“We Have to Play the Game” Metaphorical Language and its Effects within Discourses of Quality, Mentoring and Disadvantage in Initial Teacher Training and Education (ITTE)

Allen-Dooley, Shaun

“We Have to Play the Game” Metaphorical Language and its Effects within Discourses of Quality, Mentoring and Disadvantage in Initial Teacher Training and Education (ITTE)

Allen-Dooley, Shaun (2026) “We Have to Play the Game” Metaphorical Language and its Effects within Discourses of Quality, Mentoring and Disadvantage in Initial Teacher Training and Education (ITTE). Doctoral thesis, Birmingham City University.

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Abstract

Education reform is increasingly legitimised via discourses centred on quality. Quality of teaching is posed as a policy problem, largely in response to global rankings in International Large-Scale Assessments (ILSAs) such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Reforms to Initial Teacher Training and Education (ITTE) in England have centred around a dominant and pervasive idea in recent years: that quality of teaching is the most important in-school factor in improving outcomes for pupils, particularly for children classed as disadvantaged. One proposed central mechanism for developing quality teaching today is in developing “high-quality mentoring” (DfE, 2021b: 9) across ITTE providers and schools in order to improve the education and training of student-teachers.

This research study uses a set of approaches to researching reforms in ITTE, including discourse analysis of policy documents and semi-structured interviews with student-teachers and teacher-educators from one university in Birmingham, England. This involved drawing out the metaphorical language of games which can be used to describe, for example, inspection of education quality (‘We have to play the game’) as well as concepts of equalising disadvantages and supporting social mobility (‘Level the playing field’). Metaphors are rhetorical and persuasive and they can constitute and reinforce professional identities and cultures, therefore their place in ITTE discourses and practices requires investigation.

Findings indicate a range of metaphorical justifications for discourses, policies and practices in ITTE today. Today, metaphors in ITTE can rhetorically and euphemistically promote neoliberal values of competitive inequality, as well as the effects of this type of political rationality. Effects include demands of performativity (‘Jumping through hoops’), narratives of survival (‘Sinking or swimming’), and mindsets of cynical compliance (‘Playing the Ofsted game’). Closer attention to the study of metaphors in ITTE can reveal that which can often be concealed in policy justifications and professional discourses.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Dates:	Date Event 2 April 2026 Accepted
Uncontrolled Keywords:	quality, mentoring, disadvantage, initial teacher training, initial teacher education, metaphor education
Subjects:	CAH22 - education and teaching > CAH22-01 - education and teaching > CAH22-01-01 - education CAH22 - education and teaching > CAH22-01 - education and teaching > CAH22-01-02 - teacher training
Divisions:	Doctoral Research College > Doctoral Theses Collection Life and Health Sciences > Health and Social Care Professions > Social Care
Depositing User:	Louise Muldowney
Date Deposited:	20 Apr 2026 10:01
Last Modified:	20 Apr 2026 10:01
URI:	https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/16975