Elizabeth Spalding

Understanding Teacher Education in an Era of Globalization

The growth of a global economy, which has spurred fierce competition among many nations hoping to make economic advances, is changing social, political, and economic landscapes as well as the educational systems within these nations (Stromquist & Monkman, 2000). In the United States, these changes exert continual pressures to alter the ways in which public schools prepare their citizenry for work (Burbules & Torres, 2000) and the characteristics of classrooms where these preparations are actualized (Garcia, Arias, Murri, & Serna, 2010). Consequently, changes in school functions and classroom characteristics are engendering changes in teaching and teacher education so that the United States can contend with the challenges emerging from globalization (Darling-Hammond & Cobb, 1996). The research community can help policy makers make informed decisions related to globalization, teaching, and teacher education. First, it is important to describe the realities of globalization and its impacts on schools, teachers, and teacher education to help policy makers and practitioners develop a deep understanding about them. Second, it is critical to conceptualize the issues and problems emerging from these realities and to develop theoretical assumptions that are useful to policy makers and to practitioners for developing and implementing effective teaching practices. Third, it is necessary to verify empirically these concepts and assumptions so that potentially detrimental consequences of policy decisions and practices may be mitigated. Over the years, two competing perspectives have surfaced that conceptualize the realities of globalization and the relevant problems for education. Each proposes different solutions to these problems (Torres, 2002). Each offers strong yet differing implications for changing teaching and teacher education, and each faces challenges from increasingly diverse classrooms that stem, in part, from the global economy. By exploiting various resources, attracting cheap labor, and exploring potential markets throughout the world, the global economy contributes to increased migrations from poor to rich areas, from rural areas to cities, and from developing countries to those that are developed (Garcia et al., 2010). These migrations create and intensify culturally, racially, and socioeconomically diversified student populations in many countries, which further complicates the responsibility of school systems to prepare their students for or against globalization, especially in the United States (Banks, 2008). The first is an economic imperative perspective (Zhao, 2010). Proponents of this perspective assume generally that a nations competitive edge in the global economy resides in its capacity to develop innovative products that can appeal to a wide range of consumers; find effective ways to locate, distribute, and use resources; and offer relevant efficient services for such production and marketing worldwide (Spring, 1998). To compete in a global arena, a nation needs its workforce to develop new ideas and solve problems successfully, collaborate and communicate with other people effectively, and adapt and function flexibly in different contexts and environments (Stromquist, 2002). Central to this mission is the need to develop certain types of specialized knowledge, skills, and values within its workforce. These include science, mathematics, and technological literacy; multilingual oral, reading, and communication competence; and willingness and ability to understand different cultures and use such understandings to work with different individuals (Longview Foundation, 2008). From this perspective, one of the primary responsibilities of teachers is to equip a nations future workforce with these qualities. However, teachers are seen frequently as ill prepared to meet this responsibility (Tatto, 2007). As a consequence, ambitious curriculum and teaching standards, accountability and assessment systems, and professional development programs are being established and implemented to transform teaching practices to accommodate to standardization in production and business processes (Merryfield, 1997; Yatto, 2006). …

Toward Strengthening the Preparation of Teacher Educator-Researchers in Doctoral Programs and Beyond

Educators, scholars, and policy makers agree that quality research is needed to improve teaching and teacher education (Boote & Beile, 2005; Grossman, 2008; Levine, 2007; Young, 2008). This is especially true in the current climate of increasing pressures to produce research that can guide policy making in an age of standards-based reform and teacher accountability. As pressures to enhance student achievement and teaching practice mount, so too does the demand for better and more rigorous empirical educational research that can inform policies and practice. Critical to this improvement is the preparation and training of educational researchers in doctoral programs. It is often presumed that teacher educators who have completed doctoral programs possess the knowledge and skills to conduct research that can contribute to the knowledge base of teaching and teacher education. It is also expected that the academic work produced by these teacher educators be useful in informing teaching practice, teacher education, and policies. However, much has been written about the lack of rigor and weaknesses in work produced by educational researchers in general and teacher educators in particular. Questions about the value of some contributions to the collective knowledge about teaching and teacher education have been raised (Grossman, 2004, 2008; Lagemann, 2000; Levine, 2007; Lin, Wang, Klecka, Odell, & Spalding, 2010; Mitchell & Haro, 1999; Wilson, 2006; Wilson & Tamir, 2008; Zeichner, 2005). Differences in traditions, purposes, design, and foci among different doctoral programs engendered, in part, by the lack of consensus about standards of good research and complicated by the multiple disciplinary traditions within the field of educational research (Levine, 2007; Metz, 2001) as well as the lack of distinction between PhD and EdD degrees (Shulman, Golde, Bueschel, & Garabedian, 2006) have not helped matters. Although recently some discourse has occurred around improving the preparation of educational researchers in doctoral programs (Labaree, 2003; Levine, 2007; Neumann, Pallas, & Peterson, 2008; Pallas, 2001, Schoenfeld, 1999; Wilson, 2006; Young, 2001; Zeichner, 2005), research about teacher educators and their research preparation in doctoral programs is understudied and in its infancy. (1) Much is still unknown about the links between teacher education programs and subsequent teacher performance and student achievement. A similar gap exists between researcher preparation and the subsequent quality of educational researchers. There is much to be learned about how best to prepare teacher educators in the midst of enduring charges of low-quality research and increasing demands for research that can inform policy and practice. The principal aim of this editorial is to provoke thought and dialogue about how to prepare better teacher educator-researchers in research-focused doctoral programs and propose possible research areas that may be useful to strengthening or rethinking their preparation. Although we recognize that being prepared to be a good teacher educator-researcher in academe encompasses more than simply being prepared to conduct high-quality educational research, such as learning to be a strong teacher and mentor (Chauvot, 2009), we focus our discussion on the research preparation component in doctoral programs to stimulate deeper thought about better practices for preparing and training teacher educator-researchers. We frame our discussion around three questions: What should be learned about research? How should candidates learn to do research? How can learning about and doing research be sustained beyond doctoral programs? What Should Be Learned About Research? Learning about research encompasses many aspects. It is expected generally that in doctoral programs, aspiring educational researchers learn to understand the complexity of research issues from multiple disciplinary traditions of theory and method and situate their work so that it contributes to the collective understanding of the field (Boote & Beile, 2005; Metz, 2001; Golde, 2007; Shulman, 2003; Towne, Wise & Winters, 2005). …

Social Justice and Teacher Education: Where Do We Stand?

Teacher education for social justice is a topic that has gained a passionate and committed following among US teacher educators, particularly over the past two decades. The aim of this paper is discuss current efforts by US teacher educators to prepare teachers who will implement pedagogy that is both socially just and culturally responsive. The paper will review empirical studies of teacher educators and preservice and inservice teachers who are implementing socially just pedagogy in order to present a portrait of where the profession stands. As teacher education moves into the twenty-first century, it is essential that teachers possess both the pedagogical skills and the professional dispositions to address social problems that are increasingly globalized and instruct students who are increasingly culturally diverse.