A Practicum Turn in Teacher Education (Matts Mattsson, Tor Vidar Eilertsen etc.)

LEARNING BEYOND THE TRADITIONAL

Rorrison, D. (2011). Border Crossing in Practicum research.Chapter 2. This Edition
SINTEF (2008). Praksislæring og partnerskapsmodeller i lærerutdanningen i England, Wales, Finland

og Norge. (Practicum learning and partnership models in teacher education in England, Wales,
Finland and Norway), SINTEF
Smith, R (2000).The future of teacher Education: principles and prospects.Asia Pacific Journal of
Education 28(1), 7–28
Somekh, B. & Zeichner, K. (2009). Action research for educational reform: remodelling action research
theories and practices in local contexts. Educational Action research vol 17, No 1, 5–21
Stenhouse, L (1975). An Introduction to Curriculum Research and Development. London: Heinemann.
Strømnes, M (1967). Klasseromsforskning. Ei metodologisk rettleiing (Classroom Research.
Methodological Guidelines) Universitetsforlaget.
Tunberg, A. (2006). Lærerstudenter som medforskere og skoleutviklingsagenter. (Student teachers as
co-researchers and school development agents) Report, Department of Education, the University of
Tromsø.
van Swet, J Ponte, P., & B. Smith. (2007).Postgraduate Programmes as Platform: A Research-Led
Approach. Sense Publishers.
Wenger, E (1998).Communities of Practices:Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge University
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Wideen, M., Mayer-Smith, J. &Moon, B. (1998). A critical analysis of the research on learning to teach:
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Zeichner, K. (1999). Action research and the preparation of reflective practitioners during the
professional practicum. Lessons learned. International Journal of PEPE Inc. Vol. 3, no 1.

Tor Vidar Eilertsen,
Department of Education,
University of Tromsø,
Norway
Eli Moksnes Furu,
Department of Education,
University of Tromsø,
Norway
Karin Rørnes,
Department of Education,
University of Tromsø,
Norway

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ULLA KIVINIEMI

5. INTEGRATIVE PEDAGOGY IN PRACTICUM

Meeting the Second Order Paradox of Teacher Education

The chapter introduces a model of integrative pedagogy in teaching practicum
within a Finnish context. The aim of this action research project is to integrate
educational theory and practice in teaching practicum with a view to promote
student teachers´ professional autonomy. In the Integrative Pedagogy Model,
theoretical knowledge, practical skills and self-regulation (reflective and
metacognitive skills) are merged. The empirical part of the chapter is based on the
content analysis of the experiences of students and their supervising teachers. The
results show that an exceptional sense of community is being achieved in this kind
of teaching practicum. The interprofessional collaboration between teachers,
teaching assistants and other staff members is also highlighted. In addition, the
preservice teachers and their supervisors report their experiences of reflective
dialogue. However, promoting autonomy in the teaching practicum appears
dilemmatic. As a theoretical conclusion, we introduce the concept of ‘second order
pedagogical paradox’, which is a hyponym of the classical Kantian pedagogical
paradox. The second order pedagogical paradox means that a teacher educator
inevitably faces a double paradox if she/he seeks to promote prospective teachers´
autonomy, who in turn are expected to promote their preservice teachers´
autonomy.

ACADEMIC TEACHER EDUCATION IN FINLAND

In Finland, unlike in many other countries, the teaching profession still maintains a
high professional status. One of the possible grounds for this social recognition is
that teachers achieve a high-level academic degree in their initial teacher education.
It is internationally exceptional that even primary school teacher education in Finland
has been at Master´s level since 1979, requiring approximately five study years.
Lately, initiatives have been made to raise teacher education up to this academic
level in the whole of Europe (Common European Principles for Teacher
Competences and Qualifications, 2009, p. 3). An academic education, however, does
not guarantee the status of the profession alone. Another important element beyond
professional recognition is that teachers are trusted; they are regarded as competent
and autonomous professionals (Lapinoja & Heikkinen 2006).

To better understand the autonomous professional status of Finnish teachers and
Finnish teacher education aiming at high-level professional autonomy, we need a

M. Mattsson, T.V. Eilertsen and D. Rorrison (eds.), A Practicum Turn in Teacher Education, 91–112.
© 2011 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

HEIKKINEN, TYNJÄLÄ &KIVINIEMI

more comprehensive view of educational traditions in Finland. In terms of the
theory of practice architectures, teacher education and teacher practicum are
elements of the more comprehensive social metapracticesthat create the conditions
under which participants´ practices can be carried out. Practices themselves are the
‘site’ in which action and interaction are enabled and constrained. Practices
prefigure people´s activities, rather as a path offers an easier way through a forest,
but is itself also able to evolve – as, for example, when a tree falls across the path
and subsequent walkers make a new path around it (Kemmis & Grootenboer, 2008;
Schatzki, 2002). Following this idea, the practices of teaching practicum in Finland
can only be understood within the context of the entire educational system in
Finland and how it has evolved.

The situation in Finland today can be understood as an historical continuum
drawing on the European traditions of education and the social and political
development in Scandinavia. In Finland and the Nordic countries, the European
tradition of ‘Bildung’ has been adopted and developed along with the Scandinavian
welfare state. It is based on strong values of democracy, equity and solidarity (Ax
& Ponte, 2008; Rönnerman, Furu, & Salo, 2008). This process has been
crystallised as the ‘folk enlightenment movement’ that has been a mainstay of
Nordic democracy and society (Kemmis, 2008, p. xi). The development in Finland
can be understood within this social, political, cultural and material-economical
context. Education has always been seen as important in Finnish society as well as
in the other Nordic countries. In Finland, parents´ trust in education is less
dependent on their social status than in many older industrialised countries (Kupari
& Välijärvi, 2005). Similar to the other Nordic countries, education has been
identified as an essential part of the development of the nation and national
identity. Teachers have always played an important and respected role in society.
According to national surveys on public ratings of professions, the status of
a teacher is largely comparable to that of a lawyer or a doctor. The teaching
profession has also remained a popular choice among young people. Among
upper secondary school graduates, the teaching profession has always been clearly
high on the list of favourites. One indicator of the appreciation of teaching
work is willingness to apply for teacher education (Jakku-Sihvonen & Niemi
2006).

In Finland, a positive circle of recognition can be seen in recruitment to the
teaching profession. On the basis of Finnish students´ excellent results in
comparative international studies such as the PISA surveys, Finnish teachers have
been recognised as excellent professionals. As a result, the status of the profession
has become even higher. This means that many young people consider becoming a
teacher, and the number of applicants is high. This enables universities to select the
best students with respect to their previous academic achievement. Thus, the
people chosen in teacher education have excellent academic skills as well as high
motivation to study. As an outcome, Finland has well qualified teachers, who in
turn achieve strong results, leading us into a positive circle of recognition
(Heikkinen & Huttunen, 2004; Honneth, 1995) of teachers, a phenomenon that
seems to be exceptional from a global perspective.

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In many other countries the number of applicants to teacher education has
decreased and the circle is negative: the less teachers are appreciated, the less
young people are interested in teaching as a career and the greater the number of
teachers quitting the job. In terms of theory of recognition, this development is an
example of a negative circle of recognition (Heikkinen & Huttunen, 2004;
Honneth, 1995). Until now, Finnish teacher education has not faced any serious
problems in attracting applicants, with the exception in areas of mathematics and
some foreign languages. For the approximately 800 student places offered in
teacher training programs there are annually about 5000 applicants.

In summary, Finnish teachers seem to hold high social status as professionals,
and their professional autonomy seems to be quite high. In order to solve
professional problems autonomously, four different kinds of capacities are
required. It is necessary to (1) know about education, but this alone is not enough.
Teachers also need to be capable of (2) acting in a prudent and skilful way with the
students. The terms ‘know-how’ or simply ‘skills’ also refer to this kind of
practical competence. High-level professional expertise also requires (3) regulating
and changing activities sensitively, so as to steer action in a wise way; to be able to
reflect on and evaluate one´s work. An expert also needs (4) social and cultural
competence, which is embedded in social practices.

The essence of what we call the Integrative Pedagogy Model is based on the
notion that a high level of expertise is constituted from these four basic elements
highly integrated with each other. We call them (1) theoretical and conceptual
knowledge, (2) practical and experiential knowledge, (3) regulative knowledge and
(4) sociocultural knowledge. This chapter introduces the Integrative Pedagogy
Model in the context of Finnish primary school teacher education. It reports on an
action research project that aims to integrate educational theory and practice in
teaching practicum with a view of promoting preservice teachers´ professional
autonomy. We will first examine the role of expertise in achieving autonomy, after
which we will focus on integrative pedagogy. The empirical part of the chapter is
based on an action research project in teacher training at the Department of
Teacher Education of the University of Jyväskylä in collaboration with Jyskä
Primary School in 2006-2011.

AUTONOMY - A KEY COMPONENT OF PROFESSIONALISM

Autonomy has been regarded as a key element of professional practice (Lapinoja
& Heikkinen 2006). Teachers must themselves ‘know how to go on’ in practice;
they must know how to enact the next steps and stages, through experience and
knowledge of education. Following this line of argument, Kemmis and Smith
(2008) discuss professional practice as being “a morally committed, and oriented
and informed by traditions in a field” (p. 4). In Finland, an additional culture of
trust that values teachers´ professional skills and competence seems to have been
achieved (Sahlberg, 2010, p. 11). In many countries, on the contrary, teachers seem
to be increasingly controlled. The increased control is a trend that has been
growing along with the New Public Management Doctrine (NPND) that has been

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widely adopted internationally in the public sector, including educational
organisations. Its adoption in education appears to be based on governments
having faith in its deployment to transform their public sectors using private sector
performance criteria.According to Pollitt (1990, 56), the NPMD is based on the
classic Taylorism and division of labour where the planning and management of
the work are separated from the job itself. In political and sociological terms,
Taylorism can be seen as the division of labour pushed to its logical extreme, with
a consequent de-skilling of the worker and dehumanisation of the workplace. This
is also what happens to schools, universities, teacher education units, teacher
educators and teachers who work under strict control and inspection. It appears
that, along with the global unfolding of the NPMD, teachers´ work is being
deprofessionalised in many countries (Lapsley 2009; Sahlberg, 2010).

In our view, the NPMD fundamentally conflicts with the objective that teachers
should be educated professional experts. A true professional is guided by ethics
and professional expertise, not by standards and inspectors. The actual problems in
education are not solved by standards or experts but by a teacher who has to make
pedagogical decisions without any external help. In order to achieve high
professional expertise, a teacher has to solve the ethical and practical problems
autonomously in complex everyday situations.

‘Autonomy’ literally means operating ‘according to laws that one has made for
oneself’ (Greek auto nomos). A high level of autonomy, however, does not mean
that teachers can do whatever they wish. As the concepts of autonomy and
individualism are often misunderstood, it is worth looking at the origins of the
word. Etymologically, the concept of autonomy comes from the Greek words auto
and nomos. The word auto means self and nomos means law or rules. In ancient
Greece this expression was used for a town-state (polis) that instituted its own
laws. In an autonomous polis, the laws were discussed and established by the
citizens of that particular polis. In the opposite case, the town was ruled by laws
that had been constituted by another polis, and in that case the town or village was
described by the words hetero nomos, which literally means that someone else
(another polis) had instituted the laws. This is the origin of the word heteronomy,
which is the opposite of autonomy. Following this line of argument we suggest that
the concept of autonomy thus emphasises interaction and collective will-formation
in a social sphere, whereas individualism refers to action based on the will of a
particular individual (Aspfors, Fransson & Heikkinen, 2011). This social aspect of
autonomy has previously been emphasised in the tradition of educational action
research which, according to Wilfred Carr and Stephen Kemmis (1986), aims at
providing a means by which “teachers can organise themselves as communities of
enquirers, organising their own enlightenment” (p. 221).

The concept of autonomy carries clear connotations that come close to the third
element of the Integrative Pedagogy Model, regulative knowledge. This element
refers to the metacognitive and reflective skills that enable the professional to
regulate and change the actions and activities him/herself. The regulative skills and
capabilities lie at the very heart of being a professional; a true professional is
someone who autonomously regulates his/her practices. This third component of

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expertise has sometimes been conceptualised as self-regulative knowledge (Bereiter
& Scardamalia, 1993), which is even closer to the aforementioned etymology of
autonomy.

We think that Finnish teacher education draws on the idea of professional
autonomy as collective meaning-making and will-formation negotiated between
the professional experts of education. This approach can be understood as a
continuum of the aforementioned social, cultural and political tradition, based on
the European educational traditions. With reference to the Greek meaning, teachers
and educational experts constitute a polis, an independent community that acts in
compliance with the laws it has made for itself. Consequently, the notion of
knowledge being conveyed by authorities does not suit the Finnish system in the
same way as it suits, for example, the English school system and social structure.
England has a strong social tradition that has accustomed people to listen to and
appreciate the views of a socially esteemed authority. Finland, on the contrary, is
an example of a Nordic, rather liberal democracy, in which the social differences in
terms of age or social status are not so apparent

The Finnish educational system seems also to have remained quite unreceptive
to standardisation which has become an official agenda or accepted as educational
orthodoxy within many education reforms throughout the world, including the
USA, the UK, and Germany (Sahlberg, 2010). Today it is very common to define
standards for education, as well as the competences to be achieved through it, in
order to be able to evaluate teacher and school activities. This standard, or
competence-based system, has probably been developed the most in the
movement´s country of origin, England. The system was created during Margaret
Thatcher´s term of office in the late 1970s, but continued under Labour rule
(Whitty, 2008). This standardisation of schools and teaching, common in Western
industrialised countries, seems to be spreading elsewhere as well. This
international movement has been called the Global Education Reform
Movement(GERM) (Sahlberg, 2010).

We might ask what are the outcomes of the standardisation of education? As
Gert Biesta (2007) puts it, the question is whether we are indeed measuring what
we value, or whether we are measuring just what we can easily measure and thus
valuing what we can measure. Education is a moral practice in essence, rather than
a technical or technological one — a distinction that dates back to Aristotle´s
distinction between phronƝsis (practical wisdom) and technƝ (instrumental
knowledge) (Biesta 2007, 11). Standardisation focuses on technƝrather than on
phronƝsis and thus turns the educational practices into technical and instrumental
practices.Nevertheless, there is no evidence of the standard-based system yielding
the best results. According to Sahlberg (2010), quite the contrary has happened in
many countries: increasing external control of schools and on teachers has led to a
weakening of teachers´ professional ethics and contributed to skilled teachers´
retreat from teaching. On the other hand, Finnish teachers´ pedagogical freedom is
still extensive if compared to the international level and Finnish pupils´ good
performance has been attributed to high professional competence (Sahlberg, 2010;
Välijärvi, 2007, p. 59-60).

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It appears that high professional autonomy enhances teachers´ work motivation,
commitment to developing the school, and the status of the profession. There is a
logical connection between good learning outcomes and teacher autonomy.
Learning motivation research has shown that autonomous teachers also guide their
pupils toward being autonomous learners, whereas teachers who become used to
being controlled become controllers of their pupils. In the latter case, pupils do not
develop internal motivation for knowledge formation but only see the extrinsic
value of studying. Self-directed teachers, instead, steer their pupils toward self-
directed learning. (Roth, Assor, Kanat, Maymon & Kaplan, 2007)

Another logical connection, based on the notion of teacher autonomy enhancing
the quality of teaching, is related to the meaningfulness of teachers´ work and
teachers´ ability to cope. In the US, where teacher attrition from the profession is a
growing problem, a connection has been discovered between a lost sense of
autonomy and attrition. In Kimberly Palmer´s study (2007) over 7,000 teachers,
some of whom were still teaching and others´ who had moved to other fields, were
asked to express reasons why they stayed in or quit the teaching profession. Of those
who had left teaching, 64 per cent experienced an increase in their professional
autonomy after the career change. According to Palmer, the experience of being
controlled leads to the most independent, courageous and skilled individuals finding
employment outside the teaching profession. (Palmer, 2007)

On the other hand, it is certainly not the first time that teachers are considered to
be performing the role of a servant rather than that of an independent professional.
During the heyday of nationalism around the 1900s, teachers were harnessed to
promote nationalistic ideas throughout Europe. They were in charge of
disseminating the cultural capital that was regarded as crucial for the nation
(Reisner 2010). Later on, this teacher mission of national enlightenment was
ideologically weakened and replaced by the more neutral metaphor of civil servant.
The teacher was a civil servant who, subject to official liability, performed his/her
civil servant duty. These servant metaphors have, over the recent decade, gradually
been replaced with neoliberal metaphors. Teachers are seen as servants of
production and economy, who produce for the market workers, consumers,
entrepreneurs, and actors who adapt to market trends. The servant metaphors share
one feature: teachers serve an external party that exploits teachers, education, and
upbringing as a medium – in other words, teachers act heteronomically.

However, the idea behind integrative pedagogy in teacher education as related to
teachers´ autonomy is based on the view that teachers are not in the service of anybody,
any ideology, any political system, or any other external party. Teachers serve, above
all else, growing children or young people, and their ultimate goal is to promote these
learners´ opportunities to lead a worthy life.

INTEGRATIVE PEDAGOGY IN TEACHER EDUCATION

The relationship between theory and practice has often been a hot topic in
discussions concerning teacher training. This classical distinction between theory
and practice is rooted on the Hellenistic tradition (Hadot, 2005). According to this

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notion, based on the classical work of Aristotle, there is a clear distinction between
epistƝmƝ (theoretical knowledge, attaining true knowledge), technƝ (to act in a
efficient and productive way in the material world) and phronƝsis (to act wisely
and prudently in a given social setting). This tradition and its consequences have
been described in more detail in the introductory chapter of this book by Matts
Mattsson, Tor Vidar Eilertsen and Doreen Rorrison (see also Hadot, 2005).

A number of theoreticians and philosophers have claimed that the division
between theory and practice is problematic and even misleading, as it implies that
theory and practice are separate entities. By contrast, recent accounts on the nature
of professional expertise and competence emphasise the unity of theory and
practice (e.g. Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993; Boreham, Samurçay & Fischer &,
2002; Guile & Griffiths, 2001; Griffiths & Guile, 2003; Feltovich, Prietula, &
Ericsson, 2006). The same idea is present in Kurt Lewin´s (1890-1947) well-
known slogan ‘Nothing is as practical as a good theory’.

The Integrative Pedagogy Model (Tynjälä, Slotte, Nieminen, Lonka &
Olkinuora, 2006; Tynjälä, 2008) is based on a number of accounts of the nature
and components of professional expertise (Bereiter, 2004; Bereiter & Scardamalia,
1993; Eraut, 1994 & 2004; Leinhardt, McCarthy Young & Merriman, 1995; Le
Maistre & Paré, 2006). In brief, expertise in any professional domain can be
described as consisting of four basic elements which are tightly integrated with
each other. We name them as (1) theoretical or conceptual knowledge, (2)
practical or experiential knowledge, (3) self-regulative knowledge, and (4) socio-
cultural knowledge (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. The Integrative Pedagogy Model (adapted from Tynjälä, 2008; Tynjälä, Slotte,
Nieminen, Lonka & Olkinuora, 2006; Tynjälä & Gijbels 2011; Heikkinen, Tynjälä, &
Jokinen, 2011).

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Theoretical knowledge is universal, formal and explicit in nature. In cognitive
studies of expertise, theoretical knowledge is often referred to as declarative
knowledge (see also Mattsson, Eilertsen & Rorrison in the introductory chapter of
this book). This kind of knowledge can readily be explicated, for example in
lectures, books and other printed or digital materials. In contrast to this universal
theoretical knowledge, practical knowledge gained through practical experiences
concerns particular cases. This form of knowledge is also referred to as procedural
knowledge, or simply as skills. Practical or experiential knowledge is not so easy
to explicate, tending to be intuitive, implicit or tacit in nature. The arrows between
the boxes of theoretical and practical knowledge in Figure 1 illustrate the
significance of the interaction and integration of the two types of knowledge.
Working along these lines, Leinhardt and her colleagues (1995) have emphasised
that professional education should involve, on the one hand, the transformation of
theoretical knowledge into a form where it becomes available for use in particular
cases, and, on the other hand, the explication and conceptualisation of tacit
knowledge derived from work experience (see also Guile & Griffiths, 2001;
Griffiths & Guile, 2003). In other words, theories should be considered in the light
of practical experiences, and vice-versa. However, even today many higher
education programs rely on the traditional idea of providing preservice teachers
with theoretical courses during the first years of study and practical experience
only towards the end of studies. Very often theoretical courses and work
experience have nothing to do with each other but are organised as separate
modules. In contrast, modern pedagogical thinking emphasises the unity of theory
and practice and models that aim to integrate theoretical and practical elements of
studies (see e.g. Guile & Griffiths, 2001; Griffiths & Guile, 2003; Tynjälä,
Välimaa, & Sarja, 2003; Tynjälä, 2008).

In addition to theoretical and practical knowledge, the third constituent of
expertise is self-regulative (or simply, regulative) knowledge, including
metacognitive and reflective skills (e.g. Bereiter and Scardamalia, 1993; Bereiter,
2004). The development of self-regulative knowledge requires a learner´s
reflection on his or her own activities. In the Integrative Pedagogy Model
reflection is linked with the use of theoretical and practical knowledge. The linking
of self-regulation with theory and practice is shown at the centre of Figure 1. In the
process of integrating theory and practice, mediating tools are needed. Potential
mediating tools would encompass all activities that enable the learner to make tacit
knowledge explicit or analyse theoretical knowledge and practical experience.
These include, for instance, discussions with a teacher educator, mentor or a small
group, or written assignments such as analytic tasks, portfolios and self-assessment
tasks. Alternatively, during their work experience, preservice teachers may write
a learning journal to reflect on their work and learning. These kinds of acti-
vities allow students to develop their self-regulative knowledge in a context
provided by the knowledge and problem domain of their future profession
(Tynjälä, 2008).

The mediating process in integrating theoretical, practical and self-regulative
knowledge is one of problem-solving. According to Bereiter and Scardamalia
(1993), it is through problem-solving that the formal knowledge acquired in

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education is transformed into an expert´s flexible informal knowledge. The process
of integrating theory, practice and self-regulation can be seen as a problem-solving
process in which learners solve at the same time practical problems and related
conceptual problems – that is, problems of understanding. Formal knowledge is
transformed into skills when it is used to solve practical problems, and into
informal knowledge when it is used to solve problems of understanding (Bereiter &
Scardamalia, 1993, p. 66). Accordingly, instead of or besides traditional forms of
delivering knowledge, problem-solving should play a central role in the education
of professionals and a skilled workforce.

The fourth basic component of expertise is sociocultural knowledge, which is
embedded in social practices and in the tools and artefacts used in those practices
(e.g. Bereiter, 2004; Hakkarainen, Palonen, Paavola & Lehtinen, 2004; see also
Mattsson, Eilertsen & Rorrison in the introductory chapter of this book). Limited
human cognitive capacities can be extended by using notebooks, handbooks,
calendars, calculators, computers, internet tools, and so on. In a similar vein,
cognitive capacities can be extended by collaborative work in which the
participants share their knowledge and transform the ideas shared. Thus, cognition
is not restricted within the heads of people; rather it is distributed between people
and between people and artefacts. Sociocultural knowledge is something that exists
in relationships rather than in individual minds. This means that participation in
communities of practice is the only way to get in touch with this form of
knowledge. In applying the Integrative Pedagogy Model the ideal is that the
sociocultural knowledge component would be provided by authentic practice in
which preservice teachers participate; however, when this is not possible it may
also be organised through various simulation arrangements.

Although the elements of expertise can be analytically separated as shown
above, in high-level expertise they are tightly integrated with each other.
Therefore, the core idea of the integrative pedagogy is that in any learning
environment the basic elements of professional expertise, that is, theoretical,
practical, self-regulative and sociocultural knowledge, will be integrated. When
realised in the interface between education and work it is possible to add the aspect
of workplace development into the model. In this way, the creation of new
knowledge will become an important element of the individual and collective
learning process. A similar idea is presented by Guile and Griffiths (2001) and
Griffiths and Guile (2003) in their connective model of work experience in which
the workplaces, the teachers and the preservice teachers together create learning
environments to advance both preservice teachers and workplace development.
This requires that the preservice teachers are entitled to act as active/genuine
participants in the workplace.

As described in figure 1 the Integrative Pedagogy Model is not so much a
particular method but a pedagogical principle for bringing together key elements of
learning and the development of expertise. In our study we applied the Model in
teaching practicum by integrating the practicum with a Course in Ethics and
Philosophy in Education. The aim of the course is to examine central philosophical
issues in teaching and to build a personal educational or pedagogical philosophy.

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HEIKKINEN, TYNJÄLÄ &KIVINIEMI

Integrated with the Teaching Practicum, the course provides preservice teachers
with an opportunity to integrate theoretical, practical and self-regulative
knowledge while they examine ethical conflict situations they encounter during
school practice. Thus, the basic elements of the integrative pedagogy are realised
in the following way:

1. Theoretical knowledge: ethical theories and professional principles
2. Practical knowledge: experiential knowledge that develops through

observations, individual teaching practice, and participation in the discussions
of the work community during the Teaching Practicum
3. Self-regulative knowledge: knowledge developing through reflection on one´s
own activity from the viewpoint of ethical theories
4. Socio-cultural knowledge: practices and knowledge shared within the work
community at school; active participation in joint practices and staff meetings
5. Tools for integrating different forms of expert knowledge: discussions with the
mentor and peers, writing a learning journal and a portfolio

THE AIM AND METHODS OF THE STUDY

The teaching practicum on which this chapter is based was developed through
stages in Jyskä School in the city of Jyväskylä in Central Finland during the years
2006-2011. The school is a primary school (grades 1-6) in a semi-urban area. The
school annually provides a teaching practicum for 12-18 preservice teachers in the
final phase of the teacher preparation program. There are 450 pupils and 18 classes
in the school. The school staff have actively participated in research and the
development of the learning program and teaching practicum in collaboration with
the University of Jyväskylä. This research and development project has been
carried about according to the basic principles of action research. According to
Carr and Kemmis (1986) action research aims at changing reality in order to study
it, and at the same time, it aims at studying reality in order to change it. In action
research, knowledge is always gained through action and by/for action (Carr &
Kemmis, 1986; Reason, & Bradbury, 2001). In line with these principles of action
research, the purpose of this project has been twofold.

Firstly, our aim is to develop methods to support the autonomy of prospective
teachers in teaching practicum through integrating theory and practice. Over the
course of time and through cycles of planning, collecting data, reflecting and
evaluation, we gradually have achieved a ‘Model of Integrative Pedagogy in
Teaching Practicum’. The development of this model has also been influenced by
related theoretical literature and a number of other parallel empirical studies on
learning in various settings of working life (Tynjälä, 2008; Heikkinen, Tynjälä, &
Jokinen, 2011).

Secondly, our purpose is to study how professional autonomy could be promoted
through this practice. More specifically, the following research question is addressed:

How do preservice teachers and their supervising teachers experience the
integration of practicum and studies on philosophy and ethics of education,
especially with regard to the development of teacher autonomy?

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In the practical activities, as well as in the guidance of the preservice teachers, we
consciously follow a principle of faded scaffolding with the idea of increasing
responsibility and autonomy over the course of the practicum (e.g. Collins, Brown
& Newman, 1989; Pea, 2004). In the initial orientation seminars, we study a
number of theoretical perspectives that we believe promote autonomy. The
preservice teachers form study circles of three to four participants in order to study
theoretical themes that support the general aim to promote autonomy. These circles
examine themes relating to professional ethics and autonomy. The groups select
their theme, but before undertaking the literature review they discuss their choice
with the senior lecturer of the Department Teacher Education who is responsible
for both the practicum period and the course of Ethics and Philosophy. To provide
a few examples, the study circles have entitled their work in the following ways:
‘Dialogical Nature of Learning’, ‘Autonomy in the Teaching Profession’, ‘The
Problem of Indoctrination’ or ‘The Essence of Professional Ethics’.

Ethical competence is one of the key components of the teaching profession. As
Carr and Kemmis (2005) have stated, education is a moral endeavour with the
intention of improving the lives of the pupils. Thus, ethics must be one of the key
elements of teacher education. In this practicum, ethical and philosophical learning
assignments involve preservice teachers first in sketching their own educational
philosophy. When entering the classroom they are to identify an ethical dilemmatic
situation for which the teacher´s solution may be judged as right or wrong
depending on the viewpoint. In this way preservice teachers come to understand
the dilemmatic nature of educational ethics. Throughout the practicum, the
preservice teachers also maintain a reflective journal and compile a personal
portfolio of their professional development.

The principle of faded scaffolding is consciously followed in the arrangements
of the practicum. At first, the preservice teachers are given the essential
information of the school and the pupils. The head teacher introduces the school´s
working culture, history and pedagogical principles to the preservice teachers. In
the orientation phase they familiarise themselves with school practices and teach in
collaboration with their mentor teacher for five days. At the same time the
preservice teachers perform their learning tasks related to ethical and philosophical
issues, and start to plan their own teaching together with other preservice teachers
and teachers.

One part of the practicum is ‘School hijacking’. The idea comes from the
Norwegian concept ‘skoleovertakelse’ (Haugaløkken & Ramberg, 2005) which
means that the student teachers in effect hijack the role of the teacher. In Norway,
the preservice teachers and the teacher educators usually hijack the school for an
entire week but in this practicum the preservice teacher works for a couple of days
towards the end of the practicum in the classroom without the physical presence of
the supervising teacher The purpose of this ‘school hijacking’ is to provide them
with the authentic experience of acting as a teacher without the immediate
presence of the supervising teacher. In this way the autonomy of the preservice
teacher expands gradually during the practicum. During the ‘school hijacking’ the
supervising teacher has an opportunity to participate in in-service training or other

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professional development activities. The security of pupils is assured by giving the
pedagogical and juridical responsibility to another supervising teacher or the head
teacher (who are not physically in the room).

The data of the study included student teachers´ (n= 89) learning assignments
and focus group discussions in the final seminars of the practicum over a five year
period (2007-2011). We also have the emails and reflective notes of the
supervising university lecturers (n=2). In addition, an online feedback
questionnaire administered to preservice teachers , teachers, the head teacher and
pupils of the sixth grade were used in 2009. The data was analysed following the
principles of qualitative content analysis.

FINDINGS: INTEGRATIVE PEDAGOGY-BASED TEACHING PRACTICUM
EXPERIENCED BY THE STUDENTS AND SUPERVISING TEACHERS

Findings related to Students´ experiences

As described previously, autonomous professionalism is not individualism;
alternatively, we emphasise interaction and collective will-formation in the social
sphere between teachers and other educational professionals. Our empirical results
show that the social aspect was found to be very important. Encountering the
school community was a significant factor in the content analysis of the students´
data and these experiences were regarded as exceptional within the teacher
training. In Finland, most of the teaching practicum in primary and secondary
school teacher education is organised in University Teacher Training Schools,
where preservice teachers are assigned marginal roles as ‘trainees’. In this action
research project, the new innovations in the teaching practicum were not initiated
in a University Teacher Training School but in an ordinary school context just for
that reason. Our aim was to give the floor to the preservice teachers. They expect
that they will be treated as colleagues.

I have worked as a substitute teacher in many schools. I could make a
breakthrough as I am in an ordinary school and I felt I was a winner. Then
after having worked as a substitute teacher I went back to the University
Teacher Training School practicum, and that was a total regression. I was not
the teacher; I was someone between the students [pupils] in the classroom
and a teacher. This time I expect that I am trusted to work as an accountable
person. (Preservice teacher 6/2011, a reflective assignment focusing on the
expectations for the practicum.)

The University Teacher Training Schools have been criticised as a type of teaching
laboratory; furthermore, preservice teachers cannot achieve the role of a real
teacher or staff member who belongs to the school community (Komulainen, 2010,
p. 216; Piesanen, Kiviniemi, & Valkonen, 2006; pp. 49, 85, 115; Syrjäläinen,
Eronen, & Värri, 2006, p. 118 – 120). As an outcome, the preservice teachers
found the context of the practicum exceptional compared to their previous
experiences. The role was that of teacher, including all the elements of teacher´s
daily work.

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I wanted to get into the working community and to get a realistic and
comprehensive picture of a teacher´s work. Being a teacher is not just about
teaching, but a wide range of other organisational duties (e.g. breaks, meals,
working out the disagreements etc.). (Preservice teacher 4 / 2008, focus
group)

The preservice teachers felt that they achieved being a part of the school
community, quite unlike their experiences during previous teaching practice
periods. The possibility to enter the staff room and to associate with the school
staff during breaks made it possible for students to participate easily in discussions
and to gain the support of the teacher community.

I got into the work community and was allowed to enter the staff room and
have the breaks together with the teachers and school assistants. (Preservice
teacher 6 / 2009, focus-group)

Although no comparison with the past practice periods in the University Teacher
Training School was requested, the theme came up spontaneously in the preservice
teacher feedback. The experiences in this school seemed to build a much broader
view of teachers´ work than the previous practicum periods in the Training School.

I wanted to see the entire school. And the school turned out to be there for
you! To go there to work as a real teacher – in the University Teacher
Training Schools you are isolated in a ‘trainees´ room’, but here we are in the
staff room like the teachers. (Preservice teacher 6 / 2008, focus group)

There was a great atmosphere in the school and I witnessed very special
and collegial experiences that differed from experiences in the Training
School. (Preservice teacher 6 / 2008, focus group)

The results show us that sometimes the established practice architectures do not
allow us to find new innovations. As Theodore Schatzki (2002) puts it, practices
prefigure people´s activities, like a path through a forest offering an easier way
through, but also itself able to evolve. Kemmis & Grootenboer (2008) discuss this
as subsequent walkers making a new path around the obstruction of a tree falling
across the path. Practices are, in a sense, laid out for people to inhabit in particular
kinds of ways. The way that the teachers and preservice teachers inhabit University
Teacher Training Schools is very special and not like the ordinary schools,
especially in terms of social interaction and sense of community. In this case,
departing from the traditions and habits of University Teacher Training Schools
helped us to create new kinds of practice architectures that promote preservice
teachers´ autonomy better than the traditional practice architectures. In Kantian
terms, our results clearly show that the traditions of Training Schools prevent
preservice teachers from achieving ‘maturity’ (Mündigkeit) as autonomous
teachers; “to use one´s own reason without guidance from another” as Immanuel
Kant puts it (1784/2011). This Kantian notion was one of the leading principles of
the practicum. One of the preservice teachers s discussed her experiences from this
perspective in her final essay:

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Previous training experiences: you were a sheep herded by others or you
could not act as an adult even if you are one. Now I felt that I was an adult
and I was permitted to take responsibility. (Preservice teacher 6 / 2008, focus
group.)

Experiences of interprofessional co-operation were also new to the preservice
teachers. The opportunity to co-operate with teaching assistants seemed to be at
first an unfamiliar situation to many of them. In Finland, teaching assistants are a
special group of school staff. Their duties include supporting pupils with special
needs, such as medical needs and also those with learning disabilities. The
assistants are well-educated professionals usually holding a Bachelor degree from
a University of Applied Sciences. The teaching assistants are often older and more
experienced than the preservice teachers. Our study provides evidence that this can
make the preservice teachers feel somewhat embarrassed, but despite the confusion
at the beginning, the final experiences are often positive as stated:

The positive experience was also working with a teaching assistant and also
the co-operation turned out to be functional with her... (Preservice teacher 5 /
2008, focus group.)

The preservice teachers appreciated in particular the ‘School hijacking’ days as a
means to develop professional autonomy, although the experience of those days
was a demanding task for many of them:

In particular, I liked the ‘School hijacking’ days when you lived through the
teacher´s everyday workload, going out to oversee the breaks, monitoring the
pupils´ homework, etc.- the teacher´s work is so much more than individual
lessons...(Preservice teacher 10/2009; focus group)

It was not self-evident that giving the freedom and responsibility to preservice
teachers always functions well. Although the preservice teachers´ written
feedback was invariably positive, during the practical training the supervisors
and preservice teachers occasionally ran into situations in which a preservice
teachers needed more support and guidance. Sometimes guidance was needed in
moments and situations when the preservice teachers did not seem to be
committed to their learning experience. Other studies, work or hobbies took so
much time and energy that the teaching practice was sometimes harmed. In this
case, the supervisors were forced to consider how to intervene. This problem
relates to the Kantian pedagogical paradox: how can someone else support the
development of autonomy, and to what extent should you presuppose the other
person as an autonomous subject rather than an object of your interventions?
This problem will be elaborated further in the concluding section. One of the key
findings in the data was that a comprehensive understanding of teachers´ entire
work seemed to develop. The focus was shifted from simple technical tasks of
teaching to concern with expansive educational situations. The sense of
community was also highlighted in parallel with increasing autonomy. The
preservice teachers clearly indicated the importance of collaboration in the
professional expertise:

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In addition, it was great to plan the teaching with the other two trainees (we
planned our work together as the actual teachers used to do). Through co-
operation I was also able to teach entities that would have been beyond me to
realise alone. (Preservice teacher 9 / 2008, online feedback)

The data indicates that the integration of theory and practice (e.g. examining
ethical issues in practical settings) was realised through the teaching practicum.

This practicum is a properly thought-provoking experience...it deepens your
ideas of learning, of pupils and acting as a teacher…and of the
responsibilities and the obligations and the whole ethical dimension in this
work. What is going on behind closed doors...no-one knows what you are
doing there... how you practice your own ethical actions...and how important
it is to stay constantly vigilant. (Preservice teacher 4/2009; focus group)

According to the preservice teachers´ texts their career choice certainty was also
affirmed during the teaching practice. This is clearly one of the most important
aspects in achieving a confidence as an autonomous teacher:

For the first time I had the feeling after a practice that I really loved the
practice and I got the feeling that, hey, I can be a teacher. (Preservice teacher
12/2009; focus group)

This all clearly confirmed my idea that I am in just the right field and I
want to be a teacher. (Preservice teacher 9 / 2009; focus group)

Findings related to shared experiences of preservice teachers and teachers ̘̘

The growing autonomy of preservice teachers can also be seen in their own comments
and those of their supervisors. Teacher and preservice teacher interactions can be best
described as reflective dialogue (e.g. Lerman, 1998), in which the preservice teacher
and the supervising teacher together discuss the work practices, taking into account the
fundamental objectives and values of the profession.

With the supervising teacher I had positive discussions about education and
teaching. I also got valuable ideas for the practical teaching. (Preservice
teacher 2 / 2008, report)

Reflective dialogue was also present in the interaction between the preservice
teachers. They reported that their reciprocal peer feedback developed professional
thinking.

Peer feedback was also a positive experience. Hopefully the same kind of
feedback will also be available in working life and you can develop yourself
as a teacher. (Preservice teacher 2 / 2008, online feedback)

The citations such as the above were typical of the preservice teachers´
comments, and they also relate to issues of co-operation and collective
work practices. The research data contained many similar citations. The

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supervising teachers also felt that the dialogues with the students were
professionally instructive for themselves.

The good discussions with the preservice teachers were positive. My
preservice teacher had good, creative ideas and the courage to try many kinds
of activities. (Teacher 4/2008, online feedback)

The Teaching Practicum provides a new the opportunity to see our own
pupils from a different perspective. I was mostly thinking about my own
teaching and my own professional knowledge! Training gives a very good
chance to reflect on your own work! (Teacher 11/ 2008, online feedback)

Findings related to the experiences of supervisors

At the end of the practicum, feedback is also collected from the supervising
teachers. Some of the feedback has focused on information on the practical
arrangements, timing, payments, and similar. As the teaching practice has been
developed in Jyskä School for several years and the same teachers have taken part
in supervising, the teachers analysed their own practices and development as a
supervisor as well.

The nice cooperation and open discussion with the student teacher was
positive. Now during my second supervisor period I could be more vigorous
in my feedback. The amount of the tutoring hours is sufficient, as long as we
focus strictly on the case. (Teacher 10/2008, online feedback)

There were also many comments from the teachers about their own professional
development. Reflection on their own practices opened up their own way of
working as a teacher, and also developed a deeper understanding of their pupils.

First, the opportunity to follow your own class, when someone else is
teaching, was instructive in many respects. I feel that I learned a lot during
the practicum myself. You can ponder about your own work and working
methods from a new perspective… (Teacher 3 / 2008, online feedback)

…following the teaching (both my own and the preservice teacher´s) and
pondering on the events in the classroom. Both the supervising teacher and the
preservice teacher learned a lot of things. (Teacher 11/2008, online feedback)

During the ‘School hijacking’ days the teaching staff could use their work time for
professional development and school community development. The practicum
arrangements thus provided the opportunity for the staff to gain new knowledge for
their teaching and on the other hand gave time for internal development work.

The ‘School hijacking’ days were positive; we had the information about it
well in advance, so we had time to find really interesting excursions with
useful educational themes. (Teacher 7 / 2008, online feedback)

The teaching practice period also seemed to affect the teachers´ ability to cope at
work and provided much-needed extra help for certain activities during the practice

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(e.g. swimming exercises, study trips). From the point of recruitment of new staff,
it was also obvious that the preservice teachers who had been practising in Jyskä
School have been working as a substitute teacher in the same school after the
actual training period.

The trainee [preservice teacher] was a very positive and pleasant
acquaintance: easy, enthusiastic, open, cooperative and ready for work as a
teacher. It is nice to have some change in ordinary school days. (Teacher
10/2008, online feedback)

The main results of the research are summarised in Table 1. As a whole the results
show that the integrative pedagogical principles implemented in teaching practice
produced reflective dialogue between the preservice teachers and teachers that in
turn contributed widely to preservice teachers´ professional development and at the
same time also supported the teachers´ knowledge and skills development.

Table 1. A summary of the key findings: The experiences of students and supervising
teachers in an integrative pedagogy-based teaching practice.

The experiences of preservice The shared The experiences of
teachers experiences of supervisors
preservice teachers
- sense of community and supervisors - development as a super-
- interprofessional cooperation visor
-development of professional - reflective dialogue - development as a teacher
autonomy - development of school
- deepened perspectives on community
teacher´s work - the dilemma of second
- development of professional order pedagogical
knowledge paradox
- increased certainty of career
choice

Some preservice teachers, however, experienced a lack of support from the
university lecturers:

I have practically received no supervision or any support by the university
lecturer. In the future, I wish their feedback would be more clearly organised.
(Preservice teacher´s feedback, 2011.)

The contradictory feelings towards the main aim of the practice, autonomy of the
preservice teachers, were also expressed by one of the university lecturers who was
responsible for a group of student teachers:

Sometimes we also have different expectations of the supervision. Some of
the students expect more support. How to balance? (University lecturer´s
reflective notes, 21.4.2011)

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This is like tightrope walking. I have so many times seen that student
teachers grow so fast and take their full role as teachers. But sometimes I
have also seen that someone has too many things and responsibilities going
on at the same time. Sometimes they just jump over the lowest part of the
fence. But how to know who are the ones? How to give freedom and trust
enough but not too much? How to make them think for themselves and carry
the responsibility? (University lecturer´s reflective notes, 20.1.2011.)

These thoughts led us to the notion of the second order paradox of teaching
practicum that is to be elaborated in our conclusions.

MEETING THE SECOND ORDER PARADOX OF TEACHER EDUCATION

To conclude, the study shows that faded scaffolding (e.g. Collins, Brown &
Newman, 1989; Pea, 2004) with the idea of increasing responsibility and autonomy
is a useful principle in teaching practicum. One of the key findings was that
implementing integrative pedagogy in teaching practicum promotes reflective
dialogue that in turn gives space to reflective practices and professional autonomy.
This was a common experience for both the preservice teachers and their
supervisors.

In philosophical terms, promoting autonomy in education leads us, however,
into a paradox. How is it possible to influence preservice teachers so that they
begin to act autonomously? It is logically contradictory to achieve autonomy
through heteronomy. Should preservice teachers be regarded as autonomous
individuals from the very beginning, or if not, where is the magic point at which
they turn from heteronymous objects into autonomous subjects? One could claim
that a teacher educator may invite students into a free dialogue during Teaching
Practicum, although in actuality the rules for the interaction are set by institutional
power rooted in the educational system. If the teacher educator claims that the
students will be taken as equal partners of dialogue, would that be nothing other
than self-deception?

The main purpose of education is to emancipate people from irrationality and
immaturity; to empower them to use their own reason. But a teacher meets here a
classical problem, the pedagogical paradox, first formulated by philosopher
Immanuel Kant in his lectures on pedagogy (1803/1964, p. 718): ‘How to cultivate
freedom through coercion?’ The essence of the pedagogical paradox is that we
face the problem of assuming the existence of something of which education was
to be the precondition. How it is reasonable to assume that in order for education to
be possible the individual must be free, and simultaneously, in order for the
individual to become free education is necessary. How can one become something
that one already is? In general terms the pedagogical paradox arises when a teacher
declares that education should foster autonomy in the sense of a free essence,
but on the authority of the teacher. The paradox precipitates a clash between a
person´s internal regulation (Selbstbestimmung) and external regulation
(Fremdbestimmung). (Uljens, 2001 & 2004; Hamilton, 1999.)

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Following the Kantian ideas of Enlightenment, education in general should
aim at ‘maturity’ (Mündigkeit) and autonomy which means that everyone should
be able to use one´s own reason:

Enlightenment is man´s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one´s understanding without guidance from
another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of
understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance
from another. Sapere Aude! [dare to know] ‘Have courage to use your own
understanding!’ That is the motto of enlightenment.’(Kant, 1784/2011.)

Following this Kantian idea, a teacher educator actually meets not only the
traditional pedagogical paradox but also an even more complex pedagogical
dilemma: their task is not only to educate teachers but ultimately their perspective
includes the education of the pupils of the prospective teachers. In this way, the
pedagogical paradox for teacher educators becomes a second order paradox. The
second order paradox means that a teacher educator meets a double paradox if their
purpose is not only to promote the autonomy of the preservice teachers but also to
achieve the autonomy of the preservice teachers´ future pupils. The pedagogical
paradox seems logically impossible to solve, nevertheless teacher educators must try
to overcome this dilemma in their everyday practices. According to the pedagogical
ideas of integrative pedagogy, the teacher educator acts as a guide, who plans and
arranges learning environments where the preservice teachers can find his or her
personal philosophy of teaching parallel to the practical abilities and skills by
discussing, studying and reflecting educational and instructional issues together with
the supervisors and the peers. According to an empirical study, self-regulation skills
are best supported by a reflective dialogue between the preservice teachers and
university lecturers (Honkimäki & Tynjälä, 2007). The autonomy of the preservice
teachers is best supported by gradually decreasing the support and supervision of
teacher educators. The pedagogical principle of faded scaffolding may not solve the
pedagogical paradoxes in logical terms, but it seems to work in practice.

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Hannu L. T. Heikkinen,
Finnish Institute for Educational Research,
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Päivi Tynjälä,
Finnish Institute for Educational Research,
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Ulla Kiviniemi,
University of Jyväskylä,
Finland

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6. SITUATED PROFESSIONALISM
IN SPECIAL EDUCATION PRACTICE

Educating preservice teachers for special education/inclusive education

This chapter introduces the concept of ‘situated professionalism’, which is
developed from field studies of teachers´ professional knowledge and way of
knowing in special educational practice. It bridges the dichotomy between theory
and practice and puts emphasis on situated and timely judgements of professionals
as well as on reflectivity and theorising in practice. Serving as a key concept
‘situated professionalism’ challenges the way teacher education enables future
teachers to deal with a range of complicated (and complex) teaching and learning
situations in schools. With a focus on the main subject ‘special education theory’
in teacher education, it is argued that ‘situated professionalism’ implies a
‘practicum turn’ and following from this, ‘situated professionalism’ suggests a
point of departure in practice (based on data generated from practicum) in the
theoretical part of teacher education.

TENDENCIES IN SPECIAL EDUCATION/INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

In the Scandinavian countries we have for decades accepted the idea that our
regular schools should include all learners – regardless of the type and degree of
their disability. The question, however, is whether this is an ideal or an actual
practice, as the practice often seems to fall short of the mark. Scandinavian
research literature, at any rate, indicates several problematic experiences for pupils
placed in inclusive settings (Emanuelsson, 1998; Dalen, 1999; Tetler, 2000; Nes,
2004; Marinosson, Ohna and Tetler, 2007). Thus, the huge gap between ideology
and reality – and the reasons for this gap, seems to be crucial for the outcome of
the efforts of inclusion.

Due to an increasing number of pupils being taught in separate settings (i.e.
special classes and special schools), the field of special education/inclusive
education is central to the political agenda in Denmark. The latest survey indicates
5.6 percent among the pupil population are in separate settings, and still more
pupils risk falling outside mainstream educational contexts (Deloitte, 2010). So,
Danish teachers seem to lack skills in coping with the increased academic, social
and cultural diversity in their classrooms. This also raises questions about the kind
of professionalism that practice calls for and the competences future teachers need
to acquire in teacher education. The aim of this chapter is to discuss the concept of

M. Mattsson, T.V. Eilertsen and D. Rorrison (eds.), A Practicum Turn in Teacher Education, 113–129.
© 2011 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

HEDEGAARD-SØRENSEN AND TETLER

‘situated professionalism’ and its potential in the process of integrating theory and
practicum in teacher education.

SITUATED PROFESSIONALISM AS A CRUCIAL PRAXIS COMPETENCE

The concept of ‘situated professionalism’ is developed on the basis of findings
from three different field studies in Denmark. The first one is a study dealing with
the learning experiences of 27 pupils with special needs in their school settings
(Tetler, Baltzer, Boye, Hedegaard-Sørensen and Andersen, 2009). 15 pupils were
included in mainstream classrooms, while the other 12 pupils were placed in more
segregated settings such as special classes and special schools. Analysing the
interviews with their teachers, it became clear to us that the teachers experience a
need for ‘knowledge related to their practice’ and to the characteristics of learning
situations in practice (ibid, p. 215).

This finding is further explored in two subsequent field studies with a focus on
teachers´ constructions of teaching and learning processes in their classrooms
(Hedegaard-Sørensen, 2010a; Hedegaard-Sørensen, 2010b). The research
questions were: In which kind of knowledge is the practice of special education
grounded? What role do theories play? The empirical data consisted of initial
interviews, observations of learning situations and interviews about these learning
situations from 10 settings (both inclusive and segregated settings).

From these three studies, it can be concluded that teachers´ practice is, to a very
small extent, generated from theories. The determining element (of the use of
theories) is situations that teachers are confronted with on a daily basis in everyday
life in classrooms. From this point of departure the concept of ‘situated
professionalism’ captures an understanding of professionalism, as it refers to
teachers´ ability to make judgements and adjustments in shifting situations in
everyday life activities in classrooms (Hedegaard-Sørensen, 2010a; Hedegaard-
Sørensen, 2010b). Also, the concept of professionalism includes teachers´ ability to
decide on actions and to act while teaching; including the ability to reflect and
theorise during and after specific situations. Thus, theories and theorising are a part
of situated professionalism. Furthermore, the studies indicated that teachers draw
on a multitude of theoretical positions and combine them in complex patterns.
Based on these insights, the following section will discuss how ‘situated
professionalism’ can be taught and, as a part of that, how practicum can be
integrated into the educational practice in teacher education.

Theoretical Perspectives are not about Practice

With an interest in professionalism and the role of theories it is necessary to pay
attention to the theories that are taught in teacher education, and that teachers in
special education are supposed to draw on. The field of special education has been
influenced by psycho-medical approaches, which are pre-occupied with programs,
methods and theories outside practice. The line of thought (the understanding of
the problem and the required pedagogical solutions) is as follows: The teaching

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takes as its point of departure the diagnosis of pupils and the primary objective is
to compensate for pupils´ learning difficulties. This is done via specialised training
programs and methods, applied to practice. Even though this way of suggesting
pedagogical solutions has been strongly criticised, psycho-medical approaches are
undergoing a revitalisation, as neuroscience and biomedical science play an
increasingly influential role in the field of special education in Denmark as well as
in other European countries (Rose, 2007).

This is the main reason for introducing an understanding of professionalism,
included in the concept of ‘situated professionalism’. It is a paradox that discourses
about knowledge and professionalisation within the field of special education are
dominated by the abovementioned thinking (and therefore by prescriptive theories,
programs and models), when classroom studies show a diversity of unique children
in a variety of complicated learning situations. When going into the classrooms and
studying complicated learning situations (and not children with deficits) it becomes
obvious that teachers need a broader knowledge base than most evidence-based
methods and concepts assume. Thus, the argument underpinning this chapter is that
dealing with complicated learning situations in practice requires ‘situated
professionalism’ and (as a part of this) broader theoretical approaches than
individual oriented psycho-medical approaches.

In periods between the traditional psycho-medical approach and the present bio-
medical approach, the perspective of ‘special educational needs as social product’
has dominated the discussion (Clarke, Dyson and Millward, 1998, p. 158). Within
this perspective special needs are seen as a product of societal processes and
structures, which means that ‘needs’ arise from social problems and disappear if
social problems are solved. From this point of view ‘needs’ use: social discourses
out of which concepts and categories of needs are constructed; the functioning of
social institutions (schools or education systems as a whole) which generate failure
and develop special needs provision as a means of managing that failure; and
structural social and socio-economic processes whereby some groups are
systematically disadvantaged and marginalised (Clarke, Dyson and Millward,
1998, pp. 158-159).

Although this perspective has tried to rethink and revise a variety of
fundamental assumptions, as Clarke, Dyson and Millward (1998) point out, this
understanding of ‘needs’ has become a hegemonic function in the theoretical
field; not least because the dominance of liberal humane values have not been
challenged. The negative and unintended consequence is that other voices might
be oppressed. Furthermore, they stress that theories developed within this
approach do not address the particular tasks that special education practice
requires. The discussion (within the research field) about special education has
been influenced by values like equality, participation and inclusion, which have
shown a way out of a narrow focus on compensation models and programs, but
at no point do they attempt to derive principles of equity and inclusion from their
empirical investigations. They don’t question whether such principles actually
work for children, or whether it is possible for schools to realise them; rather
they focus on how far and in what ways schools are successful in realising

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principles that are not susceptible to empirical investigation (Clarke, Dyson and
Millward, 1998, p. 163)13.

How to study what is going on in practice

As we agree with the risks of reductionism inherent in these two perspectives (the
psycho-medical and the more sociological one), we had to pay great attention to
the designs of our studies. It means that practice and practical knowledge are the
objects of the studies – and not theories, ideologies and programs about practice.
This focus on practice has made it possible to see that much more is going on in
practice than either the psycho-medical approach, the bio-medical knowledgebase
or the more sociological theoretical perspectives are able to capture. This ‘much
more’ must be included as a part of the discussion about special education and
inclusive education and about the way teacher education and practicum in teacher
education are practised.

The methods in the studies have been used to support teachers in unfolding
reflections, judgements and meanings in close connection to actions and decisions
in practical situations. The teachers have been interviewed and practice in
classrooms has been observed. Afterwards, situations in practice, when teachers
construct learning environments for pupils, have been written down as research
narratives. Finally, the teachers have been interviewed about specific situations
from practice, as they were captured in the research narratives. Based on this kind
of empirical data, new insights about teachers´ knowledge (and ways of knowing)
in special educational and inclusive practice were generated.

Teachers seem to understand the task of educating pupils diagnosed for example
with autism, from a broader knowledgebase. It is neither the psycho-medical nor
the sociological approach they see as necessary to draw upon, but 1) specific
knowledge about the ‘diagnosis’ and ‘special needs’, 2) knowledge about inclusion
(about creating differentiated learning environments, creating communities and
classroom climate) as well as 3) knowledge about pedagogy and the didactic focus
(about teaching in general and coping with situations in everyday life in schools).
The dispute between positions in the academic field of special education/inclusive
education seems irrelevant for teachers, as they draw on multiple positions and
theoretical perspectives, which they combine in complex manners and patterns,
depending on shifting practical situations. For teachers, practice – not theory –
stands in the foreground. The teachers hesitate when asked about theoretical
inspiration. Maybe theories do not mean much to them. Maybe the struggle
between positions and the dominance of the psycho-medical paradigm are
tiresome. No matter what, it does not seem to address the challenges that teachers
are confronted with every day in practice. It can be argued that teachers´ concept of
being professional seems to be in conflict with the dominant concept of being
professional in the theoretical field of special education. The findings of these three

––––––––––––––
13 An example is Skrtic, T. M. (1995) Disability and democracy, Reconstructing (special) Education

for Postmodernity, Teachers College Press, Columbia University.

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studies also raise the challenging question of whether the way teachers are taught
to be teachers is able to include this complexity of practice. What kind of theory do
teacher educators teach? Is the theoretical framework they use as prescriptive and
normative, as evident as in the two already dominating perspectives in the field of
special educational practice? Are challenges from complicated learning situations
(cases) discussed in the theoretical part of the main subject ‘special education
theory’? Are the theoretical part of teacher education and practicum linked and
related to one another? And is it a part of teacher education to theorise about
practical situations concerning complicated learning situations?

Situated Professionalism in Practice

As the findings from the three field studies indicate, the concept of ‘situated
professionalism’ can be understood as a kind of professionalism, taking place in
everyday life in classrooms. This concept is in contrast to Polkinghorne´s
interpretation of ‘technƝ’ (Polkinghorne, 2004), because it is assumed in ‘technƝ’
(or in programs, methods and teacher manuals developed outside practice) that
teachers follow the scripted program. Professionals are “asked to adhere to scripted
sequences of techniques or laid-out programs that have been experimentally
demonstrated to accomplish a specified goal” (ibid, p. 3). From this point of view,
the professional is reduced to an instrument for the implementation of the program.

The analysis of the research narratives (and interviews based on them) draws on
Fredrik Barth´s methodology and focuses on teachers´ definition of situations in
practice (Barth, 2004). Studying these processes of defining what they do is
conducted through an analysis of research narratives on situations in practice and
teachers´ reflections on these situations (when interviewed about them). The
findings indicate that teachers make judgements and adjustments in situations.
Polkinghorne offers the notion of ‘phronƝsis’ to capture this phenomenon. He
draws on Aristotle´s separation of ‘poesis’ and ‘praxis’ as two ways of thinking.
‘Poesis’ is about objects, dissociated from the person creating the object, while
‘praxis’ is an activity that people are involved in. The notion of ‘phronƝsis’
captures the kind of thinking in practice, in which the goal is not in the foreground,
but pure being (and part of this is the vision of creating ‘the good life’).

Polkinghorne captures a type of professionalism that we would define as
situated professionalism: “Effective practices of care require that practitioner
actions are decided by their situated and timely judgements” (2004, p. 1). In other
words, ‘praxis’ is conducted in specific situations, and there is no universal
formula for doing ‘good’ in every situation. On the contrary, it depends on one´s
capacity to cope with each situation wisely and ethically. The way of knowing can
be defined as Polkinghorne does in the following quote:

The interaction between the caregiver and the other person, whose responses are
not scripted, is like musical improvisation in which each player is attuned to and
responsive to the other´s performance. Caregivers are not like the members of an
orchestra who play a musical score as it has been written. They are more like

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members of a jazz duo who have to adjust their innovations to those of their
partners (2004, p. 120).

Situated Professionalism in Special Educational Practice

Being a teacher in special educational practice involves situated and timely
decisions, as teaching is not solely about realising intended plans for teaching.
Rather, it requires the ability of making judgements and adjustments. Teaching is
influenced by the fact that pupils challenge the intended teaching during the
teaching activity, as they are engaged, resistant and/or trying to negotiate ‘the
plan’. The following two research narratives are derived from a mainstream school
(Hedegaard-Sørensen, 2010a). Linda is a girl diagnosed with autism spectrum
disorders, and the first example illustrates how a teacher improvises and makes it
possible for her to participate in an improvised activity:

It is the first day after Easter holidays. The lesson is about to begin as the
teacher enters the classroom. The pupils are noisy. The teacher tries to get
the pupils to sit down at their desks. After a few minutes of a teacher
constantly insisting on peace and calmness the pupils are quiet. The
teacher asks the pupils one by one what they have been doing in the
holidays. It is difficult for the teacher to maintain calmness. After this talk
followed by a little improvised break it is time for the subject English. The
lesson begins with an English song called ’head, shoulder, arms and toes’.
They sing the song with enthusiasm. After the song Linda (the girl
diagnosed with autism) asks: “I will suggest that we sing the song again. I
will show the movements to the song during the singing”. The teacher
says: “Well … maybe … hmm. I don’t know. The pupils are sitting down
again. I don’t think they are in for it. Linda.” Some pupils say “yes” and
the teacher says: “Well, why not.” Linda places herself in front of the class
and they begin to sing the song again. Linda is showing the movements
during the song and seems to enjoy the role (ibid, p. 180).

This example shows a teacher improvising and making judgements and
adjustments while teaching. She is thinking aloud, negotiating with the pupils and
at the same time planning how to go on with her teaching.

The second research narrative shows the more challenging part of working with
classroom diversity:

The subject in the lesson is math. The class is divided into two groups and
placed in two different rooms. The theme of the lesson is measuring height
and length. The teacher is standing in front of the blackboard going through
the theme and teaching the pupils how to solve an assignment they are
supposed to work with later on. The teacher gives an example about
measuring height by talking about her own height. She is not very tall, so
they talk about the differences between people in weight and height. One of
the pupils suddenly says that Linda (the girl diagnosed with autism) is very
tall. Linda starts to cry and says that the girl was mocking her. The teacher

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assistant intervenes and tells Linda that she can easily understand that she
thinks she is getting mocked. She tells that she was mocked when she was a
child because she is very little. She tells Linda, that what she experienced
was not mocking. She says: “You are tall, Linda, and that’s a fact. The girl
mentioning that was just telling this fact.” In spite of this talk from the
teacher assistant the girl mentioning Linda´s height apologises. She says that
she did not mean to hurt her feelings. (Hedegaard-Sørensen, 2010a)14.

This research narrative shows how conflicts and emotions can interrupt the
intended teaching/the plan for the lesson. Linda interprets the talk about being tall
as teasing. The teacher and the teacher assistant have to improvise a way of going
into this conflict and help the pupils understand the cultural codes in their learning
community.

These research narratives are examples of the teaching practice involving
pupils´ actions, reactions and spontaneous ideas. Teachers have to take these into
consideration as a condition for their teaching. Being a teacher in special
educational settings (and presumably in every kind of setting) requires the
competence of ongoing improvisation and adjustments to the plan, according to the
way pupils react and respond. This is included in the concept of ‘situated
professionalism’. The challenge for teacher education, then, is to prepare their
preservice teachers to become ‘situated professionals’, in the sense of enabling
them to act, to make judgements and adjustments and to reflect and theorise in
learning situations. It is important to integrate the development of these
competences into the main subject ‘special educational theories’ as well as into
teacher education in general. As a consequence, theories understood and taught at
university colleges must be adjusted to the concrete situations in classrooms. The
traditional theoretical framework, belonging to the psycho-medical paradigm, with
a focus on prescriptive programs and models, does not capture what is actually
going on in classroom practice. Neither do ideological and normative theories on,
for instance, how to implement inclusive educational strategies.

With the notion of ‘situated professionalism’ we will suggest that teacher
education and in-service training use practice as their point of departure.
Furthermore, we would like to encourage researchers to prioritise empirical studies
with the ambition of figuring out (together with teachers) what is going on in
practice, and how this can be professionalised. The main argument for using
practice as the basis for teacher education is the need for a professionalisation of
practice. When the gap between theory and practice is too large, the consequence is
a lack of professionalisation of everyday practice in schools. The following
discussion about teacher education and the relation between teacher education and
practicum is to be understood in the light of this interest or aim. The assumption is
that teachers and preservice teachers in special education would benefit from a
professional language about their own practice to enable discussion about how

––––––––––––––
14 This research narrative from the field study has not been published.

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practicum in teacher education can be the organisational ground for putting
practice (and problems and issues derived from practice) in the foreground.

SITUATED PROFESSIONALISM AND PRACTICUM IN TEACHER EDUCATION

In the following we will discuss the possible educational consequences of situated
professionalism. We put emphasis on the education of special educational teachers
and, as a part of this, on the discussion about the relation between theory and
practicum in teacher education.

As mentioned earlier an increasing number of pupils are being taught in
separated settings in Denmark (i.e. special classes and special schools), and the
educational field in Denmark is discussing how this might be understood in the
light of teachers´ lack of competences for coping with cognitive, social and cultural
diversity in their classrooms. This ‘state of the art’ might be a result of a big
educational backlog within special education/inclusive education due to the fact
that this ‘field’ has been excluded from the teacher educational program in
Denmark since 1982.

The reason this subject was removed from the teacher education program is
grounded in a strong critique of special education as a field of sorting pupils in
different categories, inspired by theories about stigmatisation. Instead, Danish
teacher educators argued for developing more inclusive teaching approaches in
schools. That point of view also implied an integration of special education issues
into the curriculum of general pedagogy in the teacher education program in order
to prepare all preservice teachers for ‘the school for all’. However, and in spite of
those idealistic intentions, special education issues became peripheral or even
invisible, as they were treated in a more fragmentary way, detached from a more
holistic development of the entire field.

The current uncertainty/ambivalence about professional practice knowledge in
Danish schools has now led to a reintroduction of special education as a specific
subject in the new teacher education program. Actually, it has been made a main
subject, called ‘special education theory’, and it corresponds to 36 points in the
European Credit Transfer System (ECTS points)15. In addition, a coherent teaching
practice period/practicum of 6-7 weeks is linked to this main subject. Preservice
teachers can select ‘special education theory’ among a range of main subjects, and
even though it is a quite ‘new’ main subject, a surprisingly high number of
preservice teachers choose it.

The curriculum for this main subject clearly indicates an understanding of
special education activities in schools as a matter of inclusive efforts. In other
words, the challenge for this new ‘edition’ of ‘special education theory’ is to
dissociate itself from the former more individual-oriented and psycho-medical
approaches, by a critical examination of the underlying assumptions of those kinds
of approaches. Rather, expectations from society are concerned with preparing
preservice teachers to cope with a range of complicated learning situations in

––––––––––––––
15 A student’s full-time work for one year corresponds to 60 ECTS points.

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classrooms – within the local schools, by exploring more context-based relational
approaches.

PRACTICUM MODELS IN TEACHER EDUCATION

Legislation in Denmark emphasises the role of teaching practice at schools in
teacher education Practicum, since 2009, has been a larger part of the teacher
training program at university colleges (Undervisningsministeriet [the Danish
Ministry of Education], 2006). Furthermore, it is suggested that practicum be
integrated within the theoretical parts of the program.

To obtain an overview of the use of practicum in teacher education within the
new main subject ‘special education theory’, we have conducted a minor study.
A questionnaire was forwarded to respondents at all Danish university colleges
(16 in total). Two thirds responded. The questionnaire was mainly about the
relationship between the theoretical part of teacher education in university
colleges and experiences from practicum in schools. As a part of this the
respondents were asked about their choice of practicum approach. Finally, the
last part invited the respondents to express their future visions for practicum in
teacher education.

According to the respondents, the integrated approach is the most popular one.
This professional self-understanding seems to be consistent with the intentions of
the political reform on teacher education. Responses from three university
colleges, regarding their reasons for integrating theory and practicum, refering
directly to that legislation, although the choice of the integration approach seems to
some extent to be under constraint. The other responses sympathise with the
intention in the legislation. Some emphasise that prioritisation of practicum is a
welcome improvement of teacher education, as issues, derived from practice,
become a more intertwined part of the curriculum in teacher education. One
respondent emphasises that it is “crucial to create positive connections between
theory and practice”. Another respondent points to the opportunity to “plan for
preservice teachers´ theorising practice” as well as to increase “creativity in
teaching methods at university colleges”.

The respondents´ visions for the future in university colleges are very similar, as
they suggest improvements of the collaboration between educators from university
colleges and teachers in the practicum schools. Some stress that a ‘traditional’ kind
of practicum should be replaced in the future. Instead of only spending limited
time in practicum, ongoing contact between the three partners is suggested (i.e. the
teacher educator from the university college, the practicum teacher and the pre-
service teacher). The purpose of this collaborative effort should be to study,
develop and improve practice. Some emphasise the importance of the practicum
teachers in educating preservice teachers, and they suggest that practicum teachers
should be educated to fill that role. Practicum teachers´ training could, as some
recommend, take place at university colleges, which again would strengthen the
collaboration between university colleges and practicum schools.

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TWO DIFFERENT WAYS OF IMPLEMENTING AND DISCUSSING

Going through the questionnaires it was clear that a range of practicum approaches
was used, so in order to get a deeper understanding of the rationale behind them,
we picked out two key informants for a semi-structured interview. The interview
focused on issues like ‘what factors are evident in an integrated approach when it
comes to the implementation procedures and explanations/explorations of how
theory and practice/practicum can be integrated in the education practice of teacher
education?’

The interviews revealed a significant difference between the two ways of
implementing the new teacher education reform with a larger emphasis on
practicum and a better integration of practicum and teaching in theoretical
perspectives on special education. In fact, both key informants pointed to the
integrated approach as their favourite in the questionnaire. However, the interview
showed that they interpreted and implemented the concept of an integrated
approach very differently, and that this difference is very much connected to how
they understand the relationship between theory and practice – and ultimately, how
they understand the professionalisation needed in schools, dealing with the
diversity of pupils´ experiences, interests, needs, social backgrounds and
approaches to learning.

Integrating the Disintegrated

In the first case, the new reform has been seen as a way of strengthening practicum
and inviting teacher educators to integrate practice and theory to a larger extent
than previously. According to the key informant, the problem is that the planned
outcomes for the two parts of teacher education (practicum and the theoretical
program) are not related. The main subject ‘special education theory’ at the
university college is planned as an education programme in its own right – and
does not refer directly to the teacher profession (or to practicum). This means that
the theoretical part of the teacher education is based on general theory about
different theoretical perspectives on special education; for example, the theoretical
debate about the psycho-medical and sociological perspectives is prioritised, while
the intended outcomes from practicum are generated from problems in professional
practice.

Furthermore, the key informant says that her colleagues at the university college
experience the new role given to practicum as an interruption; that is, an
interruption of the theoretical education at the university college. This means that
these teacher educators have not changed the teacher training program. In this
university college, practicum consists of a 4 week period in the middle of the
special education theoretical program (the main subject). Preparation for practicum
consists of the preservice teacher´s visit to the practicum school and supervision at
a meeting with the teacher educator. The teacher educator and the preservice
teacher use this meeting to create a connection between practicum and the
theoretical program at the university college. The practicum schools sometimes
work with pupils in segregated organisational units within a psycho-medical

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paradigm, which might be a contrast to the values and professional understanding
that preservice teachers are taught at the university college. Therefore, the teacher
educator and the preservice teacher meet before practicum to discuss matters such
as these and to find a way for the preservice teacher to cope with such
contradictions.

Due to the reform of teacher education, both the practicum teacher and the
teacher educator from the university college now evaluate the preservice teacher´s
performance according to the intended practicum outcomes. Thus, the teacher
educators in the main subject are supposed to work together with the teacher in
practicum on the evaluation of the preservice teacher. This is the major focus of the
three partners´ meeting during practicum.

The key informant directs attention to the abovementioned structural barriers
when she argues that practicum and the theoretical program are not connected, but
she still insists that the practicum approach should be integrated. From an outside
perspective, it seems that the preservice teacher´s role is to find connections
between ‘worlds’ that are not linked together at a structural level. The teacher
educator points to the portfolio (which the preservice teachers are supposed to
produce during practicum) as the learning activity in practicum that supports the
integration. In this portfolio the preservice teacher is supposed to describe teaching
experiences and evaluations, reflections and theoretical discussions connected with
the teaching practice. This is, according to the first key informant, a way of
integrating theory and practice or learning in practice and by theories.

Practice in the Foreground

The other key informant experienced these structural/organisational barriers as less
influential with regard to the integration of practicum and theoretical teaching
program. Compared to the former way of implementing the aim of the new reform,
the team of teachers at this university college employs a different approach, as the
main subject of special education/inclusive education is divided into four
interrelated sections – with practicum placed in the middle.

The first section focuses on preparing for practicum by drawing on both
theoretical perspectives (directed towards the profession) and practice challenges
(ongoing discussions in the field of special education). These could include
discussions of the relationship between theory and practice, how to organise
support to pupils, different perspectives (e.g. an individual perspective, an
organisational perspective and a societal perspective) and the differences between
included and segregated organisational models in special education practice. Thus,
integrated in the teacher training program at this university college is the
preservice teachers´ preparation of their practicum. That means that the preservice
teachers make appointments with practicum teachers and in collaboration with
their teacher educators agree on how they will study practice. This university
college has a long tradition for working together with practicum schools, and part
of that tradition is the visits of practicum teachers to university colleges and
teacher educators to practicum schools. Knowing one another and the awareness of

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mutual expectations enables the teacher educators to draw on action research,
participant research methods and action learning. For instance, it means that the
three partners together help the preservice teacher find a balance between being a
part of and participating in practice and collecting data about practice.

The second section is practicum, in which the preservice teachers collect and
analyse data in order to evaluate their own learning in practice/action learning.
They have to write a report about teaching in practice – and discuss issues
regarding teaching in special educational practice (in both segregated and inclusive
settings). This analysis is evaluated by both the practicum teacher and the teacher
educator, often carried out together in workshops situated at the university college.
The preservice teacher presents his/her analysis and receives feedback from
teachers and peer preservice teachers.

The third section focuses on general theoretical perspectives about paradigms in
special education research and profession: that is, the connections between
theoretical paradigms, teaching strategies in practice and scientific paradigms and
methodologies. This section focuses on more general theoretical perspectives
relating to marginalisation, inclusion, exclusion and normalisation. The preservice
teachers are expected to go back to their practicum schools and make an
intervention (in collaboration with the practicum teacher) in order to change and
improve the practice there.

In the final section the preservice teachers are occupied with an in-depth
analysis of a practical problem in practice, which builds upon data collected during
practicum, the first analysis and subsequent reflections as well as on the
intervention and evaluation thereof. All this is supposed to be analysed from
general theoretical and methodological perspectives, including action research. The
rationale behind this model is (according to the key informant) an explicit critique
of ideological and prescriptive theories. It is meant to be an inductive way of
organising education that emphasises practical problems as the point of departure
for theoretical studies. And in this respect, it challenges the dominant tendency in
Danish university colleges to base their teacher educational program on
prescriptive and normative theories about practice (Laursen, Rasmussen, Kruse,
Bruun and Thingholm, 2009). Moreover, it counters the assumption that practice is
generated from theory.

Theory and Practice in Teacher Education

The difference between the two ways of organising, mentioned above, can best be
understood in terms of ‘disintegrated’ and/or ‘integrated’. The first example was
characterised by an organisational split between teaching theory at the university
college and preservice teachers´ learning in practicum, while the latter can be
characterised as an organisational connection of problems in practice and the
theoretical program at the university college, inspired by action learning and action
research. This way of organising is in line with the concept of ‘situated
professionalism’, as it is based on representations of practice in the theoretical part
of teacher education: for example, by gathering data from practice, writing reports

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on teaching experiences and making in-depth analyses of issues stemming from
practice. This way of putting emphasis on the relation between acting in practice,
reflecting on practice and analysing practice, enables the pre-service teachers to
develop ‘situated professionalism’ during their teacher education.

Both ways of organising are based on the argument that theoretical knowledge
and knowing how to proceed in practice are quite different ways of knowing. The
two key informants take this into consideration in their discussions, and they
explicitly dissociate themselves from the assumption that theoretical knowledge
can be applied to practice. Following this kind of thinking, it makes sense to
conclude that prescriptive theories (technƝ) from the psycho-medical approaches
are not a priority in the theoretical program at university colleges – for the purpose
of preparing preservice teachers to work from theory into practice. The practicum
models that belong to this line of thinking are more likely to be the laboratory
model or the intervention model (see chapter one). Based on our questionnaire,
these models do not seem to be the favoured ones at Danish university colleges
within the main subject ‘special education theory’, at least not for the moment or in
the rhetoric.

The two key informants dissociate themselves from the assumption that
theoretical knowledge can prescribe practice, but at the same time their
interpretations of this assumption differ from one another. In the first case (the
disintegrated approach) the key informant argues for the choice of theoretical
approaches in the subject ‘special educational theory’. It is dominated by theories
defining special educational needs as social products and, as Clarke, Dyson and
Millward (1998) argue, these theories are not challenged by the discussion of
practical dilemmas and complex learning situations. In the other case the teacher
educators make explicit critique ideological and prescriptive theories. Instead, data
is generated from practice – and analysed within the theoretical program in teacher
education.

SITUATED PROFESSIONALISM: THEORISING PRACTICE

The key informants both agree that theoretical discussion about professionalism
and professional practice that stresses theory does not generate practice. Practice
and theory call on two different kinds of knowledge and ways of knowing. Schön
(1993), as one dominant figure in this debate, distinguishes between knowledge
and reflection in practice and theoretical knowledge, while Bourdieu (Bourdieu,
1977; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992) distinguishes between actions and thinking
about the circumstances around actions. The premise of Bourdieu´s theory is the
existence of a correspondence between social structures and mental structures. As
Wacquant puts it,

Bourdieu proposes that social divisions and mental schemata are
structurally homologous because they are genetically linked: the latter are
nothing other than the embodiment of the former (Bourdieu and Wacquant,
1992, p. 13).

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The field studies about teachers´ professionalism challenge this assumption. By
analysing research narratives about situations in practice it is found that teachers
make adjustments over and over again, and by analysing interviews on research
narratives about situations in practice it is found that teachers to some extent are
able to recollect their thinking in specific situations16. Certainly, they can recollect
in detail their reflections on how and why they adjusted their actions and sayings
according to pupils´ responses. This finding is supported by Polkinghorne (2004)
who, inspired by Aristotle´s concept of ‘phronƝsis’, argues that professionals who
work with people make judgements in situations. Finally, it should be mentioned
that Archer (2007) challenges and extends the theory of practice by Pierre
Bourdieu and puts emphasis on people´s ability to reflect. During complicated
learning situations (like special education) it is especially necessary for teachers to
think, reflect and theorise. This kind of situated professionalism is simply an
integrated part of teaching.

KNOWING OR REFLECTING, THEORISING AND ANALYSING

Finally, turning back to the interviews about two ways of organising relations
between theory and practicum we will discuss the different learning outcomes each
of them promotes.

Knowing in practice.

The disintegrated (the first case) way of organising the relationship between
teaching theory and professional learning in practicum primarily leaves it to the
preservice teachers themselves to make connections between theory and practice.
Except for one meeting during practicum, there is no collaboration between the
teachers in practicum and the teacher educators at university colleges. The
unintended consequences of this might be that practical problems do not challenge
the theoretical endeavour and theoretical perspectives, and, vice versa, that
theorising does not influence what is going on in everyday life in schools. When it
comes to the learning process in practicum this disintegrated way of organising
might lead to apprenticeship. The preservice teacher will participate in a
community of practice and will take over tacit understandings and assumptions
about how to go on in practice.

Reflecting, theorising and analysing practice.

The integrated way (the second case) of organising the relationship between theory
and practicum promotes collaboration between the theoretical endeavour at the
university college and the professional knowledge in practicum. This way of
organising makes it possible to include practical problems in the time spent at the

––––––––––––––
16 According to Pierre Bourdieu practitioners are only able to a certain extent to recollect and thereby

understand every circumstance around the situations.

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SITUATED PROFESSIONALISM IN SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE

university college and to invite to reflecting, theorising and analysing practical
situations and problems in practice. It is a way of meeting the intention to create
connections between theory and issues in practice without assuming that
theoretical knowledge and professional practice knowledge are the same. When it
comes to the learning process in practicum, this way of organising has a better
chance to lead to the development of situated professionalism by the preservice
teacher.

This constant adjusting, thinking and reflecting in practice – and according to
specific situations in practice – as seen in this approach is a very important part of
the discussions about how teacher education can prepare preservice teachers for
practice. The integrated practicum approach, which is described above, is an
example of a way of organising collaboration between teacher education and
practicum, as it puts emphasis on analysing data generated from practice. That
does not mean that preservice teachers can apply a specific theory to practice; on
the contrary, they are taught to reflect on, theorise and evaluate practice. In that
way, they might develop a competence or a preparedness to reflect on practice in
and after practice.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Educating for the profession implies a kind of learning that aligns activities at
university colleges and activities in the profession, though without assuming a
direct transfer from theory into practice, since practical knowledge and theoretical
knowledge are not the same. One common activity transcending teacher education
and practicum is the ability to reflect, theorise and analyse practical problems and
situations. Practising this in both the teacher education at university colleges and in
practicum will presumably support the education of the skilled and reflective
professional practitioner. Or, in other words, it would support the development of
‘situated professionalism’, which is a kind of professionalism that takes the
complexity of practice into consideration.

The integrated practicum approach emphasises the connection between teaching
activities and intended learning outcomes. With regard to the discussion about
educating for the teaching profession, the connection of theoretical parts of teacher
education and practicum would encourage problem-based learning. Problem-based
learning approaches include examples of practical problems in the learning
activities at university colleges and invite preservice teachers to “question, to
speculate, to generate solutions” (Biggs and Tang, 2007, p. 10). It supports the
development of the ability to reflect, analyse, adjust and theorise practice.

As the concept ‘situated professionalism’ invites further examination of
professionalism in practice, we need more research that takes into account practice
situations at its outset. Moreover, two other research areas need to be prioritised:
Firstly, we recognise a need for research on the relationship between the theoretical
and practicum components in teacher education in Denmark, as prescriptive
theories in general seem to be dominating teacher education, and the connection to
practicum seems to be very weak (Laursen, Rasmussen, Kruse, Bruun &

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Thingholm, 2009). Looking specifically at the relationship between the main
subject ‘special education theory’ and practicum shows a similar picture. The
example presented in this chapter of an integrated approach indicates that changes
and improvements are possible within the legislation and within the organisation of
teacher education.

Secondly, our research indicates a need to examine and consideration of what is
going on in inclusive and special education practice, the kind of theories are
relevant, and the role they play in practice. The findings in the field studies,
conducted in a Danish context, are in line with Clarke, Dyson and Millward´s
(date) critique, because we have identified a gap between discussion at the
theoretical and the practical levels. Theories presented to preservice teachers are
grounded in either psycho-medical approaches or in more sociological
perspectives. This is presumably related to the fact that much research done in the
field of special education is more ideological than empirical-based. Challenging
this pattern, research must take situations of complexity as they emerge in practice
as its starting point. As shown in our field studies of professional knowledge in
practice, teachers draw on a very broad knowledgebase and combine different
theoretical positions according to the characteristics of specific situations in their
classrooms. This is what the term ‘situated professionalism’ is meant to capture.
Ultimately, the consequence of the gap between theories and practice implies a de-
professionalisation of the field of special education/inclusive education. Breaking
with this tendency requires collaborative studies and studies inspired by action
research, i.e. studies where teachers and researchers work together to describe
practice (complex learning situations), reflect on and analyse practical situations.
From our point of view this would also benefit teacher education by generating
theories related to practice and to situated knowledge.

REFERENCES

Archer, M. S. (2007). Making Our Way Through The World: Human Reflexivity and Social
Mobility.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Barth, F. (1994). Manifestatjon og Process. Oslo: Det blå bibliotek, Universitetsforlaget.
Biggs, J. and Tang C. (2007). Teaching for Quality Learning at University: What the Student does.

London: Open University Press.
Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant, J. D. (1992). An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). The Logic of Practice. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Clarke, C., Dyson, A. and Millward, A. (Eds.) (1998). Theorising Special Education. Routledge.
Dalen, M. (1999). Den inkluderende skole – idealer og realiteter. In: En skole for alle i Norden. Et

festskrift i anledning af den 20. nordiske kongres i Stavanger: ’100 års nordisk samarbejde omkring
undervisning af elever med særlige behov’.
Deloitte (2010). Specialundervisning i folkeskolen - veje til en bedre organisering og styring.
København: Rosendahls-Schultz Grafisk.
Emanuelsson, I. (1998). Integration and segregation – inclusion and exclusion. International Journal of
Educational Research, 2, 95–105.
Hedegaard-Sørensen, L. (2010a). Pædagogiske og didaktiske rum for elever med diagnosen
autismespektrumforstyrrelse - om læreres selvforståelse og handling i (special) pædagogisk
praksis.Ph.d.-afhandling. København: Danmarks Pædagogiske Universitetsskole, Aarhus
Universitet.

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Hedegaard-Sørensen, L. (2010b). Beskyttet eller inkluderet – en falsk modsætning,Storebjergundersø-
gelsen: http://www.halsnaes.dk/SkoleBoernepasning/Skoleomraadet/Specialundervisning/

Laursen, P. F., Rasmussen, J., Kruse, S., Bruun, T. H. and Thingholm, H. B. (2009). Ekspert i
undervisning: Rapport over første år i et forsknings- og udviklingsarbejde vedrørende samspillet
mellem teori og praksis i læreruddannelsen. København: Danmarks Pædagogiske Universitetsskole,
Aarhus Universitetsforlag.

Marinosson G., Ohna S. E. and Tetler, S. (2007). Delagtighedens pædagogik. Psykologisk Pædagogisk
Rådgivning, 44, 236–263.

Nes, K. (2004). Hvor inkluderende er L97-skolen? In K. J. Solstad and T. O. Engen (Eds.), En
likeverdig skole for alle? Om enhet og mangfold i grunnskolen. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.

Polkinghorne, D. E. (2004). Practice of the human sciences – the case for a judgement-based practice
of care. New York: State University of New York Press.

Rose, N. (2007). Politics of Life itself – Biomedicine, Power and Subjectivity in the Twenty-first
Century. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Schön, D. A. (1993). The Reflective Practitioner: How professionals think in action. London: Temple
Smith.

Skrtic, T. M. (1995). Disability and democracy. Reconstructing (special) Education for Postmodernity.
Columbia University: Teachers College Press.

Tetler, S. (2000). Den inkluderende skole – fra vision til virkelighed. København: Gyldendal.
Tetler, S., Baltzer, K., Boye, C., Hedegaard-Sørensen, L. and Andersen, G. L. (2009). Pædagogiske

vilkår for elever i komplicerede læringssituationer. In Egelund and Tetler (Eds.), Effekter af
specialpædagogiske indsatser. København: Danmarks Pædagogiske Universitetsforlag.
Undervisningsministeriet (2006). Lov om uddannelsen til professionsbachelor som lærer i
folkeskolen.LOV nr. 579 af09/06/2006. København: Undervisningsministeriet.

Lotte Hedegaard-Sørensen
Faculty of Arts
Aarhus University, Denmark
Susan Tetler
Faculty of Arts
Aarhus University, Denmark

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7. EXPLORING THE SELF AS PART OF PRACTICE

Reflections on students´ practice learning from the social work perspective

INTRODUCTION

In what ways could students´ practice learning of another welfare profession, such
as social work, be taken into consideration to further promote a ‘practicum turn’ in
preservice teacher education? Though social work obviously is very different from
teaching in respect to the day-to-day work, there are, however, at least three
reasons to reflect on the practice learning of preservice teachers from the social
work perspective (see for example Carlgren, 1996; Heggen, 2003). Firstly, as with
preservice teacher education, social work has become gradually incorporated in the
universities since the 1970s. Partly due to this integration, theoretical knowledge
has become one founding part of the professional practice knowledge in both
degrees (Heggen 2003; Johansson and Andersson, 2002). Secondly, similar to
preservice teacher education, practicum is considered as fundamental to social
work education. Students’ practice learning is therefore a central part of both
degrees – a part that is also guided by specific principles and values. Finally, in
both preservice teacher and social work education, personal qualities, competences
and values are becoming increasingly emphasised as crucial in the professional
preparations of the occupation (see introductory chapter of this book by Matts
Mattsson, Tor Vidar Eilertsen and Doreen Rorrison). In Sweden, perhaps this
development has reached furthest in the social work degree, as personal maturity,
conduct and values have been parts of the System of Qualifications of Social Work
since 2007 (Högskoleverket, 2009).

The aim of this chapter is to examine how lecturers and students of social work
reflect on and conceptualise the learning of professional practice knowledge,
including personal qualities and competencies such as conduct, maturity and
values. How do social work lecturers teach in professional practice knowledge and
how do social work students think about their learning of professional practice
knowledge? By looking into students´ practice learning of another welfare
profession such as social work - which at least in Sweden has had an educational
path of development similar to preservice teachers - this chapter strives to
introduce some new reference points concerning preservice teachers´ practice
learning. Above all, this chapter highlights how awareness of the self and
exploration of personal qualities and abilities are incorporated in students’ practice
learning in social work and how methods and concepts of the social work degree
could be used to enrich and encourage preservice teachers´ practice learning.

M. Mattsson, T.V. Eilertsen and D. Rorrison (eds.), A Practicum Turn in Teacher Education, 131–146.
© 2011 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

BRODIN

THEORETICAL POINTS OF DEPARTURE

Similar to the case of pedagogy, it has been argued that social work is a theory in
practice (see for example Schön, 1983). As in pedagogy, professional practice
knowledge in social work is therefore best described as socially situated
knowledge constituted by a combination of declarative (know that), procedural
(know-how) and conditional knowledge (knowing when and why) (see for
example Trevithick, 2008). Thus, resembling the case of becoming a wise
educator, the social worker must learn to synthesise knowledge as epistƝmƝ
(theoretical knowledge) and technƝ (know-how) with phronƝsis (prudence and
practical wisdom) in order to become a wise practitioner (see Butler, 2003;
Kjørstad, 2008; Trevithick, 2008).

While it is possible to characterise professional practice knowledge by the
different forms of knowledge that it requires, it’s nevertheless an ambiguous
concept. This depends mainly on the many different associations connected with
the word ‘practice’. Kemmis and Grootenboer (2008) argue, for example, that
practice is a concept full of nuances because it is situated in time and history.
Furthermore, according to Kemmis and Grootenboer (2008) practice is formed by
the interplay of social, economic, material and cultural circumstances in general, as
well as being shaped by the values and traditions of the professional practitioners
in particular. Practice, and therefore also professional practice knowledge, is
consequently not a static but a continuously changing concept. To examine how
teachers teach and students learn the practice of any profession, it is therefore
necessary to get beyond the taken-for-granted notions and reconsider what practice
learning actually signifies within the discourses of the degree as well as of the
profession.

From a competence-based to a reflective learning paradigm

One common characteristic of the social work degree in most countries is the
increasing emphasis of theoretical knowledge (see for example Alwall, 2004;
Johansson and Andersson, 2002; Lam, Wong and Leung, 2007; Trevithick, 2008:
Wilson and Berni, 2010). Based on the British example, Wilson and Berni (2010)
describe this development as a shift from a competence-based learning paradigm
that emphasises the students´ learning of technical and practical aspects of social
work, to a reflective paradigm that focuses on students´ learning through the
dialectical process of knowledge, action and reflection.

However, Wilson and Berni (2010) do not explore changes of paradigms in the
strict Kuhnian sense. Rather, they use the concept of paradigm as an ideal type to
emphasise some conflicting tendencies in the social work degree. According to
Wilson and Berni (2010), the competence-based and reflective learning paradigms
– or ideal types – co-exist within the social work degree, although they advance
different professional beliefs, ideals and values. While the competence-based
learning paradigm tends to encourage the prescriptive, regulating and controlling
aspects of the profession, the reflective paradigm promotes the socially situated
knowledge that the professional social worker comes to develop (Wilson and Berni

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EXPLORING THE SELF AS PART OF PRACTICE

2010; see also Schön, 1983). As knowledge and skills are situated in the time and
the place where the user/client and the social worker meet and interact, Cooper
(2001) argues that the reflective learning paradigm is more in agreement with the
methods of social work than the competence-based learning paradigm, which
primarily advances working methods based on procedures and routines (see also
Butler, 2003; Kjørstad, 2008).

These different understandings of students´ learning also generate diverse
approaches to students´ practice learning. While practicum within the competence-
based learning paradigm is regarded as a way for the students to acquire the
necessary technical skills of the occupation, practicum within the reflective
paradigm is considered as a way for the students to explore the professional
practice on the basis of theoretical knowledge and to interpret this experience in
relation to the self and the world around (see Lam, Wong and Leung, 2007; Wilson
and Berni, 2010). However, as Lam, Wong and Leung (2007) observe, these
different ideals of students´ practice learning are as good as incommensurable.
Therefore, norms based on one paradigm can’t be used to evaluate students´
practice learning acquired according to the other paradigmatic ideal. Critical and
reflexive capacity, for example, cannot be evaluated from the point of competence-
based learning and vice versa; skills cannot be evaluated on the basis of critical
reflection if the prime goal of practicum is to learn technical and practical aspects
of the profession. Yet, because these two different learning paradigms – or ideals –
co-exist within the social work degree, they can create distress among the students
regarding what professional knowledge they are actually supposed to learn when
they are on practicum (see Lam, Wong and Leung, 2007). To enable students´
practice learning, it is therefore important that the embedded norms and values of
practice learning are made explicit.

An interpretative framework for examining students´ practice learning

As this chapter examines how lecturers and students of social work think and
reason about the learning of professional practice knowledge, students´ practice
learning will be discussed here from a discursive perspective. According to
discursive theorists such as Laclau and Mouffe (1985), there are certain concepts,
whose meanings are particularly contested because they are key concepts around
which whole chains of significances are built. As they are vital in world
communications, advocates of different discourses will continuously try to take
control of these key concepts to remake their meaning to fit with their
understandings of the world. In discursive terminology, these key concepts are
usually defined as ‘empty signs’ as their meanings are floating and indefinite (see
also Burr, 2003).

From the discursive perspective, it is possible to define professional practice
knowledge as an empty sign. It is a key concept in understanding and
communicating what the professional skills and competences are all about, at the
same time as being a concept that is frequently questioned because advocates of
different professional and social discourses want to impose their particular

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BRODIN

meaning on the concept. Professional practice knowledge is thus an ambiguous
concept that can have different meanings depending on individual standpoints as
well as on the place, situation and time of the statement.

However, as Kemmis and Grootenboer´s (2008) discuss, practice – and therefore
also professional practice knowledge – is to a large extent informed by conditions
external to the individual, such as social and professional discourses and material
circumstances. Accordingly, individuals´ opinions and perceptions of professional
practice knowledge are shaped by the discursive and material contexts. To examine
how social work lecturers and students think and reason on professional practice
knowledge, I will refer to Wilson and Berni´s (2010) notions of the competence-
based and reflective learning paradigm as two competing interpretations of
professional practice knowledge. The competence-based and the reflective learning
paradigm will function as interpretative frames to analyse the sayings of the lecturers
and the students. The greater the argument for the necessity of practical and technical
skills, the more I will interpret this as a sign of a competence-based learning
paradigm and vice versa. The more the argument for theory and reflection, the more I
will take this as a sign of the reflective learning paradigm. As professional practice
knowledge is a key concept in understanding and communicating what social work is
about, advocates of the two different interpretations will supposedly also try to
impose their particular meaning on the concept.

Method and Data Collection

The empirical basis of this chapter consists mainly of three focus groups that I
established with lecturers and students of the Study Programme in Social Work for
the Care of Elderly and Differently Abled Persons at Stockholm University.

The use of focus group is a common technique in research for collecting data
through group interaction (for an overview of the method, see for example Morgan,
1988; Wibeck, 2000). The subject of the discussion in the focus group is preset by
the researcher and the discussion is also guided by a moderator. The purposes of
using focus groups as a method of data collection vary; however, focus groups are
usually set up in order to study social interaction and how participants in a group
reason and argue. By studying the interaction in the reasoning of the focus group,
different strategies for reaching consensus can be shown while also revealing
conflicts in the argumentation. Moreover, by analysing the discussion, the focus
group can also be used as a method to capture how people perceive a certain subject
or what values are embedded within certain subjects or concepts. This latter point of
departure has also been the main methodological approach used in this chapter.

The Study Program in Social Work for the Care of Elderly and Differently
Abled Persons at Stockholm University includes three and a half years study (210
ECTS credits). The first two terms of the program involves 60 credits of theoretical
studies in social science and law. The third and fourth term of the program includes
60 credits of mainly theoretical studies in social work for the care of elderly and
differently abled persons. The practicum (a module of professional practice skill) is
placed in term five and involves 21 credits. In addition to practicum, term five also
includes a theoretical module of seven credits, where the students are required to

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write a report on their experiences in relation to the workplace, its organisation and
the professional role of the social worker. The final two terms of the program
contain 30 credits of theoretical studies in the care of elderly and differently abled
persons, of which 15 credits are for the writing of an individual paper, and 30
credits are for theoretical courses at the advanced level.

For the purpose of this study, I established one focus group of social work
lecturers who were part-time or full-time practice lecturers at the study program.
The lecturers´ focus group therefore consisted exclusively of lecturers involved in
teaching about and organising the practicum at the study program. I chose this
group of lecturers, as I was specifically interested in questions of practice, practice
knowledge and practicum in the social work degree and not in theoretical
knowledge. Therefore, it is possible that the lecturers´ discussion and perception of
professional practice knowledge may have been different if I had met with
lecturers only involved in the theoretical studies.

Regarding the two focus groups of students, I established one group that was
studying in term four and one group in term five. The students in term four would
do their practicum the following term while the students in term five had recently
finished the practicum and were about to write their reports on the practicum
experience. The reason for choosing these two different groups of students was that
I wanted to see if and how the practicum experience affected the students´
understandings of professional practice knowledge.

With some slight moderations, all three focus groups were basically asked to
discuss the same question, that is, what does professional practice knowledge mean
to you? In the lecturers´ focus group, however, I also explicitly asked what elements
and pedagogical models in the degree they thought supported the students´
advancement to become professionals and how they evaluated the students´
professional progress. In the student groups, on the other hand, I specifically asked
how they thought about and/or had experienced practicum. In the students´ group
that had finished their practicum, I also specifically asked how they thought
practicum had contributed to the development of their skills and competences.

All three focus groups´discussion were recorded and transcribed. The
transcriptions were then coded into different themes. After coding, the themes were
brought together and analysed by identifying what common or conflicting
opinions, ideas, perceptions, values and tendencies were expressed by the three
focus groups regarding professional practice knowledge in social work. Here, the
notions of competence-based and reflective learning paradigm served as the
interpretative frames according to which the different themes, opinions, ideas,
perceptions and values were grouped and analysed.

LECTURERS AND STUDENTS ON PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE KNOWLEDGE
IN SOCIAL WORK

The lecturers: theory and self-knowledge

The lecturers´ conceptualisation of professional practice knowledge in social work
was strongly in accordance with the reflective learning paradigm. They also

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expressed consensual perceptions of professional practice knowledge in social
work as consisting of theory and self-knowledge. One of the lecturers described the
teaching of professional knowledge in social work in the following way:

…the doing in itself is nothing. Through the years we have gone here from
practical knowledge to theoretical knowledge (…) Nowadays, at least I do so
in the modules where I’m teaching; you will not learn to use any tools, but
you will learn the theoretical knowledge, the foundation, to then be able to
develop different forms of tools.

Theoretical knowledge is thus described by this lecturer as the core of professional
practice knowledge in social work. The primary reason for this development is the
extensive field of practice. As the field of social work contains so many different
areas and arenas, the lecturers argue that it is impossible for the degree to provide
students with one specific kind of practical skill, competence or knowledge. Instead,
students must be provided with a theoretical foundation to set out from when they
finish their studies. The degree, therefore, is only the beginning of the students´
learning and the end of this process is left open to the students´ choices of career as
social workers. For the lecturers, professional practice knowledge in social work is
thus described as a life-long learning process and the degree in itself can only set the
frames for this individual journey. From this perspective, professional practice
knowledge in social work is nothing you have or do not have when you finish your
studies; it is something you come to learn in time and at the place where you work.

What, then, is the theoretical foundation within the degree that lecturers believe
students must be provided with? Besides theoretical knowledge in social sciences,
such as sociology, psychology and law, its main core is to learn how to think as a
social worker.

To get into social work, into the profession, we talk more and more and get
better and better at supporting the students in considering how it is to be a
professional social worker. And there it’s not about how to learn a computer-
system when you’re on practicum, not as a main focus, anyway, but it’s
about [how] to tune in the language they use and the ways they reason.

Thus, the lecturers describe the core of professional practice knowledge students
are provided with, as to learn how to think rather than how to do. Consequently the
learning of practical and technical skills of welfare administration has, to a large
extent disappeared from the social work degree.

To learn how to think as a social worker, the lecturers emphasise that the
students must come to know themselves. As one of the lecturers stresses:

…a large part of the degree is about self-knowledge and it becomes obvious
at practicum, because there they shall look on themselves, their own learning
process, what happens and how they handle different situations in their own
learning.

Self-knowledge, in combination with theoretical knowledge, is accordingly
emphasised as the essence and basis of the professional practice knowledge that

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the students will learn during their degree. The reason for this is that as a social
worker, you are often the only tool you can work with.

The modules that will specifically enable the students to learn about themselves
and their development of professional practice knowledge are the practicum and
the course in professional practice skill. This latter course runs parallel with the
others during the whole study programme. As the practicum, this course is
mandatory and the students can only be awarded an approved or fail grade. The
reason for this is basically that “…you can’t get an A in self-knowledge”, as one of
the lecturers put it. The module of professional practice skill therefore focuses
mainly on the students´ personal development and is seen as a module where
students can put their theoretical knowledge into practice; however - without being
at the field of practice. In this way, it is supposed to prepare the students, both for
practicum and for their future career as social workers.

Practicum is, however, the module lecturers emphasise as perhaps most essential
to the students´ learning process. It is the time when the students will be able to
integrate theoretical knowledge with practice and deepen their self-knowledge.

…it’s both that we want them to integrate theory with practice when they’re
out, but they also write a diary on their own learning process. So, during
practicum, they’ve to look for examples and themes that come back again
and again, so you can see - do I usually get into the same conflicts, or do I get
worried about the same kind of things, or what is it that comes up?

Practicum is thus described by lecturers as the moment in the degree when students
learn how to think as a social worker. That experience deepens their knowledge but
also changes them. The students often come back from practicum with a different
language and another look at both themselves and the degree.

To sum up the lecturers´ discussion, professional practice knowledge in social
work is theory and self-knowledge that enable reflection, communication and
meeting with others. This conceptualisation is also close to what Wilson and Berni
(2010) describe as the reflective learning paradigm in social work that focuses on
students´ learning through the dialectical process of knowledge, action and
reflection and stresses the socially situated knowledge that the professional social
worker comes to develop. An important aspect of the students´ learning process
here is that they have good examples to follow. According to the social work
lecturers, their meeting with the students in the classroom is a mirror of how the
students will meet their future clients. An essential aspect of students´ practice
learning in social work is, therefore, not only their lecturers´ sayings but also their
behaviour when they communicate and interact with the students.

Students´ focus before practicum: competence-based or reflective knowledge?

Contrary to the lecturers who expressed very consensual views on professional
practice knowledge in social work in accordance with the reflective learning
paradigm, the students in term four who were about to do their practicum, stated
two rather conflicting opinions. On one hand, there was a student who strongly

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argued in line with the reflective learning paradigm. This student emphasised that
professional practice knowledge is a life-long learning process that one comes to
develop as a social worker, on the basis of theory and self-knowledge.

…you need so many different facts to be able to see the whole picture of
need and to be able to work with all sorts of things (…) I want something that
can be the foundation, not only for my working-life but also for a way of
living (…) It’s not just that you go to work and then you handle situations
based on your professional skills, you do also live as a social worker…

This student was also generally pleased with the degree and felt quite confident
both regarding the future as a social worker and the practicum experience.

On the other hand, there was another student who argued in line with the
competence-based learning paradigm. This student repeatedly stressed that the core
of professional practice knowledge in social work was to be objective in the
relations with the clients and to know how to put the law into practice.

… I know my Bourdieu, I’ve studied Foucault, Marx I’ve got with me since
before, but when I’ll be there at work I’ll trust the Social Services Act more,
I think the Social Services Act and the law is more the core of our degree
than theories.

This student was also dissatisfied with the degree. In this student´s opinion, the
degree had not involved enough skills and competences in law. Additionally, this
student did not feel confident regarding the future or practicum, as the degree had
not provided enough knowledge and competence in how to put the law into
practice.

The other students in term four took positions somewhere between the previous
two standpoints. Though these students wanted more practice training, they were
inclined to describe professional practice knowledge more in line with the
reflective than with the competence-based learning paradigm.

…I think that what’s most important, or what I feel they teach, is an approach
towards the world around and other people (…) it’s more as a way of
thinking they teach.

The majority of the students in term four expressed views that were close to the
lecturers´ way of defining professional practice knowledge. How they thought the
degree provided them with professional practice knowledge was also highly
dependant on their identification with different learning paradigms. The student
who most strongly identified with the reflective learning paradigm was also the
one who spoke most positively about the degree and what it gave in relation to
personal and professional development. In contrast, the student who acknowledged
the competence-based learning paradigm was not satisfied with the degree.
According to this student, the degree had not provided any real vocational
guidance, so it would not function as a bridge towards the labour market.

When I asked the students in term four to describe what professional practice
knowledge was to them, they all started to talk about the module of professional

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practice skill (practicum). Nearly all of the students said it was helpful, but they
thought they had too little of it, so it was hard to catch up with what they had done
between the times they met. The student who identified with the competence-based
learning paradigm was, however, very critical and thought it had been more like a
nice coffee-break that had not helped push the students to their limits nor prepare
them for an occupation that most certainly would be stressful.

Considering the practicum, all students looked forward to it, though generally
with some fear and trepidation. The student who most strongly identified with the
reflective learning paradigm was the one who felt most calm before practicum.
This student thought of practicum as a learning experience and not as a test of
practical skills and competences as a professional social worker. In contrast, the
student who recognised the competence-based learning paradigm said

…to finally get out in the reality and to see how it is. The fear has been more
that I’ll make a fool of myself because I feel that they’ll reveal how little
knowledge I have of practical social work.

For this student, practicum appeared as a test of practical skills and capabilities and
therefore was more related to fears of failure than hopes of learning.

All but one of the students in term four also wished for more practicum during
their degree. More and shorter practica would have helped the students shed some
light on the field of practice. Contrary to the others, the student who most strongly
identified with the reflective learning paradigm argued that practicum was not
necessary in order to know what to do after their degree.

How the students in term four thought of practice learning and practicum also
generally followed their overarching identification with different learning
paradigms in social work. The greater the identification with the competence-based
learning paradigm, the more the students wanted practicum to learn what do to as a
social worker and vice versa; the greater the identification with the reflective
learning paradigm, the less the students expressed need for practicum to learn how
to become a social worker.

Students after practicum: “I know a way to think”

In contrast to the students in term four, who expressed ideas of professional
practice knowledge in social work both in line with the competence-based and the
reflective learning paradigm, the students in term five articulated more consensual
opinions in line with the reflective learning paradigm. In that way, their discussion
was similar to that of the lecturers. As the students in term five had done their
practicum, they could relate further to situations and incidents when they discussed
professional practice knowledge and what it meant to them.

As in the lecturers´ group and the students in term four who identified with a
reflective learning paradigm, all students in term five expressed similar views on
professional practice knowledge in social work, that is, it is based on personal
development, theoretical knowledge and self-knowledge. Also, the students in term
five therefore described professional practice knowledge both as an embedded

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approach towards others and the world around, and as something you come to
develop over time and where you work. Generally, the students in term five felt
content with that perception of professional practice knowledge and they all agreed
that it has to be that way as the field of practice is so comprehensive. However, as
one student said, because of this they could also have concerns about actually
knowing what they know.

It’s hard to get a receipt for my knowledge, I think, because I feel that I learn
very much a way to think when I study this programme. And it’s very hard to
put it in words like that, but I know a way to think.

Similar to the social work lecturers and the students in term four who identified
with the reflective learning paradigm, the students in term five generally described
professional practice knowledge in social work as a way to think. In this context,
all students in term five also described practicum as an integrating moment of
theory and practice. Practicum had made them realise both the different
dimensions of professional practice knowledge in social work and the different
dimensions of themselves that they, in one way or another, would have to work
with in order to become a professional social worker. What aspects of themselves
and of social work they discovered was, however, highly dependant on what
workplace they had been in during their practicum. Generally, those students who
had done their practicum as welfare officers seemed to be more satisfied than those
who had done their practicum as welfare administrators. Reasons for this were
mainly because there was less use of theoretical knowledge and reflection within
welfare administration.

I used to work in the industry… and now, it’s almost the same thing… we
just administer welfare and then look at the need and make decisions about
investigation and then away with it. But anyone picked from the street can do
that, sit here [at the welfare office] about four, five months, and then do the
same thing.

Contrary to this student who had done the practicum as a welfare administrator, the
students who had been doing their practicum as welfare officers said that they had
discovered how much theoretical knowledge and reflection they had learned during
their studies actually meant for social work. Regardless of their different experiences,
all students in term five nevertheless emphasised that practicum had made them grow
both as a person and into the job as a social worker. Some of the students also
pointed to different aspects of social work or themselves that they thought their
degree had not provided them with or prepared them for. However, one student
argued that those parts of the professional practice knowledge you need to have as a
social worker are matters you will learn in time and at the workplace.

… I think that it’s something you learn at the job, it’s easier there because
you’ve colleagues around you. But when I began my studies, I was so
awfully upset because I thought that what the hell, the only thing they want is
for me to become a researcher… but now I feel as – I like the theories, that
we get those tools to lean on…

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