TY - JOUR
T1 - Paradoxes of in-school teacher coaching by outsiders
AU - Ludecke, Michelle
AU - Rutherford, Sarah
AU - Sawatzki, Carly
AU - Rady, Donna
AU - Gindidis, Maria
AU - Marangio, Karen
AU - Tour, Ekaterina
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Australian Association for Research in Education, Inc.
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2022/4
Y1 - 2022/4
N2 - Securing the quality of Australian education is a key policy target, and teaching workforce development has long been identified as the means to that end. This case of personalised professional learning in a school through a series of interactions between teachers and university-employed teacher educators (as academic coaches) speaks to teachers’ perceptions of being on the receiving end of such policy targets. Teachers’ experiences of working with an external coach was transformative for some, valuable for most, but not suited to everybody. The analysis of teacher participant data revealed three paradoxes in the delicate matters of power, choice and agency associated with being coached by outsiders. We apply a Bourdieuan lens of ‘symbolic power’ to make sense of these inherent power relations, and anticipate such insights will be informative to teacher educators involved in developing teacher coaching programs in the future, both at system and school levels.
AB - Securing the quality of Australian education is a key policy target, and teaching workforce development has long been identified as the means to that end. This case of personalised professional learning in a school through a series of interactions between teachers and university-employed teacher educators (as academic coaches) speaks to teachers’ perceptions of being on the receiving end of such policy targets. Teachers’ experiences of working with an external coach was transformative for some, valuable for most, but not suited to everybody. The analysis of teacher participant data revealed three paradoxes in the delicate matters of power, choice and agency associated with being coached by outsiders. We apply a Bourdieuan lens of ‘symbolic power’ to make sense of these inherent power relations, and anticipate such insights will be informative to teacher educators involved in developing teacher coaching programs in the future, both at system and school levels.
KW - Coaching
KW - Personalised professional learning
KW - Professional relationships
KW - Program evaluation
KW - Teacher education
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85106325940&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s13384-021-00444-w
DO - 10.1007/s13384-021-00444-w
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85106325940
SN - 0311-6999
VL - 49
SP - 323
EP - 345
JO - The Australian Educational Researcher
JF - The Australian Educational Researcher
IS - 2
ER -