After three decades, many South Africans continue to experience the difficult and lingering effects of apartheid government measures, which enforced separate and unequal social, political, and educational opportunities. South Africans who were classified as 'non-white' experienced more violent and inhumane physical and emotional apartheid racial injustices. And, as a mathematics teacher educator in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, it is important that I consider pre-service teachers' memories of school mathematics to enhance their learning in their mathematics teacher education modules. I offer an arts-inspired self-study approach that I benefited from to come to terms with my own family's emotional distress caused by apartheid racial segregation that led to the ostracization of some family members. This adaptable, purposeful self-study may also be useful for primary mathematics pre-service teachers who had emotionally disturbing teaching and learning memories in South African mathematics classrooms and presents a way of improving my professional practice as a mathematics education teacher in the post-apartheid South African context. My research question is: 'What can I learn from my reflexive arts-inspired self-study of my apartheid life experiences to improve my mathematics pre-service teacher education practice in post-apartheid South Africa?'
Transitioning from a K-12 teacher to a teacher educator involves a significant transformation in professional identity, characterized by intellectual, pedagogical, and cultural challenges. This self-study explores the first author's journey as an international graduate student transitioning from teacher to mathematics teacher educator in the United States. In this study, I investigate how my identity developed through reflective experiences, challenges, and tensions during the transition from traditional to inquiry-based teaching environments. Drawing on a staged perspective of identity development and a framework emphasizing competence, performance, and recognition, the findings highlight the dynamic and ongoing nature of teacher educator identity formation. Findings suggest that professional identity development involves periods of advancement and hesitation, influenced by external recognition, social participation, and the ongoing negotiation of past and new identities. The implications highlight the necessity for targeted support, including induction programs, mentoring, and communities of practice to foster the growth of novice teacher educators, especially international students navigating dual transitions. This study emphasizes the importance of continuous reflection and adaptation in professional growth as a teacher educator.
We draw on collaborative self-study methodology to examine how we leverage our role as university supervisors to enhance cohesion between teacher candidates' experiences in their coursework and the roles they take on at their field placements in connection with our program's Equity and Justice Teaching Framework. Through investigating our roles as doctoral student university supervisors, we understand how teacher educators can serve to mediate learning across spaces through inviting mentor teachers in and navigating tensions. Our findings serve as an entry point for other teacher educators striving to build programmatic cohesion between university coursework and students' field placement experiences with attention paid to equity and justice. In the findings and discussion, we turn toward issues of accountability by recognizing how our coaching is embedded in contexts, in the navigation of expectations that we hold for ourselves as well as teacher candidates and mentor teachers, and ultimately, in understanding how these expectations originate from a value-determined stance. We suggest that collective reflective practices among university supervisors within teacher education programs can serve to strengthen the ability to mediate tensions when teaching for equity and justice between the many spaces supervisors inhabit.
While student voice has become increasingly prominent within educational research, little is understood about the challenges faced by teachers in enacting student voice practices (SVPs) in everyday teaching, particularly challenges within the affective domain. The aim of this research is to explore the emotional dimension of one teacher's enactment of SVPs in primary physical education. We employ a Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practices (S-STTEP) approach to explore the experience of the first author (Grace) of enacting SVPs in physical education across two academic years. We analyze her written reflections, along with the transcripts of meetings with a critical friend. The findings center on Grace's experience of managing expectations and navigating the non-linear journey to becoming a student voice pedagogue. In enacting SVPs, Grace worked through conflicting emotions tied to various expectations; namely her own, her students, and the external expectations placed on her as a classroom teacher. In addition, Grace's emotions played a key role in her perception of her professional identity as she grew as a student voice pedagogue and came to understand what that meant to her and others. Engaging in reflection-on-reflection and interacting with a critical friend were key in helping her navigate, make sense of, and move past challenging emotional experiences. This research holds important implications for supporting teachers by promoting collaborative, reflective approaches to practitioner research, such as self-study, as they navigate emotional challenges associated with the implementation of SVPs and other innovations in primary education.
Neoliberal reforms in higher education have created 'siloed' environments for teaching and scholarly activity and discouraged collaboration. Cross-institutional self-study communities of practice (SSCoPs), which refer to groups of at least four members committed to working together to study their teacher education practices, are one antidote to this lack of mentorship that supports teacher educators in their research, service, and teaching. Despite the known benefits of SSCoPs, self-study experts continually call for more groups to share examples of their successes and challenges for others in the field to learn from. This manuscript answers this call by contributing how one multi-institutional longitudinal SSCoP functions, what has contributed to our collaboration, and lessons learned along the way. This self-study answered the question: What impacted our collaboration within our SSCoP? and provides findings based on group reflections, course assignment and syllabi annotations, and a focus group. The findings highlight the challenges and opportunities that encouraged our collaborative SSCoP. We describe how we created a safe space to be vulnerable, the chosen accountability this group provided, the professional growth we experienced, and how we developed a shared leadership approach over time. Ultimately, this research argues that the friendships developed, the professional networks established, and the larger sense of camaraderie amongst members of an SSCoP are essential to developing strong teachers in higher education. We advocate for other faculty to have opportunities to engage in similar professional development groups.
This article reports on my experiences as a tenured teacher educator who spent a semester back 'home' in a middle school science classroom after 12 years. The goal of this work was to understand the ways in which the teaching profession has changed over the past decade, which included a global pandemic, to improve/update my teaching of teaching in the areas of science methods and instructional technology, in particular. Using self-study research, I reflected daily on a private blog viewable only by a critical friend, who used the comment feature to regularly engage in the reflective space. These blog posts and comments were then analyzed thematically through a critical lens revealing themes such as tensions, workload, and teacher educator practice. The experience not only helped me to understand and consider revisions of my teacher education pedagogy but also allowed me to rediscover my passion for teaching in the place where it all began, a place that still felt like home, which led to deeper insights into the daily work of teachers and the importance of spending time in schools.
This study aims to explore how Asian American female faculty members in U.S. higher education experience and navigate social and academic dynamics. Building upon the AsianCrit and Womanism framework and adopting Suda as a culturally responsive ontoepistemology, four Asian American female faculty engaged in a two-year long co/autoethnographic self-study. The Suda produced vivid accounts of the experiences and challenges faced by these faculty members and their acts of resistance from multifaceted contexts and perspectives. The collective findings from this study offer implications for higher education institutions to become more equitable, sensitive, and responsive to the experiences and resistance strategies of Asian American female faculty to help systematically disrupt stereotypical images, unjust expectations, and epistemic exclusion.
This narrative self-study utilizes storying as inquiry into narrative and as narrative inquiry, where story is both noun and verb, data and method, to describe what I learned from immersing myself in K-12 school communities to engage in student-facing practices. Through a series of storied cases describing my student-facing practices and reflexive analyses, I highlight key interactions and experiences that reveal how my active involvement in schools enriched my understanding of current classroom dynamics and allowed growth in my being and becoming a teacher educator. This engagement seeks to help me to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application when working with preservice teachers while fostering a more relevant and effective teacher education. As a teacher educator practicing teaching and being within school communities, I have learned ways to better support and prepare future teachers for the challenges of diverse and dynamic classroom environments. I have also used student-facing practices to solidify my commitment to social justice and educational freedom.
Amid ongoing calls to center equity and social justice in teacher preparation, teacher educators are increasingly expected to prepare teacher candidates to recognize and address systemic inequities in K-12 education. While research highlights the importance of social justice pedagogy, fewer studies focus on how teacher educators themselves learn to enact this work, especially within politically conservative contexts. This collaborative self-study explores the experiences of an Equity Learning Community composed of teacher education faculty and doctoral students committed to advancing social justice in a large undergraduate teacher preparation program. Through engagement in a supportive Equity Learning Community, we became more comfortable with discomfort, developed new approaches to navigating resistance, and expanded our vision of social justice teacher education. The study illustrates how reflective, community-based learning can lead to meaningful and sustained change in practice for teacher educators.
This study examines three teacher educators' struggles navigating thresholds and crossing boundaries as academic leaders. When boundaries between different professional roles are crossed, new in-between spaces of practice are created that can provide rich personal and professional learning, but boundary crossings also present challenges. This collaborative self-study of teacher education practices (S-STEP) draws on online conversations and reflections to explore how to navigate the crossings successfully. Using thematic analysis, codes and themes were generated which were then examined through Akkerman and Bakker's four mechanisms for learning in boundary crossings: identification, coordination, reflection, and transformation. Findings show that leadership roles required a different identification or presence and presentation (clothing choices were a visible and strategic delineation of the authors' former and current roles); The importance of coordination through conversations with other academic leaders about the authors' professional and personal struggles; navigating boundaries required communication using an appropriate voice and represents a form of transformation. The authors conclude that there is a strong alignment between reflection and S-STEP methodology as both involve learning about one's own and others' practices. Understanding these aspects does not ensure success in academic leadership, but it increases the likelihood of positive outcomes. The authors have come to understand that professional boundaries are permeable, and academics can choose to traverse them with greater confidence by drawing on a repertoire of strategies. Collaborative S-STEP has served as a powerful tool to better navigate these boundaries.
As four White university teacher educators, we engaged in a self-study community of practice to unpack our attempts to take on roles as antiracist educators. We were guided by the research question: How do educator preparation faculty leverage an online self-study community of practice to rehearse intentions of antiracist pedagogies and practice? Within this group, we read two texts, participated in six recorded sessions and created 15 arts-based artifacts as we reflected on our antiracist pedagogy and practice. Although we each experienced the self-study community of practice differently, it served as a rehearsal space for shifting from feelings-based advocacy toward outcome-focused advocacy. New knowings demonstrated individual changes attributed to the work of the SSCoP and SSCoP process outcomes. Moving forward in this current educational climate, we remain committed to critically examine what constitutes praxis to develop and assert identities as antiracist teacher educators individually and collectively.
In this collaborative Self-Study of Teacher Education Practice (S-STEP), two researchers and critical friends addressed epistemic ignorance as a significant barrier to Indigenizing teacher education curricula in one Canadian university. The call to Indigenize curricula in Canada extends through all levels of education, making this study particularly important within teacher education. Specifically, this study asked: What can Indigenous and non-Indigenous teacher educators learn from each other about epistemic ignorance through collaborative S-STEP as they work towards Indigenization? This study follows the methodological tenets of S-STEP research and the 5Rs of Indigenous Research Methodology. Triangulated data was collected over six months through online informal meetings, reflective journal keeping, and note-taking. The data was thematically analyzed, and three themes emerged: settler colonial ignorance, white fragility, and critical consciousness. These themes were juxtaposed with three themes found in the literature: epistemic ignorance and white fragility, critical humility, and relational pedagogy. Findings highlighted the transformative potential of collaborative self-study between Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers to uncover moments of epistemic ignorance as a barrier to Indigenizing curricula. Implications for teacher education include the need to address discomfort associated with epistemic ignorance to facilitate authentic efforts when Indigenizing curricula.
Building on our experiences with collaborative poetic self-study, we explored the use of poetry in self-study research, focusing on its application at the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (S-STEP) Castle Conference from 1996 to 2023. Our central question was, 'How can poetic self-study make a difference, impact, and inspire the future of education?' Drawing on 14 peer-reviewed Castle Conference proceedings, we identified 25 poetic self-studies in which researchers used self-created poetry to analyze, develop, represent, and generate new knowledge. Through close reading, we examined recurring ideas and connections, emphasizing the motivations and impacts of poetic self-study. Using a multilayered analysis approach, including creating and interpreting two pantoum poems, we distilled vital insights into poetry's distinctive contributions to self-study. Our discoveries highlight several central understandings. Poetry has been part of the self-study movement since its inception, with its diverse treatment and influence increasing in recent years. Poetic self-studies promote collaborative creativity and learning and significantly advance educational aims in various contexts. These studies bridge personal reflection with broader educational impact by enhancing learning opportunities for researchers and those affected by their professional practices. Poetry enables self-study researchers to express and reimagine deeply felt emotions and insights, providing a powerful medium for self-exploration, critical conversations, and imaginative expression. Additionally, poetic self-study cultivates diverse understandings of educational experiences and knowledge that may evade conventional academic methods and texts. Finally, through poetry, self-study researchers envision ethical and optimistic possibilities for professional practice, contributing to a more equitable and just future.
This inquiry is a self-study analysis of my journey from victim of childhood sexual abuse to survivor to teacher educator advocate. I have compiled artifacts (personal and professional journals, memory pieces, and teaching resources) that I have written across the span of my academic career relative to my journey. Using tools of discourse analysis, I considered how I am positioned in the texts, the tone of the texts, and how I present my agency. In doing so, my aim was to detail and understand the transformation I underwent from being a former victim of childhood sexual abuse to becoming an educator advocate. By illuminating my process, I provide a model for other educators in coming to terms with their own childhood trauma(s) and how trauma(s) shape who they are and how they teach. Finally, I provide a summary of the pedagogy I developed to use my story as an instructional text in a preservice secondary education course. I encourage teacher educators to consider if, when, and how they might use their own trauma narratives in the service of preparing teachers who are able and committed to truly knowing and caring for their students.
This collaborative self-study examines bi-directional mentoring interactions between two faculty, a graduate teaching assistant, and a preservice teacher within a literacy methods course to examine the impact on shaping teacher identity and mentoring roles. By observing and coaching preservice teachers and the graduate teaching assistant, and reflecting on these interactions iteratively, we used a community of practice framework to argue that teaching involves continuous bi-directional learning and improvement through apprenticeship. Our findings suggest that multilayered mentorship deepens understanding of literacy and language teaching, positively shaping the identities of both mentors and mentees. Bi-directional mentoring fosters mutual engagement, builds more responsive and inclusive educators, establishes shared repertoires through collaborative practice, and encourages the adoption of new collaborative roles. In these politically treacherous times relational mentorship in literacy education is needed now more than ever to prepare educators to make a greater impact on their prospective students.
I came to self-study and Herstmonceux Castle as a researcher from the Canadian prairies who was keenly interested in rurality, rural identity, teacher/teacher educator identity, and the complex ways that such socially constructed concepts interact. What I found as a new self-study researcher and first-time attendee at the Castle Conference, was a serendipitous journey that profoundly and synchronously influenced my identity, practice, and research. The study I conducted, which looked at the impacts of rural experience and ways of knowing, doing, and being on the identities and practices of teachers and teacher educators, allowed me to explore the notion/concept of rural capital and the many ways it is enacted and utilized in educational settings. Through the analysis of multiple data sources, including my master's and doctoral theses, a video created in my doctoral program in 2010, and five recorded Zoom conversations with educators who also had rural backgrounds/experience(s), four main categories or themes related to the enactment of rural identity in practice emerged: advocacy and commitment, relationality and connection, curriculum and pedagogy, and leadership and service. Together, these themes highlight the complex and multifaceted ways rural experience impacts not only the identities of rural educators but also their actions inside and outside the classroom. In addition to profound impacts on my own identity, practice, and research, such understandings have much to offer the field of rural education in terms of teacher preparation, recruitment and retention, and the sustainability of rural education and communities.
This self-study explored novice self-study researcher Meg's professional development and self-study methods evolution through her writing of five self-studies with the support of critical friends. Meg and her critical friends tried to understand how and in what way support from critical friends empowered Meg to go beyond the 'so what' of research. They aimed to display the evolving process of Meg's self-study methods and critical friends' support to develop new knowledge about her self-study experiences. The studies of the Castle Conference experiences and community of practice theoretically framed the study. Meg's five self-studies were the primary data source of this larger self-study. Data were analyzed with critical friends' inquiry. The findings illustrated the three critical nodal moments that Meg experienced with her critical friends. Collaborative dialogue with critical friends enabled Meg to gain self-study knowledge, methodological and writing skills and resiliency to conduct complex research. Critical friends' professional, academic and personal support empowered Meg to grow as a confident self-study researcher. These experiences helped her to develop an S-STEP community within a Japanese professionals' community as their critical friend. This study contributes to developing professional knowledge regarding the power and importance of critical friendship. A novice researcher was able to engage in rich learning experiences both in research design and data analysis with experienced researchers as critical friends. This critical friendship dynamic embraced professional collaboration in a way that allowed the novice researcher to experience meaningful learning experiences and in the process come to understand valuable research knowledge.
