Context and Implications Document for:

Exposing the intricacies of pre-service

teacher education: Incorporating the

insights of Freire and Bourdieu

Neil HooleyVictoria University, Melbourne, Australia

This guide accompanies the following article: Neil Hooley, Exposing the intricacies of pre-service

teacher education: Incorporating the insights of Freire and Bourdieu, Review of Education, 10.1002/

rev3.3011

Author’s Introduction

Pre-service teacher education is in a state of flux around the world as jurisdictions

respond to changing economic, social and educational circumstances. Education as a

field of inquiry together with pre-service teacher education are somewhat under-

theorised meaning that criticisms and proposals are difficult to evaluate in relation to

the literature and current policy and practice settings. This paper locates pre-service

teacher education within a framework of the theorising of Freire and Bourdieu. It

describes a praxis and reflexive approach to teaching and learning that is immersed in

the culture and experience of learners as they come to grips with their new worlds of

schools and classrooms, providing a fertile delta of ideas, uncertainities and possibili-

ties for further understanding, practice and discourse.

Implications for Policy and Practice

Theorising pre-service teacher education from the standpoint of practice and praxis

has a number of implications for policy-makers and practitioners:

• It is commonly stated that pre-service teachers should spend more time on school

placements, but on the assumption that such ‘practice’ is defined as increased

experience of the practical classroom tasks that teachers undertake. However a

more sophisticated and accurate view of professional practice involves a unity of

the deep understandings that teachers have of how students learn and the range of

pedagogies that are available to meet student need. The concept of professional

practice is therefore constantly being made and remade in classrooms as teachers

interact with knowledge, confusions and interpretations. Creating the conditions

© 2013 British Educational Research Association

Review of EducationVol. 1, No. 2, June 2013, pp. 159–161

DOI: 10.1002/rev3.3013

and budgets for the construction of professional practice must be rethought by

practitioners and policy-makers alike.

• Associated with professional practice is the concept of mentoring between

established and beginning teachers. Immersion in professional practice means a

respectful relationship between mentor and mentee such that each brings their

respective knowledge and experience to bear on current and emerging class-

room problems. Within the constraints of school life, mentoring involves ongo-

ing discussion on a broad range of professional matters, as new teachers are

assisted to participate with the complex array of issues that impact on teaching

in every class. Policy-makers and practitioners need to ensure that budgets and

conditions allow for high-quality mentoring to proceed as a significant aspect of

improved learning for students.

• Theorising of pre-service teacher education occurs most rigorously when universi-

ties and schools work in partnership. This enables different prespectives to illumi-

nate teaching and learning and for changed practices at both school and university

to be considered. This is a difficult process, given that each organisation operates

under different requirements and pressures and that respectful partnership for

mutual benefit, that is student learning and pre-service teacher learning, is a com-

plicated and long-term endeavour. Staff of each organisation must be committed

to the process and be able to work at each setting with enthusiasm and collegiality.

Management of complex partnership arrangments over long time frames must be

handled with care by policy-makers and practitioners.

Resources for Teaching & Learning in Higher Education

Author Recommends

Arnold, J., Edwards, T., Hooley, N., and Williams, J. (2012) Theorising on-site

teacher education: Philosophical Project Knowledge (PPK). Asia-Pacific Journal

of Teacher Education, 40(1), 67–78.Green, B. (Ed.) (2009) Understanding and Researching Professional Practice. Rotter-

dam: Sense Publishers, 19–38.Hagger, H., and McIntyre, D. (2006) Learning Teaching from Teachers: Realising the

potential of school-based teacher education. Maidenhead and New York: Open

University Press.

Kemmis, S. (2012) Researching educational praxis: Spectator and participant

perspectives. British Educational Research Journal, 38(6), 885–905.Schatzki, T. R. (2001) Practice mind-ed orders. In The Practice Turn in Contemporary

Theory, ed. T. R. Schatzki, K. K. Cetina and E. V. Savigny. London: Routledge,

42–55.

Useful Links

http://education.vu.edu.au/visionunlimited/report.pdf details a site-based pre-service

teacher education research project.

160 N. Hooley

© 2013 British Educational Research Association

https://www.csu.edu.au/research/ripple contains information from Charles Sturt

University, Australia, regarding researching professional practice.

http://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/programs/partnerships/Pages/partnernation

alsteach.aspx#link80 includes videos regarding initial teacher education and School

Centres for Teaching Excellence.

Focus Questions

(1) How does the theorising of Freire and Bourdieu in relation to culture and

learning provide a critique of traditional approaches to pre-service teacher

education?

(2) What conditions in schools enable the mentoring of pre-service teachers to

concentrate on the learning of school students, rather than issues of classroom

mangement?

(3) How can schools and universities establish long-term partnership arrangements

to support the learning of school students?

(4) How do research findings inform professional practice in school settings so that

research and practice are integrated at all times?

(5) What are the implications of praxis-based learning for the organisation of

teaching at both school and university?

Seminar/Project Idea

In small groups, participants are asked to consider experiments that begin to demon-

strate the particle theory of matter for secondary students from a praxis learning per-

spective. Praxis learning is taken to mean a series of activities that include practice

described, explained, theorised and changed. Materials provided include balloons,

scents, chocolate, detergents, foods and the like. After designing and conducting the

experiments, participants are required to describe their experience, try to explain

what happened, begin to think about some underlying principles and suggest a new

range of activities based on their new thinking. Participants are encouraged to

construct their own innovative ideas via this process, rather than seek the ‘correct’

scientific explanation.

Context and implications: Exposing the intricacies of pre-service teacher education 161

© 2013 British Educational Research Association