Paying the piper: the costs and consequences of academic advancement

Over the past decades, a body of scholarship has highlighted the possibilities of critical pedagogies in Health and Physical Education Teacher Education (HPETE) (Fitzpatrick, 2018; O'Sullivan, 2018; Walton-Fisette & Sutherland, 2018). Although we have a body of research on social justice and critical pedagogy in HPETE, there is much to learn about the challenges activist teacher educators face in the process of being and becoming activists, especially in neoliberal contexts. This collaborative self-study explores the challenges of being and becoming an activist teacher educator in a neoliberal Australian context and how those challenges were negotiated. Participants included the lead researcher and a critical friend. Data collected included: (a) lead researcher observations collected as field notes; (b) lead researcher reflective diaries after each teaching episode; (c) meetings between the lead researcher and the critical friend; (d) material produced in the lead researcher's classes. Data analysis involved induction and constant comparison. The lead author faced internal and external challenges. First, the lead author had to negotiate her struggles to share power with students. The teacher educator started to be seen as a 'very cool person', teaching 'an easy unit'. Second, the teacher educator struggled to understand the complexities of teaching in a neoliberal context. The teacher educator [with the help of the critical friend] negotiated those challenges by understanding the importance to set expectations for learning within an activist approach and understanding the power of activist approaches to challenge a neoliberal system. Future studies should continue to explore the challenges activist teacher educators face in a context where students are socialized in neoliberal context, and educator's performance is measured in the same system.

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Neoliberal Environments Seek To Limit Education To Technologmentioning

confidence: 99%

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‘Am I an easy unit?’ Challenges of being and becoming an activist teacher educator in a neoliberal Australian context

Luguetti

McLachlan

2019

“…Similar to the other papers in this special issue (Barker, 2016;Casey & Fletcher, 2016;Hartung et al, 2016;McLachlan, 2016;Stylianou, Enright, & Hogan, 2016), our primary aim is to contribute to the emerging body of knowledge related to being and becoming an academic in PESP.…”

Section: Eca Experiences In Pespmentioning

confidence: 99%

Letters from Early Career Academics: the Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy field of play

Alfrey

Enright

Rynne

2016

Taking our lead from Rainer Maria Rilke's (1929) 'Letters to a Young Poet', our broader project aimed to create a space for dialogue and intergenerational learning between Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy (PESP) Early Career Academics (ECAs) and members of the PESP professoriate. This paper focuses specifically on the experiences of PESP ECAs. We draw upon narratives of thirty ECAs from nine different countries to gain insight into the experiences, joys, challenges and ambitions they associate with being and becoming a PESP academic. A narrative analysis of the data generated by the ECAs was undertaken. The analysis aimed to be holistic in nature, interested in form and content: both the told (the content) and the telling (how it was told). We initially focused our analysis using the six dimensions of narrative (characters, setting, events, audience, causal relations and themes). Bourdieu's socio-analytical toolkit complemented our narrative analysis and helped us move beyond the personal narratives by linking them to the broader social practices, relations and structures of the various settings or fields (PESP, university, family) within which the participants function. The findings suggest that many ECAs are experiencing crises of habitus, as they work to suppress ethical dispositions and values and adjust to 'the rules' that universities increasingly play by. Our discussion engages with the affective costs of playing by these rules, and recruits Bourdieu's notion of 'reflexive vigilance' to advocate for ongoing critical analysis of how power operates in the various field which academics inhabit.

“…However, while a few studies have been obtained with research quality in PETE (e.g. O'Sullivan, 2015;Stylinau, Enright & Hogan, 2017;van der Mars, 2011) or the research lives of PE teacher educators (Casey & Fletcher, 2017;McEvory, MacPhail, 2015;van der Mars, 2011;Ward, Parker, Sutherland and Sinclair, 2011) there are, to my knowledge, no studies that specifically investigate how PE teacher educators' perceive research mobilisation into PETE. The main purpose of this paper is in that regard to make the first steps towards more knowledge in this area by presenting an exploratory study which, based on Basil Bernstein's notion of the pedagogic device (Bernstein, 1990;2000), investigates perceived barriers to mobilising research literature into PETE as experienced by a group of Danish PE teacher educators.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A mountain too high to climb? An exploratory study of perceived barriers to mobilisation of research literature into physical education teacher education experienced by a group of Danish PE teacher educators

Svendsen

2019

International research emphasises that Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) has a key role to play in initiating and processing changes in Physical Education (PE). However, several researchers also find that it is a significant challenge for PETE to contest ideological approaches regarding PE practices among PE student teachers. Stronger relationships between research and educational practice and more deliberate mobilisation of research into teacher education may help address such educational issues. The main agents in that regard are teacher educators who are supposed to have the competencies to mobilise research literature into PETE. However, in Denmark, only 10% of Danish teacher educators hold a research-based PhD. The main aim of this article is to make the first steps towards more knowledge in this area by presenting an exploratory study of perceived barriers to mobilising research literature into PETE as experienced by a group of Danish PE teacher educators. The paper is based on empirical data generated through a course developed to qualify PE teacher educators' competencies in the use of research literature: papers, discussion-notes and interviews. Four main categories were generated: (1) 'We're competing on time', (2) 'A separate approach', (3) 'It has to add value' and (4) 'Hard to make it that academic'. The discussion addresses some general focus points for supporting the application of research in teacher education and suggest directions for future research.