43high school students in years 7–10. The study was part of a course designed to forge
a university-school ‘learning partnership’. In the space, the high school students
were positioned as advisors and consultants as they engaged in participatory tasks
(e.g. role plays) together with the preservice teachers. Through the use of dialogic
methods (e.g. the inclusion of student ‘voice’), the course provided opportunities
for the school students to formally contribute to the professional development of the
preservice teachers. The deliberate opening up of spatial and geographic dimen-
sions in Cahill et al.’s study could be considered a reflection of Soja’s ( 1996 ) con-
ceptualisation of Thirdspace. However, the emphasis on preservice teachers learning
with and from students about how to enhance their engagement and well-being
seems more aligned with Gutiérrez’s ( 2008 ) ideas of a collective third space. Greca
( 2016 ) and McDonough ( 2014 ) observe that Gutiérrez’s work has often been used
within the literature in the context of the development of new programs that focused
on dialogue between partners. The power of conceptualising Cahill et al.’s research
through the lens offered by Gutiérrez is in seeing the transformative potential of a
third space. Cahill et al. showed that it is possible to recast preservice teacher iden-
tity by providing opportunities for them to work together with students to decon-
struct the discourses that shape expectations and simultaneously to co-construct
new storylines about what is possible in teacher-student relations.
In the second example, research by Youens, Smethem, and Sullivan ( 2014 )
described how university teacher educator visits during professional experience
were reconceptualised as spaces for learning conversations amongst mentor teach-
ers, preservice teachers and teacher educators. Youens et al. found that subsequent
analyses of preservice teacher-selected videos of classroom practice constituted a
powerful tool for creating dialogic spaces ‘physically and emotionally removed
from the busyness of classrooms and the ‘remoteness’ of a university campus’
(p. 109). They elaborated that ‘In this way, the course of the discussions swiftly
circumvented the culture and practices historically associated with ‘university tutor
visits’ to an in-depth analysis of issues around pupil learning and the influence of
theory on practice’ (p. 109). As a result, they concluded that the use of video capture
enabled the preservice teachers to develop their identities as professional teachers
through interactional spaces in which they were recognised and credited as valuable
contributors to the learning of all involved (Youens et al., 2014 ). In Youens et al.’s
research, using video captures to bring together stakeholders who traditionally play
separate and distinct roles in preservice teacher education illustrates Bhabha’s
( 1994 ) idea of cultural hybridity as a third space. In this space, the mentor teachers,
preservice teachers and teacher educators maintained their usual contradictory iden-
tities while simultaneously transcending those identities in ways that repressed
those contradictions (see Bhabha as cited in Mitchell, 1995 ). New knowledges, new
cultural expressions and new identities were therefore possible. These expressions
emerged through dialogic exchange and cogenerated action amongst all partici-
pants. Hence, Gutiérrez’s ( 2008 ) ideas of a collective third space were also demon-
strated. In connecting the ideas of Bhabha and Gutiérrez, Youens et al.’s research
shows the transformative potential of third space conceptualisation for [re]develop-
ing preservice teachers’ identity as agentive, collegial, reflexive professionals.
3 Theorising the Third Space of Professional Experience Partnerships