Main Content
Session Information
10 SES 04 B, Programmes and Approaches: Teacher as researcher
Paper Session
Contribution
Countries across the world are reforming their systems of teacher education. Although often in different forms, one common theme appears to be an increased focus on enquiry, evidence based teaching and teacher research (Kennedy, 2015), and Scotland is no exception. In 2011, the report ‘Teaching Scotland’s Future’ (TSF; Donaldson, 2011) was published. This policy proposed a radical redesign of teacher education provision in Scotland, at the centre of which was the ambition for teachers to become “reflective, accomplished and enquiring professionals” (Donaldson, 2011, p. 14). Central to this vision was the claim that teachers should be ‘agents of change’ and this increasing focus on ‘teacher agency’ also appears in recent curriculum policy in Scotland and internationally (Biesta, Priestley and Robinson, 2015; Priestley, 2011).
Over the last five years, the vision of the teacher promoted by TSF has come to be associated with the idea of teachers becoming more actively engaged in and with educational research, which has been supported and strengthened by a number of key organisations in Scottish education. For example, shortly after the publication of TSF, the General Teaching Council of Scotland (GTCS) introduced its new standard for career-long professional learning (CLPL) and a programme of Professional Update (PU), both of which require teachers to engage in and with research. Although this can take different forms, this may include reading academic literature, conducting independent research projects, and, participating in research events and conferences. In this paper, the researchers make a distinction between engaging in and engaging with research, but understand the two to be linked. The former refers to teachers contributing to research or designing their own research projects, while the latter refers to teachers reading and sharing research or drawing on evidence to inform their practice.
One example of where this has been put into practice is the development of Scotland’s first school-based research centre, Hutcheson’s Centre for Research (HCR). This centre was established to provide support for teachers and pupils to conduct their own independent research. The HCR supports teachers to develop the skills they need to become researchers and to put this research knowledge into practice, and thus provides an excellent site in which to explore issues around teacher engagement with research.
Understanding social capital as a multi-dimensional construct (Putnam, 2000), this paper utilises the concepts of ‘bonding’, ‘bridging’ (Terrion, 2006) and ‘linking’ (Woolcock, 2001) to explore the extent to which engagement in and with research appears to be facilitated or restricted by social ties, connections and networks within and outwith the school context. We also draw on the work of Emirbayer and Mische (1998) and their conceptualisation of agency as a configuration of forces from the past, future orientations and present engagement.
This paper summarises the findings from the second phase of a research project carried out within the HCR, in partnership with the University of Strathclyde, which explores the development of teachers as researchers. The first phase, identified a number of perceived barriers to teacher engagement and highlighted a tension between the conceptualisation of teacher research promoted by current policy and the conceptualisation of teacher research by teachers themselves. The second phase of this project explores these issues in more depth by asking the following questions:
1) What do teachers understand by engaging in research and with research?
2) What structures or support can be put in place to facilitate teachers who do not engage in and with research?
3) Does the practice of engaging in and with research appear to be related to bonding, bridging or linking social capital?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Biesta, G., Priestley, M., & Robinson, S. (2015). The role of beliefs in teacher agency. Teachers and teaching: theory and practice, 21, 624-640. Donaldson, G. (2011). Teaching Scotland’s Future: Report of a Review of teacher Education in Scotland. Edinburgh: Scottish Government. Kennedy, A. (2015). Educating our teachers: a straightforward and uncontroversial task?. In Strathclyde Institute for Public Policy: Briefing Papers. Glasgow: University of Strathclyde. Emirbayer, M., & Mische, A. (1998). What is agency? American Journal of Sociology, 103, 962-1023. Priestley, M. (2011). Whatever happened to curriculum theory? Critical realism and curriculum change. Pedagogy, culture and society, 19, 221-237. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Terrion, J. L. (2006). Building social capital in vulnerable families: Success markers of a school-based intervention program. Youth and Society, 38, 155-176 Woolcock, M. (2001). The place of social capital in understanding social and economic outcomes. Isuma: Canadian Journal of Policy Research, 2, 11-17.
Programme by Networks, ECER 2021
00. Central Events (Keynotes, EERA-Panel, EERJ Round Table, Invited Sessions)
Network 1. Continuing Professional Development: Learning for Individuals, Leaders, and Organisations
Network 2. Vocational Education and Training (VETNET)
Network 3. Curriculum Innovation
Network 4. Inclusive Education
Network 5. Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education
Network 6. Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures
Network 7. Social Justice and Intercultural Education
Network 8. Research on Health Education
Network 9. Assessment, Evaluation, Testing and Measurement
Network 10. Teacher Education Research
Network 11. Educational Effectiveness and Quality Assurance
Network 12. LISnet - Library and Information Science Network
Network 13. Philosophy of Education
Network 14. Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research
Network 15. Research Partnerships in Education
Network 16. ICT in Education and Training
Network 17. Histories of Education
Network 18. Research in Sport Pedagogy
Network 19. Ethnography
Network 20. Research in Innovative Intercultural Learning Environments
Network 22. Research in Higher Education
Network 23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Network 24. Mathematics Education Research
Network 25. Research on Children's Rights in Education
Network 26. Educational Leadership
Network 27. Didactics – Learning and Teaching
Network 28. Sociologies of Education
Network 29. Reserach on Arts Education
Network 30. Research on Environmental und Sustainability Education
Network 31. Research on Language and Education (LEd)
Network 32. Organizational Education
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