Gardiner, Di

Dr. Di Gardiner is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education and the School’s Director of Teaching at The University of Western Australia in Crawley, Perth. Dr. Gardiner holds a Ph.D. from The University of Western Australia.

Constructing the Field of Education as a Liberal Art and as Teacher Preparation at Five Western Australian Universities: An Historical Analysis

2011 0-7734-1598-X
This book examines the development of teacher education at five universities in Western Australia and note analogous historical developments in England, Europe, and the United States. The authors address the false claim that teacher education has been marginalized at certain universities, which has led to a negative attitude towards teacher preparation. Gardiner, O'Donoghue, and O'Neil analyze the structure, orientation, and content of the education programs that they describe as the ‘preactive curriculum,’ at the different universities, while describing how those programs were implemented and carried out over time. The book is an important contribution to curriculum history and offers new methodological approaches to research the implementation of teacher education.