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Global Trends, Epistemologies and Teacher Education Programmes (TEPs)

Increased participation rates, both domestic and international, have brought about profound changes in student populations in postgraduate teacher education programmes (TEPs) located in English-speaking countries. These programmes offer pre-service qualifications to those attempting to enter the profession as well as in-service professional qualifications for individuals already operating as teachers. Australia is a good example of an English-speaking country which provides such TEPs. Historically, the status of English as an international language, demand for teachers trained in the medium of English, opportunities to study overseas and improved employment prospects upon return have made these programmes more attractive for overseas students (Phakiti and Li 2011). Travelling abroad to obtain teacher qualifications is particularly popular with teachers from countries where English is the mandatory language of instruction in schools, such as the Republic of Kiribati (Liyanage 2009; Liyanage and Walker 2013) and Fiji (Shameem 2002).

Within this context, English medium TEPs around the world are embedded in deep-rooted epistemological struggles. Researchers have studied epistemological beliefs – beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing and knowledge organisation (Schommer-Aikins and Hutter 2002) – post William Graves Perry’s initial work (1968, 1970) in the late twentieth century. Subsequent studies (Kershner et al. 2013; McIntyre 2000) have shown that teachers’ construction of epistemologies is influenced by the tacit beliefs and approaches to knowledge developed within the communities of practice (CoPs) in which they progress to become teachers. This culture-bound process has been well documented in the research literature (e.g. see Arredondo and Rucinski 1996 for North America and Chile; Lee 1995 for Korea; and Mori 1997 for Japan), and, over the years, educational researchers have shown how this culture-bound experience of teachers translates into classroom practice (Berthelsen et al. 2002; Chan and Elliott 2000). In addition, TEPs depend on, and are responsive to, the socio-educational and sociohistorical attributes (Tuinamuana 2007) of the CoPs in which they operate, and, as such, they socialise their participants into the behaviours, beliefs and practices inherent in these CoPs (Richards 2008). This makes the provision and participation in these TEPs neither a neutral nor apolitical (Tuinamuana 2007) endeavour. This is especially true for overseas teacher learners who already have established epistemologies responsive to the CoPs in their home countries (Liyanage and Walker 2014).

Generally speaking, the enhancement of existing epistemologies is an expected goal of all effective educational experiences, not least TEPs. As such, tensions generated in participants – domestic and international – during training are considered forerunners of epistemological change. However, the danger lies in the unquestioned assumption that the resulting epistemological changes and their associated practices would have desirable consequences for all participants involved. This danger becomes more evident when tensions lead to the idealisation of newly formed epistemologies. For international/overseas participants coming from educational systems which may diverge from that of their TEP, this danger is particularly noticeable, as their perceptions of their original CoPs may be negatively evaluated on the basis of these newly formed and idealised epistemologies.

Postgraduate TEPs in Australia have rigorous criteria in place for monitoring student enrolments, especially those from overseas; the recognition of overseas students’ established competencies and existing credentials are dealt with seriously by Australian institutions. For example, these programmes require prospective participants to have successfully completed an undergraduate degree with evidence of sufficient English language proficiency. Therefore, when an overseas student gains admission to one of these programmes, one might reasonably argue that the quality of schooling and undergraduate training they had received in their original CoPs is, if not better, equal to corresponding Australian qualifications and that the student in question is an example of a successful educational outcome.

The greater the socio-educational incongruences between the two CoPs, the greater will be the struggles for reconciliation of the ‘new’ and ‘old’ epistemologies for effective post-training utilisation. Therefore, the enhancement of existing epistemologies of participants can be additionally complicated. The site of struggle for these individuals can be internal, relational and between the individual and the communities in which they practise. It can thus be argued that the emerging processes of globalisation, the internationalisation of education and the increasing ethnolinguistic diversity show evidence of deep epistemological chasms between TEPs and their participants. In this chapter, as a case in point, we use the post-training reflections of Noni (pseudonym), a female Fijian graduate of a postgraduate programme in TESOL (Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages) at an Australian university. We explore the development of xenocentric, or reverse ethnocentric, views, whereby Noni’s new epistemological beliefs regarding professional identity and best practice become idealisations that ultimately cast a shadow over the perception of educational settings in her home country.

Noni exemplified a successful outcome of the Fijian education system and was an experienced English teacher in the Fijian primary school system. Her post-training reflections were captured during an interview that lasted approximately an hour. The interview comprised open-ended questions which encouraged the participant to reminisce about her engagement with various educational activities, past and present, and to articulate how a now changed vision of epistemological beliefs might affect her future practice. The interview was audio-recorded and transcribed for subsequent analysis. Of the themes extracted from her reflections, those which were seen to be most relevant will be examined in the ensuing sections of this chapter through Noni’s articulation of changes to her original epistemological beliefs.

Culture-Bound Epistemologies and Pedagogical Practices

Throughout the interview, Noni reflected on her educational experiences in Fiji and Australia and attempted to account for dissimilarities she perceived between the two systems. However, her explanations showed clear favouritism, in that they were laden with negative appraisals of her original CoP. These appraisals were accompanied by declarations concerning knowledge acquired during the TEP, polarising the old and new practices.

During the interview, Noni’s unquestioning stance towards the pedagogical practices advocated in the TEP became evident. Her comparisons of what she had learnt during the TEP and the characteristics and practices of the Fijian system were frequently disapproving of the latter and unquestioningly accepting of the former. Rather than negotiating the feasibility of implementing the methods and practices learnt during the TEP in the Fijian CoP, she presented the knowledge gained as something which had been uncovered, rather than assimilated. Noni cited preferences for authentic and visual resources, appropriate textbooks and participative, process-led and student-centred classes as obligations which she would attempt to fulfil upon return to Fiji, rather than specific orientations to teaching designed for learners and classrooms bound by different cultural orientations to teaching and learning.

Noni’s neutral appraisal and desired assimilation of the practices advocated by the TEP pose barriers for future reintegration into her Fijian CoP. Specifically, her capacity to enact these idealised practices in the classroom has implications for self-evaluation of her effectiveness and for conceptualising and implementing student-centred practices. Despite many TEPs’ privileging of so-called participative pedagogies over transmissive pedagogies – a privileging which at its core reflects teaching practices in the Western world (Brown 2009; Wright 2010) – the programmes largely ignore calls to foster teachers’ pedagogical practices which are truly ‘responsive to the cultural identities of their students’ (Savage et al. 2011, p. 10). In doing so, practices which are positioned during the TEP as being inclusive, participative and student-led may, when implemented in Noni’s Fijian classrooms, act to marginalise students’ situated knowledge and practices (Kumaravadivelu 2003b). Locally defined cultural identities bound up with education, and defining the roles of ‘student’ and ‘teacher’, become subsequently undermined by new, imported definitions of these identities in which students and teachers may take on very different roles and responsibilities to those traditionally and locally endorsed (Nabobo-Baba 2006). This presupposes a cultural and epistemological shift within the confines of the classroom. In practice, students may present deep-rooted resistance to imported pedagogical practices, and this resistance is based on cultural tenets and notions which stretch far beyond the classroom (see Hanisi and Dewey 2010; Tuafuti 2010).

In Noni’s case, this dilemma casts doubt about her effectiveness as a teacher, questioning both her changed views about best practice and local understandings of these. If her new conceptions clash with locally situated ideas, then her pedagogical decision-making is caught between her CoP, with which she is deeply familiar, and the intellectual threads of a Westernised TEP, which present as a definitive, select set of notions and orientations to education. It is understandable that her acknowledgement of this conflict, encapsulated in the divergence of two communities of practice, became the arena for renegotiating her professional identity. However, this process of renegotiation was ultimately hindered by Noni’s preference for the pedagogical practices promoted by the newly completed TEP, practices which she appraised as more advanced and more effective than those of her local CoP. These preferences made Noni’s prospective reintegration into the Fijian CoP even more difficult, reducing her capacity to contribute in contextually responsive ways. The reality of implementing what she had learnt during the TEP presented certain practical and cultural difficulties. Excerpts from Noni’s interview are used in the following sections to discuss how these differences complicate her teaching practice. This discussion does not aim to critically examine the Fijian educational context nor its underlying cultural values. Rather, our discussion aims to highlight the epistemological and pedagogical struggles experienced from Noni’s perspective as a result of her own professional history and engagement with the TEP.

Epistemological and Pedagogical Struggles

The first example speaks to her pedagogical practice and use of resources in the classroom. Early in the interview, Noni mentioned the importance of using authentic resources with students, commenting that these resources were available to Fijian teachers but remained widely unused. She stated that:

One thing I’ve learnt during my course is the importance of having authentic material, which I’ve found very interesting because back in Fiji … we don’t often make use of the material, the authentic materials that are just lying there.

She later revisited this issue, reasoning that these authentic resources available in Fiji were in fact not relevant to her students at all; ‘the students in the classroom, they hardly go out to the hotels and all that stuff, so they wouldn’t really need those things, but we can learn about it’. As these excerpts illustrate, Noni’s pedagogical decision-making is compromised by her new awareness that her original CoP is critically lacking in some characteristics. Importantly, this awareness seems to only have emerged after she took part in the TEP, and her criticism appears to be unidirectional; that is, she now sees flaws in her local CoP which before were not apparent to her. While these comparative statements provide evidence of emerging (self-)reflexive practices, they remain at a rudimentary level. Indeed, rather than critically appraising the suitability of the TEP’s pedagogical orientation and applicability of methods introduced during the TEP for all educational contexts, Noni becomes extremely frustrated with her own CoP. This unidirectional criticism is bereft of the reflexivity required to effectively adapt her learning to her own CoP; in fact, Noni has graduated from her TEP disheartened by the struggles which await her on her return to Fiji. The TEP appears to have subverted opportunities for reconciling the differences between the two CoPs and generated a non-reflexive polarisation towards a more ‘desirable’ pedagogic model. This meant that her professional CoP and her existing knowledge were marginalised and reduced (Golombek 1994) and that the tacit characteristics of her educational context became a problem. Noni’s unidirectional criticism is further evidenced later in the interview, when she discussed the ‘new’ pedagogic methods in the classroom vis-à-vis Fijian cultural behaviours.

In this instance, Noni’s new learning inspired her to do more than simply innovate and engage in pedagogical practices. Rather, the epistemological orientation encapsulated in the TEP struck at the core of cultural tenets and behaviours. In discussing the importance of students’ views about learning, Noni was asked whether she held any convictions regarding students’ beliefs about learning and whether this had changed as a result of her studies. To this she replied that she had not considered this and clarified that ‘Now I felt [sic] it’s an important thing, to find out what they believe and what they think learning is about and then try and channel them … in the right direction towards … how to learn English’. However, despite the change in her convictions, Noni was unsure of how to uncover these beliefs, stating that observing the students would be the most feasible way of doing so. She concluded that uncovering the students’ views through dialogue would be complicated by the various cultural tenets regulating comportment in the classroom (see Nabobo-Baba 2006). As she explained:

With our Fijian culture, we have this thing called respect for elders, so most of the time when the teacher’s talking, you have to be quiet … I guess that’s why it’s quite hard to get feedback at times, because the students are not responding and telling you what they want.

These differences present greater issues than the lack of available resources discussed earlier; they represent an ingrained resistance to ways in which Noni has learnt to communicate with her students through the TEP. Respect for elders reflects the centralisation of authority in the hands of the community elders, common in Pacific cultures (Hanisi and Dewey 2010). Cultural tenets such as this inform pedagogies used in schools, including teacher authority and student behaviour. By staying quiet in class, students are exhibiting a form of deference to their teachers (Tuafuti 2010). As Tuafuti (2010, p. 5) explains, ‘When children go to school they are often reminded to honour their teacher and do as they are told. The origin of such behaviour lies in people’s cultural relationships’. However, rather than recognising this behaviour as being a culturally different approach to interaction, Noni appears to have conceptualised the students’ restrained behaviour in class as being a potential barrier. By privileging a verbally participative classroom, stemming from a Western approach to education, the students’ behaviour is subsequently positioned as being an obstacle, rather than an orientation, to learning. As a student herself, Noni has clearly invested time and work in successfully completing the TEP, and both readily and accurately reproduces the epistemological orientations to teaching which were advocated during her TEP. In this way, she is a model graduate of the TEP, having not only understood but also begun to embody its espoused conception of a ‘good teacher’. At the same time, she also demonstrates an enhanced awareness of the education system to which she intends to return.

These outcomes highlight an issue at the core of the design and delivery of Western TEPs. Indeed, TEPs are both grounded in and responsive to a particular context (Tuinamuana 2007), and, as such, they reflexively interact with the sociocultural attributes of specific CoPs. Noni’s TEP made no explicit claims about the socio-educational and epistemological principles under which it operates. This has undesired consequences for participants’ future practice, as it denies opportunities for them to evaluate the relative usefulness and the transferability of content to other CoPs. Noni’s unidirectional appraisal of certain teaching approaches and dismissal of others are clear evidence of this. Rather than foregrounding the need to contextualise ‘instruction in cultural forms, behaviours, and processes of learning familiar to students’ (Savage et al. 2011, p. 185), the TEP presented what appeared to be a neutral approach to teaching, with any barriers to the implementation of this subsequently positioned as problems systematic of less effective education systems. This stance takes for granted the effectiveness of a Western approach to education and ignores the impracticality of applying this approach in other contexts.

Contextual (Ir)Relevance and Self-Marginalisation

As a successful product and subsequent teacher practitioner of the Fijian educational system, Noni is aware that her Australian qualification carries prestige. However, rather than satisfaction with possessing such a prestigious credential, she expresses uncertainty as to its utility and her future place in Fiji. She states, ‘I’m going back with my Masters, so I don’t know where they’re going to put me’. Aside from discussing the practical attributes of her future position within the system, Noni is uncertain of how she can utilise the concepts acquired during the programme. Initially, her responses are characterised by enthusiasm:

I’m looking forward, actually looking forward to go [sic] home and just to use it. I want to use it… I want to take everything back. Anything that I can’t take back… No, I’ll make use of everything that I’ve learnt in the best possible way.

Later, however, Noni acknowledges that there may be some difficulties in realising this goal, stating ‘But if there are limitations that are beyond me, then I won’t be able to make use of anything’.

The resignation with which Noni concludes that she may not be able to make use of anything she had learnt during the programme profoundly calls into question the utility of the information to which she was exposed. This resignation is expressed with frustration, directed towards a context which she describes as being characterised by a lack of awareness. In assessing the Fijian context, Noni effectively legitimates the subordination of the Fijian context through self-marginalisation (see Kumaravadivelu 2003a). This critical self-subordination can have serious implications for teachers’ professional identities , as well as for their professional learning and the assimilation of new knowledge.

The unfamiliar epistemological orientations around which the TEP was designed and delivered appear to have robbed Noni of the agency with which she could critically appraise her new learning. For Noni, the knowledge that she acquired during the TEP was decontextualised from her CoP, and her existing knowledge was undervalued. As Golombek (1994) argues, this decontextualised knowledge, which is often of a scholarly nature, may exclude other forms of teacher knowledge, including cultural and personal knowledge. This exclusion may, in turn, delegitimise and marginalise the cultural and personal aspects of teaching. It must be noted that despite struggling to place the acquired concepts and negotiate their relevance within the Fijian education system, Noni expressed enthusiasm regarding her reintegration into the Fijian CoP, particularly concerning her work with other Fijian teachers. She stated ‘I want to take everything back’ and referenced a desire to share her knowledge with other teacher practitioners, saying:

I will share that idea during our teaching professional meetings that we have just to update them with what I’ve learnt and the different things I’ve – approaches – that I’ve learnt. That I think is very important for us to know.

Along with wanting to take the knowledge she had gained back to Fiji and to implement it, Noni also suggested that, if possible, she would like to work to change the Fijian curriculum to align with the different educational approaches presented in the Australian TEP.

However, this optimism is in contrast with Noni’s recognition of the limitations of the system, as illustrated in her statement, ‘but if there are limitations that are beyond me, then I won’t be able to make use of anything’. This reflects the precarious nature of participation in a foreign CoP (Liyanage and Bartlett 2008). Washington Miller (2008, p. 282) argues that effectively managing practitioners requires not only that they exist in a professional community but that they are ‘welcomed and engaged in a dynamic relationship’ in that community. The outcomes of being a professional ‘misfit’, of not being engaged or accepted in a community of practice, and of subsequently feeling isolated in the profession can be detrimental to a teacher’s wellbeing, leading to dissatisfaction, and, eventually, to burnout. Cunningham (1983) identified isolation as a salient stressor in the teaching profession. Conversely, Greenglass et al. (1996) found that support from colleagues and supervisors buffered the effects of stress and ultimately helped to prevent professional burnout. Noni’s statement suggests that she is aware of the importance of developing an engaged and responsive relationship with her CoP, embodied in a professional identity congruent with that community. Acknowledging that as a teacher practitioner she is limited by the rhetorical and physical scope of her community, Noni resigns herself to potentially not using her new knowledge, despite her enthusiasm to do so. In an era of heightened ethical awareness in language education (Kumaravadivelu 2012b), we are, now more than ever, exhorted to critically consider the unintended outcomes and implications resulting from the provision of such educational experiences. However, there remains a silence in many of the discussions, consultations and policy papers about teacher education programmes (TEPs) and specifically about these programmes’ role, efficacy and ethical practice.

Path to Emancipation

As the data suggest, the curricula of TEPs tend to neutrally model and transmit teaching practices embedded in Western epistemologies (Brown 2009; Wright 2010), which, as such, are not necessarily transferrable to other educational contexts. On the other hand, participants’ financial and professional investment in such programmes without critically engaging with their contents may also compound to produce detrimental effects upon reintegration into their own, distinctive CoPs. Against this background, critical approaches to pedagogy (Brenner 2012; Crookes 2010; Freire 1970; Giroux 1988; Guilherme 2002; Hawkins and Norton 2009) embedded in a number of ‘post-discourses’ (postmodernist, post-structuralist, postcolonial and post-transmission perspectives) (Kumaravadivelu 2012b) can help us redress the educational design of TEPs. As noted by Hawkins and Norton (2009), while there is a growing body of literature within the fields of TESOL, applied linguistics and second-language acquisition that ‘addresses critical theoretical stances around language use, language teaching, and language planning […] More difficult to find are accounts of critical language teacher education practices’ (p. 33).

Here, the term ‘critical’ can be understood both as the development of individuals’ specific thinking skills and attitudes (e.g. critical thinking, self-reflexivity; cf. Clark and Dervin 2014) and an overarching pedagogical framework that problematises practice, in which case the term acquires additional ethical, social and political connotations (Pennycook 2004). Effective implementation of this critical approach ultimately entails re-envisioning TEPs, their curricula, the role of teacher educators and the type of educators they aim to prepare. Critical approaches are situated, responsive and contextual (Hawkins and Norton 2009). As such, aside from the integration of situated or localised content into teacher education curricula, an increased focus on cultural responsiveness could provide a possible counterbalance to the unquestioned dominance of a Western sociocultural orientation in TEPs. Cultural responsiveness seeks to ‘contextualise instruction in cultural forms, behaviours, and processes of learning familiar to students’ (Savage et al. 2011, p. 185). A critical and culturally responsive approach engages teacher educators and teacher learners, regardless of whether they are domestic or international, in awareness-raising processes aimed to challenge unquestioned beliefs and practices and, in so doing, prevent teacher education from falling into potentially apolitical inertia.

Indeed, as Kumaravadivelu (2014, p. 320) argues, ‘teacher education programmes must provide student teachers with opportunities to voice their unique professional subjectivities within the historical, social, and political exigencies under which they operate’. Fostering teachers’ exploration of unexamined beliefs can be thought of as initiating an ongoing, life-long engagement in self-reflexive practices. Effective integration of such critical approaches can provide favourable conditions to trigger what Kumaravadivelu (2012a) calls ‘epistemic breaks’. In this context, breaking away from Western-oriented epistemologies by engaging critically with TEPs can help participants in the development of locally relevant pedagogies .

Here, it is important to draw attention to what Morgan and Ramanathan (2005, p. 162) describe as the ‘paradox that arises in the decolonising impulse’. In other words, advocating for the development of critical, self-reflexive teaching epistemologies may suggest a hidden assumption that criticality does not or has not:

…existed in non-Western realities and as such [has] to be imported into local contexts. We feel that it would be more pedagogically productive to suppose that all realities, Western and non-Western, have versions of oppositional readings, cross-examinations, and self-conscious, self-analytic orientations in them. (Morgan and Ramanathan 2005, p. 162)

We subscribe to these views, and, in addition, we argue that, in this context, self-reflexive epistemologies may effectively lead to the development of a critical – in every sense of the word – stance towards teachers’ own teaching philosophies and teaching practices, to become what Giroux (1988) calls ‘transformative intellectuals’. Giroux (1988) argues that teachers should develop a capacity for critical self-reflection and for conscious action directed at dealing with perceived social inequalities. Here, the teacher’s adoption of a critical stance presupposes the understanding of reality ‘as a process, undergoing constant transformation’ (Freire 1970, p. 56, emphasis in original). Freire (1970) argued that such an understanding of reality should aim towards conscious participation in the process of transforming this reality. Kumaravadivelu (2003a, p. 17) also argues that the essential feature of teachers as transformative intellectuals is ‘their ability and willingness to go beyond the professional theories transmitted to them through formal teacher education programmes and try to conceive and construct their own personal theory of teaching’. As such, it is imperative for teacher educators responsible for the development and delivery of TEPs to model this stance and, in so doing, empower the teacher learners to reflect on the historical, political, social and cultural contexts in which these programmes are embedded. This, in turn, involves re-envisioning our role as teacher educators with a mission that goes beyond transmissive models of education, to strive for transformative and emancipatory learning and teaching practices for all participants.

These practices are concerned with bringing to light subjugated knowledge and uncritically assimilated assumptions about ourselves and our realities. In direct opposition to transmissive models of teaching and learning which seek to develop skills and knowledge, transformative practices aim to help individuals to develop ‘a new understanding of something that causes a fundamental reordering of the paradigmatic assumptions she holds and leads her to live in a fundamentally different way’ (Brookfield 2003, p. 142).

This ‘fundamental reordering of paradigmatic assumptions’ (Brookfield 2003, p. 142) is underpinned by what Mezirow (1981, p. 6) has described as ‘perspective transformation’:

The emancipatory process of becoming critically aware of how and why the structure of psycho-cultural assumptions has come to constrain the way we see ourselves and our relationships, reconstituting this structure to permit a more inclusive and discriminating integration of experience and acting upon these new understandings.

Mezirow (2000) extended his notion of ‘perspective transformation’ into transformative learning – a theory of adult learning underpinned by philosophical (Socrates, Marx, Hegel, Habermas) as well as psycho-developmental and educational (Freud, Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner, Freire) approaches to learning. By transformative learning (TL) he refers to:

… the processes by which we transform our taken-for-granted frames of reference (meaning perspectives, habits of mind, mind-sets) to make them more inclusive, discriminating, open, emotionally capable of change and reflective so that they may generate beliefs and opinions that will prove more true or justified to guide action. (Mezirow 2000, pp. 7–8)

Following the principles of TL, we thus argue that, in guiding these transformative ‘perspective shifts’ in TEPs, teacher educators focus on helping participants – domestic and international – to question Western and non-Western pedagogies to unveil hegemonic discourses in practices largely presented as ‘dominant’, ‘neutral’ and ‘universally applicable’. While this process involves comparing and contrasting the various epistemologies and contexts from which they are borne, it should not result in favouring one approach over another. On the contrary, the critical nature of this process should help participants transcend the formulation of comparative thoughts to move towards the meta-analysis of their own epistemologies and, in so doing, acknowledge the complexity of educational contexts.

In the long term, these new understandings can emancipate or liberate individuals to bring about educational, social and political change. Transformative and emancipatory practices are thus conceived as ongoing processes which transcend the classroom setting. Indeed, upon completion of TEPs, when teachers return to their local contexts, it is through their own CoPs that socio-educational change continues to take place. According to Southwell et al. (2005), active involvement in CoPs holds the most potential to catalyse sustainable, systemic change. Understanding and helping teacher learners to critically engage with global and local CoPs are thus crucial in enabling change.

Summary

In aligning with the epistemological principles advocated by the Australian TEP, our participant enthusiastically engaged with the programme and completed it successfully. However, her reflections provided evidence of an inner struggle to develop a professional identity which was responsive to both the TEP and her professional CoP in Fiji. Difficulties experienced in reconciling the two communities of practice resulted in a conflict not only regarding how to implement what she had learnt during her TEP but also what aspects of her training would be feasible within the Fijian context. Furthermore, her personal identification with the orientation to pedagogic principles advocated by the TEP hindered her development of a professional identity congruent with the CoP to which she desires to return. While aligning herself with the TEP, Noni was negatively critical in her appraisal of the Fijian system; the incongruence between the TEP and her CoP augmented her criticism of the latter, rather than the former. In fact, no negative appraisal at all was directed at the content of the TEP.

Attention therefore needs to be directed towards the TEP, which pre- and in-service teachers from diverse education and cultural backgrounds, like Noni, complete. Importantly, the non-responsiveness of the content and uncritical delivery of the programme to educational contexts outside of Australia call into question the ethical responsibility of such programmes, which are offered widely to overseas students. Further than simply the practical usefulness of knowledge imparted during the programme, this non-responsiveness can cause teachers to privilege the dominant voice of the TEP, as was the case with Noni. In such cases, participants’ post-training alignments with the rhetorical stances of the TEPs can result in undesirable outcomes, where participants struggle to move beyond uncritical and negative comparisons hindering any meaningful reintegration into their own CoPs.

Conclusion

This chapter explored the educational experiences of a teacher who completed an offshore TEP. Our exploration focused on the development of idealised conceptions of professional identity and best practice and the resulting negative appraisal of the educational settings in the home country. Although unable to generalise on the basis of one teacher’s experience, we argue that explorations of teacher learning, such as the one illustrated in this chapter, are paramount to the improvement of TEPs. There is a pressing need to rationalise and substantiate the quality of learning and teaching in higher education institutions. This increased preoccupation with quality assurance accountability is set to intensify in the future (Egron-Polak and Hudson 2010). Here, accountability is concerned with the alignment of practices with espoused learning outcomes. Our exploration of Noni’s experiences revealed a glaring lack of alignment between these, which resulted in idealised, xenocentric and self-marginalising epistemological beliefs regarding professional identity and best practice. Given these conditions, we have argued for taking a critical approach to the development and delivery of TEPs, as well as for re-envisioning of the role of teacher educators and the type of teachers they aim to prepare. Above all, we argue that attempts to neglect the seriousness of the issues discussed in this chapter are an abrogation of responsibility. We highlight the need for TEPs to develop ethically responsible pedagogical practices that acknowledge the sensitive nature of these issues and, in so doing, promote the development of an emancipatory and transformative educational stance.