Developing a new ITE programme

Increasing global pressure to enhance teacher quality has led to increasing numbers of new ITE programmes, yet there is a dearth of policy studies interrogating exactly how both macro and micropolicy processes combine to shape the development of these programmes. This article examines one particular new programme – the MSc Transformative Learning and Teaching (MSc TLT) – and rather than presenting one coherent narrative of programme development, identifies three distinct cultural spaces in which ITE exists: the political space, the professional space and the university space. An analysis is provided of the way(s) in which the development of the MSc TLT has been supported or resisted in each of these cultural spaces. The analysis challenges the dualist notion of ‘official’ v. ‘counter’ narratives, instead revealing a series of compliant or disruptive narratives across the various spaces, contributing a new way of understanding the development of new ITE programmes. INTRODUCTION In recent times, initial teacher education (ITE) has become an increasingly important political lever across and beyond Europe, with the European Commission (2017) stating in fairly blunt terms that ‘the quality of teacher education requires more attention’ (p. 8). From the general OECD metanarrative that ‘teachers matter’ (OECD, 2005) to more recent calls focusing on the need for ‘the allocation of quality teachers, and not just more teachers, to underserved students’ (OECD, 2018, p. 13), it is evident that ITE functions as an indicator of both economic wellbeing and political popularity. Over recent years it has become increasingly politicised, with Wiseman (2012) arguing that ‘in more cases than not, policy emerges quickly and without the benefit of research before or after mandated innovations are implemented’ (p. 90). The absence of proper research is further compounded by a neoliberal predilection towards ‘modes of governance, discipline, and regulation that are totalizing in their insistence that all aspects of social life be determined, shaped, and weighted through market-driven measures’ (Giroux, 2013, p. 459). Clearly, then, ITE policy development is highly politicised; it is not an objective science, and nor is it constituted to serve one clear, agreed purpose. Given this complexity, it makes sense to think of the development of ITE policy as a process of social construction, which can arguably be best understood through detailed analyses of ‘instances’ or cases, which attend to the importance of context, and allow for the exploration of what Darling-Hammond (2017) argues is a ‘system of teacher development’ within national or state boundaries. However, while Darling-Hammond conceptualizes the ‘system’ as including ‘multiple, coherent and complementary components associated with recruiting, developing, and retaining talented individuals to support the overall goal of ensuring that each school is populated by effective teachers. ’ (ibid. p. 294), what this article contributes is an example of the revelations that can be gleaned from a more micro-level examination of the systemically-influenced policymaking process borne out within one particular programme. Crucially, the analysis presented here focuses on the development of a new ITE programme rather than focusing, as is more common, on the impact of the programme once established. Greater knowledge of the micro policy interactions at this stage will help us to counter Wiseman’s concerns about policy being implemented reactively without recourse to research; a