Moral profession of teaching: a case study investigating trainee teachers' public good capability formation and functioning
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Date
11/10/2022Author
Jamieson, Ann Jane McConnell
Metadata
Abstract
The dominance of the discourses of globalisation and the neoliberal ideology of the
free market have led to teachers being considered as central to ensuring the global
competitiveness of a nation’s education service and of its citizens. The neoliberal
policy reforms of New Labour (1997-2010) and the Coalition governments of 2010-
2015 were continued by the Conservative governments from 2015 through to the
present time in 2022. It is in this political context that an ongoing teacher
recruitment and retention problem exists, and I have argued that these pervading
neoliberal policies have contributed significantly to these issues.
The impact of a globalised and neoliberal policy direction has seen Initial Teacher
Training (ITT) in England being overtaken by a more instrumental, action-oriented
training approach, which I challenge, arguing that teaching is a moral profession
which requires teachers to be educated as public good professionals. National and
international teacher education literature recognises the moral nature of teaching,
and the moral role of teachers yet provides very little on how these matters are
dealt with within ITT programmes. To address this gap, I designed a case study that
focussed on the public good professional capability expansion of six Teach First
trainee teachers undergoing their ITT year within one Teach First partnership in the
North of England.
It has been argued that each of the professions gets its core purpose and value from
the contribution it makes to human flourishing and a good society. Accepting that a
conception of the good life includes happiness and wellbeing, it can be further
argued that such a life requires certain human capabilities (Sen, 1985, Nussbaum,
2000). Capabilities are conceptualised as a person's real opportunities to do and be
what they have reason to value, and what he or she is able to be or do (functioning)
can determine the value of their given life. Appropriately then, the theoretical
framework used to interrogate the data incorporated the capability approach (CA)
to human development (Sen, 1985, Nussbaum, 2000) and in particular the Public-Good Professional Capabilities Index (PPCI) developed by Walker and McLean,
(2013), as well as the literature conceptualising the moral nature of teaching. An
interpretative, constructivist method underpinned the gathering and analysis of the
data. This approach reflected the focus of the study which was to understand and
make sense of the multiple realities, experiences and views of the trainee teachers.
Data were gathered using two focus group discussions and two individual face-to-face interviews at four points across the ITT year. The analysis established how the
trainee teachers understood and came to value the professional capabilities in the
PPCI. Enabling and constraining factors to capability formation and functioning were
analysed in order to establish the extent to which their valued capabilities and
functioning could be realised.
The findings revealed that the CA and the PPCI offer trainee teachers a wider vision
of what teaching and learning entails, offering them a contrasting vision to the
instrumental, action-oriented view of teacher knowledge and preparation that
pervaded their Teach First ITT programme. The CA with its emphasis on human
flourishing and the PPCI with its expansive view of a range of public-good
professional capabilities send a message that foregrounds possibilities and
aspirations, while directly engaging trainee teachers with issues of social justice.
Encountering such frameworks would broaden student teachers’ visions of the
purposes and possibilities of teaching and learning.
An adapted PPCI for trainee teachers is presented that reveals the valued
professional capabilities and functionings held by the group as well as the enabling
and constraining factors to their capability formation and achieved functioning.