Section archive - Teacher Educators

This article examines how various aspects of the first author's identity, i.e. natural, institutional, discursive, and affinity, intersected during his first semester as teacher educator. The experience of the novice teacher educator revealed that his preoccupation with students’ perceptions of who he was as a teacher and as an individual prevented any substantial consideration of the kind of teacher educator he wanted to be. Given the insecurities often tied to this new professional identity, the authors argue that it is important to consider and negotiate the pedagogical and professional development of first-time teacher educators.The authors believe that an emphasis on community should be promoted in order to enhance the possibilities of teacher education. They say that novice teacher educators should be surrounded by like-minded individuals who function as both critical friends and a supportive community.

As a teacher educator, the author shares her experiences and positioning as an apprentice, academic and administrator. While she refers to each as a ‘phase’, she suggests each overlap at varying times throughout teacher educators' careers/life, particularly if they are lifelong learners and that an element of apprenticeship is present in all that they strive to do, although not everyone perhaps acknowledges and engages with apprenticeship as professional learning and learning about oneself.

The authors argue that government-run assessments, such as Excellence in Research for Australia, and localised institutional strategies developed in response, provoke “pre-tense” conditions that unsettle institutions of the Australian university sector regarding future claims for research status. Drawing on interviews with an early- and a mid-career teacher educator, both of whom evidence significant research aspirations,the authorse portray and analyse their ethico-emotive sufferings, linked to contemporary pre-tense conditions in which they work, which thwart their dispositions to do research.

The purpose of this article is to review research carried out on, with and by physical education (PE) teacher educators over the last 25 years. It also aims to identify areas where research is lacking, in order to provide scholars with a useful context for the design and conduct of future scholarly inquiry on PE teacher educators. The authors found that the bias of English language publications notwithstanding, there has certainly been a much stronger focus on PE teacher educator research in the US than elsewhere. While a wealth of data has been collected on US PE teacher educators, a number of themes have received little attention elsewhere, such as the demographic make-up, biographies, careers, socialisation, or work roles of PE teacher educators beyond North America.