Pensamiento Educativo. Revista de Investigación Educacional Latinoamericana 2022, 59(1), 1-15
This paper examines the experiences of a group of student teachers during their intermediate teaching practicum while studying an English Teaching Program at a Chilean university. The main objective is to explore, from the student teachers’ point of view, the factors which lead to their recognition as teachers during that practicum experience, despite their marginal structural position as pre-service teachers in the educational establishments. The study is based on the analysis of five semi-structured interviews, following the conceptual apparatus offered by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. We argue that the main factor determining how pre-service teachers acquire capital, authority, and recognition as teachers in their practicum classrooms is the negotiation of the asymmetrical power relations which emerge between the trainees and their mentor teachers (i.e., the classroom teachers).
Keywords: initial teacher training, teaching practicum, pre-service teachers, recognition, capital, Chile
El artículo examina la experiencia de los estudiantes de Pedagogía en inglés de una universidad chilena durante su práctica intermedia (preprofesional). El objetivo principal es explorar, desde la perspectiva de los estudiantes, los factores que inciden en su reconocimiento como profesores durante dicha práctica, a pesar de su posición estructural marginal como practicantes en los establecimientos educativos. El estudio está basado en cinco entrevistas semiestructuradas, analizadas siguiendo el aparato conceptual desarrollado por el sociólogo francés Pierre Bourdieu. Se propone que el factor principal que determina cómo los practicantes adquieren capital, autoridad y reconocimiento como profesores en el aula es la negociación de la relación de poder asimétrica que se establece entre los practicantes y el profesor guía (es decir, el profesor del aula).
Palabras clave: formación inicial docente, prácticas pedagógicas, practicante, reconocimiento, capital
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© 2022 PEL, http://www.pensamientoeducativo.org - http://www.pel.cl
ISSN:0719-0409 DDI:203.262, Santiago, Chile doi: 10.7764/PEL.59.1.2022.5
Pedagogical practices tend to be one of the most important aspects in initial teacher training (Ben-Peretz, 1995; Rajuan et al., 2008; Tang, 2003), since they enable “the gradual approach of students to professional work and, at the same time, [facilitate] the construction and internalization of the teacher’s role” (Ávalos, 2002, p. 108). In other words, pedagogical practices do not solely represent the implementation of what a student has learned at university (Bailey, 2009; Barahona, 2015), but appear to be a fundamental element in the development of the competence, identity, and professional experience of pre-service teachers (Boz & Boz, 2006; Hirmas Ready, 2014; Mattsson et al., 2011; Yan & He, 2010). Accordingly, experiences in the school community have been understood as crucial in mediating the transition from student to teacher (Gao & Benson, 2012; Barahona, 2015).
However, this transition involves a series of tensions and contradictions in the experience of pre-service teachers (Barahona, 2015). This is primarily due to the liminal or marginal position (Cook-Sather, 2006; Gao & Benson, 2012; Jardine, 1994) that pre-service teachers occupy in this process because “they are no longer regarded as students but not yet accepted as regular teachers” (Gao & Benson, 2012, p. 128). Thus, in their path from students to teachers, pre-service teachers emerge as marginal or peripheral actors in the school community (Barahona, 2015).
As a consequence, this marginal structural position also affects the process of recognition as a teacher (Gao & Benson, 2012). From the perspective of forming a teacher’s professional identity, being a teacher requires both the recognition of the individual as a teacher by the community (Beijaard et al., 2004; Danielewicz, 2001) and regarding and understanding oneself as a teacher (Beijaard et al., 2004). In the case of pre-service teachers, the school community consists mainly of students, but also includes the mentor teacher and supervising teacher. Pre-service teachers occupy a highly complex position, as they have to act in accordance with various perspectives that are in continuous competition “about what teachers should know, do and be” (Barahona, 2015, p. 113; Beijaard et al., 2004). In this context, in their search for recognition as teachers, pre-service teachers state that one of their greatest challenges is to build a good relationship with their students in order to ensure discipline and the cooperation of the group (Gao & Benson, 2012; Hirschkorn, 2009; Oberski et al., 1999).
In Chile, one of the main challenges is the lack of connection between initial teacher training institutions and practice centers (Hirmas Ready, 2014; Labra, 2011; Montecinos et al., 2010; Organización de Estados Iberamericanos, 2010). According to Hirmas Ready (2014), this lack of connection “may be affecting the facilities for insertion of future teachers” (p. 136). Specifically, this lack of systematic collaboration produces misalignment between what each of the constituent actors of the training triad (pre-service teacher, mentor teacher, supervising teacher) expects from one another (Hirmas Ready, 2014; Organización de Estados Iberamericanos, 2010; Romero & Maturana, 2012). Therefore, in the Chilean context, the pre-service teacher’s position is further complicated by the series of tensions that emerge as a result of this lack of coordination. One of the most critical areas has been the misalignment between the visions of the degree programs and the practice centers with respect to the role of the pre-service teacher and, therefore, his or her duties in the classroom (Barahona, 2015; Hirmas Ready, 2014; Labra, 2011; Montecinos et al., 2010). In the case of prospective English teachers, Barahona (2015) contends that these misalignments are manifested in two contradictions. First, the university expects pre-service teachers to use only English to communicate in the classroom, while the reality of Chilean classrooms does not appear to allow this (Barahona 2015). Second, universities expect pre-service teachers to teach English for communicative purposes, which contradicts the reality that they encounter at their practice centers, where there is an emphasis on grammatical aspects (Barahona, 2015).
The relationship between the pre-service teacher and the mentor teacher is a determining factor for the formative experience, because the latter is responsible for “facilitating a real experience in the educational field” (Romero & Maturana, 2012, p. 657). However, these authors (2012) also emphasize that “a teacher in a school, with years of experience, is not always ... a good collaborator” (p. 657). A study by the Organization of Ibero-American States (2010) suggests that there are two extremes between which the relationship between the mentor teacher and the pre-service teacher can swing: there can be a relationship with too much delegation, with responsibilities that lie outside the scope of the process of pedagogical practice, or an overly structuring relationship, where the mentor teacher leaves little room for the pre-service teacher to develop autonomy. Both of these extremes produce tensions between pre-service teachers and mentor teachers. Some pre-service teachers “feel that their work is not legitimized” (Hirmas Ready, 2014, p. 140) and, therefore, they feel devalued (Organización de Estados Iberamericanos, 2010), as there is often a lack interest on the part of the mentor teachers in terms of their commitment to teacher training (Labra, 2011). Similarly, the supervising teachers in Romero and Maturana’s study (2012) state that the mentor teachers “provide spaces for work, but ... do not provide feedback for the learning process of the trainee teachers” (p. 663). This is a crucial point, as the students interviewed in the Organization of Ibero-American States (2010) study stated that they value freedom of action in the classroom, combined with the support and feedback of the mentor teacher.
Nevertheless, the mentor teachers point to the lack of information, preparation, and tools provided by universities to meet the expectations of degree programs with regard to pedagogical practice (Hirmas Ready, 2014; Organization of Ibero-American States, (2010). Various studies have underline the lack of formalization of the role of the mentor teacher (Organization of Ibero-American States, 2010; Romero & Maturana, 2012), which demonstrates the “invisibility of the important training work that they can carry out in the processes of constructing knowledge based on practice” (Hirmas Ready, 2014, p. 140).
In this context, this study explores the experience of a group of English teaching students at a Chilean university during their intermediate practicum. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical framework, the paper aims to identify the factors that lead to the recognition of the trainees as teachers by the school students during their intermediate (pre-service) practicum from the perspective of the pre-service teachers.
The first objective of the study is to examine the opinions of pre-service teachers in order to identify the tensions that emerge in the classroom as they seek recognition as a teacher from their students. In other words, the paper explores the asymmetrical power relations that are established between the different actors in the classroom (pre-service teachers, mentor teachers, students, and supervising teachers) and how these relationships influence the recognition of trainees as teachers. The second objective of the study is to identify and analyze the strategies that pre-service teachers use to legitimize their position as teachers; that is, it explores how pre-service teachers negotiate the various tensions and asymmetrical power relations in order to gain recognition as teachers from their students.
The paper is divided into three sections. The first introduces Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical framework and his conceptual tools. The second section sets out the methodological aspects of the research, outlining the approach used, the instruments, and the data collection process, and the third and final section presents the main results of the research, along with the analysis.
In order to understand the production of social practices, Bourdieu (2008) provides a conceptual apparatus with three key tools: habitus, field, and capital (power). From this perspective, practices are the result of the relationship between fields and habitus, mediated by power relations (Bourdieu, 1991).
The fields represent relatively autonomous spheres (e.g., the legal, literary, or educational fields), which are understood as networks of relationships between the positions that agents acquire based on their level of capital accumulation (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 2005). The totality of the fields of a certain society function as a social space, that is to say, a multidimensional structure where each agent occupies a position depending on accumulation of capital in different fields. These positions fluctuate; depending on the position in the field, the agents’ practices receive value, or capital. There are different types of capital, such as economic, cultural, or social capital (Bourdieu, 1986). When the agent’s capital is recognized as such, it becomes symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1986, 1989). Possessing symbolic capital confers a certain type of authority upon the agent that can be converted into symbolic power (Bourdieu, 1989). At the same time, symbolic power represents the power to “impose the scale of values most favorable to their products” (Bourdieu, 1989, p. 21) and, therefore, the power to produce and impose their view of the world as legitimate and natural.
A field can be understood as a “space of play” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 2005, p. 44), providing the rules by which agents’ social practices are produced, evaluated, sanctioned, or appreciated. These rules are shaped by the social and economic conditions of the social space and the symbolic struggles between the agents. The players are constantly engaged in struggles either “to change or to preserve” the boundaries and form of that space (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 2005, p. 42). That is, these are struggles for capital that determine the ability of agents to engage in the game, maintaining their position, obtaining a better position, or even altering the rules of the game.
Production of practices in the fields is possible through the relationship established between the fields and the habitus of each agent. Bourdieu defines the habitus as “a set of historical relations ‘deposited’ within individual bodies in the form of mental and corporeal schemata of perception, appreciation, and action” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 2005, pp. 41-42). Agents acquire their habitus “by internalizing a determinate type of social and economic condition, and which find in a definite trajectory within the field under consideration a more or less favorable opportunity to be actualized” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 2005, p. 143). The habitus is therefore akin to an internal compass that is updated in accordance with each encounter that the agent has with different fields and which guides his actions on the basis of previous experiences. This means that the habitus is structured according to the immanent conditions of the fields, but, at the same time, it also structures these same conditions.
Bourdieu used this conceptual apparatus to understand how the educational system, through its institutions, contributes to the “distribution of power and privilege and the legitimization of this distribution” (Bourdieu, 1996, p. 116). Using the case of France, the author describes how the school is a key element in social reproduction (of inequality) and in the naturalization of this same phenomenon (Bourdieu, 1996; Bourdieu & Passeron, 2018). Although Bourdieu did not touch upon the issue of initial teacher training, following Grenfell (1996) and Nolan and Walshaw (2012), this paper suggests that this conceptual apparatus enables this issue to be addressed and to explore how pre-service teachers gain recognition as teachers.
In order to occupy the position of a teacher, the agent primarily requires cultural capital in the institutionalized state (Bourdieu, 1986), which is achieved with conferral of the title of teacher by an institution that is recognized as being legitimately able to grant that status —that is, an institution that has the authority to guarantee and validate the technical and social competence of the holder (Bourdieu, 1996)—. On the one hand, the institutions that award these titles attest that a student has acquired a certain technical competence. On the other, according to Bourdieu (1996), the educational institution also represents an authority of consecration and nomination, which, through the title, attests to a social competence of the title holder, that is, a legally recognized capacity to exercise a form of effective power. Because of the collective belief in the authority that confers titles, the institutions have “the performative magic of the power of instituting, the power to show forth and secure belief or, in a word, to impose recognition” (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 247). Thus, the title becomes a “certificate of cultural competence which confers on its holder a conventional, constant, legally guaranteed value” (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 246). In other words, the competence attested by the title refers both to an actual technical dimension and to the nomination, recognition, guarantee, and statutory validation of the holder of this competence.
As a consequence, the teacher’s authority and the recognition of their legitimacy in the classroom does not necessarily lie in their technical competence or personal authority (Bourdieu, 2018), but is instead closely related to the title of teacher, on the one hand, and to the institutional position, on the other. In this respect, Bourdieu and Passeron (2018) state that pedagogical authority “is, in reality, automatically conferred on every pedagogic transmitter by the traditionally and institutionally guaranteed position he occupies in a relation of pedagogic communication” (p. 57).
In turn, recognition of the legitimacy of pedagogical action cannot be understood as a free and conscious decision to allow oneself to be instructed or as a coercion or abuse of power (Bourdieu & Passeron, 2018). Any pedagogical action “necessarily implies, as a social condition of its exercise, pedagogic authority and the relative autonomy of the agency commissioned to exercise it” (Bourdieu & Passeron, 2018, pp. 49-50). The pedagogic authority of any pedagogical action is related to the authority of the school institution—far from being intrinsic or natural, this authority comes from the close link between the educational field and the labor field; the former offers both the competences and the titles that have value in the labor field of a certain social space.
It is this complex process of recognizing the causal relationship between the educational and labor fields that concedes legitimacy to educational institutions and their pedagogical actions. The school system concedes “the teacher the right and the power to deflect the authority of the institution onto his own person” (Bourdieu & Passeron, 2018, p. 160). In other words, teachers “are from the outset designated as fit to transmit that which they transmit, hence entitled to impose its reception and test its inculcation by means of socially approved or guaranteed sanctions” (Bourdieu & Passeron, 2018, p. 57). Similarly, “the pedagogic receivers are disposed from the outset to recognize the legitimacy of the information transmitted and the pedagogic authority of the pedagogic transmitters” (Bourdieu & Passeron, 2018, p. 58).
While this causal relationship between the institutional position and the recognition of the teacher’s authority emerges under the conditions outlined above, borderline cases can also appear when this recognition of the teacher’s legitimacy is not always present. In this respect, the fit between the teacher’s habitus and the educational field is key. One of the possible tensions that could lead to a lack of recognition of the teacher’s authority is specifically the (partial) misalignment between the teacher’s habitus and the rules of price formation in the school institution and the classroom. So, despite their institutional position and their power to impose sanctions or appreciate practices, students can find ways to produce subversive practices. This underlines the need to understand the classroom as a sub-field of the school establishment, which could be understood as a field1. The classroom subfield is characterized by rules of price formation that, despite being aligned with those of the rest of the institution, will always be subject to a process of negotiation determined by the power relations that emerge between the teacher and the students as well as between the students themselves. In this sense, recognition of the teacher’s legitimacy will always be linked to the logic of institutional delegation of authority, but, at the classroom level, the teacher’s legitimacy can also be contested according to the logic of the power relations that emerge between the different agents.
In line with these arguments, pre-service teachers are a borderline case, since they lack the title of teacher and an official institutional position. The central questions that emerge are the following: As they lack these primary sources of symbolic power, what are the conditions and power relations that lead to the recognition of pre-service teachers as teachers in the classroom? What strategies do they use to legitimize themselves as teachers?
The study was carried out with an interpretative qualitative design, the aim of which was to explore the experiences of a group of English teaching students at a university in Santiago, Chile, in their intermediate practicum. The curriculum that dictates their studies includes five practicums, beginning in the sixth semester and ending with professional practice in the 10th semester. The study is focused on their experiences during the fourth practicum (ninth semester), that is, their intermediate or pre-service practicum.
In order to explore the research questions through the opinions of the pre-service teachers, individual semi-structured interviews were carried out. This type of interview provides a high degree of flexibility for the interlocutors (Corbetta, 2003), allowing the possibility for new themes to emerge that were not initially foreseen, but which may help to understand the phenomenon under study (Corbetta, 2003). The script of the interview was developed based on five key dimensions: i) the relationship of the pre-service teacher with the students, ii) the relationship with the mentor teacher, iii) the relationship with the supervising teacher, iv) the strategies employed by the pre-service teachers to obtain authority in the classroom, and v) the use of English in the classroom. The themes and questions in the interviews were designed to elicit the experiences and feelings of the students regarding the process of acquiring capital, authority, and recognition as teachers in the classroom during their intermediate practicum. In order to recruit the participants, all of the students who were carrying out their intermediate practicum at the time of collecting the data were invited by mail. A total of 20 invitations were sent.
A total of five individual semi-structured interviews were conducted. Table 1 shows a description of the study participants, with their age, the main course in which they carried out their intermediate practicum, and the type of educational establishment at which they had that experience. Due to ethical considerations, the university where the study was conducted is not named and pseudonyms are used to ensure confidentiality of the data. For the same reason, neither the names of the educational establishments where the students carried out their practicums nor the districts in which they are located are disclosed.
Table 1
|
||||
|
Name |
Age |
Course |
Educational establishment |
|
|
1 |
Laura |
25 |
7th elementary |
Municipal |
|
2 |
Victoria |
28 |
7th elementary |
Particular |
|
3 |
Isabela |
22 |
7th elementary |
Municipal |
|
4 |
Sofía |
31 |
11th secondary |
Municipal |
|
5 |
Matías |
29 |
8th elementary |
Subsidized |
|
Source: Prepared by the author. |
||||
All of the interviews were recorded and then transcribed in full. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis in order to identify, analyze, and show patterns or themes (Braun & Clarke, 2006) regarding the experience of the trainee teachers interviewed. Emergent codes were established and used to organize and interpret the results according to the objectives of the study, following the conceptual tools indicated in the previous sections of the paper. The principal codes that emerged were: i) the relationship of the pre-service teachers with their mentor teachers, ii) the relationship of the pre-service teachers with the students, iii) the strategies employed by the pre-service teachers in the classroom, and iv) the use of English and Spanish. These are the main codes to which the analysis refers. However, another code emerged that was not used in the final analysis: the relationship with the supervising teacher. This information is not employed in the analysis because, based on the interviews, it can be deduced that the pre-service teachers do not seem to consider the supervising teacher to be a key actor in the negotiation of power relations in the classroom. All five codes correspond to the dimensions established in the interview guidelines.
The interviews indicate that the position that pre-service teachers occupy in the classroom is closely linked to the relationship established with the mentor teacher. Some interviewees state that their arrival in the classroom may involve their relegation to a complex position:
I think it’s difficult to arrive at a school to practically oblige them to let you do all the classes that are required here at the U2. I think it’s difficult, because obviously [the mentor teachers] have their planning done, so you arrive, in inverted commas, to take away the time they have for certain activities (Sofía).
Sofía emphasizes the potential conflict between the requirements of the university, the conditions of the classroom, and the expectations of the mentor teachers. It is primarily this conflict that can lead to the practicing students occupying a liminal position in the classroom. In this context, the mentor teachers’ response to the integration of pre-service teachers is key to their position in the classroom.
Through their institutional position, the mentor teachers control access to the space, time, and class planning; pre-service teachers are in a constant process of negotiating access to these elements, which are central to their position in the classroom and, therefore, to the relationship they establish with the students. The interviews indicate that there is a range of possibilities for negotiation. Laura and Victoria say:
[My mentor teacher supported me] by giving me space so I could interact and relate to the children, the space so I could create the classes and adapt my knowledge to teach the children (Laura).
My mentor teacher gives me [space] and the school, when I arrived, the head of the UTP3 [told me], ‘you can take the space that you consider necessary to be able to do your classes’, and I asked the teacher if she would let me do a class alone because I was a little bit afraid of that, so I prepared myself and I did it (Victoria).
Laura and Victoria recognize that the school and the mentor teachers have the power to control their access to the classroom. Granting access to space and time in the classroom not only represents access to tangible elements, but also operates as a symbolic delegation of authority. Consequently, on the one hand, access to time and space means access to the rules of the sub-field and, therefore, that implies the possibility of the pre-service teacher adjusting their habitus to these rules. On the other hand, for the pre-service teacher this legitimate delegation represents the possibility of obtaining recognition of the legitimacy of their action on the part of the students. When this access is restricted, tensions emerge between the pre-service teacher and the mentor teacher:
The teacher didn’t give me much freedom in the classroom. I didn’t have many liberties. I made the contributions because I asked him to do them, because he had his planning and he didn’t want to abandon it, so if I did something, it could affect his planning and everything got messed up (Matías).
The case of Matías demonstrates the imbalance that can emerge in the power relationship between the pre-service teacher and the mentor teacher and, therefore, the mentor teacher’s level of capital compared to that of the pre-service teacher. This power relationship is key, as it defines how potential tensions between the two agents are negotiated. According to Matías, he had to negotiate his access to time, space, and planning.
[The teacher] didn’t send me the plans, so when I wanted to make a contribution and I needed the plan, he would say to me: ‘Ok, I’ll send it to you in the afternoon!’ and it didn’t arrive. So, I would write to him again and he wouldn’t answer, so I would arrive with something done because I saw it in the online curriculum. I would make my contributions based on that, not on what he told me, so sometimes we clashed because it wasn’t what he had planned (Matías).
By denying the pre-service teacher access to time, space, and planning, the mentor teacher also makes it difficult for them to legitimately occupy the position of teacher in the eyes of the students, since the teacher does not delegate their authority to the trainee. This also hinders access to the rules of the classroom sub-field and therefore the possibility for the pre-service teacher to adjust their own habitus to these rules.
Another key element for the pre-service teacher to position themselves strategically in the classroom is the introduction that the mentor teacher makes to the students at the beginning of the semester. In this respect, the cases of Victoria and Sofía are relevant:
She introduced me to the students. She told them that I came from the university, that I was going to practice, that I was going to make contributions, that I was also going to help them, that if they had any questions they should ask me and that once or twice they were going to supervise me so they should behave well. She told them that I had the same skills as her, that I could call the principle or ask them to sit down (Victoria).
In the first class [the mentor teacher] didn’t even introduce me to the students, so I arrived like an apparition in the classroom ... [so I introduced myself] by approaching each group and telling them that they can ask me if they have any questions, I’ll be here with the teacher (Sofía).
The introduction can be a decisive moment for the delegation of authority by the mentor teacher to the pre-service teacher before the students. The teacher, in his or her institutional role, has the possibility of positioning the pre-service teacher in the classroom sub-field as an agent whose practices and authority are legitimate. In this context, the liminality of the pre-service teacher is reduced, which increases the possibility of the students recognizing the legitimacy of his or her pedagogical action. By not providing the pre-service teacher with access to space, time, planning or making a corresponding introduction, the mentor teacher reproduces the liminality of the pre-service teacher in the sub-field, not granting them the right and power to deflect their authority onto their own person and reducing the possibility that the pre-service teacher’s practices acquire value and are recognized as legitimate in the classroom. In this case, the pre-service teacher has to employ alternative strategies (e.g., introducing him/herself to the students during class) in order to position themselves strategically in the classroom.
The interviewees state that the relationship established with the students is rooted in the asymmetrical power relationship between the pre-service teacher and the mentor teacher. Generally speaking, the pre-service teacher has a lower level of capital in the classroom and, therefore, less power than the mentor teacher in the eyes of the students:
There were occasions when the teacher wasn’t there because he had to do something and he left me in charge of the class, and then it was chaos, when the mentor teacher was present they behaved well ... but when he wasn’t there they took full advantage ... and it was very difficult for me to control them (Matías).
According to Matías, the students behave differently towards the pre-service teacher when the mentor teacher is either in or out of the classroom. He highlights not only that the mentor teacher is recognized as a legitimate teacher, in contrast to the partial illegitimacy of the pre-service teacher, but also that the position and actions of the pre-service teacher acquire legitimacy in the eyes of the students through the mentor teacher. In the case of Matías, the mere presence of the teacher during his intervention has an impact on the students’ behavior towards him. Similarly, Sofía and Victoria believe that certain practices of the mentor teacher in the classroom can give them greater capital in the view of the students:
I didn’t have much support [from the mentor teacher] in controlling the class ... for example, the last supervision I had ... instead of just standing there or like, at least, looking at them, because obviously if you feel that someone is looking at you, you might behave better or be more conscious, the teacher started talking to each group for a while I was doing my activity (Sofía).
I have had the responsibility of taking the whole class, yes, I do that together with the teacher, but she’s sitting down, always watching me ... now when the teacher sees that the children aren’t paying attention to me, because there’s a point when they respect the mentor teacher more than you, that’s when she intervenes to be able to regain order .... When she warns them, they pay attention right away, more than with me, and I have to struggle with that a bit more (Victoria).
Both pre-service teachers recognize both their partially limited authority with regard to the students and the legitimacy of the mentor teacher’s authority; both believe that the mentor teacher, through his or her institutional position, can negotiate the legitimacy of the pre-service teachers’ actions in the eyes of the students through disciplinary practices, such as observation and even verbal admonishment. In short, the position that the pre-service teachers manage to negotiate with respect to the mentor teachers influences the relationship that the trainee teachers build with the students.
According to Bourdieu and Wacquant (2005), “the strategies of agents depend on their position in the field” (p. 139). As we have seen so far, the position of pre-service teachers in the classroom is essentially liminal; however, in conjunction with the negotiation of power relations with their mentor teachers, the interviewees also describe using complementary strategies to acquire legitimacy for their pedagogical authority. These have the function of reproducing the position in the field or modifying it. That is, pre-service teachers can negotiate a better position from which their practices have more value, which allows them to obtain recognition of the legitimacy of their authority and, therefore, recognition as teachers.
One of the main elements of distinction and legitimization that the interviewees point to is the use of English; several of them mention that they try to use English more consistently than their mentor teachers do:
My mentor teacher uses very little English. I think it’s too little ... everything is mostly in Spanish ... I try to make most of my classes [in English], 90% of my classes are in English ... because I think that that’s the way the students can get closer to the language (Victoria).
[My students] weren’t close to the language because the teacher explained everything in Spanish, so when I arrived with a whole load of English it was new for them (Matías).
Using English in a classroom where Spanish is predominant represents a legitimization strategy for pre-service teachers, particularly in the view of their students. This can be considered a subversive strategy, due to the contrast between the pre-service teachers and the mentor teachers. However, the consequences of these practices differ between the interviewees. On the one hand, in the case of Sofía, greater use of English has positive effects:
English [gives me more authority in the classroom] because they try to understand and pay a bit more attention ... they participated much more with me than with the regular teacher and I could tell that they liked it, and they also liked that I didn’t underestimate them, that I just showed them the videos in English and English subtitles and not in Spanish (Sofía).
From Sofía’s perspective, English is the language that gives her authority in the classroom in the eyes of the students; it is through this linguistic capital that students recognize her as their teacher. At the same time, Sofía notices increased participation among her students. She considers that this is because, by using more English resources, she gives her students more recognition, appreciating their ability to understand and learn English.
However, there are also interviewees who describe having to restrict their use of English in the classroom:
I made my first contributions in that class 90% in English, 10% in Spanish ... I noticed that they listened to me even though they didn’t understand. I noticed that they listened to English, maybe they wanted to hear it, they wanted to know how it sounds. It’s like the only closeness they had ... but I felt that the children didn’t learn anything, so I had to start reducing the use of English and increase the use of Spanish a bit more (Matías).
The case of Matías underlines the complexity of using English as a strategy to contrast with the practices of the mentor teacher. On the one hand, the students recognize Matías’ linguistic capital and pay attention to him; however, Matías also says that suddenly introducing English can affect the students’ teaching-learning process. The misalignment between the students’ habitus and the new medium of communication can lead to them “getting lost or bored.” Although Matías initially obtains the recognition of his linguistic capital, the students stop listening to him and obeying him, so he has to resort to a combination of English and Spanish that is closer to the strategy used by the mentor teacher.
Isabel also emphasizes that “Spanish is essential” in the English classroom:
It’s almost impossible for my students to get the taste for learning English without using Spanish. If I don’t show them in Spanish, they simply won’t do anything (Isabel).
Isabel highlights the combination of English and Spanish as a fundamental strategy to obtain a certain authority in the eyes of the students. However, she stresses that the possibility of using this strategy with her students is not generalized in all Chilean schools:
In the uptown neighborhoods the father of the students is sometimes from the United States and the mother is Chilean, so some of them can even have better pronunciation or knowledge than you … up there maybe it can happen that using Spanish is almost 100% avoided ... but if I see five lost individuals in a group of 40 people, I have to use Spanish no matter what (Isabel).
Isabel contrasts the strategies that can be used in an upper-class private school and the strategies that she has to use in a municipal high school classroom. In this respect, she emphasizes that the need to use a combination of English and Spanish is linked to the unequal conditions of Chilean students. In the case of the school where she is carrying out her practicum, disregarding the social reality of her students would mean a misalignment between Isabel’s habitus and the conditions of the classroom sub-field, the consequence of which would be that the students would stop listening to her and obeying her, as in the case of Matías.
Besides the use of English, the interviewees also highlight that the methodology they employ is another element of distinction and legitimization as a strategy to obtain a certain authority as teachers:
The teacher was kind of old school, his activities weren’t very dynamic ... so I tried to do the opposite ... since I have more time, in inverted commas, to think about what I can do, how I can reach the students ... I tried to use a lot of games [and] I tried to connect with [the students] by using technology to my advantage (Sofía).
My teacher, as he himself says, isn’t very creative ... so I try to use images, flash cards that they can touch or they can go to the blackboard, [so] they’re kind of moving ... so I try to do something new, something innovative for the children so that they’re motivated with English (Laura).
All of the interviews emphasize the use of a specific methodology for teaching English as a strategy that the pre-service teachers employed to acquire pedagogical capital in the eyes of their students. The participants highlight their efforts to design playful and participatory dynamics. Through their past experiences and especially their initial teacher training at the university, the pre-service teachers’ habitus is relatively adjusted to recognize these kinds of pedagogical practices as valuable and thus perform them. Essentially, as Sofía points out, pre-service teachers also have access to the necessary conditions—by means of a reduced workload—to design and implement these types of didactics.
This approach to teaching English is perceived by the pre-service teachers as being a contrast to the practices of their mentor teachers. The use of a different methodology is primarily linked to the power relationship established between the pre-service teacher and the mentor teacher. In the case of Sofía, implementing a different methodology emerges as a necessary strategy to compensate for the lack of delegation of pedagogical authority from the mentor teacher to the pre-service teacher. In this respect, this strategy may appear to be a subversion of the mentor teacher’s practices in an attempt to achieve better positioning in the classroom. In other cases, the objective is the same—the negotiation of a better position for the pre-service teacher in the classroom—but it emerges under the umbrella of the mentor teacher’s power, as a strategy approved and, in the case of Laura, required by the mentor teacher. The mentor teachers recognize the methodology implemented by the pre-service teachers as valuable. In most cases, using this methodological strategy, the pre-service teachers obtain the legitimization of their pedagogical authority, since their actions acquire value and meaning in the eyes of the students.
This paper examines the conditions and power relations that lead to the recognition of trainees as teachers. The study was intended to reveal the asymmetrical power relations that are established between the different actors in the classroom (pre-service teachers, mentor teachers, students) and how they influence the recognition of the trainees as teachers. It also identifies the main strategies that pre-service teachers use to legitimize their position as teachers.
It has been shown that the main factor influencing how student teachers acquire capital, authority, and recognition as teachers in the classroom is the negotiation of the asymmetric power relationship that is established between the pre-service teacher and the mentor teacher. In the absence of an official institutional position, pre-service teachers have a low level of capital, which means they have a liminal structural position in the classroom. However, once they are inserted into this sub-field, they find themselves in a constant process to negotiate their position, marked by the relationship established with the mentor teacher. Through the latter’s institutional position, they control the pre-service teacher’s access to space, time, and class planning, which are key elements for the symbolic delegation of authority and, therefore, for the pre-service teachers’ possibility of obtaining recognition of the legitimacy of their action by the students. The actions of the pre-service teacher are often evaluated by the students through the mentor teacher’s power lens. As a consequence, the mentor teacher has the ability to negotiate the legitimacy of the pre-service teachers’ actions and their recognition as teachers in the classroom. In conjunction with the aforementioned negotiations of the power relationship, pre-service teachers also highlight two main strategies of legitimizing pedagogical authority in the eyes of the students. First, they mention the use of English in the classroom as a subversive strategy, due to the fact that, in some cases, using this language emerges as a practice that contrasts with the use of Spanish by the mentor teacher. However, several participants point out that, in order to obtain authority with their students, they must resort to a practice that is closer to that of their mentor teachers, having to use a combination of English and Spanish. The second strategy is related to the English teaching methodology employed. A key aspect of this process is the contrast that the pre-service teachers establish between their methodology and that of the mentor teacher; however, this contrast is marked by the power relationship established between the two agents. Therefore, while all the agents use a different methodology to that of their mentor teachers, this action can be understood either as a subversive practice or as a practice of reproduction of the mentor teacher’s power.
In order to understand the conditions under which pre-service teachers acquire capital, authority, and recognition as teachers, it is essential to explore both the asymmetrical power relations that emerge between pre-service teachers and mentor teachers and the negotiations of the tensions that emerge as a result of this asymmetry. Similarly, understanding the negotiations of these tensions and contradictions based on the experiences of the student teachers themselves is crucial in order to begin to outline a more complex account of the process of initial teacher training. Following Grenfell (1996) and Nolan and Walshaw (2012), this study suggests that the Bourdieusian perspective may be useful to address these issues from a microsociological perspective. However, one limitation of this research involves the exploratory use of the Bourdieusian conceptual apparatus. In this respect, a suggestion for future research could be to look at the implementation of these instruments in their entirety in greater detail, considering the impact that fundamental aspects for Bourdieu, such as social differentiation and class reproduction, have on the construction and negotiation of the power relations that emerge between student teachers and in-service teachers in schools.
Funding: XII University Teaching Research Competition (XII Concurso de Investigación en Docencia Universitaria) (Universidad Bernardo O’Higgins, Chile).
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1. The Bourdieusian conceptual apparatus provides the opportunity to transit and transgress macro and micro perspectives. The concept of field can be applied to the (Chilean) educational field and also to represent a specific school establishment. The subfield of the classroom can be understood as a set of relationships and practices that emerge that are partially independent from the rest of the institution, with their own internal rules of price formation, but which, at the same time, are partially subsumed to the rules of the game of the field of the institution.
2. Translator’s note: University.
3. Translator’s note: The Unidad Técnica Pedagógica, or Technical Pedagogical Unit, is the team responsible for diagnosis, scheduling, planning, organization, supervision, and evaluation of a school’s curricular and extracurricular activities.