Knowledge Discourses and Coherence in Professional Education

Abstract

In recent years, significant attention has been paid to the relationship between different knowledge domains in professional education, based on the assumption that achieving coherence between domains is important for student learning and educational quality. In particular, much research has addressed questions of knowledge integration across different sites of learning. However, less attention has been paid to the epistemic diversity of the campus-based programme context and to how relationships between knowledge domains are constructed within epistemically diverse professional programmes. This article addresses this gap by examining how program leaders discursively position disciplinary knowledge in relation to the mandate of teacher education. The data consist of interviews and logs from 20 program leaders at four higher education institutions. The analysis identifies four accounts of the role of disciplinary knowledge in teacher education. The article concludes by discussing implications for efforts to achieve coherence and knowledge integration in professional education.