The Construction of Agency in Mathematics Teacher Education and Development Programs: A Poststructuralist Analysis

Abstract

In this paper I question the philosophical adequacy of past and present humanistic notions of agency which frame practice in teacher education and development programs. I look back over the past ten years or so of primary and early childhood teacher education at some initiatives that have been attempted but found wanting with regard to students' acceptance (Schuck, 1996) and eventual competent implementation of innovative teaching approaches (Klein, 1996) in mathematics. I suggest that perhaps a poststructuralist understanding of the discursive constitution of subjectivities may go some way towards explaining this apparent stasis; as well, in teacher education, it may be constitutive of a certain kind of agency for preservice and practising teachers.