Reimagining school-university partnerships in physical education: a collaborative design to approach democratic professionalism

Background: An established body of research illuminates the benefits of school-university partnerships as opportunities for teachers’ professional development. Concomitantly, studies highlight power imbalances between schools and universities, challenges may form from the hierarchical structures within those partnerships. Consequently, it remains necessary to consider partnerships that foster democratic and collective agency amongst all actors involved in those partnerships in order to advance changes in the teaching profession. This paper is grounded in Sachs’ notions of viewing the teaching profession as democratic and managerial (2001; 2016). In this current paper, rather than presenting democratic and managerial approaches as two separate entities, they are presented here as a continuum on which university lecturers, mentor-teachers, and pre-service teachers, navigate, constantly facing diverse challenges to structure a democratic school-university partnership. Purpose: This study explored a school-university partnership in physical education teacher education. Specifically, we were interested in what features contributed to (or hindered) the development of mentor teachers’ (MT), teacher educators’, and pre-service teachers’ (PST) democratic professionalism. Method: An 18-month school-university partnership in the Institutional Program of Teaching Initiation, Brazil, was the project’s focus. The action research participants were 19 PSTs, two MTs, a teacher educator-facilitator, and a critical friend. Data sources included: weekly meetings with the PIBID group (43), between MTs and facilitator (39), and facilitator and critical friend (8); mid and final-term PST focus groups; interviews (14); and diaries (22). Reflexive and inductive thematic analysis were used to analyze the data. Findings: Three themes reflect how this school-university partnership cultivated teachers’ democratic professionalism. These themes are (1) enacting democratic practices as a group, (2) fostering participants’ agency, and (3) addressing power inequalities in a democratic space. The first theme includes diverse strategies (e.g. listening-to-respond, respecting affective connections, and acknowledging PSTs’ learning pace) developed within the project. The second theme relates to the challenges, the engagement in critical reflection, and the constant struggles against inequalities in the group context. The third theme concerns participants’ recognition of the partnership as a democratic space, albeit carrying power inequalities (e.g. organization of the program, context of education, and hierarchical relationships). Conclusion: The school-university partnership created spaces for participants to learn together about the teaching profession. A democratic structure included teachers as co-leaders of the program, PSTs’ needs as the starting point of action, and a critical and reflective approach as a practice of the group. Educating (future) teachers to disrupt a managerial view of their profession is necessary. By seeking collaboration, collective action, and the fostering of a less hierarchical and more egalitarian space, participants experimented and engaged with a democratic view of the teaching profession.