Contextual Values,Teacher Education and Sustainable Futures: learning from Pacific experience and perspectives

Becoming and Being a Teacher: Fijian understandings of teachers' work and lives and their implications for the improvement of teaching and learning quality Current international debates about development post-2015 place... [ view full abstract ]

Becoming and Being a Teacher: Fijian understandings of teachers' work and lives and their implications for the improvement of teaching and learning quality

Current international debates about development post-2015 place quality at the centre of educational thinking. This has strategic implications for the future of teacher education policy and practice. Given the challenge of balancing global goals with local contexts, the study focuses on a highly diverse region, marginalised from international policy debates: the Pacific Island Countries (PICs), and on Fiji in particular. Like other small states, PICs have responded to quality challenges by targeting teacher education. This has seen policy borrowing and the application of external standards, despite international evidence indicating that many such reforms fail due to misarticulation with the diverse realities of schools, systems and societies in which teachers work and live. To transcend this, our research analyses local and national conceptualisations of quality education and teacher identities and capabilities,
and explores the influence of powerful structural dynamics and global agendas through their impact upon teachers and teacher education.

Cross-cultural Educational Research Partnerships. Reflections on Pacific Experience and Collaboration The literature on international research partnerships has grown rapidly across many fields and disciplines in recent... [ view full abstract ]

Cross-cultural Educational Research Partnerships. Reflections on Pacific Experience and Collaboration

The literature on international research partnerships has grown rapidly across many fields and disciplines in recent decades, with initial work emphasising the potential and benefits to be gained from such developments. Within this, much attention has also been given to North –South research collaboration, with increasing numbers of accounts presenting detailed case studies of successful initiatives. To date, however, few studies have focussed explicitly upon the process of collaboration in ways that have generated critical reflection, and have improved our collective understanding of the dilemmas encountered in sustaining cross-cultural research partnerships. This paper explores the origins, strengths and limitations of one North-South research partnership, relating to teacher education in Fiji, in which we have been involved. The analysis draws upon the related international literature, interrogates the partnership experience from a diversity of cultural and professional perspectives, and explores ways of generating more context sensitive and sustainable research partnerships for future educational and social research in the Pacific.

Contextual Values, Teacher Education and Sustainable Futures: learning from Pacific experience and perspectives In the development of sustainable futures for education, particular attention needs to be given to the importance... [ view full abstract ]

Contextual Values, Teacher Education and Sustainable Futures:
learning from Pacific experience and perspectives

In the development of sustainable futures for education, particular attention needs to be given to the importance of culture, context and locally grounded knowledge. This Symposium draws upon original research on the nature, quality and relevance of teacher education in Fiji, and fieldwork that engages directly with Pacific values, perspectives and methodologies to inform more contextually appropriate and sustainable futures. The research is being carried out through partnership connections between the University of the South Pacific, the University of Bristol and the University of Nottingham. This is funded by the British Academy and USP and is designed to identify how Pacific values, cultures and contexts are influencing new priorities and trajectories for teacher education policy and practice. Particular attention is being given to the nature and potential of indigenous knowledge, traditional values and locally grounded approaches to research. This aims to contribute to the emergence of innovative methodologies, and to the development of future teacher education identities, curricula and pedagogy in such contexts. While the impact of international trends and developments are examined the research builds upon our previous work that highlights what the broader international community can learn from the experience of small island developing states (SIDS). In doing so, attention is also given to the distinctive environmental and economic challenges faced by SIDS and their implications for education, and teacher education, for sustainable development.