On why ‘subjectification’ matters and how to regain agency in initial teacher education

Elton-Chalcraft, Sally ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3064-7249 , Miller, Anne, Ocriciano, Michelle, Marshman, Margaret, Visnovska, Jana and Biggin, Katie (2024) On why ‘subjectification’ matters and how to regain agency in initial teacher education. In: TEAN (Teacher Education Advancement Network) Conference 2024, 22-23 May 2024, Manchester, UK. (Unpublished)

Preview

PDF (abstract) - Presentation Available under License CC BY-NC Download (325kB) | Preview

Abstract

The increasing pressure in Western countries for qualifications and improved PISA and other high-stakes testing (supposedly demanded by the media, politicians, and policymakers) has shifted the focus from teaching to learning. Biesta (2022), an educational theorist who has put forward three domains for education (qualification, socialisation, and subjectification), challenges the educational shift and characterises this evolution as "learnification," - the framing of all educational aspects in the language of learning, thereby prioritising the learning process over the content and reasons for learning. We argue that ‘learnification’ is dominating the space within which initial teacher education takes place today, and we consider this problematic because the purpose of education has become sidelined; the student has been diminished to a learner (Biesta, 2022), and it has caused a politically motivated surveillance of teacher education (Heck, 2022). As part of the ITERC Biesta Reading group collaboration, our presentation explores Biesta’s notion of subjectification – the attributing of agency and active engagement to the student in educational contexts and how this shapes the underlying power dynamics and relationships in teacher education.

Demonstrating through exemplification, we show how students can regain their agency when they become the subjects of their own life. Through an exploration of the purposes of education, freedom, and democracy and how this could re-enter initial teacher education, we hope to address Papastephanou’s (2020) concerns about the ‘elusive’ nature of Biesta’s theoretical framework and Biesta’s partial or axiomatic interpretations. To address MacAllister (2016), another critic of Biesta who argues that the trifold lens is normative and would benefit from considering alternative perspectives on the purposes of education, we demonstrate how Biesta elevates the discourse by re-appraising the purpose of Teacher Education and critiquing various objectives that guide teacher education programs. We share our insights into subjectification as teacher educators from various international educational backgrounds, including examples from primary mathematics, senior English, Religious Education and democracy in the classroom. We critique how teacher educators can support student teachers, mediate governmental policy, and utilise the heart, head and hand approach, illustrating how the overt attention to subjectification as an educational purpose can make a difference to students’ classroom experiences and their education (Biesta, 2017). We draw implications from these examples for teacher education in the respective subject domains and illustrate how attention to subjectification in education relates to the broader concerns of freedom and democracy.

Key References:
Biesta, G. (2017). Letting Art Teach. Art Education 'after' Joseph Beuys. Arnhem: Artez Press
Biesta, G. (2022). World Centred Education. Abingdon: Routledge.
Heck, D. (2022). Teacher educators as public intellectuals: exploring possibilities. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359866X.2022.2049700
MacAllister, J. (2016). The normativity of Gert Biesta’s educational theory. Ethics and Education, 11(3), 378-392.
Papastephanou, M. (2020). What lies within Gert Biesta's going beyond learning? Ethics and Education, 15(3), 275-299.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Departments:	Institute of Education > Primary PGCE Learning Education and Development (LED)
Additional Information:	Presentation 56 at this conference.
Depositing User:	Anna Lupton
Date Deposited:	21 Jun 2024 10:51
Last Modified:	21 Jun 2024 11:00
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/7748

Downloads