Negotiating Power and Practice: Pre-Service Teachers’ Political Geographies during Teaching Internship

Menegosiasikan Kekuasaan dan Praktik: Geografi Politik Calon Guru selama Praktik Pengalaman Lapangan

Abstract

Teaching internships place pre-service teachers (PSTs) within school environments shaped by authority, institutional rules, professional expectations, and interpersonal relationships. However, limited research has examined how EFL PSTs negotiate these political relations during teaching internships, particularly in the Indonesian context. This study explores the political geographies of EFL PSTs during a teaching internship at schools in Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi, focusing on how they experienced and negotiated power, authority, expectations, and professional agency. A qualitative case study was conducted with five EFL PSTs from a state Islamic university in Southeast Sulawesi who completed a one-month teaching internship in different schools. Data were collected through reflective journals, observations, semi-structured interviews, and focus group discussions and analyzed thematically. The findings show that PSTs encountered varying forms of authority and institutional expectations that shaped their pedagogical decisions, responsibilities, relationships with supervisors and mentor teachers, and sense of professional autonomy. They negotiated these conditions through adaptation, communication, compliance, reflection, and selective assertion of their teaching preferences. The study contributes to understanding teaching internships as political spaces in which PSTs continuously negotiate power and professional positioning. The findings highlight the need for stronger university-school collaboration and dialogic supervision to support PST agency and professional development.