Becoming Somebody in Teacher Education explores the realities of contemporary teacher education in Kenya. Based on a long-term ethnographic fieldwork, it views the teacher training institution as a space to grow, become and be shaped as teachers in complex moral worlds. Drawing on a rich conceptual and theoretical vocabulary, the book shows how students in these teacher education institutions constantly negotiate and confront the complex constructions of ethnicity, gender and class, as well as moral, religious and academic issues and a lack of resources encountered in the different institutional cultures. It outlines a complex array of concerns affecting student teachers that shape what professional becoming means in a stratified and diverse culture. This story of the process of growing up and becoming a professional teacher in an African setting will appeal to researchers, academics and students in the fields of teacher education, organizational studies, international education and development, social anthropology and ethnography.

Offers a social psychological account of social life in three high schools, combining theoretical analysis with reflective methodology. The emphasis of the book is on how social relations have varying effects on the feeling of self in young people from different socioeconomic environments.

This book examines the history, recent developments, and direction of travel of Russian teacher education. It draws on scholarly expertise and professional experience in Russia and locates the policies and practices that are discussed within the context of the continuing global reform of teacher education. Providing a rich description of the trajectory of teacher education in Russia, the book analyses the processes of change between the history, current practice, and future directions for Russian teacher education. The chapters consider the relationship between research, policy, and practice and examine the respective influences of the former USSR, of processes of wider reform in the Russian Federation since 'glasnost' and 'perestroika', and of globalisation within education. What emerges from the book is that the Russian case is a prime example of 'vernacular globalisation' in teacher education. Many important insights into processes of education reform and some of the major themes in teacher education are discussed, thus providing new perspectives that are likely to be of interest to scholars and researchers of comparative education and teacher education, as well as policymakers.

By drawing on quantitative data and qualitative analyses of five major national education policies implemented in India over the last 15 years, this comprehensive volume explores their impact on teacher quality and perceived effectiveness, explaining how this relates to variations in student performance. Responding to a national agenda to increase the quality of the Indian teacher workforce, Teacher Quality and Education Policy in India critically questions the application of human capital theory to Indian education policy. Chapters provide in-depth and strategically structured analyses of five national policies – including the recently approved National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 – to see how Indian policymakers use teacher quality as a driver and measurement of education and national economic development. Ultimately, the text offers evidence-based policy recommendations to improve teacher quality in India, suggesting that while all five policies have contributed significant frameworks and recommendations for teacher quality reform, they have failed to move beyond a symbolic function. Given its rigorous methodological approach, this book will be a valuable addition to the under-researched question of education policymaking in postcolonial contexts. It will be an indispensable resource not only for scholars working on policymaking in the Indian context, but also for those working at the intersection of education, teacher development, and policymaking in developing countries.

This book explores the reflective potentialities offered by analyses of teachers’ professional learning narratives. The book has a specific focus on narratives on professional learning and professional identities emerging from different contexts and gives a deeper understanding of successful teachers’ narratives globally. Diverging from universally standardized constructions of idealized teacher identity and professional learning, the book provides analyses of a diversified set of cases with detailed descriptions of each teacher’s idiographic and professional context to gain a deeper understanding of situated professional identities. With contributions from a range of international backgrounds, it shows teachers of various age groups, subject areas and curricula contribute their narratives to help readers reflect on different trajectories toward becoming a teacher. These narratives provide insight into and a deeper understanding of the conditions and complex processes that being a "successful" teacher involves within these case studies, providing a useful contribution to the field of teacher education. Professional Learning and Identities in Teaching: International Narratives of Successful Teachers will be of great interest to researchers, academics, and post-graduate students of teacher education and international and comparative education.

This book focuses on the professional development of teacher educators, forming a definitive and expert resource for all those interested in this area of professional learning. It offers an in-depth overview of existing international research and professional development initiatives in the area of teacher educators’ learning. The book highlights relevant research on the topic, identifies the lessons learnt from recent initiatives, and indicates ways forward for teacher educators’ professional learning internationally. It provides a unique combination of six years of pan-European collaborative work, resulting in a book with clear relevance and appeal to both academics and practitioners internationally. The book conceptualizes teacher educators’ professional development, in order to deepen understanding of how and why learning occurs and conducts empirical research into the professional development needs of teacher educators internationally using quantitative and qualitative methods in order to redress gaps in existing research. This book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and post-graduate students in the fields of teacher education and professional development and learning.

Accountability and Culture of School Teachers and Principals studies the degree to which teachers and principals in eight countries view themselves as taking responsibility, working by clear standards, reporting transparently, and accepting feedback at work. The book focuses on cultural values that explain variation in accountability levels of school educators, drawing on data from Canada, China, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, Spain, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. It addresses the question of whether cultural values, specifically collectivism and individualism, are related to teachers’ and principals’ external and internal accountability dispositions. It also explores the intriguing role of organizational support and key school personnel in school reforms across the world, providing a new way to understand school accountability. The book will be of great interest for academics, post-graduate students, and scholars in the field of education policy and international and comparative studies in education.

What are the influences that govern how people view their worlds? What are the embedded values and practices that underpin the ways people think and act? Discourses We Live By approaches these questions through narrative research, in a process that uses words, images, activities or artefacts to ask people – either individually or collectively within social groupings – to examine, discuss, portray or otherwise make public their place in the world, their sense of belonging to (and identity within) the physical and cultural space they inhabit. This book is a rich and multifaceted collection of twenty-eight chapters that use varied lenses to examine the discourses that shape people’s lives. The contributors are themselves from many backgrounds – different academic disciplines within the humanities and social sciences, diverse professional practices and a range of countries and cultures. They represent a broad spectrum of age, status and outlook, and variously apply their research methods – but share a common interest in people, their lives, thoughts and actions. Gathering such eclectic experiences as those of student-teachers in Kenya, a released prisoner in Denmark, academics in Colombia, a group of migrants learning English, and gambling addiction support-workers in Italy, alongside more mainstream educational themes, the book presents a fascinating array of insights. Discourses We Live By will be essential reading for adult educators and practitioners, those involved with educational and professional practice, narrative researchers, and many sociologists. It will appeal to all who want to know how narratives shape the way we live and the way we talk about our lives.

This volume describes a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project involving educators from Belize and the U.S. to illustrate the critical role of shared dialogue in transnational teacher education. First identifying issues which inhibited the success of formerly didactic training delivered to Belizean teachers by U.S. educators, this volume documents the transformational impact of a shift to collaborative training approaches and uses first-person accounts from Belizean and U.S. stakeholders to illustrate their successes. Chapters powerfully illustrate that by engaging in Freirean-like dialogue and building relationships based on a mutual understanding of the cultural and historical context, as well as the identity of educators involved, partners are better able to engage in effective transnational pedagogical collaboration. Particular attention is paid to the importance of acknowledging the post-colonial setting and unique positionality of teachers in Belize. This text will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in action research and teacher research, multicultural education, and continued professional development in particular. Those interested in teacher training, education research, and international and comparative education will also benefit from this book.

This book is for anyone interested in how to build a teacher education program utilizing the arts as one central modality for teaching and learning or for those interested in building some of their program along these lines. Throughout the book you will find reference to the intersection of ethics, aesthetics, and teaching. We provide an integrated program devoted to good learning and the good society. In the book we discuss how the program came to be and the underlying educational thinking that informs the whole program. This section of the book is invaluable for understanding how the reader can build her/his own arts approach to teacher education. The central section of the book is devoted to the specific coursework of the program. Each author describes in detail how she/he leverages aesthetics and art to expand the possibilities of learning and teaching (including a chapter focused on the core competency course, Teaching, Imagination, Creativity) in language and literacy, psychology of education, science education, mathematics education, social studies education, and classroom management including many examples from our teaching. The book ends with a focus group discussion about the program by former students.