Closing the gap: teachers as instruments of socially just education

Carmen.mohamed@nottingham.ac.ukUniversity of Nottingham

Socially just teaching

Schools which recognise the challenges some children/ young people face in attempting to be adequately educated.Teachers who are able to consider the assets the pupil arrives in school with and are able to build on these rather than perpetuating the cultural deficiency model of practice.

Attainment of pupils is due in no small part to the assumptions of inherent ability perceived

by teachers

Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) ‘Pygmalion in the classroom’

Meyer (1970) classifications of persons and knowledge

Bowles and Gintis (1972) education for social equality

Bernstein (1975) elaborate / restricted codes of language

Bourdieu (1982) cultural capital

Lareau (2002) social class and child rearing

Maylor et al. (2010) BCA project

Functions of State Education

• Qualifications; transmission of knowledge and skills

• Socialisation; cultural reproduction or transformation

• Subjectification; or individualisation (the self and the Other)

Biesta (2009)Freire (1996) and Bernstein (1975)

ITE programmes

• Bhopal, Harris & Rhamie (2009) and Hick et al. (2011) called for a review into how teacher training programmes address issues of privilege (for self) and biased assumptions (of the Other)

• Many recent studies have attempted to find the most effective way to support trainee teachers in developing understanding of classroom equality; Kyles & Olafson 2008, Silverman 2010, Smith & Lander 2012, Smith 2013

Beginning teachers Research into attitudes of teachers suggest that

they are forged during their experiences in school long before they apply for initial teacher education programmes; Porter and Brophy (1998), Agree, (1998), Grossman et al.,(2000) Street (2003)

And that those who enter the teaching profession are not aware of how cultural influences shape cognitive and social identification; Larke, (1990), Lawrence & Bunche, (1996), Lawrence, (1997), Sleeter (1999, 2001)

The challenge for the Training Programme

• Feiman-Nemser (2003) developing a professional identity occurs on two levels

• Sleeter (2001), Santoro and Allard (2005) and Ambe (2006) question the capacity of white trainee teachers to understand issues associated with race, diversity and inclusion

• Turner’s ‘informational’ and ‘normative’ influence (2001) on learners

In the context of one UK primary PGCE programme:

• What relevant characteristics do the trainees bring to the training process which supports the development of socially responsible teachers?

• Which key factors of the instruction employed on the PGCE promote socially responsible teaching practice?

Instructional pedagogies used in the researched strand

• Autobiographical accounts• Exploring personal history• Collective discussion • Formal lecture• Diverse cultural experiences (immersion)

Data collection

• Structured pre and post course questionnaires • Language and professional autobiographical

accounts• Critical Narrative Reflections over the course

of the programme; taught and practical experiences

participation in the study created no further work or time demands on the trainees

Interpretive paradigm

• This research is embedded in the interpretive paradigm, it is subjective and aims to make sense of how different people interpret their developing professional identity.

• Small convenience sample 15 participants• Case study orientation with two consecutive

years of data collection

Coding and analysis

• Surbeck, Eunhye & Meyer (1991:26) identified levels of reflection; reacting, elaborating and contemplating

• Sarah Silverman’s (2010:293) theorised models which are associated with ‘sense of responsibility, efficacy and advocacy’

• Use of broader cultural terms

Analysis of responses

• One type identified as ‘unconscious’ of the effect of disadvantage on pupils, they retained self-focus throughout;

• a second type demonstrated a sense of advocacy, acting as ‘instruments’ of social justice in their teaching practice, attempting to counter deficit models of pupils;

• and a third type were ‘evangelistic’ in a mission to become socially responsible teachers however their aspirational goal was out of line with their skill set and they were unable to reconcile this.

Unconscious participants• I have lived and worked in a diverse multicultural city for five

years and this has equipped me to work with a wide range of different people and children.

• ‘Having studied Disability Studies at degree level I feel I am well equipped for understanding the diverse needs of individuals’.

• Often this [equal opportunites] may end up going the other way as children who may have been discriminated against end up with more opportunities, as people are worried they will be seen as discriminating.

• They could not remove their gaze from their own experience to consider the experience from another’s view point. This is most potently demonstrated in their reflections of listening to holocaust survivor;

The visit to Beth Shalom increased my subject knowledge. It also gave me more enthusiasm for history as this is a subject area I did not enjoy myself much at school. I was inspired most by the personal stories that we heard and the details we were given.

Instrumentals• I consider these participants instrumental in

seeking ‘active mastery’ of socially responsible teaching practice (Giddens, 2001).

• These participants were able to contemplate the impact of learning experiences or events on the development of the pupils they would teach, synthesising university instruction with teaching experience.

• During the day, the greatest impact on my thinking was to listen to a parent of child talking about the experiences of their family. It adjusted my focus considerably from thinking of SEN as a question of differentiation within my own lessons to a much broader appreciation of the affect that it can have on the child and their family.

• Holocaust memorial; for me the most moving part of the experience was hearing from a holocaust survivor and it was heart breaking. Although the holocaust is an extreme example, the same attitude and stigma begins simply in the playground with children taunting, teasing or bullying another child for being different

• I feel frustrated that the real economic difficulties of many families are not seriously acknowledged - IT is expensive and encouraging children to use and even bring into school expensive i-pads etc. has socio-economic and associated emotional consequences that I think are being belittled.

• Although I was [working] with a group of people I trust and feel confident with, I was still surprised by the things that they had never considered as being equality issues. This includes the use of gendered language, the difference between transsexuals and transvestites, and calling non-disabled children ‘normal’.

Emerging characteristics• The study identified that the capacity to reflect at a

deep level meant that participants could assimilate the information from the instruction into their sense of social responsibility and had the potential to retain this and draw on it during teaching practice.

• A sense of responsibility in response to the ‘lived experience of discrimination’ was most evident in participants who could reflect at all three levels. The most highly reflective participants made references to family culture difference, to sexuality and to gender.

Concluding thoughts • The use of the reflection journal was a valuable

tool in exposing which students were able to employ critical reflection to enhance their professional development and which documented their personal feelings in response to the training.

• the relationship between reflective capacity of the trainee and instructional pedagogies employed in the training programme is the key to the shaping of socially responsible teachers.

Socially responsible teachers

… demonstrate a capacity to be self-critical through the training experience And the training experience enabled participants to ‘learn how to recognise and build on assets pupils bring […] contextualising problems within a socio-political rather than cultural deficiency analysis’ (Sleeter, 2008: 563).

“For better or worse the whole world can be revolutionised in one generation

according to how we treat the children” Eglantyne Jebb (1923)