The teacher educator as (re)negotiated professional: critical incidents in steering between state and market in Australia

Abstract

[Abstract]: A dominant discourse in western higher education circles is currently concerned – even obsessed – with the marketisation of knowledge as a commodity to be purchased and traded (Healy, 1998; Poole, 1998; Richardson, 1998). These developments are broadly allied with managerial changes that some have called ‘steering at a distance’ (Kickert, 1991; Marceau, 1993), whereby the impact of the state on individual higher education workers is maintained and intensified at the same time that pressure is applied to ‘wean’ universities from government funding. This paper explores a different kind of ‘steering’, the kind that is being engaged by Australian teacher educators confronted by developing competitiveness in higher education. We argue that these changes compel teacher educators to (re)negotiate their professionalisms; to re-examine their attitudes towards, and values within, education and its practices as they (individually and collectively) steer new courses through the state and the market. We illustrate our argument by referring to three critical incidents in the professional lives of teacher educators located within a globalised, multi-campus and provincial Australian university, yet with important implications also for teacher educators outside Australia. We posit the (re)negotiated professionalisms manifested in those incidents as a few among several potential kinds of steering by Australian teacher educators.