Aims as anchors: exploring teacher educators' epistemic aims for teaching about/to/for diversity in initial teacher education (ITE)

Increasingly, international attention focuses on how to ensure that teacher educators support pre-service teachers to address what is referred to as 'diversity' in classrooms, with responsive teaching identified as important core content for ITE programmes. A robust body of research shows that epistemic cognition (cognitions about knowing and knowledge) mediates teaching across educational contexts. However, little is known about how teacher educators' decision-making and teaching practices for diversity education relate to their epistemic cognition. Based on our epistemic reflexivity framework, we observed and interviewed 23 Australian and New Zealand teacher educators to understand the role played by epistemic cognition in teaching about, to, and for diversity. Findings suggested that epistemic aims (intentions related to processes of knowing and knowledge for pre-service teachers) anchored the way in which teacher educators were reflexive about diversity education. Teacher educators who engaged in teaching about and to diversity were reflexive about epistemic aims for acquiring knowledge and understanding whereas teacher educators who identified with teaching for diversity were more reflexive with respect to evaluativist epistemic aims for critical pedagogies. We argue that professional development focused on epistemic reflexivity better prepares teacher educators to support pre-service teachers to work with diverse learners in diverse contexts.