Constructing Collaboration with Words or How to Summarize a Research Study about Student Voice in Spain.
Author(s):
Teresa Susinos (presenting / submitting) Noelia Ceballos Lopez Angela Saiz Linares
Conference:
ECER 2015
Network:
25. Research on Children's Rights in Education
Format:
Paper

Session Information

25 SES 07, Promoting Students’ Self Expression and Development: Some Problematics

Paper Session

Time:
2015-09-09
17:15-18:45
Room:
207.Oktatóterem [C]
Chair:
Carol Robinson

Contribution

This paper refers to an ongoing research that we are carrying out at the University of Cantabria(“Escuelas que caminan hacia la inclusión educativa: trabajar con la comunidad local, la voz del alumnado y el apoyo educativo para promover el cambio”.Director: Teresa Susinos. EDU2011-29928- C03-03))which isfunded by the Ministry of Science and Technology (Spain).

 

The aim of this project is to encourage, develop and assess the setting-up of student voice experiences in some primary and secondary schools which have implemented ad hoc-designed student participation projects.Student voice is not a frequent concern for Spanish schools, so the novelty of this issue in our national context is complemented in this research with the purpose of increasing inclusion and democracy education in schools.We finally seek to prove that these student voice experiences can be conceived as tools (“levers”) for change and institutional improvement towards these said purposes.

The project is inspired in the Student Voice Movement (Fielding, 2007; Rudduck y Flutter, 2007) and is coherent with previous research work that our group has been carrying out on educational inclusion/exclusion (Susinos y Parrilla, 2008; Susinos, 2007). It is also connected with the theory of inclusion and school improvement which conceive schools and communities of practices within schools (Wenger, 1998) as main units of educational change, taking as a starting point the analysis of the needs and strengths of each particular school (Stoll y Fink, 1999; Ainscow, 2005).

We are in the last phase of the research and at the moment the core issues are to evaluate and disseminate the project. Our commitment to a qualitative-collaborative research approach has taken us to develop the whole research project through “mixed research groups”, consisting of teachers from the school, the school counsellor and one of the university researchers.

Therefore, we advocate the need to submit the research processes, and mainly the use and ownership of data, to ethical standards and social commitment. Our educational research seeks to promote a constant dialectical process in which participants negotiate meanings with the researcher at all stages of the investigation (Gitlin et al., 1992). The knowledge generated throughout the research will be the result of a play of subjectivities in which none of the voices should prevail over the other (Domingo and Bolivar, 2006).

In this paper we present the process of constructing collaborative narratives (Griffin, Parker, Kitchen, 2010) as a final stage of the research. These narratives have been developed by eight “mixed research groups”. This dialogic production aims to disseminate the experiences of student voice carried out in schools during the research project and it will result in the publication of a Good Practices Guide of student participation and its ultimate posting on the project website.

Method

This research was designed as a qualitative-collaborative research (Cochran-Smith, 2009) and was developed through ethnographic methodology, in particular using interviews, participant observation, field notes and photographs. Consequently, all processes of data collection, analysis and interpretation of the data arise from the ethnographic tradition. There are six participant schools (from infant, primary and secondary education) that have developed their own Student Voice Experiences through five stages shared by all the schools in a flexible way (Susinos & Haya, 2014; Susinos & Rodríguez, 2011). In the phase described in this paper, we show how we have summarized all the experiences by means of the same collaborative philosophy that has presided over the whole research process. For this purpose we have made a synthesis of each experience following the methodology of collaborative narratives (Griffin, Parker, Kitchen, 2010) that started from an individual interview with each participant teacher. The purpose of this qualitative interview with teachers was not to generate new information but to create a safe space to collaboratively build thoughtful narrative about the process experienced. The interviews were conducted using a previously-written script that became an instrument which promoted the explanation of the reflective processes developed by teachers and researchers (Díaz de Rada, 2007). After obtaining an oral discourse about each experience, the following strategy was launched: collaborative written narration. The interviews were carried out similarly for all cases. However, not all the written narrations were developed in a similar way: we can appreciate some differences according to the degree of involvement of teachers in the written text, and the level of support they received by the research team. Thus, we find experiences where the writing rests on the researcher who acquires a commitment to respect the speech of the teachers produced in the interviews. In other cases, teachers have more responsibility in leading the writing process, whilst the researchers act as supporters and guides. The decision on the modalities of writing is taken in consensus with the teachers.

Expected Outcomes

This approach to the findings of an investigation run jointly with the participants is uncommon in traditional educational research, but allows us to finalize a coherent whole research process which was designed as a qualitative-collaborative. At the same time, closing the investigation thus, helps us expand the audience to which the research is addressed, since the Good Practices Guide is intended as a tool for communication between teachers, as examples in action that can inspire new school practices. It therefore has a practical or applied vocation. In this process of joint writing there are also other results relating to the writing process of shared narratives that are worth mentioning. Meaningful negotiation processes are developed and thus contribute to reflect on the experience and we reflectively analyze later. These mutual translation processes are of great value to reappropriate their experiences in the process of discussing them, summarizing them and giving them a written format (Zeichner, 2010). Nevertheless, this process has not been without difficulties. For example, the constant negotiation of the role of the researcher and the teacher. Building a joint research report means questioning the roles traditionally assigned to the researcher and participants. Thus, researchers have adopted an open dialogue and attentive attitude to the use of power, while teachers become active agents in the construction of meanings (Bolívar, 2002). In relation to the learning processes resulting from the collaborative writing, we found that reflecting together while distanced somewhat from the experience, allows us to deepen the knowledge generated and promote the ongoing questioning about some of the practices generated. In short, through collaborative storytelling, teachers were able to think again about the experience, watch and observe themselves and others from a different perspective and make new understandings of the experience (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000).

References

AINSCOW, M. (2005). El desarrollo de sistemas educativos inclusivos: ¿Cuáles son las palancas de cambio? Journal of Educational Change, 6, 109-1024. BOLÍVAR, A Y DOMINGO, J (2006). La investigación biográfica y narrativa en Iberoamérica: Campos de desarrollo y estado actual. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 7(4). CLANDININ, J. & CONNELLY, M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco: The Jossey-Bass education series. COCHRAN-SMITH, M. et al. (2009). Good and just teaching: the case for social justice in teacher education. American Journal of Education, 115, pp. 347-377. DÍAZ DE RADA, Á. (2007). Etnografía y técnicas de investigación antropológica. Madrid: UNED. FIELDING, M. (2007) “On the necessity of Radical State Education: democracy and the common school”. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 41(4), 539-557. FIELDING, M. (2011) La voz del alumnado y la inclusión educativa: una aproximación democrática radical para el aprendizaje intergeneracional. Revista Interuniversitaria de Formación del Profesorado (Zaragoza), 70 (25, 1), 31-61. GITHIN, A (1992) Teachers' Voices for School Change. Teachers College Press: Columbia University. GRIFFIN, S., PARKER, D.C, KITCHEN, J. (2010) Carrying Stories From the Outside In: A Collaborative Narrative Into a Teacher Education Community. Education, 16 (2), 15-29. RUDDUCK, J. y FLUTTER, J. (2007). Cómo mejorar tu centro escolar dando la voz al alumnado. Madrid: Morata. STOLL, L. y FINK, D. (1999). Para cambiar nuestras escuelas: reunir la eficacia y la mejora de las escuelas. Barcelona: Octaedro. SUSINOS Y HAYA (2014). Developing student voice and participatory pedagogy: a case study in a Spanish primary school. Cambrigde journal of education 44 (3), 385-399. SUSINOS RADA, T. Y RODRÍGUEZ-HOYOS, C. (2011) La educación inclusiva hoy. Reconocer al otro y crear comunidad a través del diálogo y la participación. Revista Interuniversitaria de Formación del Profesorado, 70 (25,1), 15-30. SUSINOS, T. (2009). Escuchar para compartir. Reconociendo la autoridad del alumnado en el proyecto de una escuela inclusiva. Revista de Educación, 349, 119-136. SUSINOS T. Y PARRILLA, A. (2008). Dar la voz en la investigación inclusiva. Debates sobre inclusión y exclusión desde un enfoque biográfico-narrativo. REICE Revista Electrónica Iberoamericana sobre calidad, eficacia y cambio en educación, 6(2), 157-171. WENGER, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge University Press. ZEICHNER, K. (2010). New epistemologies in teacher education. Rethinking the connections between campus courses and field Experiences in College and University based teacher education. Journal of teacher education, 61, 89-99.

Author Information

Teresa Susinos (presenting / submitting)
University of Cantabria
Santander
Noelia Ceballos Lopez
University of Cantabria
Department of education
Santander, Cantabria
Angela Saiz Linares
University of Cantabria
Education
Santander

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