Even in an era of migration, internationalization, and growing diversity, the teaching force in Western countries is still highly homogenous. Unfortunately, says Dr. Lilach Marom, the teacher recertification process also creates challenges to putting diversity into practice.
An assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at SFU, Dr. Marom explores questions related to diversity, inclusion, anti-racism, and social justice with a focus on teacher education and international education. As principal investigator of the project “Teacher Recertification as a Site for Overlapping Discourses of Migration and Diversification: A Comparative Analysis,” funded by a FIRE grant and SSHRC IDG, Dr. Marom is collaborating with two international and two Canadian researchers: Dr. Anatoli Rakhkochkine, a professor (Chair) of Diversity Education and International Educational Research at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany; Dr. Hanna Ragnarsdóttir, a professor in the School of Education at the University of Iceland and the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences; Dr. Randolph Wimmer, a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta; and Dr. Guofang Li, a professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Transnational/Global Perspectives on Language and Literacy Education of Children and Youth at the University of British Columbia.
This collaborative project undertakes a comparative analysis of biases in teacher recertification policies and processes and how these biases pose barriers to diversifying the teaching profession.
Internationally Educated Teachers (IETs), Dr. Marom elaborates, are certified teachers in their home countries who, post-migration or after seeking refuge, wish to teach in their receiving country. IETs can offer diverse cultural, linguistic, and international experiences with the potential to enhance the teaching profession and support diverse students. But because immigration to Western countries is mainly from non-Western countries, “IETs often belong to racialized and/or minoritized groups,” she says.
In a collection on diversity and teacher education (Li et al., 2021), Dr. Marom and her co-authors have pointed out that the teaching force in most Western countries is still composed mainly of White, middle-class women who speak the native language. That is, while educational policies and discourses promote diversity and inclusivity as key tenets in teacher education, there are lingering gaps between theory and practice (Ladson-Billings, 2021; Li et al., 2021). Global migration and internationalization have deeply transformed teaching from a “national” and provincial profession closely linked with the nation-building process to one that is global and international. However, despite these changes, IETs are not seen as desired teachers. This is evident in the high levels of unemployment and underemployment of IETs compared to domestically educated teachers (OCT, 2022).
Further, to teach in the receiving country, IETs must undergo a credentials evaluation process and are often required to complete a recertification program. However, as Dr. Marom argues, “because these programs take different forms in different countries, they are in danger of being sites for social reproduction because IETs are expected to prove that they are ‘worthy’ of becoming teachers in the receiving country” (also see Marom 2017, 2019). Intended as a means of regulation, “quality assurance,” and a way to prepare teachers for the local context of schooling, teacher recertification policies and programs often contain biases that pose barriers to the diversification of the teaching profession.
Global migration and teacher shortages hold the potential to make recertification processes shorter and easier to complete. But, Dr. Marom asks, could these factors also risk subjecting IETs to market logic and external regulation?
The pilot phase of this project offers initial insights into these questions and the barriers facing IETs who seek recertification. The pilot consists of analyzing policies and regulations that frame teacher mobility, teacher education, and recertification. It argues that multiple factors such as migration, neoliberal pressures, and job market needs shape notions of teacher professionalism or the knowledge, skills, and practices qualified teachers must have. Recertification policies are a useful site to explore those intersections because they encapsulate the processes through which IETs are recognized as “professional teachers” in Canada. As such they offer an opportunity to explore in what ways and by what players notions of teacher professionalism are being shaped.
The current phase of the project focuses on surveying IETs who have graduated from rectification programs since 2000 (view the survey questions here) and on a case study of two new recertification models in BC and Ontario—one of which is the familiarization program started at SFU in January 2024. “Interviews are particularly revealing when exploring the effects of policies and complex institutional structures on individual experiences,” says Dr. Marom. The focus on IET interviews, she adds, is also consistent with Critical Race Theory (CRT), which uses counter-stories to highlight voices that have traditionally been marginalized in Western institutions. The survey aims to gain data about the professional trajectory of IETs in the Canadian teaching force. This data is hard to come by in official statistics, and without data it is hard to improve policies and practices.
Dr. Marom and her co-researchers intend to publish the results of the pilot study as an article as well as present it at GERA, taking place in Germany in March 2024. This is also part of a European symposium on "Effects of Internationalisation in Teacher Education" prepared for ECER. Their vision for the next phase of the project includes making the results of the full study the focus of an international conference.
F T