Creating new spaces for pre-service teachers to engage with parents: An Australian coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing project

Abstract

This chapter examines how coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing between the parents of two students and a teacher at a low socio-educational advantaged secondary school in Australia created interrelational spaces beyond those traditionally available for engaging a pre-service teacher. Building on Pushor's notion of parent engagement and using Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus, and capital, the chapter describes and analyzes how coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing created a culture of dialogic exchange. This ongoing exchange saw the parents' and pre-service teacher's capital assume new value, enabling their knowledge, ideas, and dispositions to meld with the teacher's as they collaborated to teach a class of students which included each of the parent's sons. The findings shine light on the positive unexpected ways the pre-service teacher learnt about parent-teacher engagement through coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing with the parents and teacher. The findings also signal the benefits and challenges of coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing for better preparing pre-service teachers for their futureworkwith parents especially in low socio-educational advantaged schools.