Teacher professional learning: contextual understandings and perspectives of secondary teachers In Ireland

he aim of this thesis is to problematize Teacher Professional Learning (TPL) in Ireland within a rapidly changing national policy landscape and global neoliberal policy imaginary (Ball 2003, 2012). The reconceptualisation of teacher Continuing Professional Development (CPD) to Teacher Professional Learning (TPL) has preceded apace in other countries (Webster-Wright: 2009). However, it is only with the adoption of Cosán, the Teaching Council’s national policy framework in March 2016, that the terms ‘teacher learning’ and ‘teacher professional learning’ entered the official lexicon of teacher education in Ireland (Teaching Council: 2016).

This doctoral study is a critical interpretivist study examining TPL through: a critical interpretation of national policy background and context (2001-2015), a systematic review of the international literature surrounding TPL (2000-2015), and an examination of the contextual understandings and perspectives of a purposive sample of Irish secondary teachers in 2015.

A theoretical framework by the philosopher Michael Fielding (2007) was adapted in the study. This framework was supplemented by theoretical underpinnings of Bernstein (2000), Biesta (2009) and Ball (2010). Fielding’s adapted framework revealed how TPL can manifest itself differently depending on the purposes of education. This compact of theorists, and a research paradigm drawn from Critical Theory, provided an explanatory framework and illuminated the TPL-orientation of teaches and the differential interplay of power, trust and social relations. This framework was complemented by my own critical reflexivity which sought to unearth my hidden assumptions and reflexive blind spots and unravel the ethical dilemmas, which socially just-oriented qualitative research entails (Bettez: 2015; Fox and Allan: 2014).

The data collection used a purposive (self-selecting) sample of secondary teachers, sourced through the Teaching Council, a sample size of 162 teachers completing an online questionnaire, and 16 teachers participating in an in-depth interview. Three main themes were generated (Creswell: 2014). First, the data suggested that TPL is positioned within a strong managerial technocratic discourse. Second, teachers strongly identified with the professional ethic of care. Third, teachers in the study displayed a strong appetite and engagement in scholarship. The study concluded by proposing that while TPL is complex and requires a rich amalgam of epistemic and praxis supports, it is possible to negate some of the negative effects of macro level policy by supporting the micro world of teachers in specific contexts. The sample in this study appeared atypical in relation to other contemporary studies (Gleeson: 2010; Lynch et al., 2012; Sexton, 2007), and was not representative in a scientific sense. However, the findings from the study are timely, in that they can support a deeper theorisation of Teacher Learning by the Teaching Council (Cosán: 2016), to progress the critical scholarship o all teachers within the continuum of teacher education, for human emancipation and education as a public good. The study suggested that a TPL-orientation was viewed more favourably by arts and humanities teachers, in preference to STEM teacher. This is a hypothesis worthy of further research and consideration.