Exploring the significance of ‘Evidence based teaching’ in the Carter Report on Initial Teacher Education (2015) in an educational policy landscape based on neo-liberal ideologies.

Chris CarpenterCanterbury Christ Church University

In a neoliberal milieu, the identity of the preferred teacher: “.. is

dutiful, compliant, market responsive, and uncritical of the

circumstances and conditions around them – especially in respect of

what the neo-liberal agenda is doing to schooling and groups within

it” (Smyth 2011).

The Coalition educational policy landscape ….a number of contradictions

• De-regulation for re-regulation? (Ball 2003)

• Political ‘right’ sees accepts inequality embracing market- this is in opposition to

social justice agenda.

• Coalition present their educational policy as ideologically neutral. Education is

never neutral (Apple 1990). If it is neutral it is apolitical and so it is objective?

• Teachers simultaneously cast as the ‘problem’ and the ‘solution’.

• Traditionally Conservatives favour cautious approach to social change (Giddens

2002) – this exists in opposition to calls for radical and swift change?

• Market fundamentalism rather than democratic idealism the principle ideology.

(Giroux 2009)

Problematizing EBT• EBT – A rhetorical device?• What counts as evidence?• The return to ‘Evidence based’: retreat a re-

appraisal, or a triumph for ‘common sense’. • Reduces moral element- ‘”success is virtue”• EBT - a vain and unnecessary search for

certainty?

EBT – A rhetorical device?• The problem with a term such as EBT is that just because one can’t argue for the

opposite position it does not mean it can be accepted uncritically. E.G. ‘Driving up standards’: Prefacing intentions with ‘quality’?

• The term ‘evidence based practice’ is a slogan which is designed to discourage opposition (Hammersley 2004).

• Even if we could agree on what constitutes ‘evidence’ practitioners cannot be expected to undertake a comprehensive review of that evidence and then take an informed choice about what evidence to heed.

• Consequently evidence based solutions such as synthetic phonics are presented to teachers and the implication is that there has been a comprehensive review and this is ‘the’ best method. Best for who?

Implications for ITE•That student teachers need to be encouraged to take a critical stance with policy text.•Understand that teaching is a political act (Apple 1990)•Distinguish between political authority and ‘real’ authority (Miller 2008).•Distinguish between scholarship and policy text (McLaughlin 1997)

• Different philosophies of truth (Bridges 1999)

• Different types of evidence: Proving a ‘fact’: Support for a belief:

Testimonies

• Has to be a broad consensus…or emanates from an ‘authoritative source.

• Policy makers tend to rely on:

• Quantative data which are analysed statistically.

• Inspection data- (Sinkinson and Jones 2001)

• Research evidence? Problematic relationship (Whitty 2005).

Implication for ITE•Student teachers to have the chance to consider what counts as evidence in education.•To consider different forms of evidence.•Actively theorise about their own practice. Locate their theories in the conceptual language of ‘grand narratives’?

What counts as evidence?

The return to ‘Evidence based’: retreat a re-appraisal, a return to ‘common sense’.

• EBT endorsed by Hargreaves (1997)

• Trying out strategies based on evidence from elsewhere can be seen as risky as

they may not be part of the local culture (Cordingley 2004). Teachers need time

to learn and ‘own’ new ideas.

• What happening in communities of practice? Joint enterprise; mutual

engagement; Shared repertoire (Wenger 1998).

• to base everything in practice solely on evidence is not possible. This led to a shift

from ‘evidence-based’ to ‘evidence informed’ practice (Hammersley 2004).

Implications for ITE•Student teachers need to develop an understanding of the differences between ‘evidence informed’ and ‘evidence based’ practice.•Teachers and student teachers as researchers of their own practice.•How do schools organise their CPD? – ‘inward’ or ‘outward’ looking?

Reduces moral element- ‘”success is virtue”• Technocratic emphasis on ‘excellence’, ‘quality’, ‘efficiency’ makes it

harder for teachers to provide intellectual and moral leadership? (Smyth 2011)

• EBT- a framework for understanding the role of research in educational

practice that restricts the scope of decision making to questions about effectivity and effectiveness, but that also restricts the opportunities for participation in educational decision making (Biesta 2007).

• Assumption of neutrality- neutrality implicitly equals objectiveness and truth (Apple 1995).

• Importance of expanding our views about the interrelations among research, policy, and practice to keep in view education as a thoroughly moral and political practice that requires continuous democratic contestation and deliberation (Biesta 2007).Implications for ITE•Have the capacity to analysis policy text. ‘Schooling’ or ‘education’?•To understand notions of hegemony. A political act.

EBT - a vain search and unnecessary search for certainty in an ever changing world?

• Since the ERA (1988) education is a deeply political project.

Politicians require a simple easily understood message.

• EBT – an attempt to impose order on something that resists being

ordered? Therefore a focus on teaching as intelligent problem

solving in an open environment?

• EBT a ‘part’ of ITT and CPDImplications for ITE•To be comfortable with the complexity.•To have values that can be a consistent part of their teaching identity.•To treat teaching as intelligent problem solving in an open environment.•Focus on principles rather than strategies.•“To not only know what works but why it works” (Whitty 2005; 139).

Moving on after the Carter report?• Return to focus on pedagogy: “Pedagogy is more than the accumulation of

techniques and strategies, more than arranging a classroom, formulating questions, and developing explanations. It is informed by a view of mind of learning and learners and the kinds of knowledge and outcomes that are valued”. (Leach and Moon 2008; 6).

• ITE that enables student teachers to be able to see past the ‘false consciousness’ of the persuasive, rational logic of educational policy. “Capitalism needs workers who are clever enough to be profitable, but not wise enough to know what is really going on “ (Wrigley 2009; 62).

• Understand that to teach is to do political work. “..I argued strongly that education was not a neutral enterprise, that by the very nature of the institution, the educator was involved, whether they were conscious of it or not, in a political act.” (Apple 1990; 1)

• All courses have a commitment to scholarship of which EBT is a part. Scholarship a pursuit of truth whereas policy is about finding practical solutions to problems defined by politicians and student teachers need to know the difference.