Who Is the Hybrid Teacher Educator? Understanding Professional Identity in School–University Partnership

Abstract

Teacher education has long been criticised for a perceived disconnect between university-based and school-based learning, and literature often proposes closer integration of these two spaces as central to bridging this disconnect (Allen and Wright in Teachers Teach Theory Pract 20:136–151, 2014; Darling-Hammond in J Teacher Educ 57:300–314, 2006); third space theory is one way to frame this integration (Zeichner in Educ Researcher 28:4–15, 2010). Third space theory provides a theoretical premise that has the potential to reconceptualise the connection between universities and schools through disrupting binaries and encouraging the continual negotiation and reinterpretation of identities (Bhabha in The location of culture. Routledge, London, 1994). Through reconceptualising the spaces of, and between, schools and universities, third space theory encourages new ways of thinking about partnerships, shared knowledge and ways of working, and in doing so creates hybrid roles which challenge traditional roles or positions within both spaces. Drawing on interviews with several hybrid teacher educators, this chapter discusses the fluid roles and responsibilities of these emerging roles and considers implications for shifting professional identities in teacher education.