A sociocultural investigation of student teachers’ experiences in the context of school placement within Initial Teacher Education in Scotland

Within Initial Teacher Education, school-based placement experiences, the practicum, or learning in-situ, provide the kind of authentic challenges that enable novice teachers to develop the skills, understandings and dispositions needed to function effectively as fully registered professionals. The opportunity to teach in a school is recognised as a key component in the early professional development of teachers and has commonly been described as one of the most influential features of student teachers’ Initial Teacher Education programmes. School experience has also been widely acknowledged as the most worthwhile and valuable component of ITE – particularly by student teachers themselves, who often perceive the school as the site where their most important learning takes place. Specifically, early experiences of teaching are crucial in the process of identity formation, essential to the development of new teachers’ professional skills and important in the shaping of teachers’ thinking and beliefs about pedagogy. School placement opportunities also facilitate student teachers’ awareness of their broader responsibilities as members of a teaching community.
School placement contexts which fail to offer a supportive ‘human infrastructure’ can jeopardise the success of student teacher placements, resulting in unproductive learning experiences, emotional upheaval, loss of confidence and self-esteem, ineffective teaching performance and a negative impact on the construction of the teaching self. Longer-term development may also be impeded, with such early experiences impacting on teachers’ decisions as to whether to remain in the profession.
This scholarship will enable the successful candidate to undertake PhD work that focuses on student teachers’ experiences on school placement from a sociocultural perspective. The empirical work will focus on the mutually constitutive relations between the individual student teacher, the interpersonal relationships developed on placement with other teachers and with school pupils and the institutional practices, norms and procedures which inform practice. Narrowing the focus down, the successful applicant will work within sociocultural research traditions. In taking such an ecological approach, methodology will involve building evidence through a variety of sources involving qualitative data with student teachers themselves, the teachers they work with, the young learners they teach, the practices which go on around mentoring and support and any other relevant sources that might contribute to a rich, finely grained sociocultural study.
The successful candidate will be based in the School of Education within the University of Aberdeen, Scotland and will be able to work with a lead supervisor who has successfully completed doctoral level work in this field and who has a record of publication in the area of student teachers’ school placements.

Candidates should apply for a PhD place in the normal way, stating:
o ‘Elphinstone PhD Scholarship’ in the Intended Source of Funding section
o The name of the lead supervisor in the Name of Proposed Supervisor section
o The title of the specific research project (subject to any agreed modifications in discussion with the lead supervisor) in the Outline Summary section