Variations in the Work and Lives of Teachers: Relative and Relational Effectiveness

The VITAE project is a four‐year (2001–2005) research study, commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills, conducted with 300 teachers in 100 schools in seven local education authorities in England. The project aimed to identify factors that may affect their work and lives over time and how these factors may, in turn, impact on their teaching and subsequent pupil progress and outcomes. It combined quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection and analysis in order to define and examine notions of teachers' relational and relative effectiveness. The first part of the paper addresses the nature of effectiveness and three key themes relating to the changing contexts of teachers' work, lives and effectiveness: the challenge of reform to notions of professionalism; professional identities; changes in teachers' work and lives. The research design and early findings and their effects upon the development of the research form the second part. The final part of the paper discusses three sets of understandings which are fundamental to any consideration of teachers' work, lives and effectiveness: relative and relational effectiveness; teacher identities; teachers' life and work contexts. The research suggests that policy‐makers, school leaders and teachers themselves need to attend to these if teacher recruitment, retention and standards are to improve.

Bridging the Divide in Work and Occupational Psychology: Evidence From Practice

This study explores the extent to which work and organizational (W&O) psychology practitioners use evidence, how they apply it to the everyday contexts in which they work and the types of barriers they encounter in so doing. It adopts a mixed methods approach involving the administration of a survey to a UK sample (N=163) of W&O psychologists and a series of semi-structured interviews (N=25) exploring in greater depth how evidence is applied in practice. Findings reveal that practitioners consult a wide range of different types of evidence which they employ at various stages of engagement with client organisations and that this evidence is pressed into service in the pursuit of solutions which are both acceptable from the client perspective and consistent with the scientific standards underpinning professional knowledge and expertise in W&O psychology. Barriers to evidence-use were mainly practical in nature, concerning issues around managing the client-consultant relationship and the particularities of implementation context, both of which were shown to influence evidence utilisation. The study contributes to current debate on the extent to which W&O psychologists adopt an evidence-based approach and provides a valuable and much called-for empirical insight into the enactment of the scientist-practitioner model in W&O psychology

Psychology and Social Work: Applied Perspectives

Successful social work practice is underpinned by knowledge, theories and research findings from a range of related disciplines, key amongst which is psychology. This timely book offers a grounded and engaging guide to psychology s vital role at the heart of contemporary social work practice. The book skilfully addresses some of the central theoretical developments in psychology from an applied perspective, and explains how these make essential contributions to the methods and theory base of social work in ways that foster critical evaluation and promote best practice. Written by two authors with extensive backgrounds in psychology and social work respectively as well as a deep understanding of the intersections of the two this book delivers a unique synthesis of perspectives and approaches, focusing on their application to the lives of individuals and families. Each chapter contains reflective points and case studies based on contemporary practice realities which are related to the Professional Capabilities Framework for Social Workers and also to the Health and Care Professions Council s Standards of Proficiency. Times have never been more challenging for social work and this book will be an invaluable source of professional support within the ever-more complex psychological worlds where social work takes place. Table of Contents 1. Introduction: The place of psychological knowledge and research in social work training and practice 2. Signposts from Developmental Psychology on Human Development over the Life Course 3. Perspectives from Clinical and Counselling Psychology on Mental Health and Illness 4. Perspectives from Social and Community Psychology: Understanding values, attitudes, diversity and community change 5. Health Psychology: Understanding health, illness, stress and addiction 6. Organizational Psychology: Understanding the individual and the organization in the social work structure 7. Forensic Psychology: Understanding criminal behaviour and working with victims of crime 8. Conclusion References Index

The Personal and Professional Selves of Teachers: Stable and Unstable Identities

In much educational literature it is recognised that the broader social conditions in which teachers live and work, and the personal and professional elements of teachers' lives, experiences, beliefs and practices are integral to one another, and that there are often tensions between these which impact to a greater or lesser extent upon teachers' sense of self or identity. If identity is a key influencing factor on teachers' sense of purpose, self‐efficacy, motivation, commitment, job satisfaction and effectiveness, then investigation of those factors which influence positively and negatively, the contexts in which these occur and the consequences for practice, is essential. Surprisingly, although notions of ‘self’ and personal identity are much used in educational research and theory, critical engagement with individual teachers' cognitive and emotional ‘selves’ has been relatively rare. Yet such engagement is important to all with an interest in raising and sustaining standards of teaching, particularly in centralist reform contexts which threaten to destabilise long‐held beliefs and practices. This article addresses the issue of teacher identities by drawing together research which examines the nature of the relationships between social structures and individual agency; between notions of a socially constructed, and therefore contingent and ever‐remade, ‘self’, and a ‘self’ with dispositions, attitudes and behavioural responses which are durable and relatively stable; and between cognitive and emotional identities. Drawing upon existing research literature and findings from a four‐year Department for Education and Skills funded project with 300 teachers in 100 schools which investigated variations in teachers' work and lives and their effects on pupils (VITAE), it finds that identities are neither intrinsically stable nor intrinsically fragmented, as earlier literature suggests. Rather, teacher identities may be more, or less, stable and more or less fragmented at different times and in different ways according to a number of life, career and situational factors.