Embedding ethical agency in initial teacher education: The professional master of education

This article is a companion article to the preceding one: “Shaping a New Ethical Landscape in Teacher Education”. It offers a systematic account and a critical review of a new departure in the professional education of teachers in Ireland. In particular, it explores how the teacher education rationale developed at the National University of Ireland Maynooth has been advanced in a new key and embedded carefully into practice. The opportunity to do so arose as the main teaching qualification for Irish secondary teachers became a Master’s level programme: the Professional Master of Education (PME). METHOD. The methodology is that of a critical case study. It seeks to identify illuminating insights for broadly comparable cases. It focuses in particular on pioneering initiatives that directly engage the practitioner’s ethical capacities in the learning experiences provided in the new Master’s programme. There are three main parts, followed by a Résumé and Conclusions. The first part examines the concrete curriculum innovations necessary to bring the strengthening of ethical capacity to the core of the programme. The second and third parts examine more closely the main features of the new programme and examine the feedback gathered from the first cohort of students. The Conclusion provides an appraisal of the significance of the new directions charted by the PME in the context of the challenging demands democratic society now makes on teachers. RESULTS. The results show that the students have very largely embraced the challenges of the new programme and have willingly embarked on initiatives that strengthen their ethical capacities as practitioners. DISCUSSION. Throughout the article the discussion reviews the promise of the new emphasis on ethical capability, not just for this cohort of students but for the field of teacher education itsel