AUSTRALIAN PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS FOR TEACHERS

Standard 7: Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community

Through an enhanced understanding of theory and reflexivity and their relationship to teaching as a profession, this chapter enables readers to more meaningfully engage with school professionals and communities through a critically aware and socially cognisant lens.

Introduction

In today's world, teachers’ work is more complex than ever before. This is due to: changes within the last 50 years in global economic forces and highly competitive production modes; the merging of finance, trade and communication knowledges; rapidly advancing technologies; political instability; and environmental concerns. There has been an intensification of migration and labour markets, bringing into contact diverse languages, cultures and identities in ways never before experienced (Romain, 2011). Those living in the Antipodes have not been untouched by changing global forces. These both result in and coincide with a local range of social, cultural and political complexities. These include, but are not limited to: economic disparities in and between postcodes; continued social disadvantage of Indigenous Australians; intolerance towards religious and other forms of diversity; changing mores in relation to gender and sexuality–diverse people; the rise of single-parent and same-sex-headed families as well as changing family constellations; and a political imperative that reduces access to social services, which have been increasingly privatised.

The increase in privatisation is one element of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism, an economic theory that gained popularity in the late 1970s, has considerable influence on schooling. Claiming to offer individuals greater choice and freedoms, neoliberal educational policies have significantly impacted on the functioning and intent of education, requiring schools to produce particular kinds of work-ready subjects.

The dynamic nature of school populations, impacted by globalisation and constant socio-cultural change, has implications for educational policy, pedagogy, classroom practices, early childhood settings and school–community relations. Thus, to work as an equitable educator with today's children and youth, one requires a sociological understanding of schooling from early childhood through to secondary completion. It is critical that educators see how education intersects with a range of diverse subjectivities, the power relations inherent in these intersections, and the inequities that are apparent – including the visible and invisible, the voiced and silenced.

Thus, pre-service educators require knowledge about a range of sociological theoretical concepts to critically unpack the complexities of education in relation to the lives of young people, their families and communities. Such knowledge should be fostered during the pre-service stages of an educator's career to provide a foundation from which to appreciate more deeply their potential impact on future generations. Additionally, the changing expectations of educators, as reflected in the Australian context, demand a greater focus on the teacher–researcher nexus. This has been institutionally inscribed through changes to the Australian Qualifications Framework at Level 9, which calls for teacher education courses to produce graduates capable of researching and applying theory to their work. This enhances the imperative for pre-service educators to embrace theoretical understandings during their pre-service teacher education to develop the capacity to use this knowledge to analyse and critique praxis.

This book, based squarely on the research of its contributors, provides an accessible theoretical and research-based reader for upper-level and postgraduate pre-service educators. Each chapter reports upon current, topical research in the sociology of education. Through explanation and analysis, key theoretical concepts are applied to critically interrogate, inform and challenge many taken-for-granted knowledges and practices in education. The chapters are generally grounded in the Australian context; however, some chapters are linked to international research demonstrating widespread relevance of the issue under discussion. Wherever possible, the implications of the theory and research are made relevant to early childhood, primary and secondary contexts; as a result, the book resonates with a variety of audiences.

This second edition, at the beginning of each chapter, articulates how the work reflects the relevant Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST).

AUSTRALIAN PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS FOR TEACHERS

Standard 3: Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning

Standard 5: Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning

While the APST Standards do not explicitly refer either to processes of reflection or to teachers as reflexive practitioners, we take the position that strong, critical teaching practices, particularly in the areas of planning and implementation (Standard 3) and assessing student learning (Standard 5), require teachers to employ theoretical perspectives in their decision-making processes.

Making the ‘unseen’ seen

In Chapter 1, the ‘unseen half’ was introduced as a metaphor for both the diversity of children and families who are, in many ways, insufficiently catered for in early childhood, primary and secondary education, as well as for the unseen, taken-for-granted inclusion and privilege inherent in an education system that is designed for a socially constructed, normative student. In the chapters that followed, the authors problematised elements of normativity in education and worked to make the unseen ‘seen’ through their analysis of the diverse schooling experiences of preschoolers, children, adolescents and their families. While each of these chapters could have been positioned as a summative description of an issue, the incorporation of sociological theory as an analytical and reflexive tool provided a more nuanced understanding of the issues under investigation. Each chapter highlighted the ways in which theory functions to ‘value-add’, providing depth, a richer perspective and a move away from the superficiality of description and taken-for-granted knowledge to a critical approach.