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The ITTECF and educational research: the next version of a flawed vision?
Open accessAbstract
In this article we discuss the view of educational research outlined in the Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework (ITTECF) document, published in 2024 by the UK Department for Education, in the context of debates about the relationship between educational knowledge and teacher education. Through an elementary bibliometric analysis of the changes made to the reference lists in the document since its predecessor documents (the Core Content Framework and the Early Career Framework), we show how the previous UK Conservative government sought to embed a scientistic approach to educational knowledge for teacher education in England, with research sponsored by the Education Endowment Foundation taking a leading role. Drawing on Foray and Hargreaves’s work, we demonstrate that the ITTECF illustrates underlying assumptions that educational research needs to move towards a more science-in-technology mode of knowledge production that aims to enhance the quality of educational knowledge, while minimising more humanistic approaches. This is exposed as problematic, given the necessarily values-rich, contextualised and holistic character of educational practice, and the centralising tendencies inherent in the production of the ITTECF and its preceding documents.
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A putative expertise problem in ITE has been addressed by the introduction of the government-mandated ITT Core Content Framework and ITT provider reaccreditation processes.
“A putative expertise problem in ITE has been addressed by the introduction of the government-mandated ITT (Initial Teacher Training) Core Content Framework (CCF) (Department for Education 2019) and ITT provi der reaccreditation processes”
From A prescriptive continuum analytical framework for measuring school curriculum structure (2026) · cites this paper as Hordern and Brooks 2025
The Introduction (p. 2) says the Carter Review criticised ITT providers, that the CCF followed, and that fidelity to the CCF became a condition of accreditation. This supports the description of a policy response to a perceived problem, but not the implication that the expertise problem was successfully addressed: the Conclusions (p. 8) question the framework’s credibility and say there is no tangible basis for claiming it improved teaching quality. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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Research works printed but not linked: 21
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Hulme, M. (2026) · Educational Action Research · doi:10.1080/09650792.2026.2626541 · Cited by 2
Metadata
- Authors
- Hordern, J., & Brooks, C.
- Affiliations
- University of Bath (GB)
- University of Cambridge (GB)
- Venue
- London Review of Education
- Publisher
- UCL Press
- Published
- 2025-03-12
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 1
- ISSN
- 1474-8460 (ISSN-L)
- 1474-8479
- OpenAlex
- W6961002154
- Cited by
- 6
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 4
- FWCI
- 10.45
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- London Review of Education (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- PEARL (University of Plymouth) (submittedVersion)
- Apollo (University of Cambridge) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Educational Theory and Curriculum Studies
- Social Sciences › Education › Educational Research and Methods
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Global Educational Policies and Reforms
- Keywords
- teacher education policy, educational research, educational knowledge, scientism, Education Endowment Foundation, Early Career Framework, knowledge production, educational values, centralization, England
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