Conflicting views on professional development. Critical dialogue as a research and intervention method for a Master’s course in professional education for teachers

• Published in: Journal of social intervention 2013-09, Vol.22 (3), p.4-22
• Main Author: Jacobs, Gaby
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: dialogue; dialoog; higher education; hoger beroepsonderwijs; professional development; professionele ontwikkeling
• ISSN: 1876-8830; 1876-8830
• DOI: 10.18352/jsi.342

Conflicting views on professional development. Critical dialogue as a research and intervention method for a Master’s course in professional education for teachers Higher education professionals in the 21st century are facing the challenge of how to deliver good work in ever more complex circumstances. Good work is a moral issue; it refers to the higher goal of education in society. However, developments in the last decades have tended to push the moral dimension of professional work into the background. Higher education has increasingly become “instrumentalized”, and the result is teaching staff that find it difficult to recognize, articulate, and deal with the moral questions and dilemmas that they face when working with students. In this contribution, we propose a dialogic approach to understanding the educational goals of professionals in higher education. Our method is based on Bohm’s dialogic approach – to discover the tacit beliefs, values and attitudes of participants and reconstruct them through the process of collective storytelling – and Burbules’ and Smaling’s plea for a critical dialogue. We will discuss a dialogic research and development project within a teacher education department for special educational needs at a university of applied sciences in the Netherlands. The participants in the dialogue meetings shared their views on professional development and the dialogue helped to co-reveal and construct the tacit tensions between these views. We will describe the main tension, between the development of expertise based on a strong knowledge and skills base on the one hand, and the development of a critical inquiring attitude for which no specific knowledge is required, on the other hand. We will offer a notion of dialogic professionalism in order to integrate these views. Conflicterende visies op professionele ontwikkeling. Kritische dialoog als onderzoeks- en interventiemethode in een masteropleiding voor onderwijsprofessionals Professionals die werkzaam zijn in het hoger onderwijs in de 21e eeuw zien zich geplaatst voor de uitdaging hoe goed werk te verrichten in groeiende complexe omstandigheden. Goed werk is een morele kwestie, die verwijst naar het hogere doel van onderwijs in de samenleving. In de afgelopen decennia is de morele dimensie van dit werk echter naar de achtergrond geschoven. Het hoger onderwijs is in toenemende mate instrumenteel geworden, hetgeen resulteert in onderwijspersoneel dat nog nauwelijks in staat is om de morel