Session Information
19 SES 11, Theoretical Perspectives on Agency
Symposium
Contribution
This research in six primary schools in England in 2006-8 focused on how schools and teachers managed the two discourses of creativity and performativity, both influential in the last few years. We use a theroretical framework based on Foucault (1980) and the ways in which policy discourses include language, texts and practices to influence teacher identities but also provide opportunities for agency as teachers negotiate the space between and within the discourses. The field work was ethnographic carried out by three researchers over at least 6 months in schools using observations, the collection of fieldnotes and conversations with teachers and learners. The findings of our 1990s (Jeffrey and Woods 1998, Woods and Jeffrey 2002) research into teacher identity found three strategies being employed strategically - self displacement, game playing and realignment. The predominant finding from our current research is a realignment in which the influence of discourse of performance and performativity has ensured support for its progression and achievement narrative with only one specific example of strategic compliance (Lacey), eg: working to improve Yr. 6 SATs results while disagreeing with the operation and the way they are used as a status narrative (Jeffrey and Troman 2008).
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