Embodied Leadership Experienced By Teachers In The Inclusive, Municipal Primary And Lower Secondary School

Author(s):

Mathias Sune Berg(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 05 A, Professional Knowledge & Teacher Identity: Leadership

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-23

13:30-15:00

Room:

K5.18

Chair:

Shosh Leshem

Contribution

This abstract presents selected, preliminary findings from a phenomenologically inspired practice-based PhD project in educational research that is not yet completed. The empirical material has been collected over a period of 1.5 years, spread out over three methodically different phases in a school in a suburb of Copenhagen. The focus of the research is on the significance of the body in leadership of inclusive learning environments in the Danish elementary school.

Research question

The main research question of the dissertation is: How can an increased focus on the language of the body contribute to the development of the teachers’ leadership skills and thus support their work with differentiated teaching in inclusive learning environments?

The practical, empirical part of the project is divided into three phases with different subordinated secondary research questions. In the first phase the study is very open and explorative and attempts to describe if/when/how the body comes into play in the leadership practice of the teachers. The second phase takes its point of departure in the empirical material from the first phase and is deeply rooted in collaborative, co-creating research processes where the researcher together with the participating teachers examines their own practice. Here it is explored how a focus on the significance of the body in leadership can contribute to a greater personal awareness of one’s own leadership practice. The practice-based research initially explores the individual teacher’s unique lived experiences. The ambition is not to describe a ’best practice’ example to be followed, but to have narratives that can shed light on practice as it is experienced and to gain more experience with methods that can open up an often languageless world for reflection and knowledge sharing for both practitioners and researchers. In the third and final phase the primary research question is opened up slightly to better involve the voices of the students. Here there is a focus on the students’ experiences of the daily life with the teachers in school as they can be expressed both with and without words.

To explore these questions, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s embodiement phenomenology and his perspective on the body and our being-in-the-world is applied.(Merleau-Ponty, 1994). In addition to this perspective, Helle Winther’s work on embodied professionality acts as a theoretical as well as analytical foundation (Winther, 2012). Winther understands the body, the personality, and the professionality as inseparable elements of the teacher’s embodied leadership competence and further, she differentiates analytically between three interrelated dimensions: Self-contact and somatic awareness, Communication reading and contact ability, and Leadership in groups or situations (Winther, 2013). Ole Fogh Kirkeby’s event philosophy (Kirkeby, 2009, 2013) gives the project a philosophical and value-based theoretical leadership perspective.

Method

The methodical approach of the project is based on a phenomenological (Van Manen, 1990, 2014) and narrative perspective (A. Sparkes, 2002). The practice-based narratives which particularly characterise the empirical material from phase one attempt to accommodate the embodied, experience-based, and non-verbal dimension of the teachers’ leadership practice (Winther, 2013). The narratives seek to transform bodily, lived experiences into language – and at the same time seek to resonate with the reader’s own lived experiences. The classroom observations were recorded with a camera that automatically followed the teacher’s movements around the room and recorded all conversations. The video observations were initially used to (re)watch the teacher’s body and movements and the teachers relation to the students (Prosser, 2011). While viewing all the video sequences, situations that at first seemed to attract interest were listed. Subsequently, selected sequences were shown as part of the gathering of empirical material in phase two. The video sequences/situations that were selected for use in phase two have all been transformed into practice-based narratives and thus supplement the narratives that were written during the observations. The second phase is characterized by a more collaborative research methodology where the participating teachers in pairs enter into dialogue with selected video sequences recorded in phase one (Hedegaard-Sørensen & Grumløse, 2016). The purpose of the conversations was to create a space for transformative professional dialogue (Stelter, 2013, 2016). A joint exploration of the material provides the opportunity for exploring the individual teacher’s lived experiences and generating a new awareness of the significance of the body in leadership together. The third phase is based on a critical utopian action research tradition (Brydon-Miller, Greenwood, & Maguire, 2003; Reason & Bradbury, 2008) with inspiration from research methods that draw on arts-based research (Cahnmann-Taylor & Siegesmund, 2008). The aim of this part of the empirical material was to take on a student oriented perspective of the problem thus giving the students a voice in the education research which may hold a great unexploited potential. The intention of framing the action research as a ”future-workshop” (Husted & Tofteng, 2012) and giving it a particular aesthetical expression was to make it possible to transform the embodied experiences of the children into more accessible forms of expression. The “future-workshop” thus contributed to the creation of a new and more open space where pictures, imagery language, and metaphoric exploration of the otherwise implicit knowledge became possible.

Expected Outcomes

The dissertation is first expected to be completed January 31st 2018 and therefore the findings presented in this abstract are only preliminary and not yet fully analysed. However, some relatively distinct tendencies are beginning to emerge from the empirical material of the first two phases. It seems: • The body is constantly in play in the teacher’s leadership practice. • The bodies are in play in very different ways in the course of a class and in particular from teacher to teacher. • The teachers are often not aware of the significance of the body in leadership even though it is a both natural and integrated part of their pedagogical practice. • The teachers’ awareness seems to be strengthened by a greater focus on the language of the body in their professional leadership practice. In the third and final empirical phase of the project a pattern emerges of the students requesting teachers that are present and see the needs of the individual student and manage to act accordingly in the situation, but the data collected in this phase need to be analyzed further At the present time this provides an understanding of the fact that the teacher’s bodily/sensuous competencies must be well-developed and that the three dimensions of embodied professionality with advantage could be given more attention in the training as well as supplementary and in-service training of teachers.

References

References Brydon-Miller, M., Greenwood, D., & Maguire, P. (2003). Why action research? Action research, 1(1), 9–28. Cahnmann-Taylor, M., & Siegesmund, R. (Red.). (2008). Arts-based research in education: foundations for practice. New York: Routledge. Hedegaard-Sørensen, L., & Grumløse, S. P. (2016). Lærerfaglighed, inklusion og differentiering: pædagogiske lektionsstudier i praksis. Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur. Husted, M., & Tofteng, D. (2012). Aktionsforskning. I Samfundsvidenskabernes videnskabsteori: en indføring (1. udg., Bd. 2012). København. Kirkeby, O. F. (2009). The new protreptic: the concept and the art (1st ed). [Copenhagen, Denmark] : Portland, OR: Copenhagen Bussiness School Press ; Distribution, International Specialized Book Services. Kirkeby, O. F. (2013). Eventologien: begivenhedsfilosofiens indhold og konsekvenser. Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1994). Kroppens fænomenologi. Frederiksberg: Det Lille Forlag. Prosser, J. (u.å.). Visual Methodology: Toward a more Seeing Research. I The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research (Bd. 2011, s. 17). Sage Publications. Reason, P., & Bradbury, H. (2008). The SAGE handbook of action research : participative inquiry and practice (2. udg.). Los Angeles, Calif.: SAGE. Hentet fra http://site.ebrary.com/lib/metropol/Doc?id=10629384 Sparkes, A. (2002). Telling tales in sport and physical activity: a qualitative journey. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Sparkes, A. C. (Red.). (2014). Qualitative research methods in sport, exercise and health: from process to product. London ; New York: Routledge. Stelter, R. (2013). A guide to third generation coaching: narrative-collaborative theory and practice. Dordrecht: Springer. Hentet fra http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=1399093 Stelter, R. (2016). Kunsten at dvæle i dialogen: Kvalificering af professionelle hverdagsdialoger gennem tredje generations coaching. København: Dansk Psykologisk Forlag. Tracy, S., & Allen, J. (2013). Collage-making for interdisciplinary research skills training in Northern Ireland. I Lifelong learning, the arts and community cultural engagement in the contemporary university International perspectives (s. 208). Manchester University Press. Van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: human science for an action sensitive pedagogy. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press. Van Manen, M. (2014). Phenomenology of practice: meaning-giving methods in phenomenological research and writing. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press. Winther, H. (2012). Kroppens sprog i professionel praksis: om kontakt, nærvær, lederskab og personlig kommunikation. Værløse: Billesø & Baltzer. Winther, H. (u.å.-a). Praktikerforskning. I Metoder i idrætsforskning (Bd. 2013, s. 17). København: Munksgaard. Winther, H. (u.å.-b). Professionals Are Their Bodies: The Language of the Body as Sounding Board in Leadership and Professional Communication. I THE Embodiment of Leadership (Bd. 2013, s. 21). San Francisco: International Leadership association.

Author Information

Mathias Sune Berg (presenting / submitting)

UCC / Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sport, University of Copenhagen

Copenhagen

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