to the management of organisations concerned with the provision of public services, such as health and education. Moves towards managerialism that a number of writers have observed taking place in universities, particularly since the early 1980s, have been stimulated by changes in funding arrangements, by hugely increased numbers of students, leading to more complex organisations, and by new forms of academic audit, affecting both teaching and research (Deem, 2001). Thus, managerialism within an institution may involve, for example, creating cost centres, setting targets and carrying out regular staff appraisal to increase ‘efficiency’ and ‘effectiveness’. New universities in the UK are (even now) widely perceived as being more ‘managerial’ in their culture and organisation than the old universities. Dearlove (1997) writes that at the time of the Jarratt Report in 1985 (which was critical of collegial self-government and recommended some farreaching changes to university governance), the (then) polytechnics were already adopting managerialist approaches to the running of their organisations. Though individual institutions vary now as then, the evolutionary history of the new universities has been markedly different. Scott (1995) observes that up until 1989 (when the polytechnics were removed from local authority control) the culture of these institutions was predominantly one of bureaucratic hierarchy and not managerialism. At this time, they did not own their buildings or employ their staff directly, and they were responsible only for academic administration. When they became free-standing corporations in 1989, new managerial capacity had to be developed as they took over the residual responsibilities of the local authorities. Scott notes that senior management teams in new universities were not constrained by a culture of collegiality and that some became increasingly powerful at this time. It is also possible that closer links with private industry and a stronger orientation towards employment (as a key goal of education) may have made the ex-polytechnics (and those who ran them) more comfortable with managerial approaches in general. Trends towards managerialism are also linked to a decline in the professional status of academics. For example, Dearlove (1997) argues that the
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growth in numbers of casual and temporary teaching staff, following the reduction in the unit of resource for teaching, and in the numbers of contract researchers, all of whom may be excluded from various processes within the organisation, is resulting in some real divisions of interest within the academic community. Losses in institutional and personal autonomy in universities are also ascribed to increasingly managerialist approaches. In Chapter 1, I mentioned the impact of the setting up of the funding councils, teaching quality assessments and the Research Assessment Exercise on institutional autonomy. Evidencing losses in individual autonomy is harder, of course. It was noted in Chapter 1 that some believed the RAE had influenced research priorities (McNay, 1997). Loss of control over recruitment and over aspects of the curriculum and an increased emphasis on student evaluation of provision are noted by Dearlove (1997). However, perceptions do vary and much depends on your starting point. Dearlove writes: More students but no more space has challenged the right of academics to teach in their rooms at a time of their choosing, since they now find themselves at the mercy of a timetable that pushes teaching into unsocial hours. (Dearlove, 1997, pp. 63–4) In fact, of course, timetables, evening classes and allocated rooms were a reality in many post-school institutions long before the 1980s. College cultures Institutional cultures in further education colleges have also changed significantly in recent years. Until 1993, they were under local authority control and, like the polytechnics, they displayed features of a culture that Scott (1995) in his discussion of HE institutions calls ‘municipal bureaucracy’ (p. 67). They were not ‘collegial’ in the sense outlined above and, like the polytechnics, they did not own their estates or employ their staff. In addition, they did not validate or award their own qualifications, so they may be regarded in that sense as having had even less autonomy than the polytechnics. They were used to dependent relationships and their activities were for the most part externally controlled (Robson, 1998a). Like the polytechnics, they were historically strongly orientated towards vocational education and training. As noted above, they contained a myriad of cultures and sub-cultures, mostly focused on the various occupational and subject groups from which their teachers were drawn. The new funding and inspection regimes set up under the Further and Higher Education Act (1992) led colleges to plan and organise themselves in ways similar to those that are common in industry and business. Though a
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shift towards marketisation was already underway in further education, and performance indicators, for example, had been a feature of its culture since the mid-1980s (Elliott, 1996), incorporation in effect forced colleges into a more competitive relationship with each other. Managerialism is reflected in the concerns with efficiency, effectiveness, responsiveness and accountability (Avis, 1996) that were considerably heightened following incorporation. The most notable impact was on staff contracts, which were the subject of a prolonged and bitter dispute throughout much of the 1990s between the main college lecturers’ union (NATFHE) and the employers (represented by the College Employers’ Forum (CEF)) (Ward, 1995). The employers’ clear intention was to increase lecturers’ workloads, their ‘efficiency’ and their availability. Unlike their colleagues in the polytechnics, who reached agreement over new contracts in 1991, college lecturers were unable to capture dedicated time for research and scholarly activity, and even now some have little entitlement to staff development. Their current contracts are described in more detail in Chapter 3. Institutional and cultural change has undoubtedly impacted widely on teachers’ work in further education. Though they were not in the same position as university teachers to start with (since they were subject to more external requirements and had less autonomy in relation to the curriculum, for example) they have experienced prolonged demoralisation since incorporation. Resource constraints have been accompanied by changes in the management and organisation of colleges that have been designed to create the new culture and philosophy (Robson and Bailey, 1996). Harper (1997) notes that since incorporation many FE principals have actively sought to change the culture and the values shared by employees of the college. Demands for accountability have brought increased amounts of paperwork for staff and, in some colleges, a loss of trust is evident between managers and teachers (Ainley and Bailey, 1997). Here, too, as in some universities, a subject specialist’s views about suitable entry criteria for students seeking a place on a particular programme may now be set aside in the interests of reaching a recruitment target. Staff feelings of disenfranchisement and disillusionment are observed by trainee teachers entering colleges for the first time in Bathmaker et al. (2000). Indeed, a narrative of previously experienced ‘better times’ may be a strong feature of the discourse in many FE departments. Finally, in relation to both further and higher education, as Avis (1996) remarks, there is more similarity between managerialism and professionalism than is sometimes acknowledged: In spite of all its faults, there is a paradoxical way in which managerialism carries with it a democratising impulse by raising questions of accountability. These also force reflection upon the conditions and framework in which managers and welfare state professionals operate. (Avis, 1996, p. 113)
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Tensions exist between professionalism and managerialism such that initiatives designed to increase accountability, for example, may also work towards an enhancement of the group’s professional status. The introduction in 2001 of the requirement for all new FE teachers to be fully trained may be seen in this light.
Becoming teachers In Chapter 2, the teacher training experience was considered both from an official point of view and from the perspective of the trainees themselves. Alongside the relatively new preoccupations of policy-makers, with the ‘quality’ and ‘effectiveness’ of training, academic interest in the process by which we ‘become’ teachers in further and higher education has also been growing and conceptual approaches to understanding this process have again tended to draw on social learning theory. In particular, an understanding of identity formation as fundamentally social in character, and of identity itself as a learning process (Wenger, 1998) frees us from a fixed or unitary notion of ‘the teacher’. The work of identity is not confined to one period of our lives, as some theories of socialisation might suggest. Nor is it confined to particular settings. We define who we are by where we have been and where we are going, and this leads to an understanding of identity as a trajectory in time that incorporates both the past and the future into the meaning of the present. Wenger uses the term ‘trajectory’ to suggest not a fixed path but continuous motion. As we go through a succession of forms of participation, our identities form trajectories both within and across communities of practice. There can be various types of trajectories: ‘peripheral trajectories’ may provide access to a community and its practice, but may never lead to full participation; ‘inbound trajectories’, on the other hand, offer the prospect of full participation in the future. ‘Insider trajectories’ are those where the evolution of practice continues to create occasions for the renegotiation of one’s identity. ‘Boundary trajectories’ span boundaries and link communities of practice, while ‘outbound trajectories’ lead out of a community altogether. These may seem to be particularly useful metaphors for understanding the case of post-school teachers, with their commitment to and participation in communities of practice formed around disciplines or occupations, as well as more local constellations, such as departments or institutions. Thus, identity can be understood as ‘a nexus of multi-membership’ (Wenger, 1998, p. 158). Zukas and Malcolm (2002a) see the construction of teachers’ identities in post-compulsory education as a process of participation, rather than acquisition, and the pedagogic identity as active and dynamic. Teachers are ‘not solitary agents responding in isolation to institutional demands’ (p. 232). In
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writing about school teachers, Coldron and Smith (1999) also take the view that there is a tension between agency and structure; the teacher’s professional identity is a matter of where the teacher is located, within an array of relevant possibilities. The positioning is partly ‘achieved’ (e.g. through biographical choices) and partly ‘given’, in a social sense. Billet et al. (2002) use the concept of ‘co-participation’ to capture the reciprocal process of the workplace affording participation and the individual electing to engage with work practices. Further, in her study of the factory workplace, Hull (2002) argues for a view of identity that focuses on ‘potentiality, continual enactment and performativity’ (p. 29). It is not, then, that we ‘become’ teachers and reach the end of a process that we have, in some sense, completed. Brown (1997) observes that it is never clear at what precise point in time any individual reaches the status of experienced or skilled worker. Further, as we act and as we negotiate our identities, we contribute to changes in the communities of practice to which we belong. In this analysis, we are therefore continually constructing our identities as teachers, in a sense always ‘becoming’. Existing identities The importance in the post-compulsory context of the teachers’ existing identities and communities of practice cannot be overstated and has already been touched on in this chapter and elsewhere. The strength of allegiance that teachers may feel to their first disciplinary or occupational community was noted above. In Chapter 1, I discussed the priority that, for most, attaches to the teacher’s specialist knowledge of their first subject or occupation, as opposed to their pedagogical knowledge. Bathmaker et al. (2003) note that, in their sample of student FE teachers, there was no one characteristic biography. As they participated in their placement college communities, they were involved in a negotiation between ‘the structures and cultures of further education, on the one hand, and the values and visions they bring with them into FE on the other’ (p. 3). Small insights into the kinds of negotiations the teachers may undertake can be gleaned from studies of vocational teachers’ experiences of college life. Denis Gleeson (1981) argues that the teacher of technical specialisms actively seeks to redefine the links between college and industry, to exert some control over the apparent gap between the two, by adopting ‘educationist’ and ‘teacher’ strategies. In the Australian context, Paul Gleeson (1994) found that trade teachers in some secondary schools worked to maintain a culture and a location within the school that was distinct and separated from that of the mainstream (or academic) teachers (referred to by the trade teachers as ‘accos’). In an English further education college, a new teacher, who had been previously employed as a business consultant in a high street bank, found that her language changed when she was in the classroom:
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When I worked in a bank … actually a lot of what we did was say very normal things in dressed up terms and it’s the other way round now [laughs]. … You’ve got to say very normal things in very normal terms somehow … if people are paying a lot of money for your services, they don’t expect you to talk to them really in everyday language … So you sort of feel somehow you’ve got to dress up what you’re giving them … package it in such a way. (Robson, 1998b, p. 51) Collaboration Inherent in a social theory of learning is the idea that learning is not only individual but also collective. Being human, argues Wenger, means that we are constantly involved in enterprises which we pursue together. We ‘interact with each other and with the world and we tune our relations with each other and with the world accordingly’ (Wenger, 1998, p. 45). This collective learning results in practices that belong to the community, hence the term ‘communities of practice’. Teacher identity can thus be seen as a collective accomplishment that derives from a continual engagement with the community of practice (Bathmaker et al., 2000). The importance of collaboration to teachers’ professional growth and development is noted by Brookfield (1995), amongst others, and will be discussed again in Chapter 5. From a newcomer’s perspective, the isolation and alienation they may experience in many educational contexts can be daunting. One of the respondents in Robson (2000) ascribed some of the isolation she experienced, as a trainee teacher, to the nature of teaching itself. Some of it appeared to be more local. Of her colleagues, she commented: They do have staff meetings … they do have team teaching … there is still that gap … that … isolation if you like … it’s sort of like a series of islands that do come together at low tide, you know, but they don’t actually operate together necessarily. (p. 59) Carnell and Funnell (1998) reported the feelings of adult students, in university for the first time. They use Goffman’s term ‘alienative coalition’ (which Goffman used in his study of patients in psychiatric hospitals) to convey the feeling expressed by the students that, in various ways, they felt that they should not be there, but also that they should be there. Strategies for promoting effective collaboration are important to facilitate the integration of newcomers to the community but also to ensure that all participants are connected to each other in meaningful ways, through their shared practices. Gratch (2000) argues that the creation of spaces for
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discourse and collaboration on teacher education programmes may facilitate the student teacher’s construction of identity. Writing about the American school system, she points out that much teacher socialisation serves to perpetuate conservatism and individualism. One model of the teacher (as an authoritative, single voice) predominates and inhibits the construction of the teacher’s identity in some contexts. Dialogue and interaction with other practitioners are seen as important levers for change.
The experiences of women The literature suggests that women may find themselves in less powerful and less comfortable positions in educational institutions than their male counterparts. Their social identities and their preferred modes of working may be at variance with established or conventional practice and the dominant culture may be unsupportive. Overall, numbers of full-time academic staff in UK universities are increasing. There are fewer women than men employed full-time; in 2002, men constituted about 66 per cent of the total number, although the proportion of women is increasing (HESA, 2004). These figures include full-time researchers, however, and other full-time academic staff who work for only part of the year or on fixed-term contracts. Women are more likely to be on fixed-term contracts and more likely to earn less than men; they are less likely to be in senior positions or to have their work submitted to the RAE, for example (Jackson, 2002). In further education colleges in 2002, the majority of full-time lecturers were women. When the security of the job diminishes, the number of women increases (Howie and Tauchert, 2002); traditionally, here as elsewhere, women also dominate part-time employment (Deem et al., 2000). The figures portray changes taking place but tend to mask their underlying character. For example, though evidence suggests that there are growing numbers of women working as managers in FE (Deem et al., 2000), the nature of management has itself changed. Styles of management in further education under local authority control were described as broadly ‘paternalistic’ (Leathwood, 2000). Prichard and Deem (1999) suggest that women’s previous positioning as ‘outsiders’ has provided a basis for their recruitment to new job descriptions and tasks following incorporation. These tasks have tended to be redefined and redistributed, and senior management posts in both further and higher education are still held predominantly by men. Whitehead (1996) concludes that FE management has become a more ‘masculinised’ work environment since incorporation, notwithstanding the increase in the number of women principals noted by Deem et al. (2000). Leonard (1998) also notes that incorporation has enabled a heightening of a style of management which emphasises control. Further, the specific knowledge now required for many management roles
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(e.g. finance, estates) is more likely to be held by men. Thus, Leonard (1998) argues, incorporation has both utilised gender and had a gendered effect. Writing about HE teachers, Bagilhole (2002) documents the differing kinds of activities that women academics are typically involved in: The gendered division of domestic work is often mirrored in the academic workplace, where women academics carry disproportionately higher teaching, pastoral and administrative loads, circumscribing their participation in research. Men retreat into research and this is seen as legitimate, whereas women take on the role of nurturing students. (pp. 48–9) In the Australian context, Blackmore and Sachs (2000) also note that (following restructuring exercises in schools, universities and technical and further education colleges) women are doing more work that is less highly valued. Although teaching has a higher profile in UK universities now than previously, the academic system still tends to reward research and publication and individual output, rather than the low-level ‘servicing’ work of routine committee membership, or course management, for example (Bagilhole, 2002). Women in HE tend to be promoted less often. In 1999, the Bett Report made specific mention of the under-representation of women in universities, especially at senior levels, and of their lower rates of pay (IRHEPC, 1999). Teaching as a career appears to have been widely rejected by men (Deem et al., 2000). This ‘demographic feminisation’ of teaching across all sectors, and the emergence of a critical mass of women in many educational institutions, may facilitate the rejection of more rational and instrumental forms of teaching. Traditional notions of the teacher as rational authority effectively marginalise women (Dillabough, 1999). In schools, for example, attempts to return to whole-class teaching and to de-emphasise meaningful teacher–student relationships have been seen to result in a decline in ‘the sociability of teaching’ (Gewirtz, 1997, p. 230). In further education, the competitive focus on output, on standardised measures of achievement and retention, creates scope for a similar decline. In such environments, a diminishing importance may be attached to shared social experience, to the processes of learning, and to the classroom or workshop as a community. Certainly, some respondents in Ainley and Bailey (1997), for example, were of the view that increased pressures resulting from incorporation were changing their classroom practice in some quite negative ways. In higher education, increases in student numbers and a diminishing unit of resource are placing teachers in situations where it is harder for women to succeed, even on their own terms. For women, whose life career paths and sense of selfhood may be more strongly tied to notions of service,
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teaching and care for others, positioning within the institution may be contradictory (Blackmore and Sachs, 2000). It may be more difficult for them to avoid conflict: Male and female academics all learn the language of neutrality, but a woman lives the dissonance between what any ‘neutral’ observer would claim to be the case and what she ‘knows’. We maintain that a successful female academic must repudiate this knowledge, must appear to have detachment and yet be competitive, must agree that public and private are distinct spheres of endeavour and disavow her own knowledge that one supports and is the lifeblood of the other. (Howie and Tauchert, 2002, p. 61) In an unsympathetic culture, where women may be in constant denial of their full identity, Dillabough (1999) argues that it is up to feminists to reclaim the political and social dimensions of teaching. An interest in ‘feminist pedagogy’, which originated amongst teachers of Women’s Studies, is also evident in the literature. Welch (2002) identifies feminist pedagogy as one that strives for egalitarian conditions in the classroom, makes all students feel valued as individuals and uses the experience of the students as a learning resource (p. 115). In her practice, Korner (2002) stresses her personal engagement with the material she is teaching, identifying her own ‘position’ and encouraging students to question her. She explicitly validates the use of personal experience. Similarly, in further education, Deem et al. (2000) found some evidence that women managers were creating new ways of doing things, seeking ways to empower others, pursuing social relations based on fairness. Leathwood (2000) also found evidence of some resistance to dominant ‘masculinist’ discourses, in her study of FE managers. Delamont (1989) stresses the need for women in institutions to form networks, make contacts and friendships, to work collaboratively and Wunsch (1993) describes the benefits of a mentoring scheme for new women academic staff that was piloted in the USA. Clearly, collective working and a greater sense of community amongst women will help to enable their resistance to work practices that they may experience as oppressive or unduly competitive.
Conflict and resistance Forms of resistance are apparent in many other spheres of teachers’ work in post-school settings. According to Lave and Wenger’s social learning theory, just as we produce our identities through participation in practice, so nonparticipation is also an important source of identity. We know who we are by what is familiar and who we are not by what is unfamiliar. A degree of nonparticipation may be necessary to enable participation; this kind of interaction
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between participation and non-participation is defined by Wenger (1998) as ‘peripherality’. Some forms of non-participation, however, prevent full participation, and these are cases of ‘marginality’ that lead to the formation of qualitatively different experiences and identities. Lave and Wenger (1991) caution against applying their analysis simply to institutional settings. In considering teachers in further and higher education as members and potential members of communities of practice, we are concerned with their relations within and across departments, institutions, disciplinary or vocational communities, and the world at large. A discourse analysis approach, such as taken by Shain and Gleeson (1999), Zukas and Malcolm (2002a) or by Robson et al. (2004), for example, allows for an investigation of the way teachers’ talk may embody and refer to wider discourses such as regulatory discourses or discourses of professionalism or managerialism. Insights into the tensions and dilemmas that may be present in teachers’ responses to their work and working contexts can be gained through such an analysis. Discourses are not static (Foucault, 1972) and many can be drawn on simultaneously. These may conflict with one another (Parker, 1990; Francis, 1999). As Zukas and Malcolm (2002a) observe: These implicit and unarticulated conceptions are crucial to the way in which teachers, as situated learners, continuously learn about and construct for themselves the process of teaching and the identity of the teacher. (p. 231) Resistance to changed conditions of work in further education was expressed by some respondents in Shain and Gleeson (1999) and in Ainley and Bailey (1997). Conflict, for example between existing ideas about ‘professionalism’ and the language of the market or ‘the new set of values’, was leading in some instances to low morale and feelings of disenfranchisement. Other staff in both studies responded with a degree of accommodation or withdrawal. Those engaging in ‘strategic compliance’ (Shain and Gleeson, 1999, p. 456) defended their actions by appeal to aspects of public sector professionalism, including the need to work to one’s own definitions of ‘quality’ to ensure that students’ education was not damaged. In Zukas and Malcolm (2002a), two of the three respondents in postcompulsory institutions refuse some of the practices and pedagogic identities they believe are implicit in the regulatory and inspection regimes. Conflict between their own beliefs about good teaching and their own values and those implied by QAA documentation, for example, is experienced with differing degrees of intensity, and a negotiation of the contradictions proves more possible for ‘Neil’ than for ‘Mary’. As the authors note, in the current
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regulatory environment ‘teachers may experience a real and isolating dissonance in their pedagogic identity’ (p. 232). Tensions may also arise between the teacher’s existing occupation and the work and ethos of teaching in post-school contexts. Denis Gleeson (1981) explores the ‘special relationship’ between craft teachers in further education and their students. The apprenticeship model that Gleeson refers to has been discontinued, but more recent interviews with craft teachers suggest that a spirit of empathy may still characterise relations. One of Gleeson’s respondents believed that because he had gone through the same experiences that his students were going through to become engineers, he was more sympathetic to them. More than twenty years later, a motorcycle engineer in Robson et al. (2004) described the bond that existed between himself and the students. He explained that motorcyclists were in a minority ‘outside’, they were vulnerable on the road, and so teachers and students were all part of a team. Gleeson (1981) acknowledges that the transition to teaching in FE is often a pragmatic one. Many technical teachers are not necessarily successful in their trades and may enter with no great burning desire to transmit their skills. They may nowadays be in retreat from less secure working conditions and the threat of redundancy. On entering teaching, the craft or technical teacher faces new and different pressures. He or she may have to become involved in curriculum planning, in various quality assurance activities, for example. The tensions and contradictions between college and industry, between the wider brief of ‘education’ and the narrower one of ‘training’, appear to be resolved by Gleeson’s respondents reinforcing the interests of ‘theory’ over ‘practice’, placing an emphasis on ‘instruction’ rather than discussion and interaction. In these kinds of ways they may be seeking to ‘legitimate’ their roles as educators. In an Australian secondary school, as noted earlier, Paul Gleeson (1994) found that trade teachers worked hard to maintain a separate culture and working space well apart from their academic colleagues. Tensions between the two work cultures were addressed by as complete a separation as could be achieved within that context. This included a geographical segregation of the two groups of teachers. Mealyea (1989), also writing about the Australian school sector, found that humour was frequently used by his respondents to cope with a substantial threat to their occupational identity. Upon entering a teacher education programme, they found that their expectations of the teaching role were under question; they perceived that they were being asked to discard their identities as tradespersons and they reacted angrily, using humour as a form of catharsis. Returning to the post-compulsory environment, Robson (1998b) notes, in a case study, that the experiences reported by her respondent of her move from the role of business consultant to FE teacher highlight the possibility of ‘loss’ or the jeopardising of beliefs that may have been held for some time,
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to which the individual may attach value and importance. In this instance, the trainee teacher experiences initial frustration at working practices in the college that she compares unfavourably to those in the commercial world of banking. Stress is likely to be generated by such conflicts, by perceived mismatches between cultural practices and discourses that teachers have become accustomed to in other workplaces. Some of these studies (all of them small-scale) suggest that some teachers may be actively ‘in flight’ from their educational roles and workplaces. In Robson et al. (2004), some of the teachers see themselves as the ‘protectors’ of quality and good standards of practice in their industries. Thus, the chef in a catering department observes that he systematically exceeds industry requirements in his teaching: In industry, I know if you want Parisian potatoes for one hundred and twenty people, you’d be wasting your time having the chefs do it, if they have them ready. But here what I do, I teach them how to prepare Parisian potatoes. … I could easily go out and buy ready-made Parisian potatoes but I don’t do that. … It’s good for the student to know how to do it because he might come to a position where … when all of a sudden the supplier will let him down. (p. 190) Conventional pedagogical practice (in this case, strict adherence to a competence-based curriculum) takes second place; he and others in this study regularly ‘add value’ (as they see it) to the basic experience of the programme. In this way, they implicitly suggest that they (the teachers) may be the only true professionals in their respective industries. However, there are costs involved in systematically prioritising the existing occupational identity. If the development of a full, pedagogical identity is inhibited or restricted as a consequence, the individual may find him or herself in a precarious position. They may find they are unable to develop their teaching roles more broadly, in ways that may become necessary in response to external change, for example. Whilst up-to-date expertise and valid vocational experience are central to the teacher’s credibility and confidence, clinging strongly to a first identity may not serve the long-term interests of the wider professional group of post-compulsory teachers. Of course, there are many teachers who do reach an accommodation with conflicting cultures and practices in their educational roles. The same kinds of adjustments may be made by workers in other settings, too. In a study by Schied and Howell (2003), subtitled ‘My Job is Not My Work’, a group of American workers talked about their jobs in ways that sometimes stood in opposition to their official job descriptions. Some respondents redefined their jobs in order to incorporate ‘life-affirming work’ or elements of self-
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expression; these activities had more connection with life outside the workplace than with paid duties. For example, a janitor took time to decorate the places she was responsible only for cleaning and an art gallery assistant spent time getting to know and supporting the children who visited her gallery. Both these workers incorporated strategies into their formal duties, in a way reminiscent of the teachers in Robson et al. (2004) and their practice of systematically ‘going beyond’ the requirements of their syllabus. Like the university teachers who identify themselves first and foremost as subject specialists, who see their work in terms of building a discipline, for example, rather than in terms of teaching, a kind of ‘resistance’ to aspects of the work role may be evident. But this resistance can manifest itself positively and creatively, and may be linked to valued aspects of the worker’s ‘lifeworld’. Bleakley (2002) writes elegantly of the need for teaching to resist both the managerialist discourse (with its emphasis on technical performance and efficiency) and the humanistic model that focuses on the autonomy of the learner and on the teacher as facilitator. In his account, what he terms ‘the Gift’ model of teaching frees us from teaching grounded in the market economy and from any attempt to create personal obligation or intersubjective relationships, as implied by the humanistic accounts. In his analysis, teaching is offered ‘as a gift without return or an act of hospitality’ (p. 79). Drawing on a range of post-modernist and psychoanalytical writing, he argues that such a model can only be realised within a feminist framework ‘where the right to life is more important than the right to property’ (p. 81). A feminine economy is grounded in giving and is opposed to the masculine order of normalising and authoritative discourses that are a feature of quality assurance systems, for example. This model of teaching requires a shift in our language and thinking. But if it were adopted, Bleakley argues, it would free us to tolerate and explore the ambiguities and difference in our work, to improvise and innovate, to engage with aspects of pedagogy (such as grace, presence, artistry and imagination) that are rarely discussed in the literature.
Conclusion The huge diversity of cultures and identities in the post-school world of teaching makes collective action and common purpose unlikely. Within the professional communities of both universities and colleges, there is fragmentation and a lack of coherence. It is more likely that the teacher’s allegiance will be given to the industry or the vocation, to the discipline or subject, than to the employing institution. Differences exist in attitudes to teaching and assessment, to research and professional development, to the role and work of managers. Some teachers feel positive about recent policy changes; some adopt various strategies of
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‘resistance’; others will continue to feel alienated in some important ways, throughout their careers. Except for ‘pockets’ within particular departments or disciplines, they have widely varying self-perceptions and may feel that they have little in common with each other. As I noted in Chapter 1, these teachers are unique amongst professional groups in having to acquire knowledge of subjects, disciplines and fields of work that may be only indirectly related to their day-to-day practice. Though the arguments for pedagogy, like research, to be based within disciplines are strong, as noted in Chapter 3, the reality is that teaching (and knowledge of teaching) is still perceived as something additional and separate from the knowledge and practice of the disciplines. The literature suggests that, in some parts of higher education, there is more acceptance of the diversity of needs and interests that exists among teachers and fewer attempts to constrain practice than, for example, in some further education colleges. University teachers may seem to have more independence but they have just as few shared commitments. The question is whether this diversity of interest, attitude and practice in both colleges and universities actually matters: is the ‘rich tapestry’ documented here simply curious but harmless? Or does it hamper and impede teachers’ attempts fully to address the needs of their students? Chapter 5 looks beyond the initial training and education of FE and HE teachers, and also beyond their disparate communities, to consider opportunities and strategies for the professional growth of teachers once they have become established.
Chapter 5
Continuing development for teachers
The world of knowledge takes a crazy turn When teachers themselves are taught to learn. (Bertold Brecht, The Life of Galileo, 1939)
Introduction Teaching has a relatively ‘flat’ career structure. In the post-compulsory sectors, as in schools, the conventional way to progress in career terms has been to move away from teaching, to managing departments, for example. In higher education, promotion may also be by means of recognised research output. In further education, salary increases are likely to bring responsibilities for the management and development of curriculum areas or teams of staff or for specific managerial functions across the college. The general rule for some other professional groups (such as nurses or GPs) has been similar in that promotion is most readily available for those who are prepared to move away from practice. Crowley and Kelly (2003) note that further education teachers who wish to focus on improving their teaching rather than on becoming managers, for instance, face a haphazard array of opportunities, according to what happens to be included in their institution’s three-year staff development plan. Individual teachers’ needs and interests will vary and a further qualification (such as a higher degree, for example) will not suit all: Teachers who wish to stay grounded in teaching are not always regarded as ‘leaders of learning’ unless they also commit to developing themselves as leaders of the organisation. Enthusiasm for and experience of teaching on their own are often perceived as being stuck on square one. (Crowley and Kelly, 2003, p. 12) There is an increasing emphasis in government policy statements on the need to build ‘workforce capacity’ and to deliver ‘high quality teaching’ in both colleges and universities (see DfES, 2004b). Increasing numbers of
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universities are making funds available for some form of induction for new teachers, and government strategy is now to ensure that all new university teachers meet HE Academy standards by 2010 (as recommended in the Cooke Report (Cooke, 2003)). New FE teachers have been required to train since 2001. However, in practice, there is far less attention given to the development needs of more experienced classroom practitioners. In higher education, as I mentioned in Chapter 3, teaching has lower prestige and attracts fewer rewards than research. Further, as noted in Chapter 4, the existing professional and disciplinary allegiances of many FE and HE teachers may create a tension between their development needs (as engineers, chefs or geographers) and their need for further expertise as teachers of those subjects. When resources are scarce, and the external employment context is undergoing rapid change, the post-school teacher may well seek opportunities to enhance his or her subject knowledge as a priority. More will be said about specific policies and initiatives designed to enhance teaching in FE and HE in the next section but such initiatives have not tended to become embedded in mainstream career planning. The government’s focus has been on financial ‘rewards’ for individual teachers rather than on the creation of systematic opportunities and firm expectations that all teachers (like most other professionals) will need to undertake periods of training and development throughout their careers. Such initiatives as do exist are taken up locally, by volunteers or enthusiasts, and there is little routine provision for enabling the further growth of teaching expertise in either further or higher education. In this chapter, I explore some of the possible reasons for this, on both a conceptual and a practical level. I also examine some existing practices and strategies for promoting professional learning and development. I focus on teaching. Opportunities to meet other staff development needs (such as competence in IT) are available in-house in most institutions. Further, an acknowledgement of the need for enhanced skills of leadership and management has resulted in the launch of the national leadership college (the Centre for Excellence in Leadership) for FE and in the establishment of the Leadership Foundation for HE. The skills, knowledge and understanding related to teaching itself, however, still tend to be neglected.
Policy context Further education Policy initiatives designed to improve the opportunities and quality of professional learning for teachers in further education are few. In 1999, the Further Education Funding Council for England (FEFCE) introduced the Standards Fund, to which institutions could bid in support of projects and initiatives designed to enhance teaching and learning. It was proposed
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that the money might be used for the observation of teaching, for example, to rectify weaknesses identified at inspection. It was also used to fund attendance on initial teacher training courses (see Chapter 2 for details of these). In 2001, as part of the government’s requirement that performancerelated pay be introduced in the public services, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) brought in the Teaching Pay Initiative (TPI) for FE teachers. One of the objectives of the TPI was to stimulate recognition and reward for ‘advanced practitioners’. The establishment of an Advanced Practitioner salary scale was recommended. Payments could be bid for by the colleges and were available for those demonstrating high-calibre teaching, curriculum innovation and leadership, as well as involvement in mentoring and support for other teachers (AoC, 2001). However, the TPI (like the Standards Fund) was a short-lived initiative and it was soon recommended that the bidding process could be ended and the funds have now been consolidated into colleges’ main budgets. Decisions about opportunities for professional development beyond initial training are now taken at a local level, and some colleges have indeed appointed ‘Advanced Practitioners’ with specific duties similar to those described above. However, the AoC ‘model’ contract (discussed in Chapter 3) does not entitle FE teachers to staff development opportunities; it simply allows for staff to take up such opportunities as may be provided by their employer. Current government strategy for the development of the learning and skills sector is outlined in the document Success for All (DfES, 2002). This document lays considerable stress on the quality of teaching and learning which is ‘at the heart of what we do’ (p. 5). A new Standards Unit was set up in 2003 at the DfES, to identify and disseminate best practice, even ‘to lead the transformation of teaching and learning and leadership across the learning and skills sector’ (Williams, 2003). Teaching materials were developed in some areas of the curriculum by staff seconded from colleges. The Standards Unit has since transferred to the LSDA which will be reorganised, resulting in the development of a new body, called the National Quality Improvement Body (NQIB) (DfES, 2004c). The NQIB will take over as the single body for quality improvement in the Learning and Skills sector. At the time of writing, the relationship between the LSDA and the new NQIB is not clear and it is too soon to evaluate the impact of these initiatives on the quality of provision and the professional development of the teachers and trainers. However, the creation of the NQIB (and the closure of the Standards Unit so soon after its inception) highlight the government’s current preoccupation with quality and accountability in post-school education. Higher education Local decisions also characterise the provision of staff development in higher education. As I noted in Chapter 2, funds are available from the
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Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) for universities to establish internal centres designed to enhance the quality of their teaching and learning. These centres commonly consist of a small number of staff developers whose role is to provide training for new appointees, as well as ‘scholarly’ seminars and lectures on aspects of HE pedagogy for more established HE teachers. The centres are usually outside the departmental or faculty structure of universities and linked to the university management function via personnel or via the committee framework. In 2004, HEFCE also invited bids for the establishment of Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and a similar process was set up in Northern Ireland. Zukas and Malcolm (2002b) are justly critical of the structural separation of higher education teacher training from school, adult or further education training within the universities since it lessens the impact of research across sectors. It may also mean that the expertise of university teachers with significant experience of teacher training is not fully exploited. As Zukas and Malcolm claim, this separation has undoubtedly come about through an increased emphasis on accountability and measurability and it encourages the search for straightforward ‘solutions’ to the ‘problem’ of teaching in today’s higher education environment. As well, it is often unclear even at an institutional level what kind of take-up such provision has amongst more experienced teachers and what sanctions or incentives (if any) may exist in either old or new universities to promote it. The government’s White Paper The Future of Higher Education (DfES, 2003) includes the improvement and reward of excellent teaching amongst its priorities. In Chapter 2, I noted that the new HE Academy for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, formed in 2004 from the merger of the ILTHE and the Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN), encompasses HE staff development. The subject centres set up by the generic LTSN to promote the development of good teaching and learning in specific disciplines have continued under the auspices of the new Academy. These subject centres are focused primarily on the provision of resources and information. ESCalate, a centre for staff in universities who teach education, is part of the LTSN. Its activities include the organisation of events and the provision of small grants for individuals seeking to investigate areas of professional relevance. The ILTHE also implemented the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (NTFS) (funded by HEFCE and the Department for Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland). The scheme currently provides for awards of £50,000 to individuals seeking to undertake projects designed to enhance teaching and learning in HE. Under the auspices of the new Academy, the NTFS is expected to expand. Individual HEIs have also increasingly sought to reward good or ‘expert’ university teaching through the introduction of various promotion schemes; typically, these have been designed to parallel the opportunities available for
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promotion on the basis of research achievement. Funds for these and for the range of staff development activities within universities are found from within the overall budget for each institution. Standards for professional development In Chapter 2, I discussed standards for the initial training of teachers in both FE and HE. There is increasing official interest now, too, in the specification of standards that would address the nature of the knowledge, skills and understanding required by experienced teachers. These might be used eventually as a basis for continuing registration with a professional body. During 2004, soon after its formation, the HE Academy began consultations on a framework of professional HE teaching standards. These standards are likely to include those for initial teaching as well as for further professional development. They are likely to emerge in a more detailed and specific form and to look quite different from the five areas of teaching and learning expertise that previously formed the basis of ILTHE accreditation. In view of the hostile reception previously accorded to initial drafts of standards from the ILTHE in 1999 (the 24 teaching outcomes mentioned in Chapter 2), it will be interesting to see how the new proposals fare. The expression of interest from those organisations seeking to join the new Lifelong Learning Sector Skills Council (Lifelong Learning UK or LLUK) (which now include FENTO and representatives from higher education and community-based learning) also identifies the development of an integrated framework of workforce standards and qualifications as one of its priorities. In addition, the Institute for Learning (IfL), the professional body for teachers in further, adult and work-based education and training (discussed further in Chapter 6), which was set up in 2001, is similarly engaged in defining standards for continuing professional development (DfES/LSC, 2003). In conjunction with the LSDA, it has set up a ‘CPD process’ that will facilitate the recording of CPD activities that members can use both for their own development and as evidence that could be provided to the Institute, for example, to demonstrate their continued ‘good standing’. Currently, therefore, it would appear that no fewer than three separate organisations are actively developing standards for the professional development of teachers in the post-compulsory sectors. The extent of overlap of these standards with those for initial training (discussed in Chapter 2), as well as the precise nature, the workability, acceptability and relevance of these sets of standards to teachers in further and higher education, remains to be seen. The proposed incorporation of the IfL into LLUK (see Chapter 6) is unlikely to resolve the underlying confusions about the purpose and scope of professional development for the different groups of teachers. More compelling evidence of the lack of co-ordination and foresight that characterises policy in post-compulsory education in the UK would be hard to find.
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Thus, the overall picture in relation to the formal provision of further professional development opportunities for teachers in further and higher education is a patchy one. Much depends on the individual employing institution, and part-timers are particularly likely to miss out. In HE, the committed and enthusiastic individual teacher may take part in seminars and workshops or even full Masters’ programmes, and in some institutions they may seek and gain financial reward for the achievement of teaching expertise. In FE, there is again little systematic attempt to meet the demands of experienced teachers who may not be seeking a move into management, particularly since the collapse of the Teaching Pay Initiative. Some colleges have been willing to release and sponsor teaching staff to undertake further development (for example, on university-based Masters’ programmes) but increasing resource constraints and other priorities make this more difficult than it might once have been. In-house training, whilst meeting immediate needs in relation to a specific workplace, deprives staff of opportunities for interchange with peers in other institutions and of the stimulation that fresh perspectives may bring. Leaving the responsibility for teachers’ professional development to individual employing institutions also means that reliable information about the take-up of such provision across post-16 education as a whole is unavailable.
Habitual practice and expertise The routine and predictable nature of much professional practice may mean that renewal is hard to achieve in many occupations and that opportunities for building expertise may become more limited over time. Despite relatively good financial rewards, professionals of all kinds may be faced with staleness in their working lives, and the benefits they receive may help to mask the extent to which practice has become habitual. Bleakley et al. (2003) extend the ideas of Schon and Foucault in their discussion of the way doctors become practised at making judgements. In relation to practitioners (who use visual material such as X-rays as a basis for diagnosis), Bleakley et al. identify habitual practice as the practice of seeing in the image only what is habitually expected. ‘Saturated’ practice occurs when the eye becomes tired through over-exposure to everyday material and ‘restricted’ practice occurs when experts fail to gain a balance between an evidence-based or technical approach and a more idiosyncratic ‘artistry’ that would encourage a tolerance for ambiguity or innovation. In striving for one correct diagnosis, medicine by its very nature, they argue, seeks to reduce ambiguity and defends against uncertainty. Where ‘artistry’ and ambiguity are lost, an authoritarian and technical stance towards the material may be adopted. This may be countered by the promotion of an ‘aesthetics of practice’ in which practitioners may be educated to attend more closely to the evidence of their senses: for example, to what is first visible to the eye.
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Teachers may recognise parallels here with situations that commonly arise in their own work. The dogged adherence in universities to the practice of lecturing large groups of undergraduates, for example, despite evidence that many students find it difficult to apprehend the direct transmission of large quantities of information, is a good example of a practice that is both habitual (routine or expected) and restricted (in that it fails to take account of our empirical observations of its inadequacy as a teaching strategy). The work by Bleakley et al. (2003) also implies that, in the case of teachers, an openness not just to a range of possible learning strategies but to the contested nature of knowledge itself is appropriate. Further, an expert teacher will be willing and able to take account of such things as the impact of the social context on student learning. In this account, diagnosis and judgements that involve the denial of ambiguity, of innovative or alternative practices are ‘authoritarian’. Continuing professional education is needed, then, for teachers as for doctors to avoid the kind of ‘aggressive self-reliance’ that is characteristic of the authoritarian tradition. Expertise in teaching (as in other professions) is ill defined. Chapter 3 addressed some diverse understandings in post-compulsory education about the nature of good teaching. Factors affecting the outcomes of any learning interaction are changing from moment to moment. Appropriate solutions will depend on the perception of students’ backgrounds, motivations and prior knowledge; they will also depend on the teacher’s background, knowledge of the subject and their understanding of the nature of learning in their discipline. The expert teacher will think flexibly about problems in their teaching and will not find it possible to specify completely the teaching–learning process in advance (Minstrell, 1999). In expert teaching, as in other professional activities, tacit knowledge is likely to have a central role (Stevenson, 2001). Expertise is not conceived of as a certainty or a knowing. Schon’s (1987) description of reflective practice as ‘artistry’ (which Bleakley has developed) is a description of the professional’s capacity to act in unique or unstable cases, within ‘indeterminate zones’ of practice and conflicting paradigms. Technical and applied solutions are here likely to be inadequate and expert practitioners may not be able to state the rules or criteria they follow. Despite criticism of Schon’s failure to discriminate clearly between the different forms of reflection entailed in his examples (see Eraut, 1995), his work has proved influential and it has provided the salient model for programmes of professional training in education in recent years. It is still widely promoted as a strategy for individual professional renewal and I return to it later in this chapter. In the meantime, two other points need to be noted. First, unlike other professionals, the newly appointed post-school teacher is likely to regard themselves as already expert in some important respects. They will have obtained their teaching job because of knowledge and expertise already
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acquired in their discipline or vocational area, as a result of significant study and experience, involving original research (in the case of university teachers) and commercial or industrial experience (in the case of many further education teachers). This fact may occlude perceptions of the need for them to develop expertise in the activity of teaching itself. Finally, Walker reminds us of the importance of social, economic and political contexts in forming an understanding of the work we do. I noted in Chapter 1 that discourses of professionalism could be seen to assert particular realities and priorities at particular times. Walker (2002) cautions against a narrow understanding of professional expertise, as the accepted goal of professional development. She argues: In a time of ‘markets’, ‘free trade’, ‘globalisation’, and ‘the end of ideology’, a ‘professional development’ discourse is more often focused on individual careers, individual self-advancement and on exclusion, far less often within a discourse of collective work, social justice and equity. (p. 151) Professionals need to position themselves between and alongside people; in Walker’s analysis, the competences we need must include competence in political and everyday languages, not just academic ones; we must be prepared to act against inequality, not just to understand it. In our context, this may mean challenging the uneven provision of development opportunities for teachers, documented above; equally, it may mean actively seeking more meaningful recognition for work we do in collaboration with others, for the support we receive and give within professional settings, and for the learning that occurs within our communities and networks.
Work satisfaction Questions about the intrinsic satisfaction (as opposed to extrinsic reward) that may or may not be entailed in teachers’ work are not often addressed. Public perceptions of the work that college and university teachers do may be less well informed and less sympathetic than in the case of school teachers. School teachers’ work is, after all, more visible to the general population; everyone has experienced schooling and many continue to have direct contact with the compulsory sector through their own or other people’s children. As a group, teachers in the post-school sectors have a lower profile, are more remote and may seem privileged by comparison, despite their lower salaries. However, despite the perceived benefits (including status and relative independence), strong potential for dissatisfaction amongst teachers exists in both further and higher education. As described in Chapter 3, contracts for
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FE teachers now typically specify teaching hours and leave entitlement; the notion of a fixed academic session for all teaching staff, consisting of an agreed number of weeks, has all but gone. In higher education, increased pressures on staff, for example to secure research funding, to publish scholarly work, to recruit larger numbers of students or to prepare audit documentation, now encroach on leave and leisure time for many and are reportedly resulting in significant amounts of stress (THES, 2003). There is no reason why teachers (in any phase) should not expect their work to be enjoyable and satisfying. For many, it is probable that a commitment to and involvement in their vocational or academic subject itself does offer a sufficient return. For others, especially those who find themselves teaching the same topics year after year or those who wish to develop themselves as teachers (rather than as managers or researchers), the intrinsic rewards may seem too few. Evidence of staff disillusionment and frustration, at the direction of current policy particularly, can be found in recent studies of teachers in both FE and HE. For example, over half the FE respondents in a study by Randle and Brady (1997) felt that the introduction of competence-based assessment in vocational areas had led to a loss of control over the teaching process and so reduced their level of job satisfaction. Respondents in Ainley and Bailey (1997) similarly reported feelings of frustration over increases in administrative work that gave them less time to spend with students. Respondents in Henkel (2000), especially those from old universities, heavily resented the time taken up in recent years by the ‘bureaucratisation of quality’ (p. 99). It constituted a diversion from what they considered to be their real educational tasks. Increasing marketisation in higher education may also be causing unease. As Green (2004) observes, ‘marketisation sits uneasily with the values of many academics who came into higher education with a nobler motivation’ (p. 14). In addition, certain groups of teachers may have reason to feel more dissatisfied than others since some rewards are quite unevenly dispersed; for example, as noted in Chapter 4, women in universities are likely to earn less than their male colleagues. There are still significantly fewer female professors than male in UK universities (HESA, 2004) and a recently reported study by the AUT indicated that men were 1.6 times more likely than women to have their work submitted to the RAE (THES, 2004). Other structural features of the work may help to construct a level of teacher dissatisfaction. Prospects for moving from one institution to another may be limited and in some specialisms may hardly exist. Significant variations in the nature of the provision from one local college or university to another may seriously restrict staff mobility and, as a consequence, career progression. In addition, it is always not clear, especially within academic areas of the curriculum, whether alternative employment would be genuinely available. Employment options may be quite limited for some individuals and their opportunities for mobility may be relatively few.
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Tipton (1988) makes a point in her discussion of school teachers that is highly relevant in this context, too. She describes a study of white-collar workers carried out by Prandy, Stewart and Blackburn in which a link was found between the middle-class employees’ perceptions of promotion opportunities and their attitudes to other rewards such as income, status and intrinsic job satisfaction. The less likely promotion was perceived to be, the more critical the employees were of their managers, for example. ‘Promotion, then,’ Tipton writes, ‘is in effect the social bromide: it is one of the factors that help to reproduce the existing system’ (p. 13). She goes on to speculate that in the case of teachers, it may be that with little prospect of advancement, within their relatively flat career structure, they may develop fewer promotion expectations than other white-collar workers. However, it is also possible that as the outcome of middle-class socialisation, their expectations are ‘every bit as pronounced, thereby giving rise to an occupational group forever operating with a high level of career frustrations’ (p. 13). Like school teachers, in other words, teachers in further and higher education may experience frustration that is linked to unfulfilled expectations in relation to advancement. If promotion is closely tied to moving away from teaching (as in colleges) or to excellence in research (as in universities), then the teacher who gains satisfaction from teaching (rather than from research or management) may be caught in a dilemma and experience disappointment.
Informal learning Informal learning in the workplace has been the subject of renewed official and academic interest in recent years. Changes in the scope, scale and role of qualifications and their increasing significance to governments concerned with global competitiveness, with measuring performance (both institutional and individual) and with addressing social exclusion have been accompanied by close examination of what is to count as learning in the public domain (Davies, 2000). The exact meaning of the term ‘informal learning’ has also been debated, with Eraut (2000), for example, proposing ‘non-formal learning’ as a more precise alternative to describe the learning that takes place outside formal contexts. Despite the acknowledged ‘messiness’ of the concept of informal learning, however, it can usefully be retained for the purposes of this discussion and will be taken to refer to learning which takes place in the work context, that relates to an individual’s performance of their job and/or their employability, and which is not organised formally into a programme or curriculum by the employer (DfEE, 1999b). Studies of informal learning by academics have chiefly focused on other people’s workplaces. Little attention has been paid to the nature of informal learning that may or may not take place within colleges and universities.
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What do teachers themselves learn informally about their work? Who might they learn from and how? In a study of learning at work (involving respondents in the fields of business, engineering and health care) Eraut et al. (2002) found that learning from other people and from the challenge of work itself were the most important dimensions of learning for those interviewed. Learning from formal study or training was of secondary importance. A number of approaches were reported, including mentoring and work shadowing. Mentoring often forms part of the initial training experience for postschool teachers, and since 2004 it has been required by Ofsted to support the initial training of those seeking to teach in further education. With the exception of health educators, it is not a requirement for those entering HE teaching. However, some universities and colleges have established the practice of attaching experienced colleagues to act as mentors to new staff, and such arrangements may be made as part of induction, even for senior appointees. Again, it is worth noting that practice varies and any overall picture of this provision is impossible to obtain. In both further and higher education, there are unresolved issues about the resources available for such work. In university settings particularly, the structure and purpose of the mentoring relationship may be left for individual participants to resolve, with varying outcomes. Mentoring schemes have been implemented within higher education, for example to support the career development and advancement of women (see THES, 2000). A successful mentoring programme for new women academics in an American university is described by Wunsch (1993). In her study of mentoring in the FE context, Cox (1996) concludes that the mentors themselves may benefit from the relationship; the activity of mentoring may offer both parties opportunities for learning about their practice. An example of HE colleagues collaborating systematically as ‘comentors’ is given in Cox and Grant (2000). When they simultaneously took on new programme management roles, they set up a co-mentoring relationship that gave them each the space and opportunity to seek advice and support from the other. Further, a study by Fuller and Unwin (2002) suggests that people at work are constantly being put in the position of having to teach others. Pedagogical skills, they argue, can be found in all types of workplaces, at all levels of an organisation, and are not restricted by age. Thus, conventional conceptions of ‘novice’ and ‘expert’ are thrown into doubt and the traditional dichotomy challenged. Undoubtedly, such observations are likely to be as true of workers in universities and colleges as they are of workers elsewhere. Teachers will learn as much (if not more) from each other as they do from any structured programme, and feedback from course participants usually testifies to the overwhelming importance of the peer group experience. In the study by Eraut et al. (2002), informal learning also occurred in teams, especially those
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that were task-focused. Thus, membership of a course team may be an important trigger for teachers’ informal learning, and groups that operate more widely (such as institutional committees or external professional networks) are also likely to stimulate learning. Work shadowing or direct observation of others at work is less likely in educational settings beyond the initial training experience. The privacy of the classroom or lecture hall is still a marked and largely unhelpful feature of most educational environments. Other strategies for the renewal of expertise are discussed in more detail below. Eraut et al. (2002) conclude that informal learning is strongly situated in the work itself and in its social and organisational context. Coffield (2000) believes that it should be seen as fundamental, necessary and valuable in its own right. Not everything learnt informally at work will be related to employment, and negative attitudes and practices are perhaps as likely to be acquired as any others. However, the more understanding we have of informal learning, in colleges and universities as much as in other workplaces, the better we will be able to see how our institutions and organisations may need to change.
Strategies for renewal All professional work necessarily has a strong routine component. However, shifting external conditions are likely to bring about changes to the nature of that work, and public sector professionals may be particularly vulnerable in this respect. Pressure in the last decade in the UK to recruit and retain more and different kinds of students is one straightforward example of the way policy currently impacts on the work of teachers in the post-compulsory sectors. That such changes are not felt evenly across all institutions offering post-compulsory education is a recurrent theme of this book. Nevertheless, the need for renewal exists across the board. It may be motivated by a role change (e.g. to a new post of responsibility) as much as by changes to the size and composition of the student cohort. It may be related to issues arising from a formal review or staff appraisal; it may arise from personal observation or from student feedback or results, or from changes to a curriculum. If practice is not to become habitual, saturated or restricted, in Bleakley’s sense (described earlier), professional development strategies will be needed. They will also be needed increasingly as government’s efforts to measure institutional performance create greater accountability and a more competitive climate. In addition, of course, as already noted, both vocational and academic subjects change and discipline boundaries shift (Becher and Trowler, 2001) so there is an obvious need for teachers simply to remain up to date with the content of what they teach. Currently, institutional resources and procedures encourage such development to widely varying degrees. Much will depend on the individual’s
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willingness to initiate a process or to request an opportunity of a particular kind. Some teachers (for example, in the health professions) are required to provide formal evidence of continuing professional development and updated expertise for their professional bodies, through the preparation of portfolios, for instance. Others are under no such obligations. Resistance to pedagogical development (beyond any initial training that may or may not have taken place) appears particularly widespread in higher education. Teaching is largely considered a private matter, and developing oneself as a teacher is likely to take second place to pursuing discipline-based research. In further education, resistance to a meaningful or active engagement with the nature of teaching has been strong, too, but increased levels of outside intervention (e.g. by first the FEFC and then by Ofsted) have challenged colleges to begin addressing the matter. Many have set in place systems of regular peer observation, for example, initially in response to these inspection regimes and the need to prepare for them. A range of strategies for fostering teachers’ professional development are suggested in the literature. Many are proposed or described in the context of school teaching but have wider applicability. Some of the most popular are discussed later. Peer observation Given the prevailing cultures of many post-compulsory institutions, the involvement of peers in the direct observation of one’s teaching is likely to feel risky. Writing about American college teaching, Brookfield (1995) notes that in the context of promotion procedures, where peer observation is likely to be mandatory, it can feel like a ‘public unmasking’ (p. 83). He insists that peer observation must be reciprocal. In the UK setting, the first observation of one’s teaching is likely to be carried out in the context of a training course (by a teacher trainer or mentor). It is also likely that, as part of the employee’s induction, a senior colleague in the institution will observe and critique a junior one. Neither of these practices can properly be termed ‘peer observation’; the imbalance of power may make for a less genuine exchange of views and a reciprocal observation is frankly unlikely. Once hurdles related to training or to the confirmation of employment have been jumped, however, there remain valuable opportunities for learning from the direct observation of others’ teaching. Even if they do not share the teacher’s subject expertise, an observer is likely to notice events, patterns and responses that will escape even the experienced teacher. A focused observation, in which the observer’s attention has been specifically directed to certain perceived problems in the classroom or workshop, is likely to be the most helpful. A good briefing is therefore critical. Data can be collected systematically and an observation schedule may be prepared in advance. To be effective, feedback needs to be constructive and supportive.
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It is perfectly possible, too, that the observers themselves may learn from what they see. Indeed, many training courses require students to undertake periods of classroom or workshop observation within their own or placement institutions. In this way, they are just as likely to come across episodes of ineffective teaching as effective ones, and these can act as an equally strong stimulus to their own development. Frequently their teaching logs will then record a commitment to doing things differently and better! Critical reflection In the field of post-compulsory education, reflective practice has been in danger of becoming a meaningless adage. Despite a lack of certainty about its form, its underpinning values and purposes, no concept has been more utilised in professional programmes. The terms ‘reflection’ and ‘reflective practice’ are often used to cover almost any evaluative, thoughtful or systematic inquiry in the field (Ecclestone, 1996). Reflection itself need not be critical. Brookfield (1995) argues that it becomes critical only when it involves consideration of the underlying structures of power in educational settings or questions established assumptions and practices. In Chapter 3, I noted concerns advanced by Hoyle and John (1995) and Bleakley (1999) about the narrowness of some understandings of reflective practice. Eraut (1995) critically assesses the contribution made by Donald Schon, whose book The Reflective Practitioner (Schon, 1983) provides the starting point for much of this debate. Eraut identifies a lack of clarity in Schon’s descriptions of various forms of ‘reflection’. Other critics have concluded that we simply do not know how reflection changes or affects practice (Day, 1993), that the psychological and cognitive processes involved are not well understood (Munby and Russell, 1990) and that the implicit and explicit values underpinning reflective practice need to be debated (Ecclestone, 1996). Concern is also evident about the impact Schon’s ideas may have had in legitimising the removal of theory from teacher education and replacing it with a form of intuitive and personal reflection (Furlong and Maynard, 1995). In the light of this debate, it is difficult to retrieve reflective practice and to argue its place as a strategy for professional renewal. However, Boud and Walker (2002) do just that. They summarise fluently the pitfalls and problems they have encountered in their observations of staff development activities devoted to reflection and reflective practice. These include the adoption of a ‘recipe’ or fixed sequence of steps for students to follow during reflection, attempts to contain reflection within certain inappropriate parameters, a mismatch between the reflection and the demands of the formal learning context (in relation to assessment, for example, where students may expect to write what they know and not to reveal what they don’t) and an uncritical acceptance of experience as a ‘good’ in itself that need not be interrogated. They stress the importance of an awareness of
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context in fostering conditions that might be appropriate for reflection. Such conditions would include recognition of the limitations on teachers, building trust and creating situations in which students are able to make their own meaning rather than having it imposed on them. Boundaries to the reflection need to be set, and defined by ideas and concepts in the discipline being studied to avoid intrusion into students’ personal worlds. Finally, they explore in detail the implications for educators and for those seeking to facilitate reflection. As they say, it is a question ultimately of whether we are really interested in fostering reflection and whether we are prepared to take context sufficiently into account. Courses and conferences The comparative willingness of managers in further and higher education to sponsor teachers’ attendance at conferences and accredited courses (other than initial teacher training courses) may seem surprising in the absence of clear evidence of the usefulness of these events. Initial teacher training courses are discussed in Chapter 2. Other events, such as those run by teachers’ organisations, official bodies or other interest groups, regularly hope to attract further and higher education teachers (amongst others) for a variety of purposes that may be broadly described as developmental. In my experience, most taught provision is likely to prove useful in some measure at some stage to most participants, but increasingly the capacity of college and some university employers to release their teachers for further, formal professional study is in question. Often, teachers will find they are obliged to do the same amount of teaching whether or not they attend courses, and that no real cover for their absence is available. Outcomes may be variable as far as the employer is concerned. Some FE and HE institutions do require the circulation to colleagues of reports following attendance at courses or training events, but in general the benefits tend to be individual and not widely shared within institutions. One respondent in a study by Becher (1996) remarked that having time to think was the chief benefit: ‘I think that’s the nice extravagance that courses give you, you can actually think about what you are doing’ (p. 47). As far as conferences are concerned, presenting research to peers and networking with others are usually regarded in HE as satisfactory outcomes that justify the expenditure. As Becher (1996) found in his sample, drawn from six different professional groups, attendance at conferences usually ‘signifies group solidarity rather than a predominant desire to learn something new’ (p. 48). Most universities offer a fixed entitlement to conference attendance but this may vary considerably according to departmental budgetary constraints. It goes without saying perhaps that most of the courses and conferences attended will be concerned with debates and research in the disciplines themselves and not with pedagogy.
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Professional networks As mentioned above, university teachers attach considerable importance to their wider professional networks, both national and international. More allegiance is likely to be felt to such groups, and to the discipline itself, than to the individual employer. Membership of professional organisations of various kinds, often focused on the subject or discipline, editorial work for journals, external examining work and consultancy all provide opportunities for building and sustaining contacts with colleagues outside the boundaries of the institution. Prior to 1993, under the auspices of the larger local education authorities particularly, funding for specific initiatives enabled groups of FE teachers from different colleges to come together and participate in development projects of various kinds. On such occasions, individual or institutional perspectives might be challenged or developed and peer learning occur. The Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) was particularly active in its promotion of these opportunities and it is still a model that appears to work well in the school sector. Since the incorporation of colleges, opportunities for networking with teachers from other nearby institutions have become more limited. However, local Learning and Skills Research Networks now act as a focus for FE staff and regular conferences and meetings are held under their auspices. Some funding has been available through these networks for small-scale research and development projects, and within this context, partnerships between HE and FE teachers are encouraged. These research collaborations are discussed later in this chapter. Professional interactions vary, of course, in their structure, from the spontaneous telephone call (to someone who might know someone or something of value) to more formalised or systematic contacts, not necessarily within the boundaries of an organisation or professional society. Respondents in Becher (1996) (none of whom were educationalists) noted the importance of other people as resources for learning. In the world of further and higher education, it may be that we do not interact as much as other professional groups, at least about the core values and practices of teaching. The private nature of most teaching activity (referred to previously) makes such interactions less likely than they might be, say, in the world of engineering. Brookfield (1995) argues for the value of critical conversations about teaching but acknowledges that ‘breaking the chains of silence is not easy’ (p. 145). One strategy he suggests for getting conversations started is the use of critical incident technique (discussed later). Diaries and portfolios Professional diaries or ‘learning autobiographies’ (Brookfield, 1995) (often contained within portfolios) are usually required of those training to teach.
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Format and requirements differ quite considerably and pitfalls (such as those described above in relation to reflective practice) are not always avoided. Intrusion into an individual’s lifeworld for the purposes of assessment does raise ethical concerns. The professional portfolio usually contains relevant course documents, teaching materials, student evaluations, minutes of meetings and so forth as well as some kind of diary and reflection on learning. The material is taken to be ‘evidence’ of learning or expertise in the professional setting. The best portfolios are put together selectively over a period of time and will clearly show development and learning taking place; the material will have been critically analysed and its role in the learning process explained; the worst will be compilations of materials and ideas put together on the magpie principle that more is better and that structure and analysis are unimportant (Bloor and Butterworth, 1996). With the exception again of health professional educators in HE, there are as yet no requirements for FHE teachers to keep professional diaries or portfolios beyond initial training. It seems likely, however, that the HE Academy will soon adopt the professional portfolio as the vehicle by which accredited HE teachers will regularly demonstrate the currency of their skills, understanding and knowledge. The flexibility of the portfolio as a tool is likely to make it acceptable in the HE context where a more formal means of assessing teaching expertise would certainly be resisted. However, guidelines will be needed to ensure that the task remains meaningful and valid. Critical incidents Critical incidents (Tripp, 1993) are significant moments or events in practice that may act as a focus for professional learning. It is our interpretation of the incident that makes it ‘critical’ rather than any particular features of the situation or event itself. Such incidents may be experienced as either positive and affirmatory of existing practice or negative and deeply challenging. Recalling Schon’s interest in the ‘indeterminate, swampy zones’ of professional practice, and the professional’s capacity to act in unique or unstable situations, as noted above, it can be argued that the analysis and discussion of such incidents may lead to a deeper understanding of practice, to changes in that practice and eventually, to a more discriminating profession that is more confident about its work. Writing about school teachers’ professional development, Coldron and Smith (1999) note: Close analysis of how and why a teacher acted as he or she did may sharpen critical faculties and the ability to make distinctions. Such analysis requires support for teacher networks, provision for reading and
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reflection, and a climate in which questions are encouraged as well as answers provided. (p. 723) Tripp (1993) describes how this technique may be used to critique the dominant view. Teachers might choose an incident that typifies their normal way of working and then analyse it, by first describing it, then examining it for inconsistencies or omissions. Questions about who benefits from the orthodox approach and who does not are addressed, and the teacher then tries to imagine a new or alternative structure that would be more rational and more just than the dominant view. Brookfield (1995) works through some examples of this approach and concludes that we all experience contradiction and surprise in our teaching, ‘like flying a jumbo jet through turbulence while blindfolded’ (p. 91). How much analysis we do of our work may well depend on how friendly the culture is towards what he calls ‘the reflective life’.
Teacher research Various titles are used in the literature to describe research undertaken by teachers in their own classrooms or educational settings. These titles may include ‘practitioner research’, ‘teacher research’, ‘collaborative enquiry’ or ‘action research’ (Sachs, 2003). The terms are not synonymous and action research particularly is a distinctive mode of inquiry (see later). The term ‘practitioner research’ within the field of education usually refers to research undertaken by teachers (as opposed to academics). Generally, such research methodologies share a commitment to the study of one’s own practice by professionals themselves, with a view to improving that practice for the benefit of others (Dadds and Hart, 2001). Sachs (2003) agrees that, despite differences in terminology, the usual purpose is to bring about change in the classroom or institution, to improve classroom practice, to contribute to an understanding of the teacher’s knowledge base or to serve as a basis for professional development. Teacher research in schools in the UK has a strong and radical tradition; it grew out of disillusionment in the 1960s with conventional educational research such as that typically carried out ‘on’ rather than ‘with’ teachers (see Stenhouse, 1975). Within the post-compulsory sectors, teacher research is still relatively rare, though it is now being encouraged through some initial training and professional development programmes and some accounts were published from time to time by the ILTHE in their journal. Most university teachers are, of course, unused to thinking of themselves as ‘practitioners’ in an educational sense and their role in teacher research has tended to be advisory or ‘expert’ in that they have offered academic support and guidance on research methodology, for example, to the teachers in schools or colleges.
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However, there is certainly scope for university teachers to become more engaged with their own practice, and some indication in specific disciplines that what is sometimes termed ‘pedagogical research’ is of interest to a minority. A further difficulty for university teachers is that research into their own practice, such as applied or interdisciplinary research, has tended to have low esteem within the academy. McNay (1997) noted perceived biases against such research in his report on the impact of the 1992 Research Assessment Exercise on English higher education. However, criteria for the RAE in 2008 will allow for greater value to be attached to applied research (HEFCE, 2004). Further education teachers may be more sympathetic to the concept of practitioner research (as a consequence of their more vocational or practice-oriented stance) but, as explained below, their working conditions do not encourage these kinds of activities. Teacher research certainly has its detractors. Huberman (1996) argues that it is scarcely possible for teachers to function as researchers in their own classrooms because they are such important participants in the very events they are seeking to investigate. Hammersley (1993) believes that it is undesirable to attempt an integration of the roles of teacher and researcher, and he argues that teaching is much more than a form of inquiry. I have also heard the view expressed that the expectations we have of teachers are already so onerous that to expect them to research into their own practice as well is to give them more responsibility for situations they may not be able to change than is appropriate in the current climate. However, Sachs (2003) argues (in the context of the Australian school sector) that teacher research has the potential to act as an important source of professional renewal. Its potential lies: in the opportunities that new forms of association provide (1) to disrupt previously taken-for-granted understandings of the world of practice and of the nature of knowledge in use, and (2) to raise questions about whose interests are served by the implementation of new policies and curriculum practices, what are the effects on and implications for teachers’ practices. (p. 91) Writing about the field of social work, Munn-Giddings (2002) observes that much more concern has been expressed about the relationship of research to policy than about the relationship of research to practice. In the postcompulsory field particularly, research has had a very limited impact on people’s educational experiences (Stanton, 2000) and at the micro-level of the classroom or lecture hall, teacher research has at least some potential to change this. In seeking ‘meanings’ rather than ‘causes’, qualitative research approaches may be particularly appropriate. Munn-Giddings (2002) makes
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the point that empathy and the understanding of experiences and feelings are important features of many professional relationships. In these ways, the research role within the qualitative paradigm may mirror the teaching one and research findings may usefully inform future practice. The ‘reflexivity’ (and the full recognition of the researcher’s impact on the research process) that is considered important in qualitative research (see Ball, 1993) also offers the teacher the opportunity to learn about his or her own values and understandings and the ways these may impact on learning. Finally, provided the findings of teacher research are collated, documented and disseminated, the potential also exists for the development of a collective body of knowledge. Through their analogous experiences, others may learn from the teachers’ accounts. Sachs (2003) argues that barriers of isolation and ‘privatism’ in schools may be broken down by teacher research as classrooms are opened up for critical investigation and teachers’ working practices become subject to supportive and scholarly scrutiny. Clearly, barriers in further and higher education, between the differing disciplines and vocational groups, and the different kinds of teachers, institutions and traditions, present even more of a challenge. Action research Action research is a form of practitioner research that includes a commitment to action designed to bring about change in professional practice. Like other forms of research, it leads to new knowledge, provides evidence to support that knowledge, makes the process of inquiry explicit and links new knowledge with existing knowledge. But it is different in that it requires action as an integral part of the research process, is focused by the researcher’s professional values rather than methodological concerns and is necessarily ‘insider’ research, undertaken by practitioners researching their own professional actions in their own environments (McNiff et al., 2003). This commitment to ‘action’ and to ‘research’ (and the systematic collection of data) distinguishes it from reflective practice (which I discussed above) although both these activities are intended to bring about improvement. Typically, action research takes place in a cycle (involving planning, acting, observing and reflecting). Cycles may transform into new cycles, so that the whole inquiry may become like a series of cycles (or spirals). For college and university teachers, it works best in my experience when the focus is relatively narrow, on a specific event, a perceived ‘problem’ (such as a noisy class, an unsatisfactory tutorial relationship, an unsuccessful questioning technique) or a specific innovation (such as the introduction of some new technology). Undoubtedly, some action researchers do bring about institution-wide reform, thus supporting some of the stronger, emancipatory claims made for the method (see Zuber-Skerrit, 1996) but, in my experience, as a principle, the teacher or teachers involved must have the ability and
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power to make the relevant change; if there is little they can do about the identified problem, if the locus of control lies elsewhere, then action research may prove a frustrating experience. As indicated, action research is highly specific and it is also collaborative. Not only will the researcher work with the students or the colleagues who are part of the project and part of the situation or context in which the research will take place, they will also typically call on ‘critical friends’ and fellow action researchers to advise, observe, help collect data, offer encouragement and supportive criticism. In addition, McNiff et al. (1996) suggest that a validating group (made up of colleagues, participants or other sympathetic people) will be needed to scrutinise the claims made. The role of this group will be to ensure the research is valid and authentic and that the evidence for the claims is clear. Research collaborations I referred in Chapter 4 to the importance of collaboration in the development of teacher identity. A number of the professional development strategies discussed above (e.g. critical incident analysis, peer observation) depend for their success on effective collaboration with others. In the context of teacher research, significant issues may arise when the collaborators come from different education sectors. Research collaborations between school teachers and university academics, for example, may give rise to tensions related to the ‘perceived power differential’ (Somekh, 2002). Specific strategies may be needed to counter this; Somekh records the use of a Code of Confidentiality with clauses specifically designed to ensure equality between project partners. Sachs (2003) cautions against asking both partners to become the same as each other. Respecting the distinctive cultures of schools and universities and ensuring that research questions are posed collaboratively will both increase the chances of a successful outcome. Research collaborations between universities and further education colleges are less common. Cultural differences are significant here, too, and a respect for each other’s priorities will be crucial. Some further education colleges have undoubtedly become more interested recently in researching into aspects of their provision and there is scope for research partnerships with higher education colleagues. (See, for example, the work published by the ESRC-funded ‘Teaching and Learning Research Project’ in the Journal of Vocational Education and Training, volume 55, number 4, 2003). Since their contracts (as noted in Chapter 3) make no provision for research activity, funding is likely to be needed to release the FE teachers from other work. A recent initiative from the LSDA in London and the southeast of England, for example, makes funding available for action research projects in local FE colleges. The LSDA provides consultancy
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support and encourages networking between providers. Reports of completed projects appear on their website. Sachs (2003) notes that ‘the theory/practice split stands at the core of the cultural differences between school and university staff’ (p. 85). Undoubtedly, in a general sense, this split is perceived, too, in relations between further and higher education teachers, complicated perhaps by the greater degree of specialisation of FE teachers (compared to their school counterparts) and by their stronger alignment with the world of work and employment.
Conclusion Professional development for teachers in UK further and higher education, beyond any initial training or induction they may receive, is a sporadic affair. Policy initiatives designed to enhance teaching and learning have been appearing more frequently within the last decade but funding for them is often contingent and their impact on teachers and their work is hard to ascertain. There appears to be little sustained recognition at a national level of teachers’ professional development needs in the post-school phase. It is left to individual teachers to seek opportunities to enhance their expertise and develop their pedagogical interests. For the most part, it is up to their employers to resource these activities from within tightly constrained budgets. However, as the quality of teaching and learning becomes more important to institutions, we can expect more resources to be made available for teachers’ professional development. In teaching, a relatively ‘flat’ career structure is combined with the need to maintain and develop professional expertise, in contexts where much of the work may appear routine. Whilst other professional groups may struggle with these kinds of concerns too, these teachers have an additional preoccupation. They must keep up to date with their academic or vocational subjects and, in many cases, with rapid technological, commercial and industrial advances. Additionally, as already noted, most university teachers will feel an increasingly strong imperative to carry out research within their academic disciplines. The competing pressures that arise are not easy to settle. Institutions vary in the priority they attach to subject updating for teachers, and it ought to be more systematically required and more readily available than it is. By contrast, expertise in teaching suffers from the perception that, once acquired, it will be retained indefinitely. However, external change impacts here too, as I have indicated. Current education policies in the UK (whether relating to funding, student recruitment or to new measures of performance) are directly affecting teachers’ work. Teachers’ perceptions of their roles and responsibilities vary of course, but underpinning this debate are cultural assumptions and beliefs about the relative importance and nature of the activities they undertake. A shift in
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perceptions of the FE and HE teachers’ roles, for example, might mean that they came to see themselves as both subject experts and educational practitioners. A greater valuing of pedagogical research and research into the practice of teaching within specific disciplines and contexts would assist with this shift and offer teachers a strategy for their continued professional enrichment. In the final chapter, I attempt two things. First, there is a fuller analysis of the underpinning reasons for the contrasts and differences in culture and practice that have been identified in previous chapters, and then I focus on a set of current challenges that face us, as teachers in further and higher education, leaving the reader with some of the key questions for the profession, as I see them at this time.
Chapter 6
Encountering the future
The old futures have a way of hanging around. (William Gibson, interviewed in 1995)
Introduction In this final chapter, I first recap on the main findings from the previous chapters. Next, I attempt a fuller analysis of the origins and meanings of the differences and contrasts that have been identified – in the training and work, the status, the cultures, practices and development of teachers in further and higher education. This discussion picks up the key ideas underpinning the concept of ‘professionalism’ (such as those of autonomy, professional knowledge and responsibility) that were noted in Chapter 1. In the second part of this final chapter, in place of a more conventional conclusion, I investigate in detail a selection of emerging issues and challenges that appear likely to influence developments and debates about teacher professionalism in the post-compulsory sectors in the UK over the next decade. Though these issues have also been touched on at times elsewhere in the book, and arise directly from those discussions, a close focus on questions arising here is intended to point us forward and to help set an agenda for action and change.
Summary and analysis of differences and contrasts Fragmentation, inconsistency and incoherence characterise the teaching qualifications and professional standards for teachers in the post-compulsory phase. Employment contracts vary markedly even within higher education, and further education teachers can expect very different teaching loads, with no fixed entitlement to professional development or allowance of time for updating themselves in relation to their subject. Research is expected of most HE teachers, but the available resource may be seriously restricted in certain settings. Understandings of what constitutes ‘good practice’ in post-compulsory teaching vary considerably, with a particular emphasis in FE in recent years
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on individual learning styles and in HE, on ‘deep’ and ‘surface’ approaches to learning and the ‘scholarship’ of teaching, for example. Official interest in the quality of teaching and learning in both further and higher education has increased significantly in the last decade but the interventions have differed markedly in their nature and effect. For example, Ofsted now has responsibility for the inspection of all 16–19 education and training in sixth form and further education colleges, and for the initial training of FE teachers; the Adult Learning Inspectorate (ALI) has responsibility for all post-19 non-university work. In universities, the QAA carries out quality assessment, but in place of the direct observation of teaching, such as that carried out by Ofsted, the QAA now adopts an audit approach with a focus on the institution’s published procedures and information. Diverse and disparate communities of teachers, focused around specific academic or vocational interests, are a striking feature of most colleges and universities. These communities, whose boundaries extend well beyond those of the institution, play a significant role in helping to sustain the active construction of the identities and practices of their participants. Disciplinary differences in attitudes to teaching and assessment, to research and professional development as well as to the work and roles of managers have been well documented in the HE literature particularly. As already noted, the post-compulsory teacher is more of a specialist than most school teachers, and is unique amongst professionals in needing to acquire discipline-specific knowledge and practices to an advanced level as well as the knowledge, skills and understanding that underpin effective teaching. Teachers seeking professional development beyond any initial training that they may or may not undertake are likely to find that support is uneven. Much will depend on their employers’ current resource priorities and on the availability of local opportunities. Research by teachers themselves is attracting interest, in both further and higher education, often within the context of accredited academic programmes, and opportunities for various kinds of collaborations between colleges and universities appear to be increasing. Thus, the overall picture is confused. How did we get here and, for the various groups of teachers within post-compulsory education, what might it mean for the future? The reasons for the divisions, inconsistencies and differences that mark the professional world of teachers in post-compulsory education are complex. Part of the explanation for the confusion relates to the long-term failure of policy-makers to engage meaningfully with the world they now seek to regulate and change. In relation to further education particularly, a lack of familiarity with its history, practices and purposes has characterised official engagement with it over time. In the case of higher education, which is no doubt better understood in UK government circles, policy-makers have had to contend with the influence and power of the vice chancellors, and with the greater historical autonomy of at least the pre-1992 universities.
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The state remains reluctant to challenge this autonomy in a concerted way, though many, particularly those working in ‘old’ universities, do themselves feel that both institutional and personal autonomy have been weakened by the funding bodies’ introduction of quality assurance regimes, for example. In fact, the last decade has seen a marked increase in the quantity of legislation and policy initiatives designed to impact on teachers and relating directly or indirectly to the quality of teaching and learning in post-compulsory education. However, the policies do not cohere and are based too frequently on political wish-lists and presumption rather than firm evidence drawn from relevant contexts and discussed with practitioners and their managers. The professional standards that came into being for further education teachers through FENTO, for example, were quite different in character from those that were eventually set in place by the ILTHE for HE teachers. The body charged with developing the standards for FE teaching was a national training organisation, one of about 70 that were recognised by the government in 1998. Many vocational qualifications were simultaneously being adapted to the standards-based model of the National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ), and the FENTO standards can be seen as evidence of the government’s wish to implement its NTO strategy in further education which it identified closely with vocational education (Bailey and Robson, 2002). In fact, of course, a considerable amount of vocational education takes place in universities too, and there are now more academic A levels taught in further education colleges than in schools (Stanton and Bailey, 2001). Though they can in part be explained, it is becoming less easy to justify these differences in the treatment of FE and HE teachers, given the growing similarity in student intakes and the increasing overlap in their work (in relation to Foundation Degrees, for example). Another part of the explanation for the confusion and inconsistencies that mark the world of post-compulsory teaching in the UK can be found in our cultural practices and beliefs. Policy initiatives in further and higher education have done little to challenge these in recent years. Teaching is a relatively low-status profession. Like nursing or social work, it suffers in the prestige stakes from the perception that its knowledge base is ‘unscientific’, that it has more to do with common sense and experience than a rigorous understanding of a body of professional knowledge. The importance of systematic knowledge to the professions has frequently been noted (for example, Macdonald, 1995; Hoyle and John, 1995). Codified knowledge helps give legitimacy to status claims. But, as Zukas and Malcolm (2002b) note, a coherent pedagogy for lifelong learning has yet to be formulated. ‘There is little conceptual connection between adult and further education, higher education, training and professional development.’ They argue that ‘lifelong pedagogies are marked by disjunctions’ (p. 203). With, as yet, little official support for the notion that HE teachers, like those in FE or schools, should be fully trained and encour-
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aged to acquire pedagogical knowledge, skills and understanding, this situation is unlikely to change. There will be little opportunity for these diverse groups of teachers to come to a consensus about the nature of their professional knowledge. Some would also cite relatively low levels of pay for teachers in UK further and higher education as additional evidence of an official disregard. Despite local initiatives mentioned in Chapter 5, rewards in HE tend to follow success in research rather than teaching, and in FE a move away from teaching itself is usually necessary to secure promotion. Morley is reported (THES, 25 June 2004) to have said that the combination of relatively low pay and high regulation is ‘changing the atmosphere’ in HE, and drawing in particular fewer male entrants into a profession that is now widely held in low regard. In Anglo-Saxon culture, the academic is favoured over the vocational (DES, 1991; Raggatt and Williams, 1999) and even employers give more weight to general and academic qualifications when recruiting their staff (Stanton and Bailey, 2001). Despite indications that the present government is determined to improve the status of vocational provision in the UK, their attempts to do this have been fraught with contradiction. Ofsted was reported recently (Guardian, 2004) to have found that the new vocational GCSEs, introduced into schools two years ago, are being delivered by teachers who do not have sufficient training to deliver skills for the workplace. There is a danger, too, that in attempts to unify the curriculum, academic norms (in assessment, for example) will come to predominate and that only academic modes of assessment or standards of ‘excellence’ will be used. Vocational provision has also suffered as colleges that sought to increase their student numbers, and thus their income, found that it was cheaper for them to develop their academic provision and that such qualifications were more sought after by students, their parents and employers. Further, Keep and Mayhew (2004) argue that the proposed expansion of HE in the UK will be fed by the failure to establish a viable, high-quality, work-based apprenticeship; level 3 qualifications (equivalent to A levels) will no longer be seen as a valid end in their own right, and the status of vocational study (and of vocational teachers) will suffer in consequence. Government policy has also singularly failed to address some significant differences that exist in levels of funding across higher education. In further education, the introduction in England ten years ago of a national funding methodology (see FEFC, 1994) effectively put colleges on an equal footing, but in higher education, historical differences between institutions are being more sharply felt than ever, despite the national funding formula introduced there by HEFCE. Five elite universities currently account for a fifth of the total income for a sector that encompasses more than 150 other academic institutions (HESA, 2004). Some older universities have endowments worth, in some cases, several hundreds of millions, making them far less dependent
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on student income and allowing for significantly lighter teaching loads for many staff. Research income is also unevenly distributed. Of 174 institutions submitted to the 2001 RAE, 24 received 75 per cent of the funds (McNay, 2003). The government’s recent White Paper The Future of Higher Education (DfES, 2003) openly promoted what Stronach (2003) refers to as a ‘familiar elitism’ (p. 9), in which some universities will be given greater sums of money for research and encouraged to become ‘research-intensive’. Others, by implication, will not be research-intensive and will find themselves increasingly dependent on their recruitment of students. Further implications of this shift for the teachers themselves are explored below. One might also argue that attitudes and perceptions within the teaching profession itself have contributed to the perpetuation of divisions and anomalies. Though some evidence suggests newer recruits and those in the post-1992 universities see their teaching role more positively (Henkel, 2000), the emphasis on the academic discipline and on discipline-based research, and (especially in the FE context) on the earlier occupational identity and the knowledge and experience acquired within vocational settings, has meant that teaching is generally not highly valued and resistance to a meaningful and detailed engagement with its processes has been historically supported in many institutions. In Chapter 1, I discussed Brian Simon’s view that resistance to pedagogy is peculiarly English and historically located at least partly in the class system that has shaped our educational institutions and structures. In the nineteenth century, the influential public schools were more concerned with the socialisation of their pupils than with their intellectual development. In the twentieth century, a focus on individualism and selectivity further mitigated against the development of principles for a common pedagogy. Though the twenty-first century is still young, in the post-school sectors there is little sign even of an acceptance that a shared pedagogy would address many interests of teachers and students, as well as the institutions in which they work. A reluctance to collaborate with others, particularly those outside the disciplinary grouping, or to open up the classrooms, lecture halls and workshops for the exchange and sharing of ideas and expertise amongst colleagues is still a marked feature of many educational environments. Numbers of individual teachers within specific disciplines (especially in pre-1992 universities) are still relatively free to determine their own workloads and may be resistant to overt attempts by others to manage their time. A tension between the employing institution and the individual teacher may arise, where it becomes difficult to reconcile what are perceived as competing interests.
Current challenges In the following, I identify a set of key challenges currently facing teachers in further and higher education. These concerns can be traced in the earlier
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chapters but are gathered together here so that the future implications for teachers and their professionalism can be highlighted. Teachers and markets There has always been a market in both further and higher education but the effect of recent legislation has been to shift all sectors of education in the UK towards new forms of funding and operation that have been in the past more characteristic of the private sector. The 1988 Education Reform Act saw the introduction of policies that were specifically designed to increase competition amongst institutions. Since funding is now directly related to student numbers in all FHE institutions, recruitment is of paramount importance. In addition, there has been a lowering of the unit of resource so that the effects of competition amongst providers are more keenly felt. In further education, the FEFC funding methodology (FEFC, 1994) included provision for ‘clawing back’ funds in cases of under-recruitment or lack of student retention and completion. This gave a particular edge to the changes affecting colleges. With the new emphasis on accountability to the student market, a business orientation was required and both colleges and universities now face increased financial pressure to deliver effective as well as efficient services. With moves to expect a larger contribution from students towards the costs of their courses in both FE and HE, institutions find themselves more clearly positioned in purchaser/provider relationships than they once were. Undoubtedly these changes have impacted and will continue to impact on teachers, particularly those in colleges. In universities, the changes are tending to be felt more in institutions where dependence on student income is greater, such as the post-1992 universities, where fewer endowments and less research funding make student recruitment a stronger priority. In the context of marketisation, measuring performance (of institutions, students, teachers and researchers) becomes crucially important. The publication of data on performance (in the form of league tables, for example) is now commonplace in all sectors of education. But, as Hodkinson (1997) argues, many of the most important things in education cannot be measured. ‘Good performance’, in any case, is in the eye of the beholder. The targets and league tables are not objective or unproblematic indicators; in defining what is to be measured and how, some opinions matter more than others. There is little consistency and coherence to the various measures used, different agendas influence their design and teachers, trainers and HEIs, for example, come well down the list of stakeholders who appear to have a say in defining good and bad performance (Keep and Mayhew, 2004). Within the discipline of the market, power is shifted away from teachers in other ways, too. More centralised methods of recruitment may be adopted by the institution and teachers may have little or no involvement
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now in decisions about whom they are to teach. A fee-paying student is likely to demand more of teachers, and the more the student pays, the more attractive they are likely to be to the institution. Thus, high-fee-paying foreign students are being recruited to UK universities in larger numbers than previously and in further education, too, certain groups of students are now more appealing economically than others. In higher education, variable fees are likely to increase expectations that more should be available for more, and that HEIs should ‘deliver what it says on the tin’ (Green, 2004). Poorer students are more likely to be excluded from the more prestigious (and higher-charging) universities. Recent attempts at the imposition of new contracts in areas of the UK public sector can be seen as attempts to redefine the power relationship between professionals and managers, in favour of managers (Bottery, 1996). For many teachers in further education, new contracts resulted in an intensification of work and draconian increases in teaching loads during the 1990s. Due to the nature of the particular funding methodology in FE, they are continually under pressure, too, to retain their students and to try to ensure that all students successfully complete their courses. Marketisation also brought increased numbers of managers to both colleges and universities. Teachers found themselves in new relationships with managers, some of whom were appointed from managerial and industrial rather than educational backgrounds (Hyland and Merrill, 2003). Tension and conflict have been reported (e.g. Elliott and Crossley, 1997). Some FE teachers viewed the increased competition as detrimental to their work. In a number of studies (Hyland and Merrill, 2003; Ainley and Bailey, 1997; Randle and Brady, 1997), FE teacher respondents spoke of the changes to their role, their feelings of low morale, their loss of self-esteem, and the constant surveillance they felt themselves to be under. The literature on HE teachers also suggests that staff have felt a loss of autonomy, in a context of increased marketisation and regulation, with others making judgements about the quality of their provision and with the research agenda increasingly being set by others (McNay, 1997). So far, however, HE teachers and their managers have appeared better able to resist these changes than their FE counterparts, as illustrated by the pressure successfully brought to bear on the funding councils to scale down their inspections of teaching quality in universities from 2004. The more autonomous position of universities, whose historical and legal status is enshrined in their Royal Charter, and the greater political influence of the vice chancellors facilitate forms of resistance that would be impossible to imagine in the context of further education. The bodies that might protect the interests of further education are smaller, weaker and less well funded; the AoC, for example, is far less influential than Universities UK, and the college lecturers’ union, NATFHE, was severely weakened by internal divisions following incorporation and the introduction of the new contract for teachers.
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Some evidence also suggests that relationships with students may have been affected by marketisation, especially in further education. Randle and Brady (1997) state that dialogue, interaction and group work were characteristic of the FE learning process (probably to a far greater extent than is true in most universities). With the advent of the student (as ‘customer’ or ‘buyer’) the power balance has tended to shift and some believe that staff now relate differently to those they teach. In some universities, heightened concerns about potential student litigation are leading to a tightening of tracking and recording processes, and a greater vigilance on the part of thesis supervisors, for example. Not all these changes can be construed as wholly negative, of course, and some would argue that greater accountability to students and a more conscientious approach to monitoring student progress were badly needed in some contexts. In both further and higher education, marketisation may sit uneasily with traditional cultures. Green (2004) argues that many academics came into HE with a ‘nobler motivation – to transform individual student’s life chances’ (p. 14). Randle and Brady (1997) explore the contrast between the ‘professional paradigm’ and the ‘managerialist paradigm’, locating FE teachers within a ‘public service ethic’ where the primary concern is to provide quality educational opportunities. Most teachers, they argue, hold values that are directly opposed to the values of the market place. Some teacher respondents in Ainley and Bailey (1997) stressed the gains to them and their students of the changes in the way institutions and staff are now managed. Respondents in Shain and Gleeson (1999) adopted three distinct narratives when talking about the impact of the changes in FE. Some adopted a narrative of ‘resistance and rejection’, some appeared ‘compliant’ and a third group were identified as ‘strategic compliers’. This latter group of teachers drew on public sector values in their talk (as did those in Randle and Brady (1997)) and within their existing context, claimed that they tended to develop alternative strategies to achieve their objectives. For example, the ethos of competition for these teachers did not preclude co-operation or effective networking with other colleges. In a similar way, FE teacher respondents in Robson et al. (2004) reported that they systematically went beyond the minimum requirements of the competence-based programme they were teaching, to teach what they felt their students additionally needed to learn. Cumulatively, these and other challenges to teachers’ existing values and practices, in the context of increased marketisation, have led to claims that the teachers in colleges and universities are being de-professionalised. Randle and Brady (1997), for example, state that de-professionalisation is a direct outcome of government strategy within the FE sector. Wilson (1991) argues that academics in universities have experienced a ‘degradation of work’ (with increases in the student load per academic and a decline in the condition of facilities, for example). Certainly, FE and HE teachers’ pay and conditions have deteriorated (relative to those of school teachers, for
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example) and it is also undeniable that there has been a growth in teacher casualisation, with increased numbers of part-timers and others on shortterm contracts in both FE and HE. I expressed concern in Chapter 3, too, about the employment of unqualified staff to work alongside and, in some cases, instead of teachers in further education colleges. But the argument becomes more complex in relation to claims about such things as loss of autonomy. Different groups of teachers will perceive the impact of the changes in different ways and, as I noted in Chapter 4, much depends on your starting point. I would argue that HE teachers still have considerable individual autonomy (certainly within classrooms and lecture halls) and that the lack of a formal requirement for them to train as teachers complicates claims about changes to their professional status. In some institutions, increased accountability is perceived as a benefit, in terms of ensuring a fairer distribution of work, for example. In addition, (as noted before) some HE institutions are much more vulnerable than others and teachers in those places are likely to feel the impact of the market more. In further education, teachers traditionally have had relatively little autonomy in relation to the design of the curriculum, for example, where power has conventionally been wielded by examining bodies such as City & Guilds. Though QAA ‘benchmarking’ exercises in many subject areas now provide a framework for the design and scope of university awards, in general teachers are still able to contribute directly to the development of those awards and thus to influence the curriculum. Indeed, the course offer in universities, particularly at postgraduate level, is often directly affected by the nature and expertise of staff available in the relevant department. Further education teachers are much more accustomed to working to externally imposed requirements. Certainly, marketisation has profoundly changed the external climate in the post-compulsory sectors and the nature of the institutions we work in. I have suggested that its impact on FE and HE teachers is felt unevenly, and varies according to the nature of the institution, the position of the teacher within it, and their expectations and previous experiences. It is easy to bemoan the loss of a (supposedly) golden and mythical past (an era in which teachers were fully autonomous and academic standards unquestionably high) and more difficult to make constructive contemporary challenges that will enable us to protect our own and our students’ interests in these changed conditions. Since we are unlikely to see the end of marketisation in education within the next decade, perhaps we need to consider carefully which values and practices we would collectively wish to retain and adhere to and which should be challenged and jettisoned. Shifting boundaries and shared interests The current UK government intends that 50 per cent of 18- to 30-year-olds should be in higher education by the year 2010. This target is to be reached
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primarily through an expansion of Foundation Degrees, offered in collaboration with FE colleges (DfES, 2003). Though FE has always been a route to HE for some (those on Access courses, for example) this development represents an expansion of its role in this regard and raises new questions about the relationship between the two types of post-compulsory institution and those who teach in them. Foundation Degrees are intermediate-level vocationally focused higher education qualifications, designed to meet the needs of industry. They were introduced in September 2001. They currently take the equivalent of two years’ full-time study, with actual duration depending on the study mode. Students may be employees seeking to progress in their careers, or people wanting to return to work after a career break. Foundation Degrees are qualifications in their own right but are also intended to offer an alternative route to a full honours degree in as little as 1.3 years of further study. In 2002–3, 12,400 students undertook Foundation Degree courses on a full- or part-time basis (DfES, 2004d). Various kinds of partnerships between FE and HE institutions have been in place for some time, notably for the delivery of FE teacher training programmes (as described in Chapter 2). The amount of HE work carried out in FE has been growing steadily in recent years. Currently, the AoC reports that there are about 70,000 full-time HE students in FE and 110,000 part-time students (see NATFHE, 2004). Concerns about the quality of HE courses delivered in FE are voiced from time to time (e.g. see THES, 9 July 2004) but Wagner (2004) argues, in relation to Foundation Degrees at least, that scepticism is unwarranted. Vocational work is not new in HE, but the Foundation Degree is likely to require more genuine work-based learning and more effective partnerships (including those with employers) than HE has been used to in the past (Wagner, 2004). As I have already noted, the kinds of students now finding their way into higher education are more like their FE counterparts than they used to be, and it is obvious, too, that there is the potential for local employment interests to be well served by ‘consortia’ or networks of associated colleges and local universities with clear progression routes between them. Such arrangements already exist in some subject areas in several parts of the UK. However, within this context, questions arise about the role and work of teachers, particularly those teaching HE work in the FE colleges. Though some of the distinctions conventionally made between FE and HE teachers are artificial and based largely on misconceptions about the nature of the curriculum and the students, some of the distinctions are real and important. For example, (as explained in detail in Chapter 3) FE and HE teachers have different contracts. Yearly workloads in FE colleges average 828 hours of teaching (NATFHE, 2004) compared with the maximum of 550 hours of
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teaching for staff in the new universities. Thus, much less teaching is required of staff in HEIs. In addition, research and scholarly activity are not contractual requirements for FE staff and academic facilities in colleges (including libraries) may be less well resourced. Little specific information exists about the qualifications of FE staff teaching HE courses or about their research activities, but it is likely that some at least experience a degree of isolation within the FE context. They are certainly unlikely to be getting as much support for their own academic development as their peers in HE. As noted in Chapter 3, research in FE is attracting more interest now but serious concerns about the availability and expertise of staff to undertake it remain. If further education is to act as a credible route into higher education, it will need to develop its research capabilities. There is no equivalent of the RAE in further education and institutionally funded research here is relatively rare. Despite some initiatives (e.g. the recent ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme) and some research partnerships between FE and HE, where support from experienced researchers is available, the gap is unlikely to narrow significantly without targeted funding. In addition, FE teachers do not generally see themselves as researchers or as academics, and most would give priority to the updating of their professional and occupational skills, in rapidly changing commercial and industrial settings. The FE teacher delivering HE programmes is in an anomalous position, too, in relation to membership of professional organisations. Should they become a member of the HE Academy or the Institute for Learning (PCET)? And which professional standards should they be required to meet? From the teacher’s perspective, in other words, the shifting boundaries between FE and HE are leading to greater inconsistency and more inequality between the two groups than has existed previously. Despite the compelling arguments for a closer alignment of FE and HE (e.g. for easier student progression from one sector to another), little thought has been given within this context to the implications for the teachers themselves. And how much further would we wish to see these boundaries shift? Should colleges be encouraged instead to play to the strengths of their staff and attach greater importance to basic vocational courses to help ensure a proper supply of skilled and semi-skilled workers? How can we try to ensure that the distinctive contributions of further and higher education teachers are valued equally? Teachers and training Since the requirement for FE teachers to train came into force in 2001, the position of university teachers has seemed increasingly anomalous. It is harder than it might once have been for them or their managers to justify the lack of a formal pedagogical training; if teachers in other phases of educa-
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tion have to undertake a full training and meet appropriate professional standards, why not HE teachers? In fact, the Cooke Report (Cooke, 2003) recommended that training be required for all new university appointees from 2010 but the merger of the ILTHE with the LTSN to form the new HE Academy in 2004 probably brings the date nearer. This organisation is discussed again later in this chapter but (in common with Lifelong Learning UK, the sector skills council for all post-16 education and training) its interests include the development of a framework for national professional standards for HE teachers. They are poised to take over existing accreditation arrangements from the ILTHE and are seeking to develop their interests in this domain. At the time of writing, consultations with the HE sector about the nature of such a framework have just been concluded. The HE Academy claims it will avoid ‘a one-size-fits-all approach to professional development and the enhancement of teaching’ (HE Academy, 2004b). Thus, some of the likely tensions have already been acknowledged. The HE Academy will want to appear to have learned from the outrage that greeted the ILTHE’s proposal for 24 teaching outcomes (mentioned in Chapter 2). They have signalled that membership of the Academy (as of the ILTHE) is voluntary. At the same time, political pressure for professional accountability and demonstrable enhancements in teaching and learning at university is likely to continue. Any resolution is likely to involve the introduction of training requirements for new HE teachers that are radically different from those currently in place for FE and school teachers. To bring universities fully into line, of course, legislation would be required. The political will to challenge the traditional autonomy of higher education institutions and the vice chancellors’ ability to protect what they see as their independence from public regulation and control, has hitherto been absent from within UK governments. Further, the elite universities may well seek to restrict the extent to which any training requirement applies to them or their staff, arguing as on past occasions that the needs of a research-led institution are specific and different from those of teaching-led institutions. It also seems likely that most vice chancellors will retain and develop their strategic ‘centres’ for teaching and learning and that any training requirement for new staff will be conceptualised in these terms, as an induction for new personnel, with a focus on the skills needed for successful management of one’s workload or for good lecture presentations. It is not that these things are not important, but training that does not include study of the psychology of learning, the sociology of education or critical consideration of the relationship between education policy and practice in post-compulsory contexts, for example, will be less than HE teachers deserve. The training available from most in-house university centres is unlikely to resemble teacher education in any full sense, and unlikely to be delivered by teacher educators from departments of
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education, where education is being researched and taught. Increasingly, we need to ask why and whether such differences can still be justified. FE teacher training is also experiencing change. As I explained in Chapter 2, the standards that have underpinned it since the advent of FENTO are now to be modified, partly as a result of Ofsted’s involvement and partly as a result of the emergence of the LLUK, which has already declared an interest in workforce standards and qualifications. Concerns expressed by Ofsted, following their first survey inspection of ITT provision for FE teachers (Ofsted, 2003) are likely to prompt a clearer separation of standards for initial teachers from those that might more appropriately be achieved by experienced (and fully employed) practitioners. There is also pressure from Ofsted to develop ITT standards for FE that can be more easily used to assess trainees’ classroom performance. In this, they appear to be seeking a degree of alignment (in format and content) with the TTA standards for school teachers. The complicating factor, however, for both the HE Academy and Ofsted, is the emergence of the new LLUK. It remains to be seen if their aspiration to see ‘an integrated framework’ of standards for the entire workforce in the post-compulsory sectors (including everyone who delivers and/or supports learning in higher and further education, workbased and community-based learning) will be realised in a meaningful and constructive way. Through its inspection framework, Ofsted is also beginning to exert pressure on providers of ITT for FE to ensure that mentor support in the employing or placement colleges is available for all trainees. A lack of subject-specific pedagogy in training programmes was identified by Ofsted as a key concern in their initial survey of provision (Ofsted, 2003) and the expectation now is that mentors will facilitate the trainee’s pedagogical development and understanding within the workplace and within the context of the appropriate discipline. The diversity of specialisms across post-compulsory education is so great that many HE and FE providers (particularly of in-service courses) have found it increasingly difficult to support subject-specific tuition for their trainee teachers, and programmes have become more generic as a consequence. Though their resources are constrained, the implication of Ofsted’s stance is that FE colleges will have to release staff for this work if they wish to continue their involvement in approved teacher training. Enabling teachers to engage with aspects of teaching and learning that are specific to their disciplines will enrich their development. In some respects, teachers in further and higher education do need to know and understand similar things, but in other ways pedagogical development needs to reflect the disciplinary context. Modes of academic writing, for example, vary across disciplines (Lea and Street, 1998) and the nature of evidence and the construction of argument may also differ (Becher and Trowler, 2001). Teaching students how to reason mathematically requires a specific understanding of
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the nature of that discipline, and the ability on occasion to frame learning experiences in ways that will help form mathematical understanding. Similarly, experience suggests that teaching creative writing or fine art or chemistry, for example, requires learning to be differently framed at times, in ways that will stimulate thinking and activity appropriate to those disciplines. The provision of opportunities to acquire subject-specific pedagogy in addition to more generic understandings of the nature of teaching and learning in post-compulsory environments should be a concern not just for FE training providers but also for HE staff developers in their university centres. The more focused on generic skills the training becomes, the less it encourages teachers to draw on their disciplinary understandings, the more impoverished it will be. The literature, however, is almost devoid of studies about the teaching and learning of subject-specific pedagogy in the post-compulsory sectors. A debate is needed, therefore, across the diverse communities of further and higher education, about the nature and role of subject-specific and generic pedagogy in the post-compulsory context. What are the components of a generic pedagogy for post-school teachers? What should be the relationship between generic and subject-specific pedagogies? How could we assist teachers to acquire them both? What role should professional standards have in encouraging the growth and development of a supportive and challenging education for teachers? Teachers and new technology Over the last few decades, we have heard much about the potential of information and computer technology (ICT) to transform and enhance learning in colleges and universities. In 1998, the DfEE promoted new technology as a way of improving workforce skills, enhancing social inclusion and achieving the key aims of lifelong learning (DfEE, 1998). Following incorporation particularly, ICT was seen as a way for FE colleges to manage increased student participation and to achieve efficiency gains (Hyland and Merrill, 2003). However, despite pockets of enthusiasm in most institutions, the impact of ICT on teaching and learning has been less than many anticipated and far from revolutionary. Probably the greatest change has been to forms and patterns of communication within institutions, with e-mail now widely available to both students and their teachers. The educational press carries features from time to time about individual teachers who are reported to have found a way to teach large groups more effectively, for example, by introducing ‘electronic voting’ by students in lectures (to record their agreement with or comprehension of specific points, for example) or online multiple-choice assessments that are marked by computer. There is also a growing interest in the use of interactive whiteboards in some post-school classrooms which some teachers believe may
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increase students’ motivation to learn. Most distance and virtual learning programmes on offer in higher education now make provision for ‘chat-rooms’ and online ‘discussion’ groups for students, but there is little systematic evidence available about the effectiveness or popularity of such strategies. Certainly, in some settings, where students are genuinely ‘distant’ from the home institution, they are likely to find such provision helpful. There are some instances, too, where ICT may allow institutions to offer opportunities that could not be offered otherwise. One example of this is the collaborative partnership led by the University of Huddersfield for teachers on ITT programmes for the Learning and Skills Sector. Huddersfield has recently acquired funding to develop ‘specialist online communities’ for trainee teachers that will enable those in even the smallest areas of specialism to link up with others from the same backgrounds. In this innovative and potentially cost-effective way, concerns expressed by Ofsted (2003) about the provision of subject-specific pedagogy can be addressed and teachers and trainee teachers can participate, share ideas and materials and learn about teaching with others from different parts of the country who share their particular expertise. More broadly, however, ICT raises a number of issues for post-school teachers as a professional group. The advent of the Internet means that expertise of all kinds is more readily and widely shared and many professional groups (not just teachers) may now, in some subtle ways, be differently positioned within society as a whole. Questions about royalties and the ownership of intellectual property, about publication and copyright, as well as plagiarism, have a new prominence in further and higher education and there are clear implications for the work that teachers do. Some writers have suggested that the development of e-learning seriously undermines the teacher’s autonomy and devalues their expertise (Randle and Brady, 1997; Shain and Gleeson, 1999). The work of the e-tutor, for example, may consist largely of reading draft submissions on a screen and responding online to written queries. Of course, specific skills are required for communicating effectively in these ways, and they tend to differ from those involved in much classroom and workshop teaching. The appropriation of language is unhelpful here, and tends to disguise the complexity of the tasks involved. An online ‘discussion’ differs in important and obvious ways from discussions that take place in a classroom, and must be handled differently by the teacher. A virtual ‘classroom’ where participants cannot see each other and interact socially in the normal sense is, of course, a fundamentally different kind of place. The real impact of ICT on learning remains ill researched. Indeed, Mayes (2002) argues that the proper role for technology is to bring about change, not in the way people learn, but in the organisation and delivery of training and educational opportunities. New pedagogies are therefore not needed. He offers the development of the Open University in the UK as an example,
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where success came from the careful application of sound and conventional pedagogical principles (well-designed materials and individual feedback from local tutors) rather than from the use of broadcasting per se. The cost of developing effective e-learning or online provision is often underestimated at least partly because, as Hyland and Merrill (2003) note, it increases the need for managing and supporting learning in new ways. In some institutions, it is now possible for teachers to ‘trace’ electronically all a student’s activity in relation to a particular programme or task, for example. Such ‘surveillance’ of learning may have an immediate impact on the way students use their time but the potential of such an approach to improve the quality of student learning in the longer term remains poorly understood. Further, ICT has a tendency to individualise learning and to abstract it from its social context. As I observed in Chapter 3, there is a growing consensus about the importance of context to an understanding of learning. Indeed, social theories of learning (such as those put forward by Lave and Wenger) do not separate learning from the social world in which it takes place. Community is crucial to learning. Mayes (2002) writes that the fundamental motivation to learn derives from a social need, to achieve self-esteem through identifying with a community of practice. Thus, there is a need for us to look at technology in the context of everything we do and know as teachers. What can it do that we would want it to do that we could not do otherwise in a better way? What are its real strengths, limitations and costs? Organising (and re-organising) ourselves Recent years have seen an array of (so-called) professional groups for postschool teachers in the UK come into existence and (as often) go out of existence again. Those outside the field can be forgiven for their bewilderment at the range of acronyms in use, and even those within the field for a degree of confusion and indifference. As sector boundaries shift and policies change, organisations are disbanded or re-grouped under different titles. In this way, anomalies grow. Any attempt to describe comprehensively the scope, origin and purpose of all the professional and staff-related bodies that exist now in further and higher education would be as difficult and risky as sculpting in jelly. Such accounts date quickly. Thus, for example, when the FE sector was subsumed within the larger Learning and Skills Sector, the role and identity of the Further Education National Training Organisation (FENTO) became unclear. It was limited by statute to a focus on the training and development of FE teachers but found itself having to endorse and formally recognise programmes that had much broader intakes and routinely recruited from adult, higher and work-based education, as well as the public services. Several years after the Learning and Skills Sector formally came into existence, FENTO has been incorporated into a Lifelong Learning Sector Skills Council (or LLUK), which also
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includes some HE representation. In legislative terms, of course, there is no such sector as the ‘lifelong learning sector’ and the work of this new organisation may well be hampered, as FENTO was, by a lack of clarity and focus in their structure and role. A broad distinction between those organisations that have been set up by teachers themselves and those that have come about through official recommendation or external intervention may be helpful, in the first instance. FENTO had a direct interest in teacher qualifications and training but like the LLUK that has now incorporated it, it was essentially an employer-led organisation. Organisations instigated and led by teachers themselves have tended to greater stability, but even here some overlap and confusion exists. The clearest examples of profession-led organisations are the trade unions themselves, principally the Association of University Teachers (AUT) and the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE). Teachers in the pre-1992 (or ‘old’) universities have traditionally belonged to the AUT and teachers in post-1992 universities, together with teachers from FE colleges, to NATFHE. The unions have, from time to time, adopted differing stances in relation to policy developments such as the formation of the ILTHE, for example (Bailey and Robson, 2002). At the time of writing, however, reports of a possible merger between the AUT and NATFHE are again circulating. The growth in further education of Foundation Degrees may be one reason for this renewed speculation and the recent agreement of a common framework on pay structures for all HE staff (JNCHES, 2004) may be an additional spur. Despite the common concerns, however, it is uncertain how far AUT members would be willing to see their interests meshed with those of staff in the ex-polytechnics. Additionally, FE teachers (in NATFHE) might well feel overtaken by the HE agenda, if such a merger were to go ahead. Could a merged union negotiate as effectively with the FE employers as with the universities? Against these concerns, and in the context of the shifting boundaries between FE and HE discussed above, teachers will need to decide between greater consolidation and the continued fragmentation of their interests. Hoyle and John (1995) note the impact of dissension and splits within the NUT, the school teachers’ union, in the early part of the twentieth century. Strength may lie in numbers. It is also probable that, if a merger between NATFHE and the AUT went ahead, many of the anomalies described in this book (in relation to ‘old’ and ‘new’ university contracts and conditions of service, for example) would become harder to justify and may eventually have to be addressed. As well as their unions, teachers in both FE and HE may belong to subject associations. These associations (whether for drama, English, foreign languages or chemistry) focus on the development of subject knowledge and typically promote the interests of these specialist communities through conferences and journals. They may also concern themselves with educational
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matters, with subject teaching and curriculum development. In Chapter 5, I noted that, in HE, a resource and information centre called the Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN) was set up by the UK funding councils in 1999 to promote good teaching in subject disciplines. The generic LTSN spawned an array of Subject Centres, based in universities in different parts of the UK, each focusing on support for teaching and learning in a particular subject. The LTSN has now been incorporated into the HE Academy (see below). Again, it is worth reiterating the point that the LTSN (and the HE Academy) have their origins in the activities and recommendations of official bodies and, though they may be better resourced to support teachers, in this way they differ from the subject associations that teachers themselves have created. Teachers in both FE and HE from specific professions (such as engineering or accountancy) may be required to belong to professional associations of their own. Membership of these organisations may constitute, in effect, a licence to continue to practise in those fields. Usually, there is no requirement in the college or the university for these teachers to maintain their accreditation with their professional bodies, though many see it as important to their identity and credibility. As already mentioned, in contrast to the range of subject or professional associations that teachers belong to, the impetus for the formation of the ILTHE (and then for the HE Academy which replaced it in 2004) came largely from outside teacher groups. The legal owners of the HE Academy are Universities UK (UUK) and the Standing Conference of Principals (SCOP); it is thus independent from government but its income is derived chiefly from the funding councils, with smaller contributions from HEIs and individual members. The formation of the ILTHE represented the first attempt to create an organisation for HE teachers across all areas of the curriculum, and in its five years of existence it recruited 14,500 members. Not all of these were teachers, however, and the HE Academy (like its predecessor) is concerned with the professional development of all staff in HE. Librarians, contract researchers, technicians and other support staff may also seek membership. Though universities are increasingly requiring newly appointed lecturers to join the HE Academy, there are few pressures on established staff to do so. Membership is voluntary and take-up remains relatively low. Its recent decision to scrap membership fees altogether is unlikely to change this significantly As with the HE Academy, official bodies were also directly involved in setting up the Institute for Learning (PCET). It was initially established and supported by eight employer and teacher-led bodies, including the AoC, the LSDA, NATFHE, FENTO and Unison. The DfEE commissioned a feasibility study and in 2001 agreed that FENTO should oversee the development of the new Institute. Initially titled the Institute for Learning (FE), its name was later changed to reflect the broader interests of the new Learning and Skills Sector.
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Though it was promoted as an independent body to be run by and for its members, the government’s agenda (for example, in relation to ‘raising standards’) is clearly discernible in the aims of the Institute for Learning (IfL). An explicit link is made in their documentation between government policy as outlined in Success for All (DfES, 2002) and their own activities (see IfL, 2004). They propose to work with the HE Academy and the General Teaching Council (the professional body for school teachers) towards a system of joint recognition. This would be of particular benefit to FE teachers who may have a timetable which includes teaching 14- to 16-yearolds and adults, on courses ranging from basic literacy to GCSE and undergraduate degrees, and who may otherwise find themselves needing to register separately with three professional bodies. Further questions about the independent status of the IfL, however, are raised by recent proposals to locate it within Lifelong Learning UK (LLUK), the new sector skills council for post-compulsory education and training. As noted in Chapter 2, this is an employer-led organisation. The General Teaching Council (GTC) for school teachers receives funds from the DfES, while the HE Academy receives funds from the higher education funding councils. But neither the GTC nor the HE Academy is operated directly by (or housed within) an employer-led organisation. Such an arrangement suggests that further education once again has been tainted by its direct association with work and employment. It suggests that teachers in FE are to be treated less as professionals in their own right and more as employees; the capacity of the fledgling IfL to act in the independent interests of this particular group of teachers is likely to be compromised. More welcome may be the formalisation of the IfL’s role in relation to the award of a new ‘licence to practise’ for the Learning and Skills Sector (Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills, or QTLS) to those who achieve the full teacher training qualification. Some effective means of keeping track of numbers of teachers holding initial teacher training qualifications in further education is badly needed. In addition, if teachers who do not possess QTLS (or those who are not registered as trainees working towards it) will not be able in future to work in further education (in other words, if the licence to practise is exactly that) then the requirement to train that came into force in 2001 will gain added strength. These most recent reforms are expected to be in place for 2007. However, the position of established teachers in relation to these requirements remains unclear. The Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) has roots more firmly within the teaching profession than either the HE Academy or the IfL. It came into existence in 1993, following the merger of the Standing Conference on Educational Development (SCED) and the Staff Development Group of the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE). Thus, its formation predates the ILTHE and it was one of the groups opposed to the establishment of that body. It has since declared its
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interest in working closely with the ILTHE’s successor, the HE Academy, and it continues to exercise an accreditation function itself, formally recognising programmes for teachers in higher education. It also provides conferences and events, fellowships and publications for staff developers and HE teachers. It lobbies official organisations concerned with funding and with the quality of teaching and learning in the HE sector. There is no equivalent to SEDA within the FE or the wider Learning and Skills context. Although the LSDA has taken an active interest in stimulating research in colleges and the IfL has declared its intention of developing materials and resource banks for FE teachers, both these organisations are more ambivalently positioned. SEDA receives no money from the funding councils for higher education and is dependent entirely on members’ subscriptions and publication sales. This independence is, of course, vital to its lobbying role. Teachers in FE colleges have less time for the voluntary activities and for work on the kinds of committees that have kept SEDA afloat. Senior posts in staff development are more common in colleges now, but where the competition for resources and students is so much more intense, institutional interests tend to dominate. It is indicative of the low status of the teaching profession generally that official intervention in the establishment of these organisations has been necessary and indeed tolerated to the extent described. It may also be indicative of the fragmentation in their interests, their lack of cohesion and of the huge variations in teachers’ work, cultures and identities across institutions. The relative unimportance of the HE Academy to most university teachers is evident in the low take-up of membership amongst eligible staff (currently about 10 per cent), and the IfL seems unlikely to fare much better in FE. The professional organisations to which post-school teachers most often attach value are those they first joined (whether as surveyors, health professionals or personnel managers) when they initially qualified in those fields. New staff in universities are increasingly required to undertake some form of training and to satisfy membership requirements for the HE Academy, but the differences between the training and study many new university teachers have to undertake and that required of FE teachers are marked, as described in Chapter 2. The HE teacher training is likely to be delivered inhouse, by personnel staff working outside academic departments of education. Despite similar titles, the awards are not likely to involve as much study of pedagogy or as much direct observation of teaching as is required of college (and school) teachers. For established teachers in universities, membership of the HE Academy is voluntary and likely to remain so. FE teachers can no longer choose whether or not to take a teaching qualification but hitherto they have been able to choose whether or not to join the IfL. Without compulsory registration for all practising teachers, both the HE Academy and the IfL are likely to remain chiefly organisations for the more career-minded individual or the pedagogical enthusiast.
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Even the more genuinely profession-led and independent organisations, like the unions themselves, have not managed consistently to act with coherence of purpose or a strong sense of unity, in pursuit of the teachers’ interests. The confusion that is evident in policy-making in post-compulsory education in the UK impacts negatively on official and unofficial efforts to bring those interests more clearly into focus. What would we want for the future? What kinds of organisations would we, as teachers, be willing to support? Would the same organisations meet the needs of both FE and HE teachers? Would the same organisations meet the needs of those in all universities, whether research or teaching led? If our existing organisations reflect existing (and historical) separations, what will it take to change this? Certainly, without some form of compulsory training and registration for all teachers in post-compulsory education, the likely scenario is that our collective interests will continue to be unevenly served. Many teachers will continue to see themselves not as teachers so much as something else, first and foremost, and it would take a major shift in self-perceptions to change that. Such a shift could be encouraged by a more coherent and consistent approach to policy-making in further and higher education but the more likely scenario is the persistence of fragmentation and a quite damaging degree of confusion and overlap.
Conclusion I am aware that this book raises more questions than it gives answers. The world of post-16 teaching, seen from the teacher’s perspective, is fragmented, full of disjunction and confused messages. Nevertheless, I hope I have succeeded in challenging some strongly prevalent assumptions. Chief amongst those is the assumption that university teachers do not need the same kind of preparation, the same knowledge and understanding as teachers in other phases, that their students do not need the same kinds of support for their learning. I hope, too, to have challenged the conventional tendency to privilege academic over vocational forms of knowledge and to devalue teaching (particularly in relation to research). I have also sought to encourage the reader to consider the nature and impact of the post-16 teacher’s first occupational identity on their teaching role, their pedagogical practices and professional development needs. I hope I have offered sufficient evidence, too, to suggest that the current ad hoc approach to policy-making in relation to post-16 teachers may not be practically sustainable. The level of recent government intervention in post-compulsory education is unprecedented, but it has yet to deliver improvements in coherence and consistency.
Glossary
Advanced Practitioners the term refers to experienced teachers (usually in FE) demonstrating high-calibre teaching, curriculum innovation and leadership, as well as support for others (as mentors, etc.). ALI Adult Learning Inspectorate (set up in 2000; responsible for inspection of all post-19 provision in LSC sector). AoC Association of Colleges (an organisation comprising further education college employers and representing the interests of colleges in England and Wales, established in 1996). AUT Association of University Teachers (the union predominantly representing those teachers based in pre-1992 universities). BEd Bachelor of Education degree. BERA British Educational Research Association. C&G City & Guilds (an assessment and awarding body established in 1878 and concerned with vocational qualifications). CEF College Employers’ Forum (replaced by AoC in 1996). Cert Ed Certificate in Education. CIF Common Inspection Framework (used by ALI and Ofsted). CNAA Council for National Academic Awards (validating and awarding body for higher education courses in institutions outside the university sector from 1964 to 1992). CPD continuing professional development. CVCP Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals, replaced by Universities UK in 2000. DES Department for Education and Science (replaced in 1992 by DFE). DFE Department for Education (replaced in 1995 by DfEE). DfEE Department for Education and Employment. (Its responsibilities were divided between the Department for Education and Skills and the Department for Work and Pensions in 2001). DfES Department for Education and Skills. Edexcel validating and awarding body formed from the merger of BTEC (or the Business and Technology Education Council) and the University of London examination board for GCSEs and GCE ‘A’ levels.
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ESCalate the LTSN subject centre for those teaching education in universities. ESRC Economic and Social Science Research Council. FE further education. FEDA Further Education Development Association (it replaced the Further Education Unit and the Further Education Staff College in 1995 and was itself replaced by LSDA in 2000). FEFC Further Education Funding Council (merged with Training and Enterprise Councils in 2001 to form the LSC). FENTO Further Education National Training Organisation (established in 1998, as one of more than 70 NTOs recognised by government, responsible chiefly for the promotion of occupational standards for all employees in FE sector in the UK, now part of LLUK). FHE further and higher education. Foundation Degrees intermediate-level vocationally focused higher education qualifications (introduced in 2001 and offered by HEIs in collaboration with FE colleges). GCSE General Certificate of Secondary Education. GNVQ General National Vocational Qualification (vocationally focused qualifications, originally set up as alternative to but now essentially merged with GCSEs and A/AS levels). GTC General Teaching Council (the professional body for schoolteachers that began work in 2000). HE higher education. HE Academy An organisation concerned with the professional development and recognition of staff in HE (which replaced the ILTHE in 2004). HEFCE Higher Education Funding Council for England (different arrangements are in place in the other countries of the UK). HEI higher education institution. HESA Higher Education Statistics Agency (collects and publishes data on HEIs in the UK). HND Higher National Diploma (sub-degree programmes within HE, validated by Edexcel). ICT information and computer/communications technology. IfL (PCET) Institute for Learning (Post-Compulsory Education and Training) (professional body for staff in the Learning and Skills Sector, set up in 2001). ILTHE Institute for Teaching and Learning (Higher Education) (a professional body for university teachers and others, replaced by the HE Academy in 2004). ITT initial teacher training. Learning and Skills Sector (L&S Sector) a sector created in England in 2001, embracing all post-16 education and training except that carried out by universities.
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LLUK Lifelong Learning UK (the new Sector Skills Council for staff in post-16 education that began work in 2005, responsible for workforce planning and development). LSC Learning and Skills Council (responsible since 2001 for planning and funding of publicly funded post-16 non-university education and training in England). LSDA Learning and Skills Development Agency (set up in 2000 and responsible for commissioning, undertaking and promulgating research and development in the Learning and Skills Sector). LSRN Learning and Skills Research Network (regionally organised research network for FHE teachers and LSDA officials). LTSN Learning and Teaching Support Network (incorporated into the HE Academy in 2004; composed of subject centres which focus primarily on provision of resources and information for teachers of specific subjects). NATFHE National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (union representing teachers in post-1992 universities and further education colleges). NCVQ National Council for Vocational Qualifications (established in 1986, now part of QCA and merged with the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority). NMC Nursing and Midwifery Council. NQF National Qualifications Framework (incorporates nationally recognised qualifications overseen by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority on behalf of the Secretary of State). NQIB National Quality Improvement Body (to take over as single body responsible for quality improvement in the Learning and Skills Sector from 2006). NTFS National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (now administered by the HE Academy and funded jointly by HEFCE and the Department for Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland; offers grants for individual teachers seeking to undertake projects designed to enhance teaching and learning in HE). NTO National Training Organisations (employer-led organisations with responsibility for assessing and meeting training and skills needs in industrial sectors, currently being replaced by Sector Skills Councils). NUT National Union of Teachers (the largest union representing schoolteachers). NVQ National Vocational Qualification (occupationally specific qualification). OCR one of three principal awarding bodies for GCSE and A/AS levels in England. Ofsted Office for Standards in Education (established in 1992 and now responsible for the inspection of schools, all 16–19 provision in schools
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or colleges, and all teacher training provision in England (as well as early years’ education and childcare). PCET post-compulsory education and training. PGCE Postgraduate Certificate in Education. QAA Quality Assurance Agency (established in 1997; responsible for quality assurance in higher education in the UK). QCA Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (responsible for the NQF and for curricula within the National Curriculum for schools; they also supervise procedures adopted by awarding bodies). QTLS Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills (proposed in 2004 as a title for fully trained teachers, as a ‘licence to practise’ in the L&S Sector). QTS Qualified Teacher Status (title awarded to fully trained schoolteachers). RAE Research Assessment Exercise (began in 1996 and produces periodic ratings of research in UK universities). SCOP Standing Conference of Principals (comprises heads of publicly designated colleges and institutes of HE in England and Northern Ireland). Sector Skills Councils employer-led organisations established to identify and meet the training and skills needs of occupational sectors. SEDA Staff and Educational Development Association (formed in 1993, a profession-led body for HE staff developers and teachers, with an accreditation and lobbying role). Sixth form colleges colleges funded by the LSC whose curriculum offer is mainly GCE ‘A’ levels to students aged 16–19. TECs Training and Enterprise Councils (were responsible for funding of work-based learning before the LSC was established). TPI Teaching Pay Initiative (introduced by DfES in 2001 to stimulate recognition and reward for FE teachers; funds now consolidated into colleges’ main budgets). TQA teaching quality assessments that were carried out in subject areas by the QAA in HEIs (now replaced by institutional audits). TTA Teacher Training Agency (responsible in the school sector for the supply and retention of teachers, the funding of teacher education in England (not Wales) and the accreditation of teacher training courses). UCoSDA Universities’ and Colleges’ Staff Development Agency (was incorporated into the Higher Education Staff Development Agency in 2000; this organisation has itself now been incorporated into the Leadership Foundation for HE, which is concerned chiefly with management training and development for staff in universities). Unison public sector union (representing amongst others non-teaching staff in FHE). Universities UK (UUK) an organisation representing the interests of all UK universities and composed of their executive heads (it replaced the CVCP in 2000).
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Index
academic freedom 12 ‘academic practice’ 28 accountability 71, 85, 111, 114 accreditation: see FENTO (Further Education National Training Organisation); HE Academy; ILTHE (Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education); LLUK (Lifelong Learning UK); qualifications action research 102–3 administration 20–1, 47, 48, 91 Advanced Practitioners 85 Ainley, P. 20, 76, 78, 91, 113 ALI (Adult Learning Inspectorate) 50, 51, 107 alienation 74 altruism 20 andragogy 18–19, 48 AoC (Association of Colleges) 48, 62, 85, 112 apprenticeships 79, 109 assessment 49–50; bodies 12, 49, 50, 61; disciplinary differences 59–60; measuring outcomes 35, 46, 51, 111; summary 109; see also competencebased programmes audits 3, 49, 50, 107 AUT (Association of University Teachers) 33, 122 autonomy 11–13; competence-based programmes 38; curricula 114; elearning 120; individual 18–19; knowledge and responsibility 11; managerialism 70; marketisation 112–13; postmodernism 10; scope 23; sociology 8; students 18; summary 107–8 Avis, J. 55, 71
Bagilhole, B. 76 Bailey, B. 20, 76, 78, 91, 113 Bain, J. 54 Barnett, R. 12, 22 basic skills 36 Baskett, H. 19 Bassey, M. 61 Bathmaker, A.-M. 43, 55, 71, 73 Beacon Colleges 57 Becher, T. 22, 45, 57–8, 66–7, 97, 98 Becker, H. 7–8, 10 becoming teachers 72–5 benchmarking 114 BERA (British Educational Research Association) 60 Bett Report (1999) 76 Biggs, J. 16, 52 Biglan, A. 57 Billet, S. 73 Blackmore, J. 76 Bleakley, A. 17, 53, 81, 88–9, 96 Boud, D. 96–7 Bourdieu, P. 66–7 Boyer, E. 16 Boys in White (Becker) 8 Brady, N. 91, 113 Brecht, B. 83 Bridges, P. 60 Brookfield, S.: collaboration 74; critical incidents 100; critical reflection 52, 96; networks 98; peer observation 95 Brown, A. 73 Brown, R. 61 bureaucratisation 91 (City & Guilds) 28, 114 Cambridge university 14, 68–9 career structure 83–4 Carnell, D. 74
Index Carroll, D. 53, 56–7 casual staff 70 CEF (College Employers’ Forum) 71 Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning 86 Centres of Vocational Excellence 57, 117–18 Certificate in Education 28, 29 children , adults and 18 Chown, A. 38 CIF (Common Inspection Framework) 51 Clark, B. 67 Clarke, J. 10, 55 closure 3 Clow, R. 10, 20 CNAA (Council for National Academic Awards ) 15 co-participation 73 Code of Confidentiality 103 Coffield, F. 18, 52, 94 Coldron, J. 73, 99–100 collaboration 74–5; ITT 120; learning communities 43–4; research 103–4; summary 110 collegiality 68–9 commitment 68, 80–1, 113 communities 66–8; definition 66; learning communities 43–4, 113; professional networks 98; summary 107 competence-based programmes 37–9; administration 20–1; autonomy 11–12; job satisfaction 91; minimum requirements 113 competition 4–5, 111–14 comprehensive education 15 conferences 97, 123, 125 conflict, resistance and 77–81 constructivist model 41 context 18, 54–5, 121 continuing professional development: see staff development contracts 47–9; managerialism 71; power 112; staff development 85; summary 106; yearly workloads 115–16 contrasts, analysis of 106–10 Cooke Report (2003) 26, 34, 117 courses 97 Cox, A. 93 CPD: see staff development craft teachers 79
145
credentialism 9 critical incidents 99–100 critical pedagogy 55 critical reflection 52, 96–7 Crowley, S. 41–2, 83 cultures 68–72, 108 current challenges: shifting boundaries 114–16; teachers and markets 111–14 curricula 58, 114 CVCP (Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals) 33 Day, C. 19 de-professionalisation 113 Dearing Committee (1997) 33 Dearlove, J. 12, 68–70 Deem, R. 75, 77 deep/surface approaches 16, 27, 42, 52, 107 Delamont, S. 77 demonstrators 26, 48 DfEE (Department for Education and Employment) 36, 110, 119 DfES (Department for Education and Skills) 12, 41, 85, 86 diaries 98–9 differences, analysis of 106–10 Dillabough, J. 20–1, 77 Dingwall, R. 8, 10 disciplinary differences: assessment 59–60; ‘circles’ of colleagues 22; communities 66–8; difficult/easy 58; good practice 54; pedagogy 17, 118–19; teachers’ work 57–60 discourse, professionalism as 9–10, 78 discovery learning 17 distance learning 120 duties 47 e-learning 120–1 education, goals of 46 Education Reform Act 1988 111 employers: contracts 47–9; organisations 122; responsibility to 21 Engestrom, Y 56 Entwistle, N. 17 Eraut, M. 92, 93–4, 96 ESCalate 86 ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) 36 ESRC (Economic and Social Science Research Council) 63
146
Index
essays 60 Etzioni, A. 23 Evans, N. 27 examinations 60 existing identities 73–4, 79–80 expansive learning 56 expertise 88–9, 120; see also good practice FE Staff Development Forum 32 FEDA (Further Education Development Agency) 17 FEFC (Further Education Funding Council) 2, 30, 39, 84–5, 111 feminism 19, 77 FENTO (Further Education National Training Organisation) 31–2, 36, 108, 118, 121 flexible contracts 47 Flexner, A. 7–8 Foucualt, M. 9, 88 Foundation Degrees 3, 114–15 Freidson, E. 8 Freire, P. 18–19, 55 Fuller, A. 55, 56, 66, 93 funding: autonomy 12; Further and Higher Education Act 1992 70–1; research 60–1; standards 16, 84–5; summary 109–10; see also FEFC (Further Education Funding Council); HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council) Funnell, R. 74 Furlong, J. 11 Further and Higher Education Act 1992 70–1 The Future of Higher Education (DfES) 41, 60–1, 86, 110 GCSEs 15, 109 Geer, B. 45 gendered disciplines 58 Gibbs, G. 42 Gibson, W. 106 ‘gift’ model 81 Gleeson, D. 10, 20, 59, 73, 78, 79, 113 Gleeson, P. 73, 79 GNVQs (General National Vocational Qualifications) 38 goals 56 Goffman, E 74 good practice 50–5; collaboration 43; conflict 78–9; constructivist model
41; critical pedagogy 55; differences 51–2; expertise 88–90; going beyond 68, 80–1, 113; learning context 54–5; official view 50–1; reflection 16–17, 52–3; rewarding 85, 86–7; scholarship of teaching 53–4; summary 106–7; vocational education 21, 63; see also staff development governance 68–9 government policies: see policies graduate students 26, 48 Grant, P. 93 Gratch, A. 74–5 Green, D. 91, 113 groups 3, 24 GTC (General Teaching Council) 124 habitual practice and expertise 88–9 habitus 66–7 Haggis, T. 52 Hammersley, M. 101 hard disciplines 58, 59–60 Harkin, J. 18, 42 Harper, H. 71 HE Academy: Masters’ awards 30; membership 26, 123, 125; staff development 86, 87; standards 34; training 117 health professions 30, 49 HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council): pedagogy survey 16; quality assessment 49; quality improvement 41, 86; RAE (Research Assessment Exercise) 61; scope 5; summary 109–10 Henkel, M.: autonomy 12; disciplinary communities 67; disciplines 22; job satisfaction 91; quality assurance policies 21; research 45–6, 60 high quality teaching 83 Hodkinson, P. 38, 111 holidays 47, 48 holistic professionalism 17, 20 Honey, P. 17, 52 hours of work 47–8 Howell, S. 80 Howie, G. 77 Hoyle, E. 15, 46, 52–3, 96, 122 Huber, L. 66–7 Huberman, M. 101 Huddersfield University 120 Hull, G. 73
Index
147
Jarratt Report 1985 69 Jarvis, P. 18, 19 job satisfaction 90–2 job security 75 John, P. 15, 52–3, 96, 122 Johnson, T. 8
labour market , preparation for 22 Larson, M. 8–9, 13 Last, J. 38 Lave, J. 43, 54, 66, 77–8 league tables 111 Learning and Skills Act 2000 50 Learning and Skills Research Networks 63, 98 Learning and Skills Sector for England 2, 4, 11, 12, 32, 85 learning communities 43–4, 113 learning organisations 57 learning plans 51, 52 learning styles: andragogy 18–19, 48; ascertaining 17–18; deep/surface approaches 16, 27, 42, 52, 107; differences 52; expansive learning 56; social theories 18, 54, 55–6, 74–5; summary 106–7 learning support workers 26–7, 48–9, 114 Learning to Succeed (DfEE) 41 Leathwood, C. 77 leave entitlement 47, 48 Leonard, P. 75–6 licence to practice 29, 33, 35, 124 LLUK (Lifelong Learning UK) 3, 5, 35, 87, 121–2, 124 lobbying 125 local authorities, control by 70 low achievers 20 Lowe, R. 3 LSC (Learning and Skills Council) 2, 50 LSDA (Learning and Skills Development Agency) 41, 85, 87, 103–4 LTSN (Learning and Teaching Support Network) 34, 86, 123
Keep, E. 109 Kelly, J. 41–2, 83 knowledge 13–19; autonomy and responsibility 11; codifying 14; expertise 88–9, 120; four discipline approach 15; importance 23; philosophy 9; postmodernism 10; sociology 9; summary 108; of teaching 14 Knowles, M. 18–19 Kogan, M. 45 Kolb, D. 57 Korner, B. 77 Kreber, C. 62
McCulloch, G. 10 Macdonald, K. 9, 25 McNair Report (1944) 27, 62 McNay, I. 12, 50, 69, 101 McNiff, J. 103 Malcolm, J.: identity 72–3, 78; pedagogy 51, 55; research 61; teacher training 42, 86, 108 management 75–6, 77 managerialism 69–70, 71, 81, 112–13 Mardle, G. 59 marketisation 91, 111–14 Marsick, V. 57 Marton, F 16
humanism 19, 81 humanities 12 Humphreys, J. 49 Hurst, D. 56 Hyland, T. 18, 27, 67–8, 121 ICT (Information and Computer Technology) 119–21 identity: becoming teachers 72–5; collaboration 74–5; conflict 78–80; definition 66; disciplinary communities 66–8; existing 73–4, 79–80; non-participation 77–8; occupational 46; plurality 23; research and 45; summary 107, 110 IfL (Institute for Learning) 34–5, 87, 123–4 ILEA (Inner London Education Authority) 68, 98 ILTHE (Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education) 33–4, 86, 87, 117, 123 in loco parentis 20 Individualised Staff Record 2002/3 31 individualism 14–15, 52 induction 84, 93, 117 industry 79–80, 110 informal learning 92–4 inspections 3, 49–50, 107 intellectual culture 22 isolation 74
148
Index
Marxism 8 Masters’ awards 29–30 mature students 1, 3, 74 Mayes, T. 120 Mayhew, K. 109 Mealyea, R. 79 ‘meaning’ 66 medicine 8, 88, 93 mentoring 77, 93, 118 Merrill, B. 18, 27, 67–8, 121 Mezirow, J. 19 mission statements 56 model contracts 48 modularity 36 morale 112 Morley, L 109 Morris, E. 49 motivation 121 multiple-choice 60 Mumford, A. 17, 23, 52 municipal bureaucracy 70 Munn-Giddings, C. 101–2 ‘My Job is Not My Work’ (Schied) 80–1 NATFHE (National Association for Teachers in Further and Higher Education) 47, 71, 112, 122 National Curriculum 11, 15 NCVQ (National Council for Vocational Qualifications) 37–8, 108 networks 97, 98, 113, 115 Neumann, R. 58, 59–60 new teachers: alienation 74; expertise 89–90; FENTO 32; induction 84, 93, 117; mentoring 77, 93, 118; observation 50; staff development 57, 125 Newman, J. 10 NMC (Nursing and Midwifery Council) 30 non-participation 77–8 Northern Ireland 86 NQF (National Qualifications Framework) 28, 34 NQIB (National Quality Improvement Body) 85 NTFS (National Teaching Fellowship Scheme) 86 NUT (National Union of Teachers) 122 NVQs (National Vocational Qualifications) 38
observation 50–1, 94, 95–6, 103 Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education): FENTO 32; mentoring 93, 118; partnerships 40; responsibilities 50–1, 107; training 29 Open University 120–1 organisations 55–7 outcomes, measuring 35, 46, 51, 111 Oxford University 14, 68–9 parents , teacher responsibility 20 part-time teachers 26–7, 31, 114 participation 73, 77–8 partnerships 39–40, 115 passport to teaching 34 pastoral role 13, 48, 56, 84 pay 47–8, 85, 88, 109, 113–14 PCET (Post-Compulsory Education and Training) 29, 123 pedagogy 14–15; critical 55; disjunctions 51; feminist 77; funding 15–16; generic 118–19, 120; mentoring 77, 93, 118; psychology 15; summary 108–9, 110 peer groups 43–4, 68, 95–6 Percy Report (1945) 3 performance indicators 71 performance-related pay 85 personality 23 PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education) 28–9 PGCertificates 30 philosophy 9–10 policies 84–7, 107–8, 114–15, 124 polytechnics 22, 47, 69 portfolios 16–17, 98–9 postgraduateness 28–30, 44 postmodernism 10, 23 ‘practice’ 66 practitioner research 100–2 Prandy, K 92 preparation time 59, 126 Prichard, C. 75 professional bodies 121–6 ‘professional project’ 9, 13 professionalism: as discourse 9–10; managerialism and 71–2; semiprofessions 23; sociology 7–9; teaching 10–22 promotion 50, 83–4, 86–7, 92, 95 psychology 15 public schools 14, 110
Index QAA (Quality Assurance Agency) 30, 49, 78, 107, 114 QCA (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority) 11 QTLS (Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills) 29, 34–5, 124 QTS (Qualified Teacher Status) 29, 31 qualifications 28–31, 36–7 quality assessment 49–50 quality assurance policies: see standards quality profiles 49 RAE (Research Assessment Exercise) 12, 49–50, 61, 91, 101 Ramsden, P. 16, 52 Randle, K. 91, 113 recruitment 71, 111–12 reflection 23, 52–3, 89, 102; critical 96–7 ‘reflection’ on practice 16–17 The Reflective Practitioner (Schon) 96–7 renewal, strategies for 94–100 research: action research 102–3; autonomy 12; collaborations 103–4; funding 49, 60–1, 103–4, 110, 116; identity and 45; networks 63, 98; quality assessment 49–50; requirement for 47; by teachers 100–4, 107, 116; teaching and 60–3; time for 47; women 76 Research Intelligence 60–1 resistance, conflict and 77–81, 113 responsibility 10, 11, 19–22, 23 Robson, J.: commitment 68, 81, 113; disciplinary differences 59; discourse 78; identity 73–4, 79–80; isolation 74; professionalism 10; standards 63; vocational education 21, 38 Rogers, C. 19 Russell Report (1966) 27 Sachs, J.: professionalism 7; teacher research 100, 101, 102, 103, 104; women 76 safety nets 20 Saks, M. 8, 9 Saljo, R 16 Samuelowicz, K. 54 SCED (Standing Conference on Educational Development) 124 Schied, F. 80 scholarship of teaching 16, 53–4 Schon, D. 16–17, 88, 89, 96
149
school teachers: autonomy 11; knowledge 14–15; objectives 15; partnerships 39, 40; professionalisation 4; promotion 92; responsibility 20; sociability of teaching 76; status 46 sciences 3, 12 SCOP (Standing Conference of Principals) 123 Scott, P. 69, 70 secondments 68 Sector Skills Council 3, 35 SEDA (Staff and Educational Development Association) 124–5 selection 14–15 self-esteem 112 self-regulation 68 semi-professions 23 shadowing 94 Shain, F. 10, 20, 78, 113 shifting boundaries 114–16 Silver Book 47 Simon, B. 14–15, 110 Skills for Life (DfEE) 36 Smeby, J.-C. 59 Smith, R. 73, 99–100 sociability of teaching 76–7 social closure 8–9 social learning theories 18, 54, 55–6, 66, 121; collaboration 74–5 social sciences 12 social work 101 socio-economic groups 3 sociology 7–9 soft pure disciplines 58, 59–60 Somekh, B. 103 specialisation 107, 118 SRHE (Society for Research into Higher Education) 124 staff appraisal 32 staff development 94–100; contracts 48, 71; effectiveness 41–2; FENTO 32; habitual practice and expertise 88–9; modularity 36; policy context 84–7; professional bodies 124–5; standards for 87–8; summary 107; teacher research 100–4; workplaces 55–7 staff numbers 26–7, 75 Stalker, J. 19 standards 31–5; funding and 16; new developments 34–5, 118; protecting 63; staff development 87–8; summary 108
150
Index
Standards Fund 84–5 Standards Unit 85 statistics: numbers qualified 30–1; staff numbers 26–7, 75; student numbers 1, 5, 115 status 25, 46, 51; professional bodies 125; research 49–50, 62; summary 108 stereotypes 67 strategies for renewal 94–100 Stronach, I. 61, 110 students: entry criteria 71; income from 111; quality assurance policies 21; recruitment 71, 111–12; responsibility to 20–1; ‘right to know’ 21; statistics 1, 5, 115 subject assessment 49 subject associations 122–3 Subject Centres 123 subject specialisation 4, 11, 26, 46 subject typology 57–8 Success for All (DfES) 41, 85, 124 supervision 59 surface/deep approaches 16, 27, 42, 52, 107 symbols, professions as 10 tactical elements 49 targets 111, 114–15 Tauchert, A. 77 teacher training: see training Teacher Training Agency 35 teachers, becoming 72–5 teaching as a profession 10–22 teaching models 41 teaching time: see workloads teaching year 47, 115–16 technical colleges 3–4 technical teachers 79 technology, impact of 119–21 temporary staff 70 Tennant, M. 19 The Times Higher Education Supplement 12 timetables: see workloads Tipton, B. 59 Tipton, F. 56, 92 Tosey, P. 43–4 TPI (Teaching Pay Initiative) 85, 88 TQAs (Teaching Quality Assessment) 12, 50 trade teachers 79 trade unions 122
training: competence-based programmes 37–9; content 36–7; criticisms of 86, 116–17; delivery 37; effectiveness 40–2, 44; four discipline approach 15; history 27; learning communities 43–4; levels 29; licence to practice 29, 33, 35, 124; modularity 36; nature of 35–40; new developments 34–5; numbers qualified 30–1; partnerships 39–40; reforms 26; as requirement 25–6, 117–18; summary 107, 108–9, 114; technology 119–20; see also FENTO; standards trajectories 72 transmission model 41 Tripp, D. 100 Trowler, P. 22, 67 trust 19–20 tuition fees 111–12 tutors 26, 48, 49 UCoSDA (Universities’ and Colleges Staff Development Agency) 33 Universities UK 112, 123 Unwin, L. 55, 56, 66, 93 vice-chancellors 33, 107–8, 117 virtual learning 120 vocational education: autonomy 11; competence model 37–9; conflict 79–81; identity 73; industry and 62–3, 110; responsibility 21; status 3–4; summary 108, 109 Wagner, L. 115 Walker, D. 96–7 Walker, M. 90 Watkins, K. 57 Weber, M. 8, 24 Welch, P. 77 Wenger, E. 43, 54, 66, 72, 77–8 Whitehead, S. 75 Wilson, T. 113 Wolf, A. 38 women: andragogy 18–19, 48; autonomy 13; disciplinary differences 58; experiences 75–7; job satisfaction 91; staff numbers 26, 75 Women’s Studies 77 work placements 21 work , preparation for 22 work satisfaction 90–2 workforce 26–7, 83
Index workloads: autonomy 13; contracts 47–8; disciplinary differences 17, 59; managerialism 71; yearly workloads 115–16 workplaces as learning sites 55–7 Wunsch, M. 77, 93
151
Yorke, M. 60 Zukas, M.: identity 72–3, 78; pedagogy 51, 55; research 61; teacher training 42, 86, 108
