Interrogating the current imagination of early childhood teacher education through dialogical processes

Abstract

In order to reconceptualise and redesign initial teacher education programmes it is imperative to critically examine what exists. The aim of this article is to shed light on the dialogical processes a team of early childhood teacher educators undertook to make explicit their current understandings of teacher education in an undergraduate Bachelor of Education qualification. The sensitising concepts of dialogue, communication, transformatory learning and reflection informed the study. A qualitative approach enabled through documentary analysis, conversations amongst teacher educators and their narratives were used to produce the evidence. The findings of the study show that dialogical processes unfolded as action-oriented strategies towards achieving a particular goal (i.e., change in teacher education) have the potential to allow teacher educators to reflect on, participate in and trouble existing frames of reference and develop sensitivity to new framings.