A key feature of developments in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) since 1979 in .... With the election of the New Labour government in 1997, moves were again ..... Lawton, D. (1994) The Tory Mind on Education 1974 – 1994 London: Falmer.
A Democratic Paradox? The Development of Education Policy for ITE and Citizenship Education in England
Jon Davison Andrew Peterson
Abstract This paper outlines key education policy developments in England over the last twenty years and shows how teacher education in England has become increasingly regulated and controlled by central government. The paper then examines the manner in which citizenship education has become integrated into education policy and the National Curriculum in England in recent years. Finally, the paper shows how more recently Initial Teacher Education resources for citizenship have been developed through partnership and collaboration between academics and teachers funded by central government. Conclusions are then drawn as to the strengths and weaknesses of the inherent forms of education policy making and curriculum innovation.
Correspondence: Jon Davison Andrew Peterson Canterbury Christ Church University Faculty of Education The Old Sessions House Canterbury Christ Church University Canterbury Kent CT1 1QU United Kingdom
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A Democratic Paradox? The Development of Education Policy for ITE and Citizenship Education in England
Jon Davison Andrew Peterson Canterbury Christ Church University, UK
Introduction ‘Teaching is one of the most influential professions in society. In their day-today work, teachers can and do make huge differences to children’s lives: directly, through the curriculum they teach, and indirectly, through their behaviour, attitudes, values, relationships with, and interest in, pupils.’ Qualifying to Teach (Teacher Training Agency 2002) This paper shows how teacher education in England has become increasingly regulated and controlled by central government. It also notes how citizenship education has become integrated into education policy and the National Curriculum in England in the early Twenty-first Century as the result of a similarly prescriptive education policy, which might be seen as undemocratic. The paper then shows how more recently Initial Teacher Education resources for citizenship have been developed through partnership and collaboration between academics and teachers that was funded by central government. The paper begins by outlining key education policy developments in England over the last twenty years. Policy background The National Curriculum for state maintained schools in England and Wales was introduced as a result of the 1988 Education Reform Act. It stipulated not only the subjects that should be taught to children in primary and secondary classrooms, but also the amount of time subjects should occupy in a school timetable. A system of national testing of pupils at the ages of 7, 11, 14 and 16 years was also introduced by the 1988 Act. Such direct government intervention in teaching, learning and assessment in state maintained schools was unparalleled in England and Wales. Furthermore, in order to ensure that the National Curriculum be implemented successfully, the government’s intervention was matched by an equally unprecedented
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intervention in teacher education. Since the middle of the 1970s, teaching had become a predominantly graduate profession and teacher education was located in the mainstream higher education system. As a result, specialist teacher education colleges in England gradually became based in faculties of education in comprehensive universities and colleges. Numbers of specialist teacher training colleges diminished during this time. Canterbury Christ Church University has its origins in exactly this kind of institution. In recent years, the overwhelming majority of the 40,000 new teachers annually have undertaken their professional preparation for teaching on one-year postgraduate teacher education (PGCE) courses, after having taken an undergraduate degree in a specialist subject. However, a minority of teachers – usually in the primary phase - take three- or four- year undergraduate education degrees that combine study for a degree in a specialist subject with initial teacher education. Approximately ten percent of new teachers each year achieve Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) through other Employment-Based Routes (EBR) in schools that do not necessarily involve Higher Education certification. A key feature of developments in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) since 1979 in England and Wales is that they have often been centrally devised and imposed by government (Wilkin, 1996). During the 1980s while the National Curriculum for schools was being planned and developed, the government developed proposals for changes in the arrangements for the professional preparation of teachers. Previously, the structure and content of teacher education and training courses in England was regarded as principally a matter for universities and colleges of education. However, following a series of government circulars setting out the competences that had to be achieved and demonstrated by students before qualifying to teach (DES, 1984, 1989; DfE, 1992, 1993; DfEE 1997), those in higher education, who were traditionally responsible for initial teacher education, lost a significant proportion of their professional autonomy and academic freedom.
Competence-based teacher education These changes in ITE began with a 1984 Circular from the Conservative government, which initiated the development of centrally mandated teacher training Requirements. Accreditation of all higher education ITE courses was dependent upon meeting officially defined criteria, including the number of weeks to be spent in school and the numbers of hours to be spent on English and mathematics in primary training (DES, 1984). Subsequently, at the North of England Education Conference in January 1992, the Secretary of State for Education announced another government initiative to ensure that practising teachers would be more involved in the professional formation of teachers and that theoretical elements of the course would be more closely related to the practical needs of teachers in schools. Student teachers would be required to spend two-thirds of their time in schools (for example, twenty-four weeks in a thirty-six week PGCE course for secondary 3
school teachers) and there would be a detailed competency framework against which the performance of student teachers would be judged. There would be 'joint responsibility' between schools and universities through the development of ITE partnerships. Schools were to become 'full partners' and would have a 'leading role' in the education and training of new entrants to the teaching profession. In a totally unprecedented financial requirement on universities, a proportion of the funding for teacher education was to be reallocated from universities to schools – a further erosion of university autonomy. Lawton (1994:109) claims that the government of the time distrusted ‘many kinds of professional expertise’, preferred ‘learning by experience to theory, and that it was ‘particularly suspicious of education theory and its use as part of the education and training of teachers.' He suggests that the government's intention was to separate teacher education from the rest of Higher Education in order to make teacher preparation more like a school-based apprenticeship. Whether or not this was the intention, the education and training of teachers has become increasingly based on published lists of competences, or most recently, Standards. These competences comprised sets of prescribed knowledge, skills, and understandings that student teachers would be required to demonstrate before they are awarded Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), whatever preparatory route they have followed. The earliest sets of competences were atomistic and technicist in approach and contained five general areas of competence: subject knowledge, subject application, class management, assessment and recording of pupils' progress and further professional development. Many academics considered the absence of any real discussion of the values and qualities that underpin teachers’ practice to be a major omission (Arthur, Davison & Moss 1996). The sets focussed in the main upon what a teacher know and does (knowledge and skills), rather than what a teacher is and might become (values). Competency-based teaching aims to improve teaching performance in the classroom, so competence is necessarily defined in such a way as to make it measurable. This measurable dimension makes it easy to inspect teachers and teacher educators. Elliot (1993) has described the basic principles of competency-based teaching as that of 'behaviourism with its implications that the significance of theoretical knowledge in training is a purely technical or instrumental one'. He also believes that competences operate as an 'ideological device for eliminating value issues from the domains of professional practice and thereby subordinating them to political forms of control.’ Within five years of their introduction, the list of competences developed into a bank of more than 850 statements that attempted to describe the minute details of a teacher’s work in the classroom. Although part of the United Kingdom, the Department of Education in Northern Ireland was critical of this approach and maintained, 'The atomisation of professional knowledge, judgement and skill into discrete competences inevitably fails to capture the essence of professional competence' (DENI, 1993:4). In some cases, such an approach led to an unduly bureaucratic model of student teacher development that, at its worst, was
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focused much more upon ticking boxes of statements of competence than upon the real issues related to teaching and learning.
Teacher Training Agency and OFSTED The Teacher Training Agency (TTA) was established in 1994 by the Conservative government. The TTA was charged with responsibility for policy development, the recruitment of student teachers, the allocation of numbers of student teachers based upon the quality category of the higher education institution, the allocation of funding to universities engaged in teacher education, and the diversification of routes into teaching. As part of its quality assurance role the TTA aimed to raise standards of teacher education and training in order to, in turn, improve the academic attainment of pupils. At a conference in Oxford in 1995 Anthea Millett, Chief Executive of the TTA, avowed ‘By the year 2000 universities will not be involved in the training of teachers’ clearly signaling the government’s agenda. Allocation of student teacher numbers to particular universities and colleges is still made by the Teacher Training Agency (since 2005 the Training and Development Agency for Schools) on the basis of quality categories. Institutions are assigned quality categories as a result of the grades awarded during inspection by the national inspection agency, the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) established by the Conservative government. As well as being responsible for the inspection of childcare, schools and Local Authorities, OFSTED is responsible for the monitoring and inspection of teacher education and part of its role is to assess universities' compliance with government teacher education Requirements. The criteria by which OFSTED makes its assessment of teacher education and training were first published in 1993 and have undergone a number of revisions in the past fourteen years. During the 1990s university ITE subject courses, departments of education and, indeed, whole teacher training institutions were shut down by OFSTED for being ‘noncompliant’. At time of writing the Standards for QTS, Requirements and Framework for inspecting teacher education are in the process of being revised for introduction in July 2007.
Developments under New Labour With the election of the New Labour government in 1997, moves were again made to reform teacher education and the number of competences, now termed Standards, was reduced to 51. (Current draft propose a further reduction to 33 Standards). Furthermore, Qualifying to Teach (TTA 2002), took account of criticisms of the earlier models and was premised upon the model of the teacher as reflective practitioner, as is the proposed revision. At its core it states a full commitment to the development of all pupils, whatever their skills and needs, in 5
diverse inclusive classrooms. The Foreword to Qualifying to Teach emphasises this point: ‘The new Standards and Requirements should ensure that all new teachers have the subject knowledge and the teaching and learning expertise they need, and are well prepared for the wider professional demands of being a teacher. They will also help to ensure that training tackles issues such as behaviour management and social inclusion well’ (TTA 2002: 2). In line with its commitment to raising achievement in schools and to develop inclusive practice since 1997, the government, through the Teacher Training Agency, has given renewed thought to the initial preparation of teachers in relation to diversity and inclusion. During 2005 - 2006 approximately 40,000 people were undertaking initial teacher preparation subject to the set of Standards in Qualifying to Teach. Prime position in the list of Professional Values and Practices in Qualifying to Teach is given to a standard premised upon a belief in equality of educational opportunities. Standard 1.1 states that student teachers are expected to: ‘have high expectations of all pupils; respect their social, cultural, linguistic, religious and ethnic backgrounds; and be committed to raising their educational achievement’ (TTA 2002: 6). The Standards require student teachers to understand how pupils' learning can be affected by their physical, intellectual, linguistic, social, cultural and emotional development and to develop appropriate practice to teach in classrooms.
Citizenship Education The 1988 Education Reform Act effectively ended the development of social studies in schools through prescribing a range of traditional subjects and defining them in abstract academic terms. The social aspects of the curriculum were thus marginalised as academic subjects sought status and respectability in the hierarchy of academic credibility that underpinned the structure of the new National Curriculum. These core and foundation subjects were not concerned overtly with the social and practical aspects of daily life. There was a realisation by many, however, that if the National Curriculum was to reflect the full breadth of the aims of the 1988 Act, which included a curricular aim to fit pupils for life and the world of work, the teaching of the social component of the school curriculum would need to be integrated in a cross-curricular fashion. Subsequently, a range of cross-curricular documentation relating to, for example: Citizenship; Health Education; Economic and Industrial Understanding was produced. Social education was therefore not completely removed from the school curriculum and the National Curriculum Council ‘Curriculum Guidance No. 3’ (1990) stated that: ‘the education system is charged with preparing young people to take their place in a wide range of roles in adult life. It also has a duty to educate the individual to be able to think and act for themselves with an acceptable set of personal qualities which also meet the wider social demands of adult life’.
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In November 1997 the Advisory Group on Citizenship Education, chaired by Professor Bernard Crick, was established to provide advice on effective education for citizenship in schools. The resultant ‘Crick Report’ contains recommendations relating to the development of the knowledge, skills, understanding and values necessary for ‘active citizenship’ (DfEE 1998: 10). The Report highlights three ‘mutually-dependent’ aspects believed to underpin an effective education for citizenship: ‘social and moral responsibility, community involvement and political literacy’ (pp.11-13). The establishment of any curriculum subject requires curriculum planners to be clear about the concepts that underpin it. Obviously, it is for this reason that the Crick Report was produced. However, beyond an exhortation of ‘active’ citizenship, the Report does not explore the nature of citizenship in depth. In the tradition that the curriculum reflects the political and social context within which it is constructed, the New Labour government has given a renewed emphasis to the social dimension of the school curriculum in its Statement of Values, Aims and Purposes that accompanies the revised National Curriculum 2000. This statement includes the development of children’s social responsibility, their community involvement, the development of effective relationships, their knowledge and understanding of society, their participation in the affairs of society, their respect for others and their contribution to the building up of the common good, including their development of independence and self-esteem. In addition, citizenship education is now a statutory part of the school curriculum introduced in 2002 in all secondary schools while primary schools are expected to deliver citizenship education through personal and social education. Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) has been made more coherent within a new, non-statutory, framework. The government seeks to promote social cohesion and inclusion within society and requires schools to provide a curriculum that will contribute to meeting specific learning outcomes that involve inculcating pupils with social and moral dispositions as an essential precondition to civic and political education. Schools will be expected to motivate pupils and encourage their participation in the political processes of democratic society. This means the development of children’s self-confidence and their socially responsible behaviour, in and beyond, the classroom. The framework (QCA, 1999) makes it clear that schools are expected to help ‘equip them with the values and knowledge to deal with the difficult moral and social questions they face’. This stated expectation extends the idea of social literacy beyond the social sciences and beyond an enabling model of citizenship education. Since it embodies a vision of society it also implies that it as much concerned with the needs of society as it is with the needs of the individual. In The Challenge for the Comprehensive School (Hargreaves, 1982: 34-35), the writer laments that schools lost their ‘corporate vocabulary’. Hargreaves believed that phrases such as ‘team spirit’, ‘esprit de corps’ and ‘loyalty to the school’ had declined in favour of a culture of individualism. Hargreaves argues in favour of schools making a contribution to the social solidarity of society, which would be promoted by citizenship education based on experiential learning through community service. Hargreaves’ three educational goals for comprehensive 7
schools can be mapped directly onto the version of communitarian citizenship education proposed by the New Labour government: to increase greater democratic participation; to stimulate greater social solidarity and to help resolve conflict between different communities (Arthur, Davison & Stow 2000).
Partnership The publication by the Teacher Training Agency’s Working Papers ‘Effective Training Through Partnership’ (TTA, 1996), signalled a shift in its attitude to universities that was developed by the incoming New Labour government the following year. The series of four working papers were produced by a working group on which schools, Higher Education Institutions, Local Education Authorities and Her Majesty’s Inspectors of schools were represented. Such a working group provided a forum of the kind that appeared to be lacking in the early 1990s when teacher education policy was being reworked. As a consequence of the composition of this working group, the content of the working papers in its ‘key principles’ and ‘issues to consider’ acknowledges the complexities involved in teacher development. Moreover, the model of teacher development, which underpins the papers’ exploration and exemplification of good practice in school/HEI partnerships, is firmly anchored in reflective practice. Working Paper Three (TTA, 1996: 8-11) clearly articulates the benefits of ‘closer and more productive relationships between schools, HEIs and LEAs’ and of ‘regular contact with staff from the HEI, which improves teachers’ access to, and understanding of, current best practice and research’. Currently, the Standards governing ITE are undergoing a process of revision as the TDA works with academics and teachers to develop a framework of Standards to cover the teacher’s entire career from initial professional formation to ‘expert teacher’. Furthermore, because of the changing nature of the school workforce though the introduction and development of teaching assistants, in discussions surrounding the revision of the Standards governing the initial preparation of teachers, there is recognition that the new standards, and importantly, revised initial teacher education programmes will need to develop in Newly Qualified Teachers, the knowledge, understanding and skills that will enable them to work with, and to manage, teaching assistants in the classroom. The Agency’s commissioning of academics, teachers and health professionals to take forward this project reflects the importance of such guidance and support being based on experience in the field rather than top-down prescription. The development programme will have an overall goal to drive forward knowledge, skills and understanding of inclusive practice in diverse classrooms among those joining or relatively new to the teaching force. It is premised upon a robust evidence base that includes research, ideas and experience of academics, teachers, health and social work policy makers and professionals. In essence,
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such an approach exemplifies the strengths of Wenger’s ‘communities of practice’ (Wenger 1998). This way of working has now become central to the Agency’s approach since the arrival of the New Labour Government in 1997. Thus far, the Agency has funded the development of three Professional Resource Networks for Initial Teacher Education: CitizEd (www.citized.info), Multiverse (www.multiverse.ac.uk) and Behaviour4Learning (www.behaviour4learning.ac.uk), each of which is underpinned by a commitment to develop student teachers and their tutors in relation to the inclusion and diversity agendas. In turn, these networks seek to develop: • • •
professional knowledge in respect of citizenship education; knowledge and ability to enhance the educational achievement of pupils from diverse backgrounds; skills and insights that foster a classroom ethos of ‘behaviour for learning’.
We should also note that, in line with the government’s new multi-agency approach to the delivery of welfare services for children (DfES 2003), these projects, too, involve not only academics and teachers, but also health and social work policy-makers and professionals. Each Network undertakes research, publishes and organizes national and regional conferences to support student teachers, newly qualified teachers, teacher mentors and others with responsibility for teacher preparation and development. Such innovations will help to drive forward knowledge, skills and understanding of inclusive practice among those joining or relatively new to the teaching force.
Conclusion The New Labour Government seeks to use teaching and the school curriculum as a means to redress deficiencies in the prior social acquisition of children in the name of ‘inclusion’. The socially-empowered person is ‘characterised by the possession of a sound and detailed understanding of himself and others, and also by his ability to behave in an intelligent way in relation to others’, Scrimshaw (1975:73). To summarise, under New Labour we have seen greater attention being paid to issues surrounding inclusiveness and diversity in teacher education and more generally. These are all positive developments. However, there are other strands in New Labour policy that may undermine their impact. Firstly, policy is being implemented within a structure based primarily on the education market established by previous Conservative governments. Parental choice has been coupled with open enrolment and per capita funding, positioning schools as competitors in a marketplace. At the same time, the government has introduced a substantial framework of targets and performance indicators, which
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feed into and shape that market. A competitive market structure in schooling may well run counter to the inclusive, democratic, collaborative model underpinning citizenship education and the top-down, centralised prescription of citizenship education is a democratic paradox. Secondly, the introduction of citizenship education into schools was badly handled by the government. Feeling already over burden, head teachers and their staff reacted against the mandatory introduction of a new National Curriculum subject. The then Secretary of State for Education, David Blunkett MP, drew back from imposing a mandatory timetables slot for citizenship and although citizenship education had to be ‘delivered by schools’ from 2002, it has been a matter for schools and head teachers as to exactly how this is to be organised. As a consequence, as successive OFSTED inspection reports testified, the quality of the subject remains variable in schools (OFSTED 2006). Thirdly, the processes demanded by the teaching of citizenship education as envisaged by the Crick Report can be very challenging for schools with autocratic head teachers and systems that do not encourage the pupil voice to be heard: ‘The intentions for citizenship education remain contested and are sometimes misunderstood…Inadequate provision is closely linked to a lack of commitment from senior leaders and weak subject leadership,’ (OFSTED 2006: 2). Participation is necessarily the keystone of ‘active citizenship’. Similarly, the development of school partnerships with local communities can also pose real challenges for schools: ‘In many schools there is insufficient reference to local, national and international questions of the day,’ (OFSTED 2006: 2). Fourthly, there are only approximately 200 places allocated by the TDA to universities for the training of citizenship teachers annually and of those that qualify to become teachers, not all take up a post in a school as a subject specialist teacher of citizenship education. To provide a trained teacher of citizenship education in every state school will take a generation. Furthermore, substantial periods of Initial Teacher Education (24 weeks of a 36 week Secondary PGCE) are still required to take place in schools, where the quality of citizenship teaching, although improving, is still too variable (see Davison & Peterson 2007). In the 1990s, the central metaphor of the National Curriculum was (and remains) ‘delivery’. Eisner (1984) reminds us that the metaphors we use shape our understanding of the concepts we study. A curriculum to be ‘delivered’ by a teacher is disempowering of pupils and teachers, alike. It is a view of knowledge that is hierarchical, top-down and is characterised by prescription and direction and entirely inappropriate to citizenship education. Education policy makers might be well advised to look in detail at the content of the Crick Report and apply some of its key principals to the development of effective partnerships between universities, schools and Local Authorities in teacher education and training for citizenship education in England.
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‘Teachers and students have an obligation to promote equality, justice, respect for others and democratic participation. These ideals should be integral to cultures of educational institutions and embedded within and beyond the curriculum, beginning with the youngest age group and continuing throughout, and after, compulsory phases. Education for democratic citizenship is therefore a core purpose of teaching and learning within and beyond schools.’ (Making a Difference, citizED 2006)
References Arthur, J., Davison, J. & Moss, J. (1996) Subject Mentoring in the Secondary School London: Routledge Arthur, J., Davison, J. & Stow, W. (2000) Social Literacy, Citizenship and the National Curriculum London: RoutledgeFalmer citizED (2006) Making a Difference Canterbury: citizED Davison, J. & Peterson, A. (2007) Citizenship Teacher Education in England: The Importance of Partnership paper presented at Hiroshima University, Japan 11 January 2007 DENI [Department of Education in Northern Ireland] (1993) Review of Initial Teacher training in Northern Ireland: Reports of Three Working Groups Bangor: DENI DES [Department of Education and Science] (1984) Initial Teacher Training: Approval of Courses Circular 3/84 London: DES DES [Department of Education and Science] (1989) Initial Teacher Training: Approval of Courses Circular 24/89 London: DES DfE [Department for Education] (1992) Initial Teacher Training (Secondary Phase) Circular 9/92 London: DfE DfE [Department for Education] (1993) The Initial Training of Primary Teachers Circular 14/93 London: DfE DfEE [Department for Education and Employment] (1997) Teaching: high status, high standards (Circular 10/97) London: DfEE
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DfEE [Department for Education and Employment] (1998) Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools: Final Report of the Advisory group in Citizenship London: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) DfES [Department for Education and Skills] (2003) Every Child Matters: Change for Children London: The Stationery Office Elliott, J. (1993) ‘Teacher Evaluation and Teaching as a Moral Science’, In Holly, M. L. and McLoughlin, C. S. (eds) Perspectives on Teacher Development, London: Falmer Press Eisner, E. (1984) Cognition and Curriculum London: Longman Hargreaves, D. (1982) The Challenge for the Comprehensive School: Culture, Curriculum and Community London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Lawton, D. (1994) The Tory Mind on Education 1974 – 1994 London: Falmer Press Office for Standards in Education [OFSTED] (2006) Towards consensus? Citizenship in secondary schools London: OFSTED Qualifications and Curriculum Authority [QCA] (1999) The National Curriculum London: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) Scrimshaw, P. (1975) ‘The Language of Social Education’, In Elliott, J. & Pring, R. (eds) Personal and Social Understanding London: University of London Press Teacher Training Agency [TTA] (1996) Working Papers 1 – 4: Effective Training Through Partnership London: TTA Teacher Training Agency [TTA] (2002) Qualifying to Teach, London: TTA Wenger, E (1998) Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Wilkin, M. (1996) Initial Teacher Training: The Dialogue of Ideology and Culture, London: Falmer Press
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