Initial Teacher Education as Academic Work and Possibilities for Transformation Seminar

Framed by cultural–historical activity theory, itself a development of a Marxian analysis of work, the research shows how, under conditions of academic capitalism, the teacher educators were denied opportunities to accumulate capital (e.g. research publications, grants) and were proletarianised. The reasons for this stratification were complex but two factors were significant: first, the importance of maintaining certain kinds of relationships with schools in the name of ‘partnership’ teacher education; and, second, the historical cultures of teacher education in higher education. The seminar will conclude by exploring some possibilities for transforming teacher education as academic work.