The Canadian Journal of Higher Education, Vol. XII-2, 1982 La revue canadienne d'enseignement supérieur, Vol. XII-2, 1982 The Problem of Change in Canadian Teacher Education ^ DAVID HOPKINS* ABSTRACT It is argued that Canadian teacher education is characterized by a paradox - that of change and no change. The cause of this paradox is a delinquency in the process of implementation; the ability to change at the level of structure is not matched by an ability to change at the level of practice. Explanations are sought as to why this is the case. First, the barriers to change in teacher education are analysed and then a situational analysis exposes tensions in the role of teacher training institutions that inhibit their functioning. Finally, individual differences between institutions are explained by a description of the sagas that tend to acculturate them. RÉSUMÉ On dit que les sciences de l'éducation au Canada sont caractérisées par un paradoxe: celui du changement et du statu quo. Ce paradoxe est dû à un manque dans le processus d'implantation: la capacité de changement au niveau de la structure n 'égale pas la capacité de changement au niveau de la pratique. Nous cherchons à expliquer ce phénomène. D'abord, nous analysons les obstacles au changement dans les sciences de l'éducation puis nous montrons dans une analyse de situation le fonctionnement des institutions de formation des enseignants. Nous expliquons enfin les différences entre les institutions en décrivant les "sagas" qui tendent a les acculturer. THE PROBLEM OF CHANGE IN CANADIAN TEACHER EDUCATION There was a plethora of apparent change in Canadian teacher education during the nineteen seventies. The transfer of the teacher training function from the colt This research report in this paper was supported in part by a grant from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada No. 410r77-0459-21. * Faculty of Education, Simon Fräser University. 18 David Hopkins lege to the university was completed, and fundamental program change occurred in virtually every institution. The introduction of the extended practicum was a major innovation, and declining enrolments and budgetary restraints necessitated changes of different sorts. Despite this catalogue, little appears to have changed in the behaviour of those closest to the innovations. Schools, teachers, students and professors carry on in much the same way as they did ten years ago. And the same concerns are raised about the effectiveness of teacher education programs. The argument in this paper is that the paradox of change and no change in Canadian teacher education is a result of an inability to follow through on implementation. Explanations are sought as to why this is the case. First, the barriers to change in Teacher Training Institutions (TTIs), are analysed, and then a situational and ecological analysis exposes tensions in the TTI's role that inhibit their functioning. Finally, individual differences between TTIs are explained by a description of the saga, myths and images that tend to acculturate them. But first there is a need for a brief discussion on the way data was gathered and is presented in this paper. A NOTE ON METHODOLOGY This paper is based on data gathered during a research project, which explored the 'Management of Change in Canadian Teacher Education.' 1 The sample for this funded project was a representative sample often anglophone Canadian TTIs. During the course of the project, which was mainly concerned with gathering information on the organizational functioning of TTIs and in assessing the impact of an organization development intervention, data was also collected on the change process in and ecology of contemporary Canadian teacher education. This data was derived from three sources: extant documentation, interviews and participant observation, and data was collected in each institution of the sample. Because the data is essentially qualitative (i.e. non-statistical), I have woven it into an argument about the nature of change in Canadian teacher education. This is somewhat different from the normative approach, where an hypothesis is stated, data gathered, and conclusions drawn. In this paper the data is used to generate hypotheses rather than test then, but this does not imply that the methodology is any the less rigorous than that of the normative paradigm. Researchers adopting a more ethnographic approach to educational research have had their canons laid down by Becker (1958) Glaser & Strauss (1967) and more recently Hamilton and his associates (1977), rather than Campbell and Stanley (1963). The important point is that the standards expected in terms of validity and reliability are the same whether the data be quantitative or qualitative. Following the conventions established by Becker (1958) the data was searched for categories, and when established they were tested against the data, and when there was sufficient evidence to saturate the category it became a working hypothesis, which was eventually woven into the narrative that follows. The evidence that supports the argument of the paper is presented in this way: first the hypo- 19 The Problem of Change in Canadian Teacher Education thesis is outlined and discussed, then examples from the data are given to support the contention and flesh out detail. The data was initially coded, and each quotation used in the text has a code number which relates it to the mass of material from which it is derived. For ease of exposition the code numbers have been omitted in this paper and some of the quotations summarized. The paper then presents a series of hypotheses about the nature of change in teacher education based on categories derived from the data. THE IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS IN TEACHER EDUCATION Earlier I presented a paradox which portrayed Canadian TTIs on the one hand as having made numerous structural changes during the past decade, but on the other hand as having changed little in practice. That this is the case is explained by two themes that emerge from the literature on educational change: 2 (a) that structural change is a function of the power of external influences acting on TTIs, and (b) that little changed in practice is testimony to the inability of TTIs to react effectively to change. An example will illustrate the point. There were a number of program changes in TTIs which occurred as a result of the introduction of the extended practicum. And most of the changes attempted to make programs relate theory more appropriately to practice. The response in one TTI took the form of the introduction of block programming for on-campus courses. The idea being that groups of professors would work with groups of students on a regular basis instead of individually teaching half-courses or leading specific study groups. By teaching and collaborating with colleagues and being associated with the same group of students over an extended period, the intent was to engender a personalized form of education and to more effectively bridge the theory-practice gap. The change was approved, block programs appeared on the timetable and professors and students were assigned to particular groups. However, after a period of dissonance and a consequent hiatus, professors returned to teaching as they had done previously; i.e., individually to discrete groups, yet the block programs still appeared on the timetable and in the calendar. This example supports the contention that structural change is not necessarily reflected in practice, and what this implies is a delinquency in the process of implementation. Implementation is a topic which has recently received much attention. 3 When implementation is regarded as a process, rather than as an event, there is the. realization that structural change is only one component in a highly complex and dynamic situation. There are five components to the implementation process, viz., structure, materials, role/behaviour change, knowledge utilization, and internalization (Fullan, 1979). Not only do structural alterations have to be made and materials produced to go alongside, but the changes have also to be understood, roles and behaviours altered to complement the change, and finally those involved in the change have to internalize it. What commonly occurs is that the first two components are met (structure and materials), some- 20 David Hopkins times also knowledge utilization, but it is increasingly rare to find internalization and role/behaviour change catered for in implementation strategies. This is certainly the case in the example cited above. There are a number of sets of reasons as to why change is difficult to institutionalize in teacher education, — there are certain barriers or impediments to change, there are certain contemporary influences which may or may not continue to exist, and because of these two groups of phenomena certain cultural myths develop within institutions which serve to define their collective behaviour. These three complex and interrelated issues account for the inability of contemporary teacher education to be more effective at carrying through change. These issues now become the substance of the rest of the paper. BARRIERS TO CHANGE From the data gathered for this paper a long list of barriers to change was identified, as seen in Figure 1. The conceptual scheme fits well into the typology suggested by the literature on change in higher education, with barriers existing at the systemic, organizational and individual levels (Baldridge, 1971; Lindquist, 1974). As the research progressed, it became obvious that a number of the barriers to change were perceived rather than actual, or if not perceived, were a reality that had little empirical support. This necessitated an extension to the schema to include perceived barriers, which is reflected in the figure. Many of the barriers listed in Figure 1 correspond to those which one would have expected to find from a reading of the literature on educational organizations. As a result only those barriers which have received little attention in the literature are discussed below. Autonomous pluralism. This barrier refers to the norm that faculty members pursue their own interests without reference to the goals of the institution as a whole. Because of the resulting fragmentation within the faculty there is little knowledge about other people's attitudes and stances on various issues, which makes it difficult to build a consensus for change. For example one professor maintained that despite being in an institution for ten years he did not know the people who were innovative or would support change. Apart from a few colleagues he did not talk to the other 90 or 100 faculty, and this he perceived as being a major barrier to change. Discontinuity of Personnel The academic year is only fully functioning for some seven months of the year, and even during that time the ranks are depleted by sabbaticals. This means that it is often difficult for an individual to see a change effort through the time frame 21 The Problem of Change in Canadian Teacher Education Real Systemic Barriers - Economic f a c t o r s - Political pressure (government) - V u l n e r a b i l i t y (environmental constraint) - Central university administration - Tradition Organizational Individual - Lack of c l e a r m i s s i o n (goal v a r i a b i l i t y ) - Incongruent reward system - Poor c o m m u n i c a t i o n - Absence of l i n k i n g s t r u c t u r e s (low i n t e r d e p e n d e n c e ) - Autonomous p l u r a l i s m * - C o m p l e x i t y of d e c i s i o n making p r o c e s s - Inadequate implementation - D i s c o n t i n u i t y of p e r s o n n e l * (academic y e a r , s a b b a t i c a l s , retirement) - Inertia* - Poor l e a d e r s h i p * - Tenure system - P l u r a l i s m of R o l e s - Socialization into a discipline* - Incompetence - Innovative f a t i g u e * d i s c u s s e d in F i g u r e 1. Perceived Barriers - Inertia - Future uncertainty - B e a u c r a t i c myth - Top down a p p r o a c h t o - Teachers' change college legacy - R e c e n t h i s t o r y of change - Emotional r e s i s t a n c e change to - Too b u s y * - Tendency t o e x t e r n a l i z e * - Innovation f a t i g u e text B a r r i e r s t o change in t e a c h e r education. normally required for successful implementation. One interviewee highlighted the problem this way: Although policies get made they dp not often get implemented, because, the people who implement the policies, keep changing. Leadership The quality of leadership in faculties is often pointed to as a barrier to change, particularly by those not in administrative positions. In six of the institutions where data was collected those interviewed pointed to ineffective or noncollaborative leadership as a major barrier to change. Many of those interviewed felt that without clear leadership faculties tended to take on all sorts of activities and projects without having a clear purpose. Socialization into a discipline There is a strong theoretical and empirical argument which maintains that in higher education allegiance is vertical, i.e., to one's discipline, rather than hori- 22 David Hopkins zontal, i.e., to the faculty (Bernstein, 1971; Evans, 1968). The academic socialization process revolves around disciplines rather than institutions, and provides a barrier to concerted action. The phenomenon was well displayed in the sample. One respondent maintained that: Allegiance is to a subject group, a discipline group and to other groups outside the faculty rather than across the institution. Too busy In conversation with individual faculty across the country, one common characteristic became very evident. Virtually everyone talked to or interviewed considered themselves as being busy. Whether this was a perceived or actual situation varied from individual to individual, but perceived or not, the norm tended to reinforce itself. If you consider yourself busy or preoccupied with the day-today press of the work place, then you will have little time to spend on planning, initiating or implementing change. The following interview quotation captures the flavour of the "too busy norm", be it actual or perceived. One factor is time, it has become a status symbol to be busy, but it does not have to be productive. That norm has a great deal to do with inhibiting change, because it means that people no longer sit back and ask any fundamental questions. Tendency to externalize The tendency to externalize — to blame others — is contributing in some way to the inertia which is prevalent in teacher education. During interviews many faculty explained away most convincingly the need for individual change despite almost overwhelming evidence to the contrary. As one faculty member put it: I really do think we externalize in that we think that what happens to us is outside of our control. Inertia This refers to a generalized resistance to change evidenced in the institutions of the sample. It reflects an acceptance of the status quo because that condition offers the most comfortable life style, and the least dissonance. This thought was put starkly by one interviewee: Most people have etched out for themselves a fairly comfortable role in the college which allows them to complain about the state of affairs which in reality is quite comfortable. Change may result in losing the comfortable niche which they have established for themselves. One dean saw this inertia as the most important barrier to change: A real (barrier to change) is the general feeling by many individuals that once you take on something and find that you are 23 The Problem of Change in Canadian Teacher Education able to do it you do not want to change. Nobody likes to move from comfort to discomfort. Inertia appears to be a very prevalent barrier to change and reference was made to it by interviewees in each institution during interviews or informal discussion. Although the list in Figure 1 is much longer, this discussion has highlighted those barriers to change which have not received much attention elsewhere. These barriers viz., autonomous pluralism, discontinuity of personnel, poor leadership, socialization into a discipline, the norm of busyness, the tendency to externalize and inertia, are with the possible exception of the latter three not exclusive to TTIs. Although they present a formidable catalogue of inhibitions to change, they also characterize many other departments and institutions of higher education. I wish to argue that TTIs have a specific pathology when it comes to the implementation of change. If these barriers reflect the situation in other organizations as well, it is important that the distinctive features of the contemporary situation in TTIs are articulated and analyzed. This is done in the following section. THE ECOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY TEACHER EDUCATION A major problem with TTIs is that they have not satisfactorily come to terms with their new role. Although the move to the university has been completed in a physical or structural sense, there are still a number of unresolved tensions which hamper the functioning of TTIs. These tensions revolve around three major and interrelated issues, university norms, the role crisis of TTIs, and their vulnerability to the environment. University Norms When the teachers' colleges moved onto the campus they became subject to the norms of the university. In particular, they became subject to the university's tenure and promotions criteria, which place almost exclusive emphasis on research and publication. It is well established that education professors are in general not prolific publishers (Guba & Clark, 1978), and this immediately puts them at a disadvantage when compared with their colleagues in other departments and faculties. Similarly the major funding agencies in Canada (e.g., SS & HRC) tend not to support the type of research that large numbers of education professors could engage in. They tend to favour "pure" research, rather than action research, and even less developmental projects or applied curriculum research. The lack of research being carried out in faculties of education and the dilletantism associated with what is done reflects the sample as a whole. The lack of emphasis on research has had two major outcomes in the institutions surveyed. First, because the teachers' college tended not to match the academic faculties in terms of the traditional criteria for promotion and tenure, they are regarded as the poor relation on campus, tolerated because they are family but still not quite acceptable. Secondly, the existence of these norms has 24 David Hopkins encouraged many education professors to forsake their traditional roles and tasks, and to concentrate on activities such as pure research, that are somewhat tangential to the main purpose of teacher preparation. Role Crisis The role crisis in TTIs is fed by three influences, viz., plurality of roles, quasiprofessionalism and the teachers' college legacy. The no-win situation created by the university norms is compounded by the plurality of roles that education professors have to fill; mention has already been made of their teaching, research, counselling, supervision and administrative load. The great majority of faculty interviewed or talked to during the course of the research complained not only of the workload, but also of the diversity of roles they had to fulfil. They also maintained that this diversity inhibited the pursuit of excellence in any one field of endeavour. One dean put the dilemma this way: We have certain commitments to meet; there are students who have to be taught, and we have a prescribed program that has to be offered. One cannot do other things without having met these requirements first. Another compounding factor is the "quasi-professionalism" {to use Sieber's 1975 term) of most education faculties. Although I have no hard data to support the contention, I suggest that the majority of faculty in TTIs are still teachers' college staff. Although this claim does not necessarily call their competence into question, it means in practice that the traditionally high entry standards required of university professors are not always reflected in education faculties. This situation is unlikely to be remedied in the near future, because the majority of these people were granted tenure when the college moved to the university. Besides inheriting the staff of the teachers' college, the TTIs also took the teachers' college legacy with them to the university. This point has been alluded to on several occasions, and it is a powerful influence in Canadian teacher education. The national character of the phenomenon was well caught by one interviewee: We are all in the same bind — survival: but typical of Canada, as opposed to the U.S.A., we are haunted by the normal school approach rather than the academic research orientation of the colleges in the States. The following extract from field notes illustrates how powerful the legacy can be in the case of individual institutions: Up until 1969 the dean was a joint appointment of the Ministry of Education and the University. This tells one a great deal about the orientation of the faculty. People I talked to felt that the administrators saw the faculty very much in terms of a school and the dean ran the faculty much as a principal would run a large school. 25 The Problem of Change in Canadian Teacher Education The compounding of these factors {viz., the plurality of roles in teacher education, its quasi-professional character, and the teachers' college legacy), engenders a sense of anomie and rootlessness in TTIs. There are a large number of tensions in their role which are keenly felt, they are of the university, yet not part of it, and this dissonance appears to inversely affect their capacity to carve out a unique role for themselves. The difficulty in carving out a unique role for the institution is well exemplified in two contrasting institutions of the sample. In the one institution great emphasis has been placed, since the reforms of the early seventies, on the practical nature of their teacher education program. A vocal energetic and persuasive minority of faculty prosecuted to the extent of their considerable ability and political influence, a model of field based teacher education. Because this approach lies outside the norms of traditional university departments, the group conflicted with the central university administration. Not in a formal sense, but their advocacy of a field-based role for themselves led to innumerable frustrations, particularly in terms of funding, promotions and tenure, and the general kudos of the faculty on campus. So much so that a number of the group, particularly those in senior administrative positions in the faculty, regret the move of the college to the campus. They desire a return to their previous situation where they could exercise their professional autonomy without recourse to the criteria imposed upon them by a central university administration. The other example is that of a department of education in an old established university, which consciously regards education as an academic discipline rather than as a profession. They purposefully teach about education, to the expense of preparing student teachers in methods and teaching skills. Field experiences are minimal and on occasions even these opportunities are used to illustrate theories about education rather than to demonstrate and refine teaching skills. In this way the department is seen to be conforming to the norms of the university by pursuing a traditional academic role and a number of faculty have international academic reputations. But because they do this, the department has lost favour with the local school board, the ministry of education and the teachers' federation. Even worse, their enrolment has drastically reduced, which now seriously affects their position within the university. These two cameos represent the extremes of the sample, and well illustrate the double bind in which TTIs now find themselves. There is one other characteristic response to this predicament found within the sample, and it takes two forms. The most common is to separate the teacher education function from the study of education as a discipline. In some faculties, persons (usually practising teachers) are brought in on a temporary basis to supervise and instruct trainee teachers, and this allows faculty to teach theory courses and supervise graduate students. In the other situation some faculty, usually the teachers' college personnel, are permanently assigned supervisory tasks, whilst others, the more "academic" faculty, teach solely theory courses. In each of these three instances, there is a dichotomy between the theoretical 26 David Hopkins and practical aspects of teacher education. Many regard the lack of integration between theory and practice as the most critical problem facing teacher education in Canada. This analysis unfortunately suggests that it occurs as the result of entrenched structural factors not readily amenable to change. Vulnerability of Contemporary Teacher Education It could be argued that Canadian Teacher Education is like this because the move to the university was a major innovation, that it takes time to institutionalize and that given experience the situation will right itself. Be this as it may, the luxury of time is not available. A consistent theme emerging from the interviews and observations was the vulnerability of teacher education. The reasons behind this — declining enrolments, increased accountability, budgetary restraints, acceleration in the pace of social change — are well known and have been discussed elsewhere. The impact of this vulnerability has served to heighten the feeling of anomie experienced by many TTIs in the sample. Declining enrolments have occasioned reduction in staffing and heavier workloads, and in Eastern Canada some TTIs have even been closed. In all institutions expansion is a thing of the past and a static professional population now the norm. The majority of the interviewees specifically talked about the political, economic, and social vulnerability of their institution. They also expressed concern about what this meant for their future and the future of teacher education in general. All saw little mobility in the job market, most saw increasingly little room for flexibility in their roles. Not only has there been contraction, but increased pressure for change and the inability of most TTIs to cope with demands have produced a malaise and a condition of innovative fatigue. It is not an exaggeration to describe many of the institutions of the sample as being "tenured in and changed out." Referring to his own faculty one dean commented: We have been engaged in substantial program change for three and a half years, we still have another year or so to complete the overall revision of our programs and I think that people are (1) tired and (2) extremely busy — there is a feeling of, "Oh my God. . . I have got too much on my plate already, I am involved in all these program revision committees and I just can't.take any more of this." This section has analyzed a number of factors which are defining the present character of Canadian teacher education. The move to the university campus, the role crisis in TTIs and their vulnerability to their environment, have created a situation where there is a general ambivalence and uncertainty as to their prime function. This uncertainty in its turn has led to a generalized reduction in effectiveness of many of the TTIs surveyed in the study. Despite this assessment, 27 The Problem of Change in Canadian Teacher Education however, some institutions were functioning admirably, others, less so. What accounts for these individual differences?, and what is their character? — this is the topic of the next section. IMAGES, MYTHS AND SAGAS The conceptualization of the barriers to change, and the defining features of contemporary Canadian teacher education are well grounded in the data. But in the light of the field experience, they do not explain the individual variability which exists in the sample. Clark (1975) outlines the concept of saga as being a cultural artefact that defines the character of an institution. His definition of a saga includes the lengthy historical development which one associates with certain Ivy League institutions and Oxbridge, and this tends to limit the utility of the concept in this situation. But when it is considered alongside the notion of images of change (Runkel et al., 1979) there is the possibility of a powerful concept that goes a long way towards explaining the analytical similarity and practical differences existing in TTIs. Over the past ten to fifteen years there has been a continuing pressure for change in TTIs. Some of this change has been resisted, as has just been described. This resistance, coupled with the enervating experience of change that has occurred in most institutions, has resulted in a cumulative perceived resistance moderated through the unique character of each institution. The perceived cumulative resistance manifests itself in a quasi-institutional saga which creates a set of meanings owned by many faculty. The saga comprises the single most powerful and sustaining barrier against change in TTIs. The concept of saga provides a satisfactory way of explaining the gap between the technical capacity of an institution to change (despite all the real barriers that have been articulated) and its emotional capacity to change which of course is the determining factor. I suggest that all institutions possess such a saga, which are a collection of perceptions which have grown out of the dynamic between the pressure for and resistance against change. Obviously the power of these sagas to inhibit change varies from institution to institution, as a result of the institution's own unique character and its interaction with the environment. In creating a taxonomy of these sagas within the sample it was found that they fell into five fairly discrete and evenly distributed categories, which are now discussed in turn. The state of Institutional Retrenchment is one where there has been continued and prolonged pressure for change which has (for whatever reason) been largely resisted. The promise of change followed by alack of implementation has resulted in a disillusionment so pervasive that it is no longer a matter for contention. The result is an institution where faculty are rarely concerned about change, are content to fulfil their normal duties and have little contact with the rest of the faculty outside of their immediate peers. This saga is so entrenched that it is difficult to see how the institutions concerned can turn the situation around. 28 David Hopkins This is especially true as they are very large, well established institutions, with a preponderance of tenured faculty. I regard this particular saga as the most entrenched and least open to change of all those presented here. Some flavour of what this saga entails can be gauged from this quotation: I detect this feeling throughout the place that what we have now is really good. Let us hang in there and not change anything. We have been like this for 50 years or however long the place has been running and let us not mess around with it. Paralyzed into inaction describes a situation where a faculty is simply overwhelmed by the external forces acting upon it and they feel powerless to do anything in reply. As a result, they do nothing until action is forced upon them. This is a potentially more serious situation; for in the instance of institutional retrenchment programs continue, students graduate, and funding continues much as it always has. But institutions who are 'paralyzed into inaction', are in a state of crisis. They have been subject to extreme criticism by external agencies, and as a result have lost their credibility within and outside the university. This tends to disrupt normal operation, and forces the administration of the faculty into extreme action, which is usually regarded negatively by the faculty at large. Given the volatility of the situation however, this particular predicament although Given the volatility of the situation however, this particular predicament although more serious is probably easier to remedy than that of institutional retrenchment. A flavour of the situation of TTIs caught in this saga is captured in the following interview extract: We are going through a time of uncertainty here, we are losing professors, fighting to keep some, fighting to get more, our chairmanship is in the process of changing over and we do not know who the chairman is going to be, the President of the University and the Dean of Arts are changing so we do not know who we will be dealing with and we do not know how they are going to regard us. . . . our enrolment decline is 40% in the undergraduate program this year, and that also has been a topic of concern among faculty members. . . Innovative fatigue and suspicion describes a state which may well precede the one just described. The dialogue with change has been long, arduous and not consistently successful. Much of the impetus to change has come from sources other than the grassroots and as a result has engendered a sense ofweary cynicism which faculty now associate with change efforts. This attitude is probably the most destructive and negative of the five, for a faculty in the grip of this saga will treat even rational and well-meaning attempts at change with a suspicion and hostility that they do not warrant. The difference between this saga and the other two, is that (a) it is a conscious situation, faculty members realize that they are weary and suspicious and (b) it is not the result of external criticism. 29 The Problem of Change in Canadian Teacher Education It appears to be the result of a history of poor change management within the faculty. As with the previous saga, the pathology is not so extensive that it could not be changed by concerted action. The following verbatim quotation from a conversation with a faculty member captures the essence of this saga: We have had a tradition of establishing committees to study a particular topic and then shelving the reports; it is a technique of handling people who want to bring about change. This approach has produced a climate of mistrust and people consequently feel alienated and powerless. Institutions whose development is slowed by myth present a mild form of inhibition. Here the recent history of the faculty has had a relatively benign influence, which although partially anachronistic in the contemporary situation, still guides its present direction. The benign influence of the recent past creates a myth of a glory which still guides the traditions and mores of the faculty. It is difficult to persuade faculty to relinquish a comfortable and comforting status quo for an uncertain future. Institutions living within this saga are usually regarded as successful; particularly if they are either large or small, not moderate in size. If large, the saga provides a buffer which protects the institution from external criticism, and allows individual departments to pursue their own policies even if they are not associated with the saga. The fact that the saga is in place protects the institution. In small faculties the myth is pervasive, and as most faculty adhere to it, it normally exerts a benign influence. However, in medium-sized institutions the saga can have a negative influence. This is because in moderately sized institutions departments may have differing interpretations of the saga, which although not powerful enough to unite the faculty are pervasive enough to cause dissonance. In general this saga gives faculty identity and self confidence, which enables them to react effectively to external pressure. A faculty member described it this way: Change comes from pressures from various sources in response to perceived needs. I think that we have responded pretty well and reasonably intelligently to demands on the part of the school boards, trustees, public, and supposedly the students, that we develop more in-the-field competence in our training program. An institution that is relatively free to change, is one which is uninhibited by myth but is still constrained by the organizational barriers and ecological constraints described earlier. They are typically small, well integrated faculties, with good relations with the field. They are aware of their limitations and are businesslike in their approach to their everyday tasks and possible future directions. This down-to-earth characteristic appears to be most conducive to change. The characteristics most clearly associated with the institution in this category were: open 30 David Hopkins leadership, good relations with the field, good internal communication, well integrated into the university, relatively small, an ability to diagnose and an ability to mobilize resources. An institution with this saga is well able to implement change and displays least the pathological symptoms usually associated with change in teacher education. A professor in an institution characterized by this saga described it thus: I think that we are a reasonably cohesive group of people, and we also have some very good teachers on staff. Consequently we are well accepted by the community of teachers ?round. We have credibility in the community and schools, as the result of public relations work and our concern for education. SUMMARY In this paper a series of conceptual categories that provide an explanation for the paradox of change and no change in Canadian Teacher Education have been sketched out in some detail. The paradox of change and no change was resolved by pointing to delinquencies in the process of implementation. Implementation is a multidimensional concept; consequently when change at the level of structure is not matched by changes in the behaviour of individuals associated with the innovation, there is the appearance but not the reality of change. Reasons for this lack of internalization were sought at a number of levels: first barriers to change in teacher education, both real and perceived were described; second, three major and interrelated issues, university norms, the role crisis in TTIs and vulnerability were depicted as inhibitors to change; third, individual differences between institutions was explained by the notion of saga, which is a collection of perceptions that acculturate and partially control the milieu of TTIs. When taken together these conceptual categories suggest a typology of change in teacher education that is non-linear and essentially unpredictable. FOOTNOTES 1. The Management of Change in Teacher Education, SS & HRC Grant #410-77-0459-21, principal investigators Dr. Michael Fullan and Dr. Marvin Wideen. 2. For a further discussion of this point see Hopkins 1980 chapter two. 3. See for example Berman and McLaughlin 1976, Fullan & Pomfret 1977 and Fullan 1979. 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