Becoming a Professional Educator in an Urban School-University Partnership: A Case Study Analysis of Preservice Teacher Learning.

Introduction A primary purpose of teacher education is to prepare and induct candidates into the teaching profession. What does it mean to be a professional educator? Is deep content knowledge really enough as the federal government and others suggest? Does professionalism look different in urban contexts? How do teachers learn to navigate the multiple opportunities and challenges they are faced with day-by-day, hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute in today's high-stakes accountability climate? What happens when teachers don't learn how to successfully navigate the realities? This article examines notions of professionalism and how one preservice teacher learned to become a professional educator in the context of an urban school-university partnership. Some may argue that a large inner-city high school is not a suitable learning environment for preparing new teachers to become professional educators, yet if we believe that there is specialized knowledge for teaching in the urban context, the urban school at the center of this study provides opportunities for preservice teachers to integrate themselves into classrooms with professional educators who model negotiation of the realities teachers face today. Through the school-university partnership, many preservice teachers learn first-hand what professionalism looks like in practice and begin "combining parts of their past, including their own experiences in school and in teacher preparation, with pieces of the present in their current school context, with images of the kind of teacher and colleague they want to become" (Feiman-Nemser, 2001, p. 1029). In this article, the concept of professionalism is considered from multiple perspectives, including from the perspective of scholars who contend a specialized knowledge base is necessary for successful urban teaching and that school-university and professional development school partnerships may provide contexts for developing this knowledge base. Then, a collective case study is described and one typical case from the study illuminates the possibilities and challenges of becoming a professional educator in an urban school-university partnership. Deconstructing "Professionalism" Viewing teaching as a profession has been evident in educational literature for decades (Clark & Peterson, 1986; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999). Hargreaves and Fullan (2000) suggest we are in an age of "postmodern professionalism" at the beginning 21st century, "where teachers deal with a diverse clientele and increasing moral uncertainty, where many approaches are possible and more and more groups have an influence" on teachers' professional lives (p. 52). Before considering one case of a preservice teacher learning about professionalism, it is important to conceptualize and deconstruct notions of professionalism that inform this paper. First, a distinction must be drawn between professionalism and professionalization: Professionalism refers to the internal workings of a profession and the concern of a profession's members to do the best possible job for their clients; professionalization refers to external criteria such as status, salary, specialization, and control. (Noddings, 2001, p. 102) It seems that these two terms, though distinct in meaning, are intricately connected theoretically. It is by drawing attention to teacher education reform through professionalization (and deregulation) that many definitions of professionalism have arisen. Next, various definitions of professionalism are discussed, followed by an examination of professionalism in terms of the urban context. Professionalism Conceptualized The federal government (U.S. Department of Education, 2002) legislated a definition of professionalism in teaching by defining a highly qualified teacher as one who has obtained full state certification through a traditional or alternate route or passed the State teacher licensing examination. …