ABSTRACT
The 2014 Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group’s (TEMAG’s) report recommended integration of initial teacher education. The Australian Research Council project this chapter reports on, began in 2018. When the research team started talking with universities, teacher educators told of their reduced time in schools and it emerged that the primary interface between schools and universities was being organised by a new layer of professional staff. These ‘placement professionals’ appeared to partially replace teacher educators’ involvement with schools and were less desk-bound than ‘placement officers’, a role that predated TEMAG reforms. Fascinated, we wondered if ‘integrated partnerships’ were actually ‘disintegrating’. Informed by Hannah Arendt’s concept of ‘space of appearance’, the chapter traces effects of the reforms on the university as a site of politics and draws on 12 interviews with university-based professionals working in four integrated partnerships. It documents university staffing of initial teacher education and work of professional staff involved in the expanded ‘placement’ role. The chapter argues ‘placement professionals’ at the school–university interface are engaged in knowledge work that is constituting a novel space of appearance as the university moves towards a 360-degree perspective on initial teacher education.
