Co-Operating Teachers: The Untapped Nucleus of Democratic Pedagogical Partnerships in Initial Teacher Education in Ireland

It is widely accepted that co-operating teachers play a key role in the formation of student teachers during their school placement. Yet, in the Irish context, there is limited research exploring the role and significance of these stakeholders in Initial Teacher Education (ITE). To address this lacuna, this qualitative research draws on a series of semi-structured interviews with co-operating teachers (n=10), student teachers (n=10) and school leaders (n=10) across a purposive sample of ten case study schools from the data base (n=152) of placement schools involved with an ITE programme in a university in Dublin. In her analysis of the data, the author introduces the notion of democratic pedagogical partnerships underpinned by the ontological position of constructivism with a view to interrogating how the social phenomena that are examined in this study are constantly being negotiated by social actors and thus always in a state of flux and revision. While there are some optimistic indications in the data in particular regarding the significant role of cooperating teachers in developing pedagogical partnerships in initial teacher education, the research also demonstrates that the role of the co-operating teacher in the Irish context is often ad hoc, under-resourced and under-utilised. The data presented in this paper suggest that while there are obstacles to the enactment of the role, there are opportunities to develop the role at a systemic level. Ultimately, this research concludes that co-operating teachers are willing participants in ITE, but they require resources, supports and recognition to enact their role more consistently and systemically.