A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study of the Lived Experience of Initial Teacher Education for Students from Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Backgrounds

The lack of diversity in the teaching population in Ireland is now a focus of national policy initiatives, including widening participation for students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. Little is known, however, about the experiences of this cohort of students once they access ITE. The aim of this study was to remedy this omission by providing an in-depth understanding of the lived experiences of a cohort of 23 students from lower socioeconomic groups across three consecutive years of a PME programme. This was facilitated by a hermeneutic phenomenological approach and a reflexive thematic analysis of 40 in-depth semi-structured interviews. Three themes were generated from the data analysis: Difference as Deficit; Outsiders on Privileged Territory; and Survival: Hiding and Protecting the Self. The findings suggest that earlier educational inequalities, particularly the hegemony of middle-class norms in education, shaped the educational pathways and fragile learner identities of many of these students, which in turn impacted profoundly on their experiences in ITE. Also revealed was the role that social class played in positioning these students as outsiders culturally and socially both as undergraduates and in ITE, resulting in many students feeling alienated and isolated. Survival in the world of ITE and school placement often meant changing, hiding or disguising who they were in order to become more acceptable in these middle-class worlds, with students favouring school placements along class lines as a form of protection. Success in becoming teachers was seen to come at a cost, with many students now positioned as outsiders at home, caught between two worlds and not belonging fully to either. Meaningful inclusion calls for an understanding of how socioeconomic background is actually lived by students in ITE in the hope that those following in their footsteps can feel the same legitimacy of belonging as their middle-class peers.