In recent years the role of the university in England, in relation to teacher education and teachers’ professional learning, has been under attack. Ongoing reforms have led to teacher education becoming a state endeavour, characterised by enforced compliance and fidelity to government-set curriculum design, content and delivery (Ellis and Childs, 2024). As experienced teacher educators we have borne this radical policy implementation and are provoked to move from a position of ‘creative compliance’ to developing a more robust counter-response that reimagines the place and space of university-based teacher education in England.

In this paper we describe how opportunity to leave England and engage with ITE colleagues in Denmark led us to ‘fight familiarity’ (Delamont, 2010) and speculate how we might reposition our university-based teacher education programmes to invoke more creative, critical and transformational teacher learning (Griffiths & Nuttall, forthcoming). The work of Lefebvre (1991) prompted us to interrogate physical, conceptual and lived experiences in both familiar and unfamiliar university settings. Engaging with principles of autoethnography and self-study we came to consider multiple perspectives, uncovering and examining beliefs, assumptions and taken-for-granted ways of being and knowing in teacher education. Outcomes from this work centre around relationships between physical, conceptual and affective dimensions, underpinning our possibility thinking about how we can embed equality and sustainability across our provision. We explore potential in an ‘ontological turn’ (Aldridge, 2015) in teacher education, where we endeavour to situate our [student] teachers and ourselves in a complex ecology of transformative learning, cultivating ‘self-full’ practices (Higgins, 2015) and promoting belonging.

Outlining challenges and tensions inherent in achieving our vision, we conclude with a call to action that asks the sector to consider what can be done to shift teacher education beyond homogenised, marketized and instrumental approaches and instead become a site of transformation and flourishing for all.

In 2022, immigrants and refugees made up over 16% of Norway's population (Green & Vaag Iversen, 2022; Statistisk sentralbyrå, 2022), presenting new challenges for teachers in increasingly diverse classrooms. While newly arrived students receive specialized Norwegian language instruction, most classroom teaching occurs in inclusive environments where linguistic diversity is a significant factor. Immigrant students typically achieve lower academic results than their peers (Statistisk sentralbyrå, 2023), often due to instruction that is either too advanced or insufficiently adapted to their language needs (Lødding et al., 2024). Skrefsrud (2018) suggests that the key question is not how multilingual students can be integrated into the existing school system, but rather how a new classroom approach centered on student self-reflection can be developed. The Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) method offers potential for supporting multilingual students, but little is known about its use or teachers' perceptions in the Norwegian context.

This study examines teachers' perceptions of the outcomes of the SIOP method in promoting participation and inclusion for multilingual students in Norwegian middle and upper secondary schools. The research aims to explore how SIOP can help bridge educational gaps by fostering engagement and participation. Grounded in self-study and educational design frameworks, the study also incorporates methodologies for examining teacher beliefs. Teachers participated through reflective journaling on their instructional experiences with the SIOP model, supported by collaborative reflection groups with researchers (Samaras, 2011; Feldman, Paugh, & Mills, 2004). Preliminary results suggest that SIOP implementation enhances student engagement and improves linguistic competence, as perceived by teachers. These findings indicate that SIOP may contribute to reducing disparities in participation and performance among diverse student populations. This research aligns with the conference theme, “Research on equitable teaching practices,” by highlighting how inclusive instructional methods like SIOP can promote equity and inclusion for multilingual students in diverse classrooms.