Education policy and teacher identity: a feminist new materialist study of intra-actions in Irish post-primary education.

Author(s):

Cliona Murray(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Poster

Session Information

ERG SES C 02, PechaKucha Poster Session

Poster Session

Time:

2016-08-22

11:00-12:30

Room:

OB-H1.49 (ALE 2)

Chair:

Patrícia Fidalgo

Contribution

Teachers in Ireland are at present taking industrial action in protest against curricular reforms, an action that reflects the poor relationship and ongoing tensions between policymakers and teachers and highlights some particularities in the Irish educational context that merit investigation. The proposed study adopts a feminist new materialist perspective (Hekman, 2010) to investigate the intra-actions (Barad, 2007) between teacher professional identity, education policy, teaching practices and education outcomes, and situates those intra-actions within European educational reform trends (Grek et al. 2013; Ozga, 2012).

A combination of factors have led in recent years to an increased focus on teacher professionalism in international education policy. These include the publication of the OECD’s report Teachers Matter (2005) and the McKinsey report How the World’s Most Improved School Systems Keep Getting Better (2010). In Ireland, these reports together with the policy crisis created by Ireland’s fall in the 2009 PISA league tables and the post-2008 economic recession created a “perfect storm” (Conway & Murphy, 2013) from which a clear policy impetus emerged towards improving teaching and teacher education standards. This crisis of confidence in Ireland’s teachers came after years of public contentment with the standard of education, whereby a dominant narrative claimed that the country’s world-class education system contributed to an excellent workforce that attracted inward investment and created economic growth.

However, against this dominant narrative, research has shown persistent social inequality in educational outcomes, a reluctance to embrace progressive education methods and a disparity between expressed teaching beliefs and actual teaching practices, leading to a characterisation of Irish education as a ‘rhetoric/reality dichotomy’ (Gleeson, 2012). The proposed study addresses the question of teacher identity in Ireland, asking how it is constructed, how it shapes and is shaped by education policy, and what the material effects of that dynamic is for education practices and for student outcomes.

The study will be guided by the following research questions;

What are the processes at work in the construction of teacher identity in the Irish post-primary education context?
How do teacher identities intra-act with education policy at different career stages and what are the implications of those intra-actions for the educational experiences of students?
Where can the professional identity of teachers in Ireland be located in international trends around teacher professionalism, autonomy and agency? What conclusions can be drawn about the links between cultural and social contexts, teacher education and teacher identity?

In addressing the research questions, the study will be informed by the following aims and objectives;

to critically analyse the professional identity of Irish post-primary teachers;
to situate that identity within social, cultural, political and material contexts;
to explore the interplay between teacher identity and education policy;
to consider the implications of changing teacher identities for the profession and for the educational experiences of students.

By adopting a feminist new materialist theoretical framework, the study will explore the complex and multifaceted processes by which teacher identity is both constituted by and constitutive of social, political, cultural and material contexts of education. Using a biographic narrative method, the study will trace the development of teacher subjectivity at different career stages, with a particular emphasis on how current trends and discourses in national and international education policies operate within the professional identities of teachers at different ages and career stages.

Method

The study is situated within a feminist theoretical framework and follows the work of the new materialists, who move beyond the positivist/constructionist dichotomy towards an understanding of the world and of human knowledge and experiences as elements within a ‘mangle’ (Hekman, 2010; Pickering, 1995). This theoretical framework aligns itself to the research questions guiding the project, given that it draws attention to the multiplicity of intra-actions (Barad, 2007) governing identity without losing sight of the material effects of those intra-actions and of the need for social critique of such effects. Thus, it offers a lens through which to examine the workings of micro/macro dialectics such as those at the core of this research study. Furthermore, because it highlights the material effects and consequences of social processes, it allows for an exploration of the ways in which teacher identity has an actual impact on school environments and on broader processes of education change. The study’s research approach is informed by the arguments in a special issue of the International Journal of Qualitative Research in Education for the move towards ‘post-qualitative research’ (Lather & St. Pierre, 2013). In particular, Mazzei’s (2013) work on interviewing and Jackson’s (2013) work on data analysis will guide the approach to the research data. The study will use interviewing based on the Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method (BNIM) (Wengraf, 2001). BNIM places a focus on the ‘situated states of subjectivity’ within an individual’s life narrative and uses a socio-historical lens to contextualise experiences and understandings. The BNIM interview aligns itself with the ethical concerns guiding feminist research by respecting the participant’s agency within the interview. It involves a single opening question aimed at eliciting the participant’s narrative, around which the remainder of the interview is structured, and does not introduce topics other than those raised by the participant themselves. This interview structure also aligns itself with the exploratory aim of the study, as it avoids researcher assumptions around teacher professional identity, instead allowing the participants to introduce those factors that they perceive as important. Approximately 30 post-primary teachers will be interviewed. The study will involve purposive sampling in order to include teachers at different ages and career stages.This sample size is in line with the findings of Mason’s (2010) extensive review of doctoral theses using qualitative methods.

Expected Outcomes

This study is at the early stages of a doctoral thesis and, as such, the projected conclusions are indicative of the research aims rather than being based on analysed data and findings. The study is situated at the intersections of three fields of research; teacher identity, education policy and feminist new materialisms. Particularly relevant to the proposed study is the literature that examines the interplay of teacher beliefs and agency, education reform initiatives and policy discourses (Biesta et al., 2015; Biesta, 2015; Ballet et al., 2006) and the work of Braun, Ball and Maguire (2011) which looks at the education policy process at the meso and micro level of schools and teachers and at the effects of teacher subjectivities on the enactment of education policy (Maguire et al., 2014). The proposed study brings recent developments in feminist new materialist theory together with these literatures with the aim of exploring whether new materialist theories can help in developing a deeper understanding of the complexity of the education policy/teacher identity dynamic. Teacher beliefs and practices in Ireland are marked by a number of particularities when compared to general trends in other national contexts, as was highlighted in the TALIS 2008 report (OECD, 2009). The study’s findings will examine the disparities between teacher beliefs and practices in Ireland and will highlight the ways in which teacher education and continuing professional development impacts on teacher identity. As such, the findings will be of potential use to teacher educators and to policymakers concerned with teacher professionalism.

References

Ballet, K., Kelchtermans, G. & Loughran, J. (2006) Beyond intensification towards a scholarship of practice: analysing changes in teachers' work lives, Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 12:2, 209-229 Barad, K. (2007) Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. London: Duke University Press. Biesta, G., Priestley, M. & Robinson, S. (2015) The role of beliefs in teacher agency. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 21(6), pp.624–640. Biesta, G. (2015) What is Education For? On Good Education, Teacher Judgement, and Educational Professionalism. European Journal of Education, 50(1) Braun, A. et al. (2011) Policy enactments in schools introduction: towards a toolbox for theory and research. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32(4), pp.581–583. Conway, P.F. & Murphy, R. (2013) A rising tide meets a perfect storm : new accountabilities in teaching and teacher education in Ireland teacher education in Ireland. Irish Educational Studies, 32(1), pp.11–36. Gleeson, J. (2012) The professional knowledge base and practice of Irish post-primary teachers : what is the research evidence telling us ? Irish Educational Studies, 31(1), pp.1–17. Grek, S. et al. (2013) Governing by inspection? European inspectorates and the creation of a European education policy space. Comparative Education, 49(4), pp.486–502. Hekman, S. (2010) The Material of Knowledge: Feminist Disclosures. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Jackson, A.Y. (2013) Posthumanist data analysis of mangling practices. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26(6), pp.741-748 Lather, P. & St. Pierre, E.A. (2013) Post-qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26(6), pp.629-633 Maguire, M. et al. (2014) “Where you stand depends on where you sit”: the social construction of policy enactments in the (English) secondary school. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 36(4), pp. 485-499 Mason, M. (2010) Sample Size and Saturation in PhD Studies Using Qualitative Interviews. Forum: Qualitative Sozialforschung, 11(3), Article 8 Mazzei, L.A. (2013) A voice without organs: interviewing in posthumanist research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26(6), pp.732-740 OECD, 2009. Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Environments: First Results from TALIS 2008 Ozga, J. (2012) Governing knowledge: data, inspection and education policy in Europe. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 10(4), pp.439–455. Wengraf, T. (2001) Qualitative Research Interviewing: Biographic Narrative and Semi-Structured Methods. SAGE.

Author Information

Cliona Murray (presenting / submitting)

Maynooth University

Education

Kildare

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