Community workers' understandings and practices of resistance

This research is focused on Community Workers located in Southern Ireland, and their understandings and practices of resistance. It is an attempt to explore the ways in which community workers’ understandings and practices of resistance are formed and, in turn, inform their sense of identity and their responses to the wider context of community development work in Ireland today. This study is specifically located but also has wider application and relevance because of the extended international reach of neo-liberal and managerial rationalities, and their implications for politics, policy and practice. The study considers resistance in a number of inter-related ways: as a collective oppositional position (with negative and positive dimensions); a personal and/or professional value (associated with the ‘expansion of contention’); a strategy for negotiating unequal power relations (in a range of levels and spaces of power); an identity (in relation to the sustaining of ‘reflexive subjectivities’); a set of practices, (which take into account the interplay between economic, political and cultural influences); and an educational process through which practitioners assess and enact personal and professional agency. Critical theorisations of community development and of the Irish state over time, trace the ways in which neo-liberalism and managerialism has inflected community development practice and the positions of community workers and communities in that process. The study draws on James C. Scott, Gramsci, Barnes and Prior, among others, which enabled the interrogation of resistance in relation to everyday practices through engaging with ‘hidden transcripts’ and spaces. The method chosen was focus group discussions with three groups of community workers located in different counties in Southern Ireland. This method facilitated a deep discourse analysis of practitioners’ encounters with resistance in the field of community work. Key findings relate to the various interpretations of the role of resistance, practices of resistance (including current restrictions), the value of resistance work and the conditions that may be conducive to practising resistance.

Team-teaching for inclusive learning: Purposes, practices and perceptions of a team-teaching initiative in Irish post-primary schools

Background. Schools unequivocally privilege solo-teaching. This research seeks to enhance our understanding of team-teaching by examining how two teachers, working in the same classroom at the same time, might or might not contribute to the promotion of inclusive learning. There are well-established policy statements that encourage change and moves towards the use of team-teaching to promote greater inclusion of students with special educational needs in mainstream schools and mainstream classrooms. What is not so well established is the practice of team-teaching in post-primary settings, with little research conducted to date on how it can be initiated and sustained, and a dearth of knowledge on how it impacts upon the students and teachers involved. Research questions and aims. In light of the paucity and inconclusive nature of the research on team-teaching to date (Hattie, 2009), the orientating question in this study asks ‘To what extent, can the introduction of a formal team-teaching initiative enhance the quality of inclusive student learning and teachers’ learning at post-primary level?’ The framing of this question emerges from ongoing political, legal and educational efforts to promote inclusive education. The study has three main aims. The first aim of this study is to gather and represent the voices and experiences of those most closely involved in the introduction of team-teaching; students, teachers, principals and administrators. The second aim is to generate a theory-informed understanding of such collaborative practices and how they may best be implemented in the future. The third aim is to advance our understandings regarding the day-to-day, and moment-to-moment interactions, between teachers and students which enable or inhibit inclusive learning. Sample. In total, 20 team-teaching dyads were formed across seven project schools. The study participants were from two of the seven project schools, Ash and Oak. It involved eight teachers and 53 students, whose age ranged from 12-16 years old, with 4 teachers forming two dyads per school. In Oak there was a class of first years (n=11) with one dyad and a class of transition year students (n=24) with the other dyad. In Ash one class group (n=18) had two dyads. The subjects in which the dyads engaged were English and Mathematics. Method. This research adopted an interpretive paradigm. The duration of the fieldwork was from April 2007 to June 2008. Research methodologies included semi-structured interviews (n=44), classroom observation (n=20), attendance at monthly teacher meetings (n=6), questionnaires and other data gathering practices which included school documentation, assessment findings and joint examination of student work samples (n=4). Results. Team-teaching involves changing normative practices, and involves placing both demands and opportunities before those who occupy classrooms (teachers and students) and before those who determine who should occupy these classrooms (principals and district administrators). This research shows how team-teaching has the potential to promote inclusive learning, and when implemented appropriately, can impact positively upon the learning experiences of both teachers and students. The results are outlined in two chapters. In chapter four, Social Capital Theory is used in framing the data, the change process of bonding, bridging and linking, and in capturing what the collaborative action of team-teaching means, asks and offers teachers; within classes, between classes, between schools and within the wider educational community. In chapter five, Positioning Theory deductively assists in revealing the moment-to-moment, dynamic and inclusive learning opportunities, that are made available to students through team-teaching. In this chapter a number of vignettes are chosen to illustrate such learning opportunities. These two theories help to reveal the counter-narrative that team-teaching offers, regarding how both teachers and students teach and learn. This counter-narrative can extend beyond the field of special education and include alternatives to the manner in which professional development is understood, implemented, and sustained in schools and classrooms. Team-teaching repositions teachers and students to engage with one another in an atmosphere that capitalises upon and builds relational trust and shared cognition. However, as this research study has found, it is wise that the purposes, processes and perceptions of team-teaching are clear to all so that team-teaching can be undertaken by those who are increasingly consciously competent and not merely accidentally adequate. Conclusions. The findings are discussed in the context of the promotion of effective inclusive practices in mainstream settings. I believe that such promotion requires more nuanced understandings of what is being asked of, and offered to, teachers and students. Team-teaching has, and I argue will increasingly have, its place in the repertoire of responses that support effective inclusive learning. To capture and extend such practice requires theoretical frameworks that facilitate iterative journeys between research, policy and practice. Research to date on team-teaching has been too focused on outcomes over short timeframes and not focused enough on the process that is team-teaching. As a consequence team-teaching has been under-used, under-valued, under-theorised and generally not very well understood. Moving from classroom to staff room and district board room, theoretical frameworks used in this research help to travel with, and understand, the initiation, engagement and early consequences of team-teaching within and across the educational landscape. Therefore, conclusions from this study have implications for the triad of research, practice and policy development where efforts to change normative practices can be matched by understandings associated with what it means to try something new/anew, and what it means to say it made a positive difference.

Negotiating the boundaries between home and work practices: The case of home-workers

When people work from home, the domains of home and work are co-located, often under one roof. Home-workers have to cope with the meeting of two practices that have traditionally been physically separated. In light of this, we need to understand: how do people who work from home negotiate the boundaries between their home and work practices? What kinds of boundaries do people construct? How do boundaries affect the relationship between home and work as domains? What kinds of boundaries are available to home-workers? Are home-workers in charge of their boundaries or do they co-create them with others? How does this position home-workers in their domains? In order to address these questions, I analysed a variety of data, including newspaper columns, online forum discussions, interviews, and personal diary entries, using a discourse analytic approach that lends itself to issues of positioning. Current literature clashes over whether home-workers are in control of their boundaries, and over the relationship between home and work that arises out of boundary negotiations, i.e. whether home and work are dichotomous or layered. I seek to contribute to boundary theory by adopting a practice theory stance (Wenger, 1998) to guide my analysis. By viewing home and work as practices, I show that boundary negotiations depend on how home-workers are positioned, e.g. if they are positioned as peripheral in a domain, they lack influence over boundaries. I demonstrate that home and work constitute a number of different practices, rather than a rigid dichotomy, and that the way home and work are related are not the same for all home-workers. The application of practice concepts further shows how relationships between practices are created. The contribution of this work is a reconceptualisation of current boundary theory away from individual and cognitive notions (Nippert-Eng, 1996) into the realm of positioning.

Understanding teacher collaboration in disadvantaged urban primary schools: uncovering practices that foster professional learning communities

This study is set in the context of disadvantaged urban primary schools in Ireland. It inquires into the collaborative practices of primary teachers exploring how class teachers and support teachers develop ways of working together in an effort to improve the literacy and numeracy levels of their student. Traditionally teachers have worked in isolation and therefore ‘collaboration’ as a practice has been slow to permeate the historically embedded assumption of how a teacher should work. This study aims to answer the following questions. 1). What are the dynamics of teacher collaboration in disadvantaged urban primary schools? 2). In what ways are teacher collaboration and teacher learning related? 3). In what ways does teacher collaboration influence students’ opportunities for learning? In answering these research questions, this study aims to contribute to the body of knowledge pertaining to teacher learning through collaboration. Though current policy and literature advocate and make a case for the development of collaborative teaching practices, key studies have identified gaps in the research literature in relation to the impact of teacher collaboration in schools. This study seeks to address some of those gaps by establishing how schools develop a collaborative environment and how teaching practices are enacted in such a setting. It seeks to determine what skills, relationships, structures and conditions are most important in developing collaborative environments that foster the development of professional learning communities (PLCs). This study uses a mixed method research design involving a postal survey, four snap-shot case studies and one in depth case study in an effort to establish if collaborative practice is a feasible practice resulting in worthwhile benefits for both teachers and students.

Form-focused instruction in Irish-medium immersion education: a critical examination of teachers' perspectives and practices. A small-scale qualitative case study

It has been suggested that the less than optimal levels of students’ immersion language “persist in part because immersion teachers lack systematic approaches for integrating language into their content instruction” (Tedick, Christian and Fortune, 2011, p.7). I argue that our current lack of knowledge regarding what immersion teachers think, know and believe and what immersion teachers’ actual ‘lived’ experiences are in relation to form-focused instruction (FFI) prevents us from fully understanding the key issues at the core of experiential immersion pedagogy and form-focused integration. FFI refers to “any planned or incidental instructional activity that is intended to induce language learners to pay attention to linguistic form” (Ellis, 2001b, p.1). The central aim of this research study is to critically examine the perspectives and practices of Irish-medium immersion (IMI) teachers in relation to FFI. The study ‘taps’ into the lived experiences of three IMI teachers in three different IMI school contexts and explores FFI from a classroom-based, teacher-informed perspective. Philosophical underpinnings of the interpretive paradigm and critical hermeneutical principles inform and guide the study. A multi-case study approach was adopted and data was gathered through classroom observation, video-stimulated recall and semistructured interviews. Findings revealed that the journey of ‘becoming’ an IMI teacher is shaped by a vast array of intricate variables. IMI teacher identity, implicit theories, stated beliefs, educational biographies and experiences, IMI school cultures and contexts as well as teacher knowledge and competence impacted on IMI teachers’ FFI perspectives and practices. An IMI content teacher identity reflected the teachers’ priorities as shaped by pedagogical challenges and their educational backgrounds. While research participants had clearly defined instructional beliefs and goals, their roadmap of how to actually accomplish these goals was far from clear. IMI teachers described the multitude of choices and pedagogical dilemmas they faced in integrating FFI into experiential pedagogy. Significant gaps in IMI teachers’ declarative knowledge about and competence in the immersion language were also reported. This research study increases our understanding of the complexity of the processes underlying and shaping FFI pedagogy in IMI education. Innovative FFI opportunities for professional development across the continuum of teacher education are outlined, a comprehensive evaluation of IMI is called for and areas for further research are delineated.

Transitions: From novice participation to expertise, pre-school 'matters' in an Irish pre-school community

This in depth, qualitative, participant observer study tracks children's transition experiences from novice to experienced membership of their pre-school community. It also considers adult roles in mediating this process in the context of the recent introduction of a universal free-pre-school year for children growing up in Ireland. Participation and the space to negotiate a participatory identity is understood in this study as a key element of positive experiences of early years transitions, within pre-school and beyond. The underlying theoretical framework is socio-cultural. This approach shifts from a scientific positivist view of thinking and learning as an individual inside the head process and asserts the historical, social, cultural as well as the situated context of learning and meaning making All participants, including myself as researcher, are recognised, explored and valued as embedded in the cultural context studied. In a sense, this approach tilts the worlds being observed through participation in them and reflects them in new light. The aim is to interpret and reflect the multiple realities constructed in this context rather than seek a truth out there waiting to be found. Special efforts are made to be invited in to and acknowledge children's expertise in the cultural worlds they negotiate with peers and adults in pre-school. The aim is to better understand what children may find motivating, interesting or problematic as they interpret reproduce and transform meaning within their play and learning worlds. My aim is for an honest rendering of the voices of stakeholders in pre-school communities from teachers, parents, and policy makers to children themselves. It makes visible constraints; potentials and possibilities within everyday Irish pre-school practices in the situated context studied as well as the broader societal, legislative and macro policy influences it reflects. Casting light on the taken for granted opens the possibility of adaptation or transformation. Transition itself can act as a tool to meet the changing needs of children on their developmental pathways across the life cycle

States of play: Irish childhoods, race and belonging

This thesis explores the meaning-making practices of migrant and non-migrant children in relation to identities, race, belonging and childhood itself in their everyday lives and in the context of ‘normalizing’ discourses and spaces in Ireland. The relational, spatial and institutional contexts of children’s worlds are examined in the arenas of school, home, family, peer groups and consumer culture. The research develops a situated account of children’s complex subject positions, belongings and exclusions, as negotiated within discursive constructs, emerging in the ‘in-between’ spaces explored with other children and with adults. As a peripheral EU area both geographically and economically, Ireland has traditionally been a country of net emigration. This situation changed briefly in the late 1990s to early 2000s, sparking broad debate on Ireland’s perceived ‘new’ ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity arising from the arrival of migrant people both from within and beyond the EU as workers and as asylum seekers, and drawing attention to issues of race, identity, equality and integration in Irish society. Based in a West of Ireland town where migrant children and children of migrants comprise very small minorities in classroom settings, this research engages with a particular demographic of children who have started primary school since these changes have occurred. It seeks to represent the complexities of the processes which constitute children’s subjectivities, and which also produce and reproduce race and childhood itself in this context. The role of local, national and global spaces, relational networks and discursive currents as they are experienced and negotiated by children are explored, and the significance of embodied, sensory and affective processes are integrated into the analysis. Notions of the functions and rhetorics of play and playfulness (Sutton-Smith 1997) form a central thread that runs throughout the thesis, where play is both a feature of children’s cultural worlds and a site of resistance or ‘thinking otherwise’. The study seeks to examine how children actively participate in (re)producing definitions of both childhood and race arising in local, national and global spaces, demonstrating that while contestations of the boundaries of childhood discourses are contingently successful, race tends to be strongly reiterated, clinging to bodies and places and compromising belonging. In addition, it explores how children access belongings through agentic and imaginative practices with regard to peer and family relationships, particularly highlighting constructions of home, while also illustrating practices of excluding children positioned as unintelligible, including the role of silences in such situations. Finally, drawing on teachers’ understandings and on children’s playful micro-level negotiations of race, the study argues that assumptions of childhood innocence contribute to justifying depoliticised discourses of race in the early primary school years, and also tend to silence children’s own dialogues with this issue. Central throughout the thesis is an emphasis on the productive potentials of children’s marginal positioning in processes of transgressing definitional boundaries, including the generation of post-race conceptualisations that revealed the borders of race as performative and fluid. It suggests that interrupting exclusionary raced identities in Irish primary schools requires engagement with children’s world-making practices and the multiple resources that inform their lives.