Multiple perspectives on the value(s) of Australian teacher education: dialogical pedagogy for and by domestic and international students and staff members

Abstract

The ongoing internationalisation of Australian higher education creates challenges and opportunities in identifying and learning from multiple perspectives on what proponents hope is the value of teacher education. One way of maximising the potential of those challenges and opportunities is to make explicit and share the values held by different groups of participants, including the values that they ascribe to educating teachers. This argument is taken up in this account of the contributions by two teacher education faculties/schools to a broader, Australian Learning and Teaching Council-funded project (Tamatea, Takayama, Singh, Le Ha, Harreveld, Li, Danaher, Munday, Green, & Chapman, 2011-2012) focused on fostering transnational knowledge exchange between international and domestic teacher education students. The paper addresses the research question, 'Which perspectives on and values of teacher education are evident in the project‟s design and initial implementation?' The research design was a dual site case study (Luck, Jackson, & Usher, 2006). The theoretical framing was provided by the concept of dialogical pedagogy (Skidmore, 2000), which emphasised the need for the relational and reciprocal dimensions of students' and staff members' interactions to be highlighted, as well as identifying the extent to which those dimensions were evident in the project's design and delivery. Data interpretation was facilitated by combining elements of narrative inquiry with identity analysis (Georgakopoulou, 2006). The findings demonstrated several potential examples of dialogical pedagogy and transnational knowledge exchange, while identifying some areas of potential divergence. This outcome reinforces the complexity as well as the significance of the nexus between the multiple perspectives on and the value(s) of teacher education, both in the institutions analysed here and inter/nationally.