Changing Knowledge, Changing Education

Chapter 5 Changing Knowledge, Changing Education Abstract This chapter considers how knowledge change impacts differently on different stakeholders, specifically teachers, policymakers and teacher educators. We consider how each group might lay claim to a particular dimension of knowledge and how that might impact on professionalism and practice using a triad of theorised lenses to explore some of the key areas. In particular, we are interested here in the polarity of compliance and resistance evident in knowledge in education, and the ways in which teacher educators are uniquely positioned in changing that to a discourse of possibility, developing teachers as ‘transformative intellectuals’ (Giroux in Teachers as intellectuals: towards a critical pedagogy of learning. Greenwood Publishing Group, London, 1988). Teacher educators are thus understood as agents of knowledge change reflecting the shared values of all stakeholders to democracy in education. Keywords Stakeholders Teacher research Policy and professional knowledge Discourse Change agents Transformative intellectuals



Introduction The significance of knowledge in education is matched only by its complexity. Knowledge debates in education are being played out globally and the implications are far-reaching. It is clearly beyond the scope of any single chapter to investigate the ways in which knowledge change and indeed knowledge contestation in teacher education is being realised in a variety of contexts. Instead, this chapter uses the context of England and Wales and looks at how we might consider knowledge change acting out within the context of three stakeholder groups: teachers, policymakers and teacher educators, and then consider the implications for future practice. If the purpose of education is to generate and transmit knowledge, it follows that the way in which knowledge is understood shapes education. By defining what constitutes knowledge, ownership is created. Ownership creates control. The © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018 S. Schuck et al., Uncertainty in Teacher Education Futures, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8246-7_5 63 64 5 Changing Knowledge, Changing Education centrality of knowledge as a construct in education thus renders it particularly powerful in the lexicon of educational discourse. Knowledge is not, however, static. Further, it is subject to the same ideological claims explored in earlier chapters (see Chap. 3 for example) and is equally resistant to definition as professionalism or identity; similarly, diverse and plural ‘owners’ of knowledge exist, and agreement on what constitutes knowledge in education is not secure. Changing knowledge, the focus of this chapter, becomes therefore multi-layered. For example, is the verb ‘changing’ in the title of this chapter transitive or intransitive? Are we changing knowledge, purposefully and with intent, or is knowledge simply changing with time and context? The interpretation is significant: the first implies that there is a deliberate shaping of knowledge in education and the questions by and for whom immediately present themselves. If the latter, then the questions are of a different order: what forms of knowledge are now the concern of schools—and how do teachers and teacher educators deal with that? Stakeholders—those involved in shaping and changing knowledge in education —are therefore key to this debate, as they are the actors whose contexts and demands serve to create the boundaries of definition. The actors whose concerns shape this discussion are those of policy, teachers and teacher educators, each as actualising knowledge in education in inter-related but frequently competing contexts: policymakers who seek to shape education for the economy; teachers, whose working lives are driven by the need to ensure students’ success in learning; and teacher educators whose role is to make sure that teachers are able to engage with knowledge as defined by policy, but also to critically engage with the notion that knowledge as represented in schooling is neither definitive nor final. In turn, each stakeholder brings a particular interpretation of knowledge to the main components of education: curriculum, assessment and pedagogy. The matrix that is formed by the confluence of stakeholder and knowledge reveals a geography of competing demands that impact on each stakeholder and thus in turn, on students. Understanding the differing dimensions of knowledge therefore becomes an imperative if education is to be productive for all learners. Stakeholders: Contexts and Issues Teachers *Frances: Teacher knowledge, you see, I mean… to me it’s a… you see to me it’s a very simple thing, er… teacher knowledge, there are two parts, well there are pro-… there are more than two parts. And what you do in the classroom can be broken down to a lot of different things. I thought I knew the answer to this. (*pseudonym) Teachers represent the site where knowledge demands meet. Teaching has at its heart transformation of complex knowledge into a format accessible and Stakeholders: Contexts and Issues 65 understandable by the students with whom they work—Shulman’s (1992) pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). The vast majority of teachers achieve this transformation for their students with great success. It is curious therefore that identifying what constitutes knowledge in education is seemingly problematic for teachers. The quote above illustrates this point. During a research project Brindley co-ordinated in 2014, we interviewed over 50 teachers and asked, ‘What do you understand by teacher knowledge?’ The question proved almost impossible to answer for this group of stakeholders. Frances, who gave the response quoted above, was, for example, a highly successful and well-established teacher who clearly initially thought that she should—and did—know ‘the answer’ to this very difficult question. Frances’ last comment—‘I thought I knew the answer to this’— was said with equal measures of frustration and bafflement. Other, equally well regarded, teachers experienced the same phenomenon. For example, Emma said, ‘There’s something else there that’s quite … quite difficult to grasp. But just takes you a step further erm and … I don’t know’. Ray similarly stated, ‘It’s about that … teacher knowledge is quite an innate thing, is that the right word? I don’t know. But it’s not in any curriculum’. Knowledge seems to be known but unsayable for this stakeholder group. Not curriculum, nor pedagogy, nor assessment, yet touching on each, the liminal nature of knowledge for teachers is felt but not articulated. Understanding knowledge as a construct, malleable and open to differing claims is essential for this group of stakeholders. The question here is, how is this to be achieved? Policy Articulation of the concept of knowledge by policy seems to be less problematic. Knowledge is both knowable and able to be represented in written terms. For policy, knowledge is concrete. A major example of this is seen in England and Wales, where the move in the late 1980s/early 1990s to develop a national curriculum represented prescribed knowledge, measurable through assessment regimes. The language of the time described the national curriculum as ‘a selection from the knowledge’ thus neatly sidestepping accusations of hegemony in its implication that there were other freely chosen ‘knowledges’ available to teachers. There were indeed other knowledges but equally true was the fact that the national curriculum content was detailed and overwhelming in demand, and associated with such high stakes test events, that teachers only taught to the tests. A selection from rapidly became the knowledge, complete and to the exclusion of all else. Defining knowledge in this way becomes the mechanism that is used to select students according to assessment successes and to cull the unsuccessful, and the means of accountability judging teachers as responsible for that success. However, this version of knowledge is not value free. The national curriculum is and was a document which was shaped by committees of individuals with vested interests in seeing particular versions of knowledge enshrined in law. For example, the national 66 5 Changing Knowledge, Changing Education curriculum of England and Wales in English encountered huge resistance and opposition for its stance on the teaching of grammar (Cox, 1991); similarly, its emphasis on British history brought strong responses (Lay, 2013). Nevertheless, policy can lay claim to a version of knowledge which dominates many teachers’ thinking. Brindley has written elsewhere about a Masters student who asked how teachers knew what to teach before the national curriculum: it is the perfect illustration of ownership of knowledge by policy becoming the definitive version of knowledge. The question is, however, whether policy, in holding this position, can respond flexibly to the needs of industry and business. Teacher Educators Knowledge, for teacher educators, is multiple. Dictated by policy, created through research, mediated through their own criticality and translated to both pre-service and established teachers in ways which are designed to ensure relevance and yet encourage teachers to retain an independence of judgment, knowledge is both given and contested. The role of the teacher, predicated on this model, is far more than the passive deliverer of one version of knowledge. Teacher educators thus have a unique position. They are both translators of policy knowledge and positioners of teachers as enquirers into the nature and claims of knowledge made by policy. Knowledge as prescribed vies with knowledge as selected. Intellectual and professional integrity means that teacher educators can relinquish neither role nor give one precedence over another. Knowledge about (that is, understanding context and construct) is held in balance with knowledge of (information), knowledge how (instrumental) with knowledge why (reason). Increasingly, however, as teacher education in the UK/England moved away from university to school-based models, and academic research is thus de-centred in teacher education, knowledge about and knowledge how have come to dominate the discourse available to teachers. Teacher educators have a responsibility to ensure the of and why are not lost to teachers, but the changing contexts mean that their work with teachers has been curtailed and fewer opportunities exist to disseminate these ideas to teachers now exist. The shift has to be for teacher educators to work with teachers as knowledge producers, not simply knowledge consumers. For this group of stakeholders, the central question is how is this to be achieved? Changing Knowledge Although realised differently, there is a common knowledge theme for each stakeholder: how to deal with changing knowledge in education. For teachers, the change is from passive to active knowledge; for policy, from static to responsive; for teacher educators, creating a knowledge culture which is integral to research and criticality. Changing Knowledge 67 Changing Knowledge: Teachers The national curriculum has positioned teachers as passive receivers of a version of knowledge which has been given legal status (e.g. HMSO, 1988). It is not open to debate or to criticality—or change. This knowledge forms the examination syllabuses which define success—or failure—for students. As a result, teachers have become compliant in meeting these knowledge demands (Brindley, 2013). However, the implications of this have been far-ranging, not least in serving to excise teacher control over knowledge and the associated discourse of criticality. This has re-positioned teachers professionally (Sachs, 1999) and in terms of their identity (Beijaard, Verloop, & Vermunt, 2000). In order to enact knowledge change, the demand on teachers is to recreate a version of self and the profession which has knowledge as active and self as agent of that creation. We might turn here to the work of Kincheloe (2003) as concerned with translating teachers into active creators of knowledge. The claims he makes for the significance of knowledge ownership, knowledge change and teacher critical engagement are profound. Kincheloe, Knowledge and Power in Education For Kincheloe (2003), understanding the place knowledge occupies in education is central. Indeed, the excision of teachers from the knowledge debate threatens education as the very root of democracy: My argument here is direct: reductionist ways of seeing, teaching, and learning pose a direct threat to education as a practice of democracy. (2003, p. 9) He argues that teachers are required by the state to occupy a professional role in an educational world defined through such reductionist policies, and is concerned to examine the means by which such positionings are secured. Kincheloe builds the case that the competencies movement—that is, the production of explicit and extensive lists of standards which are used to define and boundary professional knowledge under the heading of school improvement—is itself a shield to mask deeper ideological intents relating to the disempowerment and deskilling of teachers: …the powerful dynamics that shape education … are typically hidden from everyday experience … [but] create hierarchies which disempower teachers… (2003, p. 22) Such hierarchies call on power structures to maintain control: power is present, Kincheloe states, in ‘all educational visions, it is omnipresent in reform proposals, and it is visible in the delineations of what constitutes as educated person’ (2003, p. 17). It is Kincheloe’s (2003, p. 22) contention that one such power structure is knowledge itself, ‘The notion of knowledge has become a source of power’. If knowledge is itself centrally implicated in the construction and maintenance of ideological control, then ownership of that knowledge is key to dominance. Instead, teachers need to understand knowledge as created, not given: 68 5 Changing Knowledge, Changing Education Just as we understand that the world is socially constructed, we understand that research of any stripe creates a world – it does not reflect a world. … If knowledge is socially constructed, then critical … researchers understand that the debate over what knowledge is of most worth is never ending. … (2003, p. 4) Key here is Kincheloe’s reference to researchers. His argument is that teachers must be positioned as researchers in order to engage meaningfully with the arguments surrounding knowledge ownership: Thus teachers … must participate in the research act in education. They must help determine what is designated educational knowledge. (2003, p. 22) The fundamental claim of Kincheloe is that teacher research is the means whereby teachers can reclaim the autonomy of informed voice by exercising a conscious awareness of the political and ideological in order to bring about change. But, as we have seen, bringing about change through research also necessitates challenging versions of established knowledge, which have shaped both curriculum knowledge and teacher (professional) knowledge. By positioning the epistemological within the ideological, Kincheloe draws our attention to the varying constructs of knowledge with which teacher research is involved. Certainly the aim is clear: Teachers as researchers who are familiar with the philosophical, historical, and political context in which inquiry takes place, will … be better able to understand their roles as producers of knowledge … (2003, pp. 94-95) For Kincheloe, control of knowledge is achievable by teachers through research. Teacher research is therefore the key to changing knowledge. Changing Knowledge and Teacher Research In some ways in 2017, it might seem that Kincheloe’s argument has been realised in that the teacher (or practitioner) research movement has become high profile in education globally. However, just as knowledge is subject to ideological claims, so is the notion of research. Policy has not been slow in seeing the potential—and dangers—of a teacher research drive. In Kincheloe’s terms, teacher research is designed to be disruptive to the major narrative of ownership and control, and its purpose is not compliance but subversion. In policy terms, this is a perilous path to allow. The response of policy has been to co-opt both the research event and the language of research in ways which convert research to an act of compliance (Bottery & Wright, 2002). Policy-based teacher research seemingly has the accoutrements of research but is revealed as a corrupted version of research by the rhetoric of practicality and relevance for the classroom which accompanies it, with the notion of criticality notably absent. For Kincheloe, criticality has to be central to teacher research for it to be meaningful, however difficult and disruptive that might be: Questioning the unquestionable has never been a picnic in the park. In this complex context critical researchers analyse educational situations with the aim of improving the quality of the activity connected to them. In the spirit of complexity, however, teacher researchers Changing Knowledge 69 move to a new conceptual terrain, as they raise questions about the situation itself … critical teachers as researchers develop the capacity to expose the assumptions behind, the interests served by, and the unarticulated purposes of particular forms of educational activity. (Kincheloe, 2003, pp. 19-20) For teachers (and policy makers) then, changing knowledge is itself high stakes. It destabilises the policy status quo of knowledge without supplying a ready-made substitute. Instead teachers are required to generate knowledge which serves to inform their own practices, without certainty of action in terms of outcome. What is gained in this version of changing knowledge though is immense: control over knowledge is control over education, and a voice for teachers which is legitimised and powerful. Policy and Changing Knowledge Policy has, as we have seen, created a version of knowledge which has become the dominant and indeed unquestioned curriculum in schools. It is perhaps not surprising therefore that in 2017, debates about ‘teacher knowledge’ have largely disappeared. Research published on teacher knowledge per se has diminished significantly, and instead scholarly articles have moved towards a consideration of subject or technology-based debates (Charalambous & Hill, 2012; Walshaw, 2012 —mathematics; Rohann, Taconis, & Jochems, 2012; Hughes, 2005—technology; Nilsson & Loughran, 2012; Heller, Daehler, & Shinohara 2003—science; Gordon, 2012—English). The notion of teacher knowledge either as a debate or indeed outside of a subject-based curriculum is less evident, though see Hashweh (2005). In part, it may be argued that these are simply pragmatic responses to teachers’ current practices. But these practices have been generated by policy. In seeking to own knowledge, policy defines what education is for. However, in securing this control so comprehensively, policy is left with a dilemma. If, as it claims, knowledge in education must be flexible and responsive to the needs of industry and business (see for example Chap. 3), how does policy devise a curriculum and indeed a teaching profession that can respond to those needs? Knowledge in industry changes at exponential rates. Knowledge as represented in a legal document cannot. Policy’s response is to create ‘professional knowledge’. Professional Knowledge Two markers of knowledge change characterise professional knowledge: The context of knowledge in education as responsive to industry needs; and the willingness of teachers to relinquish the traditional sense of teacher professional development for those aligned with contemporary business needs. Hargreaves (1998) neatly combines the two by developing a thesis which identifies changes in society relating to new knowledge needs (serving the ‘Knowledge Society’), and 70 5 Changing Knowledge, Changing Education redefining professionalism as ‘creative’ in the sense of teachers as willing to embrace short-term and transient training to meet industry demands. The Knowledge Society Hargreaves states clearly that knowledge change in education is beyond policy drivers: The drivers of educational change are not always those of governmental policy; rather, it is rapid and continual change in the wider society that makes an impact on education. (1998, p. 10) A knowledge society requires an education system which aligns the curriculum with industry and business, and dispenses with subjects which do not provide knowledge workers. As such, knowledge in education becomes fluid and defined by ‘the authority of the market place’, where ‘market responsiveness’ is achieved through the monitoring of changes in knowledge in education through educational quangos. This definition of professional knowledge is, Bernstein claims, created by those seeking to claim ownership of knowledge change: There is a new concept of knowledge and of its relation to those who create and use it. … Knowledge should flow like money to wherever it can create advantage and profit. Indeed, knowledge is not like money, it is money. (2000, p. 87) Professional knowledge becomes that which is demanded by a school system in thrall to a global economy model of education. It is opportunist in essence, unconcerned with long-term commitment or any model of knowledge which pertains to deep or sustained learning in one particular area. Instead, changing knowledge takes its cue from profit, from commercialisation and from Hargreaves’ ‘wider society’. Schools become apprentice institutions for the workplace, and teachers suppliers of knowledge as commodity. What is left is the need to develop opportunism in order to survive professionally—the quality of ‘trainability’, that is, the ‘need … to profit from continuous pedagogic re-formations’ (2000, p. 72). Trainability If knowledge is changing in ways which are aligned to business and industry, existing professional development practices become not just irrelevant but dangerous in perpetuating a version of teacher professionalism predicated on knowledge as autonomy. Hargreaves puts it thus: … today’s dominant models for creating, disseminating and applying professional knowledge are now Changing Knowledge 71 • almost entirely inappropriate and ineffective • a serious waste of material and human resources • adding to low morale and the serious shortage of teachers The answer, I argue, lies in a new model of knowledge creation, one based on evidence of success in other sectors of society. To be effective in education, this new model must be adapted to support the continuous development and self-renewal of better teachers and teaching. (1998, p. 13: italics in original text) In order to meet these needs, teachers will have fundamentally to rethink their position in society, the values and beliefs they hold, the purposes ascribed to them by society and—critically—the values and purposes they themselves as professionals ascribe to the teacher role. Hargreaves sees the need to train teachers to understand and implement these changes (become ‘better teachers’) as paramount: … training better teachers for the knowledge society is a gigantic task, one that involves finding out ‘what works’ in schools and classrooms. And this process of knowledge creation and application must be a continuous one, since society continues to change very fast, constantly making new demands on the education service… Until teaching is perceived, inter alia, as a profession in which creative and adventurous but hard-headed pioneers feel at home, the negative image of the profession will persist. (1998, p. 13) It is interesting, however, to note the ways in which the language itself begins to confirm Hargreaves’ positioning of education: it is charged with being a ‘service’ which must respond to the ‘new demands’ made by society. Teachers need to be ‘trained’ in ‘what works’ (though see Biesta (2007) for a thorough refutation of this position). This new version of professional knowledge marginalises the agency of the teacher: Knowledge is divorced from persons, their commitments, their personal dedications. Once knowledge is separated from inwardness, from commitments, from personal dedication, from the deep structures of the self … then people may be moved about, substituted for each other and excluded from the market. (Bernstein, 2000, p. 87) And herein lies the crux of changing knowledge for policy. Education as a marketplace enables de-professionalisation. Teachers no longer own knowledge but are rather placed as conduits of policy demand. Policy manages its own paradox of ownership of knowledge as static by reconfiguring the national curriculum as skills based, supporting a knowledge economy and a knowledge society which confirms policy and industry as producers of the knowledge society, where ‘knowledge is not like money, it is money’ (2000, p. 87). Changing knowledge is, for policy, complete and watertight. Changing Knowledge: Teacher Educators The boundaries of knowledge for teacher educators carry neither the certainty, however, contested, of policy nor the directed surety of teachers. Instead, teacher educators are positioned as recognising knowledge as both a given and as 72 5 Changing Knowledge, Changing Education constructed; as contextualised by an economic need and by sociopolitical demands. Knowledge in flux—changing knowledge—is, for teacher educators, the framework in which they function on a day-to-day basis. Their discourse is not only simply (though not straightforwardly) one of compliance or resistance; rather they are the crucible where the two sets of knowledge claims meet, brokers of values and beliefs, and arbitrators of both. As such, their role cannot be one of partisan positioning, pitting one claim against another. They are compelled instead to engage with versions of knowledge which are contradictory and conflicting, responsive to different imperatives and shifting in focus. However, what is consistent for knowledge in education is that it is predicated on the notion of democracy. Inherent within democracy is the right to question and to bring about change, and as such, teachers and policymakers alike are tasked with ensuring students can become active in being part of, and sustaining, a democratic society: Empower [ing] students by giving them the knowledge and social skills they will need to be able to function in the larger society as critical agents … That means educating them to take risks … to fight both against oppression and for democracy … [teachers are thus] concerned with empowering students so they can read the world critically and change it where necessary. (Giroux, 1988, pp. xxxiii/xxxiv/127) In calling for this politicisation of education, however, Giroux’s positioning is neither for the domination of policy nor radicalisation of teachers, which he describes as having ‘serious flaws’, not least in the ways in which schools in this model are seen as acting solely as agents of capitalist reproduction, with teachers: … trapped in an apparatus of domination that works with all the certainty of a Swiss watch. Radical educators have focused on the language of domination to such a degree that it undercuts any viable hope for developing a progressive, political educational strategy… (2000, pp. xxxi-xxxii) Instead, what Giroux is calling for is creating a discourse of possibility: For radical pedagogy to become a viable political project, it has to develop a discourse that combines the language of critique with the language of possibility … (1988, pp. xxxi-xxxii) Discourse, as we saw in earlier chapters, is a shaper of reality, a carrier of values and beliefs and thus critical in creating an awareness of how knowledge is created and changed. Without the discourse of possibility, knowledge remains moribund and contested. However, achieving such a discourse calls for a fundamental shift in the role policy allows of teachers and the ways in which teachers themselves interpret that role. Instead of the tension of compliance and resistance, Giroux calls for a role of transformation—to position teachers as intellectuals whose role is to engage actively with knowledge. Change is thus both understood and wrought in ways that accede to student need in society and sustains the right to question and reversion that society: [teachers must become] … transformative intellectual[s], charged with the responsibility of ‘interrogat[ing] the … nature of … schooling. (1988, pp. xxix) Changing Knowledge 73 The responsibility of teachers is to move beyond any entrenched position on knowledge and instead consider how new ways of engaging with knowledge as transformational might impact on them as practitioners and as a profession. For the former, will classroom practice be enabled by teacher as transformative intellectual —Giroux’s position is one which points to the enhancement of the classroom: If what we mean by practice refers to a ‘cookbook’ of ‘how-to’s’ then the answer is a resounding ‘No’. To understand practice in these terms is to be at the mercy of a domesticating discourse which establishes a false dichotomy between theory and practice, effectively collapsing its dialectical relation …. If, on the other hand, we mean practice to refer to a daily engagement in a more empowering language by which to think and act critically in the struggle for democratic social relations and human freedom, then ‘Yes’. (McLaren, 1988, foreword to Giroux, 1988, pp. xx-xxi) As such, any position other than that of transformational intellectual, ‘renounce [s] … the critical intent of knowledge acquisition and education in general’ (Giroux, quoted in Kincheloe, 2003, p. 103). Giroux’s positioning of teachers as transformative intellectuals has, as its concomitant positioning, a rejection of the instrumental, but within an agenda of change. Equally, as transformative intellectuals, teachers stand to develop the profession. The discourse of possibility extends to knowledge change with teachers as agents of that change: In order to function as intellectuals, teachers must create the ideological and structural conditions necessary for them to write, research, and work with each other in producing curricula and sharing power. In the final analysis, teachers need to develop a discourse and set of assumptions that allow them to function more specifically as transformative intellectuals. (Giroux, 1988, p. xxxiv) The role of teacher educator similarly becomes transformed. The ‘structural conditions’ which may, echoing Kincheloe earlier, refer to teachers as researchers are now linked with the knowledge possessed by teacher educators. Practice is part of knowledge change, rather than a result of change imposition; change is now not a matter of response but rather of creation, and teacher educators are perfectly positioned to both contribute to that and reflect back to participants the impact of that approach. Similarly, the teacher educator has access to both the discourse of policy and of teacher resistance. The new discourse of possibility has to be developed and negotiated, built on an understanding of knowledge as transcending dichotomies of power. The teacher educator has a central place in developing this new language, able to bring both policy and teachers into a context described by student needs, both economic and social. Transformation here literally speaks of ownership of knowledge as flexible and responsive, as fluid and intelligent. Teacher educators function as, and support the development of, transformative intellectuals. Change becomes the goal, and teacher educators the agents of that change. 74 5 Changing Knowledge, Changing Education Conclusion In exploring the intersections between knowledge and stakeholders, the place of knowledge as a power construct has emerged strongly. Teachers, policy and teacher educators have different interests in knowledge in education, but equally these ultimately connect through democracy and the rights of students as stakeholders themselves in the future shaping of society. Knowledge in this chapter has been contextualised largely through examples in the UK; however, the trends that have played out are global in reach (Linguard, Martino, & Rezai-Rashti, 2013; Au & Feffare, 2015). The current position of knowledge as entrenchment, discord and conflict is ultimately unproductive. The role of teacher educators here is, as the last section suggested, critical in enabling knowledge to be reconceptualized through Giroux’s discourse of possibility. The role might be realised differently in different contexts: for some, it will be the development of the transformative intellectual through setting up teacher reading, writing and research networks; for others, the emphasis for teachers on the democratic rights of students as stakeholders in the knowledge debate. Whatever the route, it is clear that teacher educators are uniquely positioned in being able to predict, articulate and shape the future of education through changing knowledge. References Au, W., & Ferrare, J. J. (Eds.). (2015). Mapping corporate education reform: Power and policy networks in the neoliberal state. London: Routledge. Beijaard, D., Verloop, N., & Vermunt, J. D. (2000). Teachers’ perceptions of professional identity: An exploratory study from a personal knowledge perspective. Teaching and Teacher Education, 16(7), 749–764. Bernstein, B. B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control, and identity: Theory, research, critique (Vol. 4). Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. 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