IMAGE AND THE PRESSURE TO CONFORM IN LEARNING TO TEACH

The question of how far teacher images are resilient to change and how far influenced by context is discussed. The images of two preservice teachers over a I-year training course are presented to illustrate dif ferent types of difficulty involved in image and learning to teach. In one case an ambiguity over image leads to excessive conformity to the norms of the school; in another, a clear articulation of image presen ts the danger of the image being shattered by powerful contextual fact ors. Such different difficulties may be resolved by the conceptualisat ion of image as a form of argument.