Framing Teacher Education in Chile

Abstract

Since the 1990s, many countries have used accountability mechanisms in teacher preparation. Aligned with this trend, the Chilean Ministry of Education has created national policies, which include national standards and an exit test for student teachers, grants for teacher education programs, and university scholarships for prospective teachers. These policies have been implemented in Chile, within the context of high social segregation and inequality, where accountability and deregulation work together. The purpose of this study is to explore how teaching and teacher education are constructed in national teacher education policy and university-based programs in Chile by unpacking assumptions about teaching, teacher education, and justice using frame analysis. This study analyzes national policy documents related to initial teacher education in Chile as well as semi-structured interviews and university and course documents from two teacher preparation programs. This dissertation argues that the influence of Chile’s national teacher education policies on local teacher preparation programs was not uniform across the programs. Rather both national and local frames were influenced by international organizations and universities. This overarching argument is based on four related propositions: 1) teacher preparation programs have different conceptions of practice-based teacher education and teaching while they have similar conceptions of justice; 2) the differences among faculties’ conceptions are shaped by different narratives, based on participants’ view of themselves and their programs, conceptions of teaching knowledge, participation in policies, and alignment and articulation; 3) national policies and teacher preparation programs have different conceptions of teaching and teacher education, but they have similar conceptions of justice; and, 4) Chilean national policies are influenced by international discourses even though they use different narratives to promote their changes. This study has implications for research, policy, practice, and activism. Building on the study’s findings, I constructed a framework that expands the notion of the policy web, incorporating the connection between local and international discourses in teacher education. This framework also identifies four dimensions that shape university’s faculty conceptions and explain the differences among programs.