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Full-Text Articles in Education

Teacher Professional Standards, Accountability, And Ideology: Alternative Discourses, Katarina Tuinamuana Dec 2011

Teacher Professional Standards, Accountability, And Ideology: Alternative Discourses, Katarina Tuinamuana

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Teacher professional standards and accountability are today writ large on the landscape of both schooling and teacher education practice around the world. This paper explores some of the related debates through a discussion of four discourses on teacher professional standards: namely, discourses of commonsense, professionalism and quality, managerialism/performativity, and strategic manoeuvring. It is argued that each of these discourses legitimises particular understandings of standards and quality, illustrating the competing set of lenses through which they are viewed, as well as the broader ideologies from which they emerge, including neoliberalism and technical rationality. These discourses also represent the interpretive practice that …


Becoming A Teacher And Staying One: Examining The Complex Ecologies Associated With Educating And Retaining New Teachers In Rural Australia?, Margaret Plunkett, Michael Dyson Jan 2011

Becoming A Teacher And Staying One: Examining The Complex Ecologies Associated With Educating And Retaining New Teachers In Rural Australia?, Margaret Plunkett, Michael Dyson

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The problem of teacher retention has intensified in Australia, particularly in rural areas, with a number of studies suggesting that beginning teachers are not entering the profession with a commitment to remaining there. This paper reports on a study of 102 new teachers graduating from a rural campus of a major Australian university. Utilising a self devised survey over a 3 year period, graduate reflections were captured on what it meant for them to become a teacher. The research sought to determine graduates’ goals and aspirations for working in the profession in both the long and the short term. Participants …