The School History Department: Cultural, Historical and Social Practices in Student Teacher Education

Abstract

To understand the social situation of development for the student teachers, it is important that the school department case studies are considered in terms of their cultural histories, the social practices within them and the specific opportunities that are created as a result of working in student teacher education. The social situation of development is a product of cultural history in which individual histories come together. The social contexts of learning to teach include the imagined outcomes, relationships among participants, underlying philosophies and the kind of activities that engage the different participants (Grossman et al., 1999). The format of the case studies enables initial comparisons across departments. The generic divisions allow for the possibility of noting the variety of working practices within them. For example, the use of the subject team rooms was particularly central to the student teachers’ experience in some departments, but this was not the case for the student teachers in others. In considering Stake’s warning about allowing comparative comments to outweigh aspects of intrinsic importance (2000, p. 444), I have not worried about giving equal attention to all subsections for each case study. These subsections analyse descriptively the concepts that make up the expanded mediational model as described by Engeström (1999a), the rules, community and division of labour in the student teacher education activity systems (see Figures 3.2 and 3.3 in Chapter 3).