Art education is important for young children, yet the place of the arts in early childhood teacher education (ECTE) has been an unresolved issue. Framed within the conception of curriculum balance, the study aimed to navigate and make sense of the diverse perspectives on how early childhood pre-service teachers should be taught the arts. In the…

In the context of a global teacher recruitment crisis, the English department for Education has responded by implementing a new, highly prescriptive curriculum for initial teacher education called the Initial Teacher Training Core Content Framework. Using a combination of content analysis and an original approach entitled "doppelganger as…

The field of teacher education is subject to intense scrutiny and policy reform and within this context, the voices of those working within the field are often marginalised. Drawing on our larger study of teacher educators, we addressed the key research question: "How do those who work in the field of teacher education articulate and…

Attempts to solve perceived policy problems in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) have seen national and international jurisdictions increasingly centralising ITE curricula, coupled with monitoring and auditing of outcomes against defined sets of professional standards. This paper reports the findings of a documentary analysis of 75 items of publicly…

Teachers are simultaneously regarded as the most important influence on student learning and, paradoxically, as untrustworthy agents who can't be relied upon to deliver quality learning outcomes. Globally, this contested view of teaching is reflected in policies that limit teacher agency by prescribing how teaching will be conducted; for example,…

Using Judith Butler's theory of performative subjection, this paper explores the issue of digital poverty in Initial Teacher Education and the need for new forms of agency and advocacy to address it. The concept of digital agency (DA) and educational data advocacy (EDA) are discussed as possible ameliorating concepts for digital poverty and the…

Teaching performance assessments (TPA) are a trending feature of initial teacher education. Founded in the United States of America, TPAs have emerged in the Australian context as a capstone assessment of preservice teacher competence. However, the inclusion of the TPA in initial teacher education places additional pressure on tertiary…

This article brings together a number of key issues that emerge in research around the problem of teacher shortages in hard-to-staff schools. It offers a broad overview of the hard-to-staff schooling sector as discussed in recent academic literature and provides a context-specific overview of the literature around workforce shortages in…

In Australia, where initial teacher education is offered both on-campus and in a fully online mode, future primary-school generalist teachers study teaching across the school curriculum. This includes the arts curriculum where opportunities for future teachers to engage in authentic arts learning themselves are generally seen as essential for…

As well as high levels of teacher attrition, most countries around the world report some form of teacher recruitment crisis, exemplified by failed recruitment targets and high levels of demand for new teachers. These issues have reached crisis point in England. The impact of the controversial ITT Market Review, and subsequent accreditation process…

The Australian government now mandates initial teacher education (ITE) providers to form partnerships with schools in order to maintain accreditation. The emphasis on partnerships as the crucial means of improving ITE is not new, and a body of literature from the Australian context describes a vast number of partnerships that have been enacted…

This research examines the consequences of a mandatory assessment for pre-service teachers in Australia that is completed during their final teaching placement. The Teaching Performance Assessment (TPA) is an analysis of practice that incorporates video of teaching episodes, observation feedback, and analysis of pupils' work samples.…

What happens when Initial Teacher Education shifts focus from preparing teachers as change agents to focusing on fast-tracking candidates into the profession? In this paper, we focus on the implications of the accelerated push in teacher education for key social justice and transformative aims of preparing critically reflective, culturally…

This study examined whether pre-service teachers from three Australian universities developed a professional schema for inclusive teaching practice by the end of their standards-based programmes of professional preparation. The results demonstrated that while there were statistically significant differences among the universities, none of the…

There have been at least 100 governmental inquiries into teacher education in Australia since the 1970s, making thousands of recommendations, the majority of which have never been fully actioned or realised. Additionally, there is minimal evidence about the efficacy of this continuous review cycle. Here, we problematise these issues by conducting…