European Traditions of Didactics: a Way to Understand Teacher Pedagogy in England, France

1

Birgit Pepin

Centre for Research and Development in Teacher Education,

School of Education, The Open University,

Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, United Kingdom

Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, Edinburgh, 20-23 September 2000

As part of the Symposium entitled

“Didaktik: an International Perspective”

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Cultures of Didactics: teachers’ perceptions of their work and their role as teachers in

England, France and Germany

Birgit Pepin, The Open University, UK

Abstract

The intention of this paper is twofold. Firstly, and as a background to understand teachers’ work from ‘without’, the history and developments of the education systems and teacher education of the three countries, and their cultural underpinnings in terms of educational traditions, are explored. Secondly, teachers’ accounts on their education, work and norms of social interaction with people in school are used to illuminate the view from ‘within’. It is argued that, although countries have their distinct traditions in terms of history and school knowledge, there are many commonalties amongst teacher’s work in the three countries. It is suggested that by comparing the two, the view from ‘without’ and from ‘within’, a more complete understanding of teachers’ work can be developed which in turn provides a window into the teaching and learning cultures of particular countries. By drawing on the literature of educational traditions and developments, on classroom observations and semi-structured interviews with teachers in the three countries, the paper offers insights into educational ‘cultures’ of teachers’ work in three European countries.

Introduction

“… every society possesses with a greater or lesser degree of difference, meanings to be learned. In short, every society has a culture to be learned though cultures are different.” (Levitas, 1974, p.3)

England, France and Germany, for all their varying characteristics, are alike in that, in the post-war era, they have seen changes in few sectors of their societies as great as those that have occurred in education. In England, the 1988 education act has affected schools in terms of the imposition of a national curriculum, greatly enhanced management powers for head teachers and governing bodies through the introduction of Local Management of Schools (LMS) and the creation of a quasi-market for state schooling. In France, the 1989 Loi Jospin (or Loi d’orientation) was intended to promote greater flexibility in a system that was considered to be too rigid in the context of rapid social and cultural change. In Germany, the greatest challenge in education has been provided by the unification of the former East Germany (GDR) with the former West Germany (GFR), and the opening of borders to so-called “ethnic Germans” from former Russian republics, such as Ukraine, for example.

In all three societies, educational changes have represented responses to aspirations of a cumulative nature and to historic events. There are now post-war educated generations of parents with children in school, who have acquired high expectations and a keen sense of what value education may have for their children in an increasingly developed and differentiated economy, society and international community. Educational systems are obliged to expand and alter their functions to meet a new range of objectives. These objectives include those which have long been agreed to be essential to a ‘just’ society, and others which were met by social institutions such as the family or the church, or which represent quite new aspirations of society or of particular groups in society.

The fact of change, its significance for young people and its implications for the future of society all compel a study of education, understood as a process that is oriented by values to create and increase intellectual and social awareness. The question of what the motive forces of education are may partially an internal one (in that education creates a demand for itself), but looked at in relation to society, education can be seen to respond in countless ways to the prerequisites of such systems as the political or the economic, that are external to itself. It is the culture of the educational system, its internal organisation and the means that it employs to seek to achieve its declared ends, that determine the quality of its response to society by providing an important and particularly manifest link in the chain of causality in the development of knowledge and values. This link is secured by the teachers in schools and by those who select and educate them.

If it seems appropriate to begin a study of education by focusing on teachers and their work in schools, it is sobering to reflect that, in the undertakings of educational systems of England, France and Germany, there is no gap more glaring than the failure to equip the teaching profession for its altered contemporary functions. The responsibility for changes and transformation in education devolves directly upon the teachers. From them must come much of the vision, expertise and cultural sensitivity to interpret and respond to pressure for change. This is likely to imply changes in attitudes, belief systems and social roles, in methods of work and classroom practices, and in resources of knowledge.

The culture of each classroom is the product of what the teacher and pupils bring to it in terms of knowledge, conceptions and beliefs, and how these affect the social interactions within the particular context. Nickson (1992) views culture as ‘the invisible and apparently shared meanings that teachers and pupils bring to the … classroom and that govern their interaction in it’ (p.102). However, the particular context of the classroom is also part of the larger institutional (school) and societal context (with its embedded values, beliefs and traditions) of a particular education system which may be manifested in adopted curricula, educational practices, and systemic features (Pepin, 1999a), to name but a few. These institutional and societal features represent a second source of influence on teaching and learning cultures and set the frame for the social interaction in the classroom. Thus, teaching and learning cultures, cultures of didactics, may vary according to the actors within them, and to the institutional and societal context in which lessons take place.

A study of teachers’ work, their perceptions, beliefs and education falls into its proper perspective as a study of the evolution (in its broader context) of an occupation with a key role in fulfilling society’s social, economic and cultural aspirations. Any such study must have regard not only to the political and historical background of any country, but also, and amongst other issues, to the ways in which social and intellectual, education and cultural values are inherent in teachers’ perceptions and work. One way of investigating teachers’ work is what Dreeben (1970) calls “the perspective of a somewhat cold-eyed sociological observer looking in from the outside” (p.5). Increasingly, researchers have come to value the insider’s viewpoint and to rely on teachers as informants. The importance of asking teachers to speak for themselves about the meaning of their work is demonstrated in the literature (e.g. Nelson, 1983). However, the focus on culture implies inferences about knowledge, values, and norms for action, none of which can be directly observed.

1 The context and structure of teacher education

However much at the level of the classroom the teacher may feel him/herself to be making the creative responses to a unique situation, s/he lives in fact in a social environment in which the activities of other individuals constrain and influence his/her own. It must be part of any exploration of teacher education to attempt to understand the educational and cultural context of teaching. Whilst there is little space in a brief study for a historical treatment of the English, French and German educational system, it would seem that the conventions and assumptions that characterise them must have deep historical roots to account for the persisting attitudes and practices with the respective countries.

A brief history of the English education system

According to the literature the history of the English education system can be divided into three periods: the Victorian period up to the 1944 Education Act; the post-war period (including the 1944 Education Act) and the educational reforms of the 60s; and the period around and after the 1988 Education Act. The period between 1833 and 1944 was characterised by the development of state funding and organisation of schooling and the control of the curriculum. The 1902 Education Act is regarded by many as one of the three major Acts of Parliament which 'have shaped the development of secondary education in the 20th century'. The Education Act abolished previously established School Boards and gave responsibility for education in England to local government (Local Education Authorities- LEAs). The second major Education Act was that of 1944 which required local education authorities to provide universal and free secondary education for all pupils from the age of eleven to fifteen, with provision for raising the leaving age to sixteen at some future date. The responsibility for the implementation of these major reforms was placed firmly with local education authorities under the direction of central government. According to Levacic (1993) the 1944 Education Act was a response to 'the desire to promote equality of educational opportunity and to strengthen the role of the Board of Education (later Ministry of Education) which had diminished in the inter-war years'. It intended a diffusion of power between the three partners: the Ministry, the LEAs and schools. The approximate division of responsibilities was that the Ministry directed overall education policy and the supply of resources, the LEAs built, maintained and staffed schools, and enforced attendance, while head teachers and teachers were largely responsible for what was taught and how the school ran on a day-to-day basis. This network between central government, local education authorities and teachers was designed as a 'partnership' between its participants in order to run education together. The LEAs managed their teaching force, and could appoint or re-deploy teachers to particular schools. Although technically responsible for the curriculum of schools, LEAs left the control of the curriculum to governors who have left it to the head teachers. The phrase 'the secret garden of the curriculum' was coined by David Eccles in 1960 to describe the fact that it was influenced by the teaching profession to the exclusion of the government, for example. In the 1960s criticism was voiced by 'traditional' educationist and politicians, for example, about curricular practice in schools. The 11-plus examinations were abandoned in most areas and comprehensive schools were created to educate children through the entire ability range. In the mid-1970s the Department of Education and Science (DES) began to increase its influence in curriculum matters and decided to assume its responsibilities for promoting the education of the nation according to the 1944 Education Act. In 1976 the then Labour Prime Minister, James Callaghan, made a speech at Ruskin College where he was critical of educational standards. He questioned, amongst others, the variety and type of curricula to be found in schools and he raised the issue of a 'core curriculum' in schools. The emphasis in ‘modernising’ the curriculum had shifted from looking at subjects to looking at the whole curriculum. Furthermore, from 1976 onwards the partnership between government, the LEAs and the schools slowly broke down. In 1985 the government issued a White Paper about the aims in education. The White Paper Better Schools stated and elaborated the government's principles for the curriculum for all pupils: it should be broad, balanced, relevant and differentiated. An example of the DES assuming power was that the Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (CATE) was established to oversee all initial teacher education courses. Another significant government intervention in the curriculum of secondary schools came through the introduction of a common examination at 16, the GCSE, instead of the old GCE and CSE examinations. This was generally welcomed because, although the examinations were being based on agreed National Criteria, there were possibilities for new types of syllabus designs such as continuous assessment and the introduction of course work, for example, within the new GCSE examinations.

The 1988 Education Reform Act could be seen as a continuation of the government's policy to enhance its power in the sense of controlling local government influence (in terms of spending, for example) as well as curriculum control. It encompassed other areas (such as higher education, for example), but the main measures affecting schools were the imposition of a national curriculum, greatly enhanced management powers for head teachers and government bodies through the introduction of Local Management of Schools (LMS) and the creation of a quasi-market for state schooling. LMS meant effectively that the LEA control of schools was dismantled by delegating to schools a budget to cover almost all their running expenses. The school governing body was not only responsible for managing the budget, but their duties also included the appointment of staff, for example. A quasi-market for schools was established by more open enrolment procedures in the sense that pupils could no longer be refused by a school if it had not reached its maximum capacity, and with every pupil bringing in a certain sum of money, a direct link was established between parents' preferences and the size of the school budget. In addition Grant Maintained Schools (GMS) were created which meant that, after a majority vote by parents, schools could opt out of the LEA system and, with the approval of the Secretary of State, become grant maintained by the DFE.

In terms of the National Curriculum and testing, two bodies (appointed by the Secretary of State) were set up to devise the National Curriculum (National Curriculum Council- NCC) and to advise on assessing and testing the National Curriculum and the remaining examination systems (School Examination and Assessment Council- SEAC). They were later combined to a single Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA). National Curriculum tests (Standard Assessment Tasks- SATs) were introduced for all pupils at the ages of 7, 11, 14 and 16. Schools were obliged to publish GCSE and SAT results. Furthermore, since 1994 schools are obliged to follow a 4-yearly inspection cycle, whereby a team of inspectors enters the schools for several days and inspects the whole school. In terms of teacher education, a national curriculum was introduced which not only stipulated the content but also the ways that student teachers should be encouraged to teach.

Historical developments in English teacher education

The history of teacher education can be divided into three periods: the period before the 1944 Education Act; the period between 1944 and 1972; and the period between 1972 and 1995. According to Judge (1990), teacher education in England is 'a product of history rather than of logic'. It is marked by inherited divisions, which were created in the 19th century and rooted in patterns of schooling. The time before the 1944 Education Act was characterised by the distinction between the public elementary education on the one hand and secondary education only for some selected few on the other hand. Teacher education, at the time, only provided candidates for the public elementary schools. There were also pupil-teachers who trained on the job with some more experienced practitioners and, in return for some payment, acted as teachers. The religious organisations (who provided public elementary schooling) had established a few training colleges for their own teachers, which offered one or two year post-school training courses, but only for a small minority of pupil teachers (Judge 1990). After elementary public schools became secular, local education authorities started building up their own teacher education colleges and, by 1914, the institution of 'pupil-teacher' was about to disappear. In terms of secondary education, and until teacher education was made compulsory in the 1960s, half of all the graduates going into teaching received no kind of training. With secondary schools at that time still being selective and grammar schools being academically orientated, the universities, as centres for academic studies, gladly accepted the government's invitation to initiate secular teacher education alternatives and became the homes for the education of such secondary school teachers. They insisted on the '3 plus 1', i.e. three years academic study plus one year teacher education. The less prestigious business of preparing elementary school teachers was left to the colleges, which offered a two-year course combining academic and professional work. Management of the training colleges was exercised by the local education and denominational authorities. The central government controlled the curriculum and examinations, whereas the universities only depended on the central government for recognition of their diplomas. By 1944, a division between the voluntary teacher education for secondary teachers, within the universities, and the quasi-compulsory one for elementary school teachers, in the colleges, had been established (Judge 1990).