The teacher educator: pedagogue, researcher, role model, administrator, traveller, counsellor, collaborator, technologist, academic, thinker ………. compliance or autonomy?

Abstract

The title of this editorial would have probably been longer than the text had all the attributes and roles of the teacher educator been fully listed. A brief glance at those above will convince the reader that teacher educators across the globe are poised on a professional continuum between compliance and autonomy. Subject to continuous policy churn, teacher educators strive to fulfil imposed frameworks and inspection regimes whilst, in the spirit of upholding teaching as an intellectual activity, maintaining their academic autonomy (la Velle and Reynolds 2020). In the UK, where this situation is particularly acute, the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers has put out a position paper entitled The Intellectual Base of Teacher Education (UCET 2020), which, as well as providing a clear argument for the importance of a university education for teachers, has been used as a response to increasingly prescriptive government initiatives. That the profession of teaching should be research-informed is a basic premise of education. The UCET position is an articulation of this and arose via a framework for research-informed teacher education (UCET 2019), which in turn was based on a report on research and the teaching profession from the British Educational Research Association (BERA 2014). The professional tension that characterises the working lives of teacher educators extends to their own engagement with research (la Velle et al. 2022) both as consumers and producers of research operating within an environment of increasing accountability. In this first issue of JET of 2023, the opening article, by Ciarán Ó Gallchóir and Oliver McGarr, both actively researching teacher educators in the University of Limerick in Ireland, addresses the issue of accountability to policy-driven standards/codes of professionalism and how this is communicated to student teachers. Findings were that teacher educators, wishing to help their students to embrace the professional culture of teaching, in doing so may be enacting elements of power and conformity. Teacher educators’ professional agency is discussed in the light of this. A thoughtful and carefully researched study, this contribution highlights another professional hazard and potential source of criticism for the teacher educator. Professional development (PD) of teacher educators is the theme of the next article, from Katriina Maaranen and her colleagues from the University of Helsinki in Finland. These teacher educator researchers interviewed faculty of education leaders (Deans and Directors) about their understanding of PD for teacher educators. Most interestingly, although supportive of the notion, these pedagogic leaders did not have a clear view of what this PD should constitute; instead, they related it to the teacher educators’ own research, citing their autonomy as a major factor. Whether this is a reflection of the nonJOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR TEACHING 2023, VOL. 49, NO. 1, 1–4 https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2023.2172664