Gendered positionality among Irish male primary teachers: the staff room as a site of performative masculinity

The concept of masculinities has traditionally been defined in terms of crises associated with boys’ underachievement, the violence of homophobia, the under-representation of males in caring occupations, the rituals and discourses of laddism, and perceptions of disaffected and unrealised talent. Whereas the topic of masculinities has long been associated with warrants for distinctive and diverse male identities, it has a comparatively more recent history in the research on male Irish primary teachers as a particular social category. Two key findings are discussed in relation to performative masculinities – a form of strategic manoeuvring designed to exploit gender discourses, practices for control, power and privilege. First, the findings show the staffroom as a bellwether or highly developed locus for teacher socialisation through gendered discourses, events and actions. Second, the findings show nonsynchronous performative masculinities not only between male and female teachers but also with male colleagues. Therefore, it is argued that this frequently forgotten and neglected seam in the grand narrative of schools and schooling in Ireland needs to be more fully understood as a variable of quality, social justice and democratic practices across the full scope and sequence of the teacher continuum and as a prerequisite component in all teacher leadership programmes.     

An exploratory study of gender and male teachers in early childhood education and care centres in China

This paper explores the impact of gender on the employment of men in early childhood education and care (ECEC) centres through the voices of male and female early childhood teachers (ECTs) working in China. Gender imbalance in the ECEC workforce is a global phenomenon, and there has been little research about it in countries such as China. This study was based on online interviews with 16 ECTs from three major cities in China. Findings indicated that ECTs’ perceptions conformed largely with traditional gender stereotypes in Chinese culture. Western expectations that men’s participation in ECEC could challenge traditional gender stereotypes and promote gender diversity were not reflected in either Chinese academic literature reviewed or the participants’ views captured in this research. The appreciation of masculinity in Chinese culture and implied disadvantages are considered within a global context of empowering women and girls.     

Conceptualising the value of male practitioners in early childhood education and care: gender balance or gender flexibility

This paper aims to open up the rationales that are used to argue for an increase in male participation in the early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce. Two theoretical concepts are highlighted and compared: gender balance and gender flexibility. An ethnographic study was conducted in one unusual nursery that has five male workers, using focus groups, one-to-one interviews and observations with male and female practitioners, managers and parents. Some practitioners used a discourse of gender balance to justify the value of the male contribution to the workforce, based on heteronormative ideas about the division of gendered labour within the traditional family. Others emphasised the importance of the highly versatile ECEC practitioner and linked a value for identity versatility with gender flexibility. Our findings lead to recommendations about the need to recruit, train and retain practitioners who are gender conscious and can respond to young children in gender-flexible ways.     

The moral dimension of class and gender identity-making: poverty and aggression in a secondary school in the city of Buenos Aires

This paper presents some results of a qualitative study carried out in a secondary school in the city of Buenos Aires (Argentina). It examines how two students from poor families responded to, and viewed, aggression by peers at their school. This paper argues that the examination of students’ narratives about aggression (based on classism and sexism) illustrates the analytical usefulness of the moral dimension of social life to unpack crucial aspects of the micro politics of class and gender and processes of identity-making. Following Sayer, this article maps students’ responses to immoral sentiments and misrecognition: the search for respect and respectability, and moral boundary drawing. It demonstrates that these reactions are entangled in students’ class and gender identity-making. It also shows how ‘victims’ are able to regain respect. However, the individualized nature of these processes and the spirals of aggression they instigate demonstrate the fragile and temporary nature of this achievement.     

Construction and validation of a survey instrument to determine the gender-related challenges faced by pre-service male primary teachers

The gender-related challenges facing males entering the primary-school teaching profession have been well documented in the academic literature over recent decades. The majority of these data have come about through qualitative reports. Whilst qualitative methods provide important perspectives into these issues, the use of valid and reliable quantitative survey tools has received less attention. This paper discusses the construction, piloting, and subsequent tests for reliability and validity involved in developing a robust survey tool to measure the gender-related challenges faced by pre-service male primary teachers during their university study and professional experience in schools. Utilizing Senocak's four stages of survey development and Rasch modelling techniques, data analysis showed high levels of validity and reliability for the survey tool.     

Extending theorisations of the global teacher: care work,gender, and street-level policies

This article is concerned with teachers’ negotiation of global transitions premised on improving educational opportunity with implications for professionalism. The study blends sociology of gender, work, and organisations and gender policy analysis to theorise teachers’ policy negotiations. I explore how 20 Argentine teachers mediate 3 programmes’ demands for care work. Policy as practice and street-level bureaucracy are applied to data to interrogate for gendered boundary work. I propose the addition of care work, gender, and a street-level view to Maguire’s global teacher.     

Busting the myth of gender bias: views from men and women primary-school trainees and teachers

We explore the ideology associated with gender equality that despite primary schools and initial teacher education (ITE) institutions doing all they can to recruit men into primary education, a huge gender imbalance still exists. We frame our study around the notions of gender equality and professional responsibility. Using a multi-case study approach, this inquiry examined views of men and women from 12 English primary schools and one ITE institution regarding the cause and effect of gender bias. Findings show a differentially large gender gap in the sample schools and that there is good practice where schools are successful in attracting and retaining men teachers. Implications of these findings suggest that leaders in primary schools need to take a more active role to help change and shape the perceptions of men teachers in education. We conclude that leaders also need to help close the teacher gender gap in schools and ITE institutions through collaborative dialogue.     

The teacher as co-creator of drama: a phenomenological study of the experiences and reflections of Irish primary school teachers

Classroom drama in the Irish primary school context remains a relatively new endeavour and is largely under-researched. The knowledge base for all aspects of teacher education should be informed by rigorous reflection on teachers’ experiences in the classroom. This paper reports on a phenomenological study conducted with seven Irish primary school teachers which focused on their experiences of co-creating drama with their students. Co-creating drama is held in this work to be the coming together of teacher and students in a collective creative enterprise during the drama lesson. The term proposes a partnership whereby they operate as co-participants and co-artists in the drama experience. The ‘creating’ aspect of co-creating can be considered the artistic enterprise of making drama in a way that is new and unique to the group. In considering the teacher as a potential co-creator of drama, the paper probes the emergent and changing ontological attitudes of the participants throughout the process: the values, attitudes and perspectives that informed their teaching. The paper illuminates the phenomenon of teachers co-creating drama in all its complexity, and seeks to reflect on the meaning of this for the teachers.     

Learning study as a clinical research practice to generate knowledge about the learning of historical primary source analysis

There is a demand for educational research that addresses questions found in teachers’ practice. This line of research can be referred to as practitioner research, and it is motivated by the realisation that teacher professionalism is one of the most influential factors in determining student achievement. One question is whether the primary purpose of practitioner research should be to improve teaching practices, or to contribute to theoretical knowledge. Some argue that the primary concern should be contributions to changing practices, whereas others suggest that contributions to theory are equally important. The purpose of the article is to discuss how Learning study, regarded as a clinical research practice, can contribute to developing teaching practices and theory of history didactics in conjunction. Learning study is commonly described as an interventionist, iterative and collaborative research approach, focusing on the teaching of an object of learning, which in this case was the learning of primary source analysis in history. Examples of how the Learning study contributed to practice and theory are presented. Contributions include the suggestion that knowing primary source analysis involves the ability to distinguish and separate three critical aspects in a temporal, human and contextual dimension, and that the students’ personal perspectives are vital and should be regarded in the design of tasks and teaching. Based on the findings it is argued that practitioner research could aim at developing educational practices in conjunction with contributions to theory, and that practice and theory are necessarily entwined in the research process.     

Understanding the emergence of females as leaders in academia: The intersections of gender stereotypes,status and emotion

Drawing on the expectation state theory, this paper seeks to analyse the social cognitive process of the impacts of gender stereotypes along with their culturally derived schemas of status belief, status characteristics and emotion at the early stage of women's endeavour to emerge as leaders in academia. Employing a convenience sampling and interviews held with five women academic participants from three public and private universities in the western region of Indonesia, this research reveals that two social cognitive practices affect women's endeavour to emerge as leaders; (1) the incongruities of cultural and cognitive expected status belief and status characteristics about females with the expected performance of leadership. The pervasive effect of these can be mitigated when women adopt a strategy of neglection, coupled with a strategy of networking both via their own networks and their husband's networks; (2) the incongruities of cultural and cognitive expected ways of emotional expression on women with the expected performance of leadership. This impacts the status conferral that shapes the worthiness of females to emerge as leaders, leading female leaders in our study to build a protective shield of emotion display to keep them perceived as worthy individuals for leadership roles.     

From the bottom-up: New York City teacher evaluation and the narration of mediated institutional assault

Following the trend of consequential accountability in US public education, New York City introduced a teacher evaluation program during the 2013–2014 school year that linked teachers’ individual performance ratings with their students’ exam scores. As this program systemically alters the nature of teacher–student relationships by transforming students into the means to an end (teachers’ professional viability), this study investigated the implementation of this accountability program from the point of view of the teachers – those who were the subject of this new policy. This study of 15 teachers’ narratives from 3 distinct schools illuminates a social-organizational process that I refer to as mediated institutional assault – a perceived attack on the teachers’ sense of personhood and moral agency perpetrated by mediating figures whose actions were facilitated by bureaucratic policies and institutionally coordinated tools of control. Thus, this study reveals that the consequence of this new mode of accountability is not merely the threat of losing one’s job, but also an insidious form of psychological assault, which in its masked delivery violates teachers’ sense of relational morality and challenges deeply engrained beliefs about their role as educators.     

Feminising and masculinising primary teaching: a critical examination of the interpretive frameworks of male primary school principals in Hong Kong

Over the past two decades, the feminisation of primary school teaching has been identified by the media and government officials in Western countries as an important contributing factor to boys' academic problems. This panic, which has been criticised by feminists as a backlash and a form of recuperative politics, has promoted the development of research into gender and education, particularly studies related to the gendered culture of primary schools and on the masculinities of male teachers. However, male primary principals remain relatively under-researched in the literature, despite the importance of their structural position and increasing concern over the masculinisation of school leadership. This paper aims to contribute to the discussion by critically analysing the interpretive frameworks of 12 male primary school principals. The findings reveal not only the complex, contradictory and at times culturally specific gendered discourses that some male principals employ, but also their feminising and masculinising effects on the school workplace and leadership.     

试析基于教师专业成长的小课题研究——以巴州中小学教师继续教育为例

本文通过对巴州中小学教师的教育科研现状的调查,分析了中小学教师的科研能力、科研需求,结合继续教育对教师专业素养的提升作用,阐述了小课题研究是适合中小学教师进行校本研修的有效形式。     

Rethinking researcher–teacher roles and relationships in educational action research through the use of Nel Noddings’ ethics of care

ABSTRACT

Action research approaches have evolved out of a criticism of previous research traditions, where teachers have been seen as research objects, at risk of being marginalized. Such approaches have also arisen out of the view that teaching, learning, and educational research are interrelated. In action research, teachers are seen as professionals, raising their status to subjects, conducting own research. The research is carried out with or by people rather than on someone, which changes the roles and relationships. Ethical dilemmas can arise, especially evident in action research, where the distinctions between researcher and researched are blurred or removed altogether. This paper aims to explore the changing roles and relationships between researchers and teachers in action research through a philosophical analysis based on the writings of Nel Noddings, especially the concept of ethics of care. The analysis creates an opportunity for a rethinking of researcher–teacher roles, focusing on responsibility and knowledge as well as reciprocity and communication. Based on the author’s own action research experiences, various dilemmas are discussed. Obstacles to and opportunities for developing caring relationships between researchers and teachers will also be highlighted. The implications of the study include valuing both researcher and teacher expertise and learning to understand each other’s perspectives as well as giving tailored care. It is also vital to find strategies to contextualize and enact these views and beliefs within the researcher–teacher relationship. Neither researchers nor teachers will have total control over the process, as they stay open to each other’s perspectives and needs based on a caring relationship.     

A study of the quality of practitioner research in secondary education: impact on teacher and school development

This study provides insight into the quality of practitioner research and the impact of this on the professional development of the individual teacher and the school as a whole. We examined the quality of practitioner research in relation to the goals of the research. We operationalized the quality of the research in terms of the validities outlined by Anderson and Herr. In our study we apply this way of thinking to 11 cases of teacher research in secondary education. We found at least some evidence of outcome validity and catalytic validity for the teachers’ practitioner research. However, evidence of process validity and democratic validity was only found in some of the projects. We conclude that the approach adopted in this study can be more generally used to increase the quality and thereby the impact of practitioner research.     

A question of gender justice: Exploring the linkages between women's unpaid care work,education, and gender equality

ActionAid International implemented an action-research programme on women's unpaid care work in rural Nepal from March 2011 to December 2012. This social empowerment methodology, Reflect, enabled 106 women to gain recognition for their unpaid care work through their own collection of time-use data. The literacy skills women acquired facilitated greater representation in community meetings calling for a reduction in their unpaid care work rather than shifting this work to girls. The article draws on Fraser's model of gender justice to explore how women's literacy, girls’ education and a more equitable balance of care work are needed to improve women's status.     

The golden thread: educator connectivity as a central pillar in the development of creativity through childhood education. An Irish life history study

This paper presents the narratives of five creative Irish Adults who contributed to the study by sharing their childhood education experiences. The five participants are all of different ages and occupations. All identify themselves as highly creative people and all worked with me over the course of this study to identify how this creativity developed within their engagement with the Irish childhood education system. All excelled with higher education and they share a high degree of success within their careers. Between them, they express their creativity across five key genres. These are: Science, Engineering, The Arts, Entrepreneurship and Social Entrepreneurship. Well-developed themes were analysed to identify interrelationships which formed a theoretical framework of core concepts that demonstrate what holds great importance in the lives of these participants for the development of their creativity during childhood education in Ireland. A clear theme of this study was that of connectivity. Connections and relationships matter greatly. The creative journey is joyful and clear where children experience a positive connection with their educator. Conversely, the creative journey is stymied by a lack of connection or by a negative connection. These stand in the way of creative growth, like a big boulder on the child's developmental path. This paper showcases, through the stories of these five research participants, how creativity development is affected by the connection between the child and their educator.     

构建科学教育创新人才的培训体系——省级科学骨干教师培训的理论研究与实践探索

在分析义务教育阶段科学教师在当前课程改革背景下存在问题的基础上,提出了省级科学骨干教师培训的四个主要目标取向和四个基本内容模块,以行动研究教学案例为核心进行了培训过程与方法的创新实践探索,构建了与之相配套的三段多元评价体系。     

Peer groups in the Greek primary school: a research of their characteristics and criteria

The purpose of this study is to examine the characteristics of peer groups that pupils form, after selecting one another, during the various primary school classes. One hundred and fifty-nine 4th, 5th and 6th grade pupils, attending urban schools in the provinces, took part in the survey. Moreno's sociometric recommendation test was provided for the collection of data. The results show the group characteristics divided into class and sex. Significant discrepancies emerged between the classes and the two-gender sample with respect to the percentages of pupils selecting one another in the groups. In the meantime, it was established that a number of students participate in groups which do not socialise with the rest of the class members.     

教师专业性学习现状调查研究——以上海中小学教师为例

本研究采取整体分层抽样的办法,对上海中小学教师的专业性学习现状进行调查研究．研究结果表明,上海中小学教师的专业性学习状态较好,即教师比较认同学习应与外部关联、建立了教师学习共同体、开展了专业性学习以及积极寻求自我改变等。但教师学习的专业性还不强、教师自主学习的状态不佳。差异性检验结果显示,除自主学习外,女教师明显好于男教师;在教师学习的外部关联、教师学习共同体、教师专业性学习和自主学习等方面,小学教师的专业性学习明显好于初中教师和高中教师,初中教师也好于高中教师。