Acts of Resistance in an Age of Compliance: Teacher Educators, Professional Knowledge-Making and Self-Study

Significant structural reforms are reshaping the landscape of teacher education in many countries. Such reforms typically increase the standardisation of teaching practice so that teacher education becomes a mechanism for achieving ends determined elsewhere, with teacher educators (TEs) as the delivery service for these predetermined ends. In this article, I explore the implications of this situation for the professional knowledge and status of TEs, and argue that, both individually and collectively, TEs need to recognise and take action to assert their professional position as empowered, active and legitimate knowledge-makers about teaching practice. I draw on Clandinin & Connelly’s (1995) concept of professional knowledge landscapes and their ‘secret’ and ‘sacred’ stories as a tool to examine these ideas, and the methodology of self-study as one means of reshaping the professional knowledge landscape of teacher education.