Collaboration strengthens teachers’ sense of professional autonomy

Author(s):

Anna Rytivaara

Conference:

ECER 2010

Network:

1. Continuing Professional Development: Learning for Individuals, Leaders, and Organisations

Format:

Paper

Session Information

01 SES 04 A, Collaboration and Collegiality

Paper Session

Time:

2010-08-25

16:00-17:30

Room:

AUDITORIUM XV, Päärakennus / Main Building

Chair:

Inger Österlund

Contribution

Teachers’ professional autonomy varies from country to country. The concept of professional discretion (Boote 2006; Evetts 2003) captures the interaction between the social and individual demands that teachers face in their work on daily basis. In Finland, teacher discretion is rather high despite the national core curriculum and strong public school system. However, the reality in schools depends on local authorities and the headmaster of the school (Eurydice 2007 & 2008). Therefore, teachers’ professional autonomy cannot be examined without looking at the institutional culture and teachers’ working conditions in general (Vandenberghe 2002). The aim of this ethnographically oriented study was to look into the work of two collaborative primary school teachers with a common class.

School has various factors such as traditions and resources which mediate and moderate teachers’ working conditions, job satisfaction and relative autonomy (Skaalvik & Skaalvik 2009; Vedder & O’Dowd 1999). For example, teacher community consists of intellectual, social and material resources (Little 2003). An individual teachers’ professional autonomy is restricted when a teacher can do her own things inside her classroom; extended autonomy means s/he collaborates crossing the limits of classrooms (Hoyle 1975, according to Locke, Vulliamy, Webb & Hill 2005). To be efficient, teachers need sense of agency and strong professional identity, emotional support and social relationships (Day 2002). School culture also affects teachers’ possibilities to collaborate in many ways (Jurasaite-Harbison & Rex 2009). Collaboration is the most advanced form of co-teaching (Thousand, Villa & Nevin, 2006). At best, it leads to a collaborative process which Sawyer and DeZutter (2009) call distributed creativity. In this paper, these processes are examined as a part of teachers’ sense of professional autonomy.

Method

The context of this study was a primary school classroom which had been combined of two separate classrooms. Thus, the class had two teachers. Researcher collected data in authentic classroom situations for 71 days within three school years. Data was mainly collected by observing and interviewing the teachers. The data consisted of 334 pages of observation notes and 137 pages of interview transcripts. The data used for this paper consisted of 140 pages from 5 pair-interviews with the teachers. Information was also gathered from field notes. Spradley’s (1979) analysis model was applied to answer the research question/s.

Expected Outcomes

The teachers’ strong sense of autonomy was clearly brought up from the story of how their collaboration started to the current talk about their work. The first steps of the collaboration were taken as a part of grade-level co-operation. At the same time, the two teachers had started to reconsider their teaching careers. The actual co-teaching was initiated as a joke of a common class, which they decided to follow through a couple of months later in the beginning of a new school year with a support from the headmaster. The common class had started an on-going process of professional development. Their job description had changed tremendously and they fully enjoyed the feeling that there is so much more in this besides teaching. Collaboration had not only strengthened their sense of professional autonomy so that they felt they had not serious restrictions in their work they could not overcome. It had also made continuous professional development a necessity: they thought that as long as you keep inventing something new, you feel like being a teacher. On the other hand, collaboration had become a condition for their work. Not being allowed to have a common class, they would have quit teaching.

References

Boote, D. N. Teachers’ professional discretion and the curricula. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and practice 12(4), 461-478. Day, C. 2002. School Reform and Transitions in Teacher professionalism and identity. International Journal of Educational Research 37(8), 677-692. Eurydice. 2007. School Autonomy in Europe: policies and measures. Brussels: Eurydice. http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/ressources/eurydice/pdf/0_integral/090EN.pdf Eurydice. 2008. Levels of Autonomy and Responsibilities of Teachers in Europe. Brussels: Eurydice. http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/ressources/eurydice/pdf/0_integral/094EN.pdf Evetts, J. 2003. The sociological analysis of professionalism. Occupational change in the modern world. International Sociology 18(2), 395-415. Jurasaite-Harbison, E. & Rex, L. A. 2009. School cultures as contexts for informal teacher learning. Teaching and Teacher Education, in press. Little, J. W. 2003. Inside Teacher Community: Representations of Classroom Practice. Teachers College Record 105(6), 913-945. Locke, T., Vulliamy, G., Webb, R. & Hill, M. 2005.. Being a “professional” primary school teacher at the beginning of the 21th century: a comparative analysis of primary teacher professionalism in New Zealand and England. Journal of Education Policy 20(5), 555-581. Sawyer, R. K. & DeZutter, S. 2009. Distributed creativity: how collective creations emerge from collaboration. Psychology of Astethics, Creativity, and the Arts 3(2), 81-92. Skaalvik, E. M. & Skaalvik, S. 2009. Does school context matter? Relations with teacher burnout and job satisfaction. Teachers and Teacher Education 25(3), 518-524. Spradley, J. P. 1979. The ethnographic interview. New York : Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Thousand, J. S., Villa, R. A. & Nevin, A. I. 2006. The many faces of collaborative planning and teaching 45(3), 239-248. Vanderberghe, R. 2002. Teachers’ professional development as the core of school improvement. International Journal of Educational Research 37(8), 653-659. Vedder, P. & O’Dowd, M. 1999. Empowering teachers in times of change. The Swedish comprehensive school system. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 43(3), 313-326.

Author Information

Anna Rytivaara

University of Jyväskylä

Education

Jyväskylä University

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