The uncertainty we observed was both the unwelcome churn of education policies
and in the welcome responses that children make in classrooms. Our argument was
that informed teachers could, if not trammelled by cultures of compliance, work
agentically and collaboratively with university-based colleagues to address both
kinds of uncertainty. Over the last 15 years cultural-historical accounts of teacher
education have proliferated in encouraging ways. Many are captured in Ellis et al.
( 2010 ) where, in a number of contributions, Engeström’s work on systemic change
through the tools of activity theory was used powerfully to consider how teacher
education systems could adapt to changing demands or partnerships be strengthened.
The potential of cultural-historical ideas for re-thinking teacher education is now
also being recognised in the US. Zeichner, Payne and Brayko have, for example,
drawn on cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) to ask the question whose
knowledge counts in teacher education. In an argument that resonates strongly with
the relational approach advocated in the present chapter, they“... call for a
rethinking of the epistemology of teacher preparation in the United States and for
the development of new forms of shared responsibility for preparing teachers
among colleges and universities, schools, and local communities”(Zeichner et al.
2015 , p. 123). They suggest that the way to achieve this is through creating“new
hybrid spaces in university teacher education where academic, school-based, and
community-based knowledge come together in less hierarchical and haphazard
ways to support teacher learning”(p. 3). In thefinal section of this chapter, I
describe one example of a hybrid space, or site of intersecting practices, to illustrate
how the ideas outlined so far may be put into action.
37.5 The Oxford Education Deanery: A New Hybrid
Space
ITE has a long history at the University of Oxford, beginning in 1885 with the
University Day Training College, its more recent history, as well as focusing
increasingly on research, has included the Oxford Internship Scheme, a one-year
post-graduate ITE programme for secondary school teachers based on a deep
partnership with local schools. In 2013, this partnership was developed to create a
new site of intersecting practices, The Oxford Education Deanery. The Deanery
now includes collaborations in continuing professional learning and school devel-
opment and in pedagogic research in schools as well as ITE.
When the Deanery wasfirst discussed in early 2010, the landscape of English
teacher education provision was complex, with an increasing number of routes
towards qualification as a teacher, some of which with very little university
involvement. But the policy context was not the original driver for the initiative.
Instead, it was based on the view, rehearsed in this chapter, that both ITE
programmes and schools would benefit from building stronger inter-institutional
connections which would inform the practices in both the university department and
schools.
564 A. Edwards