A Lacanian Reading of the Study of Big Brother in the English Curriculum

This article presents a Lacanian analysis of the legitimising event represented by the circulation of materials from the English DfES (Department for Education and Skills), a ministerial government office, to teachers of English in schools to use as a means to facilitate the study of the television show Big Brother. The attempt, through Media in English, to ‘pin down’ the meaning of ‘reality’ television presents for analysis here the identity crisis of English—the tension between what it is and how it recognises itself—its ideal ego and its ego‐ideal.     

Making sense of the glass ceiling in schools: an exploration of women teachers’ discourses

There is extensive evidence of a ‘glass ceiling’ for women across the labour market. Though schools have widely been described as ‘feminized’ work environments, the under‐representation of women at school management level is well established. Based on a study of women teachers’ careers and promotion in the English school sector (in early years, primary and secondary schools), this paper draws on a critical discourse analysis of 44 individual interviews conducted with women teachers to explore their views of the ‘glass ceiling’. Despite significant evidence of the barriers to management positions faced by women teachers, interpretative frameworks drawing on discourses of individualization and personal choice are most prominent among these to make sense of the low proportion of women in school management. However, the paper also identifies the existence of alternative discourses recognizing the existence of gender inequalities.     

Facilitating student well-being: relationships do matter

Background: Alongside academic and vocational goals, schools are increasingly being called upon to address student well-being. Existing evidence suggests that strong relationships and a sense of connectedness in school communities are important for fostering subjective well-being. However, identifying the specific nature of such relational dynamics, and accommodating the ‘personal’ within school cultures increasingly dominated by ‘performance’ narratives, remains a problematic task.

Purpose: This paper draws on Honneth’s recognition theory to offer fresh insight into how relationships act to facilitate and limit the experience of well-being at school. We suggest that such an approach holds considerable potential for developing teachers’ understanding of the tacit and explicit ways they and their students experience being cared for, respected and valued and the ways in which such actions impact on well-being.

Design and methods: The paper reports the qualitative findings from a large mixed-method study, involving students and staff across primary and secondary schools in three regions of Australia. The qualitative phase involved focus groups with 606 primary and secondary students and individual interviews with 89 teachers and principals.

Results: Across the focus groups and interviews, students and teachers placed substantial emphasis on the importance of relationships, while reporting differences in their views about which relationships support well-being. Alongside this, there were differences in the importance teachers and students placed on each of the three strands of Honneth’s recognition theory (translated for this study as being cared for, respected and valued) for influencing student well-being.

Conclusions: The findings affirm the critical role that relationships play in promoting well-being in the context of schools. Using recognition theory to analyse students’ and teachers’ views and experiences of well-being provides much greater insight into how these relationships are enacted – this being through the mutual experience of being cared for, respected and valued – within the context of schools.     

Has John Hattie really found the holy grail of research on teaching? An extended review of Visible Learning

In this article the author reviews and discusses John Hattie’s book Visible Learning. In this book Hattie presents the results of a meta‐meta‐analysis on the conditions of successful teaching and learning in schools. Hattie’s work is based on more than 800 meta‐analyses, and these meta‐analyses are substantiated by more than 50 000 empirical research studies. Among the six groups of factors influencing successful learning in schools—student, home, school, teacher, curricula, teaching—the factor ‘teacher’ seems to have the strongest effect. Hattie not only evaluates empirical research but also places the results in a theoretical context of a theory of teaching and a certain concept of teacher professionalism. The author discusses Hattie’s approach to combine empirical research and conceptual work on teaching and on teachers’ work. The limits of meta‐analyses and future meta‐meta‐analyses are pointed out.     

Children participating as researchers in primary schools: what’s in it for the teachers?

Whilst within universities, research on rather than with children/pupils is a well-established methodology, this paper reports on teachers’ responses to a schools and university-based partnership project, ‘Pupils as Research Partners in Primary (PARPP), which works to co-create pupil-led research opportunities for pupils in research projects informed by pupils’ experiences in primary schools. A previous paper, French and Hobbs, [(2017). “‘So How Well Did It Really Go’? Working with Primary School Pupils as Project Evaluators: A Case Study.” TEAN Journal 9 (1): 56–65] reported on how one PARPP project had a beneficial effect on pupils and their school environment. For this paper the project team interviewed a number of teachers whose pupils in the partner schools were involved in the pilot study phase of the project. Specifically, the teachers were interviewed to ascertain if the involvement of pupils, as lead researchers in projects exploring various aspects of the school environment, had impacted on their perceptions of pupil-led research. Findings suggest that the experiences of teachers in schools where PARPP projects had taken place had led them to re-evaluate the practicality and desirability of encouraging pupils to actively to research their school environments.     

When the black box springs open: practical work in schools and the nature of science

The aim of this paper is not to bury practical work in school science but to (once again) reconsider it. We draw on three main areas of discussion: accounts of science and ‘school science work'; teachers and others’ views of the nature of science; and our own data on teachers’ reactions to ‘critical incidents’ and practicals which go wrong. We use this as a basis for re‐thinking the role of practicals. An account of practical work is suggested which has as its main feature diversity rather than a single model or template. Within this diversity we believe that teachers should be open and honest with pupils about which type of practical work they are doing and why. We advocate that students should be made aware of the different kinds of practical work they do and the purposes of this practical work. In short, teachers should explain to students what type of practical work they are doing and why. Our second message is that teachers’ views about the nature of science both inform and are informed by their classroom practices and experiences‐‐especially during lab‐work. To encourage, promote and support critical reflection of these classroom practices and experiences is therefore a vital part of teacher professional development; this in time will promote science curriculum development.     

‘Teachers are kind to those who have good marks’: a study of Japanese young people’s views of fairness and equity in school

This paper presents the results from a study of Japanese young people’s views of being treated fairly in school and considers the extent to which their experiences differ from their peers in schools in England. The study involved 1191 students from nine Japanese junior high schools in their final year of study. Their experiences are compared with those of 2836 English students of the same age. Our findings suggest that while many Japanese students report positive experiences of school, many were also able to identify instances where their perceived treatment was unfair or inconsistent. These instances include teachers having students who are treated as ‘favourites’, and the apparent unequal allocation of punishments and rewards. In this respect, the reported experiences of the Japanese students were similar to those of their English peers and therefore provided no evidence to support recent ‘crisis accounts’ of the ‘examination hell’ and excessive academic pressures that are purportedly experienced by young people in Japanese schools. Nevertheless, our evidence does suggest that teacher initial and continuing development would benefit from the inclusion of rather more on the principles of equity.     

All in a day's work: primary teachers ‘performing’ and ‘caring’

This article discusses the current nature of primary teachers' work, which is explored in terms of ‘performing’ and ‘caring’ activities. It considers how the education policies of successive Governments in the UK, particularly for England, have given rise to a ‘performance culture’ in primary schools which emphasises targets, testing and tables and is overly concerned with the monitoring and measurement of teachers' work. The article examines teachers' experiences of working in a more competitive and performance‐driven environment particularly given that primary teaching is historically perceived as ‘women's work’ and linked with caring and mothering. The introduction of performance related pay and performance management in schools in England by the New Labour Government has made ‘performing’ activities more transparent while undermining, overshadowing and rendering invisible ‘caring’ activities in primary schools. The findings suggest that there appears to be a changing role for women teachers as the primary school culture shifts significantly from its association with the feminine qualities of nurturing towards a more masculine culture of management and performance.     

A teacher competence development programme for supporting students’ reflection skills

The Teachers of Promise study has followed the work histories of 57 primary and secondary teachers who had been identified at the beginning of their third year of teaching as having the potential to make a significant contribution to the profession. Using data from surveys and interviews, this paper reports on what sustained or inhibited their initial commitment to and enthusiasm for ‘making a difference’, six years later, both in the classroom and in broader school leadership roles. Satisfaction with their day-to-day experiences in their schools was a particularly strong driver of teachers’ career decisions over time. Thirty-four teachers responded to survey items that were used to identify three different groups of teachers: a group of 10 primary school teachers with the highest levels of job satisfaction who were ‘fulfilling their promise’; a group of 21 primary and secondary teachers who were ‘persevering and coping’; and three teachers who were ‘detached and disengaged’. The group with the highest levels of job satisfaction taught in primary schools where they felt respected and valued, and supported to develop their teaching and leadership expertise. School leadership practices and school cultures in the other two groups diminished teachers’ overall job satisfaction and contribution to collective knowledge building in their schools. Almost all of the teachers had retained their commitment to students, to their current schools and to teaching as a career, including those with lower levels of satisfaction. Although these teachers reported ‘collegial’ relationships with their peers, individualistic school cultures, most often in secondary schools, impacted on their opportunities to learn with and from their colleagues. Few secondary school teachers felt appreciated, and included in school decision-making or had found it possible to combine high standards of classroom teaching with management responsibilities. The study indicates that while most promising teachers were still satisfied with teaching after nine years, relatively few were in schools where they were able to make the impact that had been predicted for them early in their careers.     

Curriculum Reform and the Case of the Disappearing Agents

It is an irony that, as the educational world has come to recognise the value of school or district‐based teacher leaders, many teachers have become wary of involvement in activities which take them beyond their own classrooms or schools. The problem becomes particularly apparent in centrally organised curriculum reform efforts that call for a cadre of teachers to be co‐opted to act as ‘link’ or ‘lighthouse’ teachers. This paper examines these issues in the context of an Australian state‐wide physics curriculum project in which a ‘pyramid’ implementation model required a group of school‐based ‘link’ or ‘lighthouse’ teachers to work as change agents in district school clusters. The study focused on the motivations of those teachers who chose, and those who chose not, to become involved. It reports a number of critical distinctions, in both experience and motivation, between these two groups of teachers. These differences are analysed as a set of interlocking themes: personal meaning, professional history, ownership, rewards, professional autonomy and gender.     

Some possible effects of behaviour management training on teacher confidence and competence: evidence from a study of primary school teachers in Hong Kong

This study aims to explore the relationships between the extent and perceived quality of teachers’ experience of training in behaviour management (BM), and their awareness of the nature and extent of behavioural problems among school students, and their confidence in their own competence to deal with such problems. Teachers (n = 183) from Hong Kong primary schools were surveyed. The results showed that gender, age and whether teachers have received training had no significant influence on teachers’ awareness, conception and confidence regarding BM. A negative correlation was found between teachers’ levels of satisfaction in relation to their training experiences and their perceptions of the level of problematic behaviours among students, and the impact of students’ problematic behaviour on their teaching. A positive correlation was found between teachers’ levels of satisfaction in relation to their training experiences and their confidence in their own competence to deal with students’ problematic behaviour.     

Fear and efficacy appeals in the classroom: the secondary teachers’ perspective

Previous research has examined the use of classroom fear and efficacy appeals from a student perspective, but little is known about teachers’ views towards fear and efficacy appeals. In this preliminary study, we conducted a survey of 234 secondary school teachers. Results showed that teachers held mixed views towards the use of fear appeals and their domain knowledge of fear appeals, but more homogenous views about efficacy appeals, reassuring messages and domain knowledge of efficacy appeals. There were no differences in the endorsement of fear and efficacy appeals from teachers of differing school general certificate of secondary education performance, however, teachers reported students to be less efficacious from schools whose performance is deemed to be ‘under average’. There were no differences in the endorsement of fear appeals or domain knowledge of fear appeals between novice and experienced teachers. These findings provide a first step in examining fear and efficacy appeals from a teacher perspective.     

Value‐added is of little value

Published indicators of school ‘performance’, such as those shown annually in league tables in England, have been controversial since their inception. Raw‐score figures for school outcomes are heavily dependent on the prior attainment and family background of the students. Policy‐makers in Wales have reacted to this fundamental flaw by withdrawing the publication of school results. In England, on the other hand, they have reacted by asking for more information to be added to tables, in the form of student context such as the percentage with a special educational need, and ‘value‐added’ figures. In 2004, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) value‐added figures for England were based on student progress from Key Stage 2 at the end of primary education to GCSE at the end of compulsory secondary education. For 2005, at time of writing, the DfES plan to use context information in their model as well. This paper re‐analyses the 2004 value‐added figures and shows that they contain the same flaw as the original raw‐score tables. The purported value‐added scores turn out to be a proxy for the overall level of attainment in the school, and almost entirely independent of any differential progress made by the students. The paper concludes by considering the implications of these findings, if accepted, for policies based on identifying schools that are clearly more or less effective, and for the field of school effectiveness and improvement research.     

The lure of hegemonic masculinity: investigating the dynamics of gender relations in two male elementary school teachers’ lives 1

This paper is based on an investigation into the dynamics of masculinity in two male elementary school teachers’ lives. It draws on a poststructuralist approach to empirical analysis that is informed by Sondergaard who argues for the need to attend to the ‘constitution of social practices and cultural patterns’ through which subjects make sense of their lived experiences. This approach, it is argued, is supported by Convery who stresses the need to ‘sensitively confront’ the identity claims that are inscribed through teacher narratives. In this sense, the author provides an account of the dynamics of masculinity in two male elementary school teachers’ lives, which attend to issues of sexuality and social class in examining how gendered identity management impacts on pedagogical practices and philosophical approaches to teaching. This poststructuralist analytic inquiry, with its emphasis on interrogating essentialized notions of fixed identity, illuminates the contradictory practices of hegemonic masculinity in male elementary school teachers’ lives. Such empirical inquiry, it is further argued, is necessary given the failure of educational policy, in its insistence on the need for more male role models in elementary schools, to deal adequately with the complexities and significance of male teachers’ masculinities.     

The politics of school amalgamation

This article reports on research funded as a ‘Best Practice’ project by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) designed to use action research to progress the government agenda for healthy schools. The project involved teachers working with university researcher. The outcome is five small research reports consisting of two studies into playground behaviour management, a report on the production of a school drug policy, a review of transition from Nursery to Early Years school provision and a study of the impact of a Family Nurturing approach used with pre-school pupils. This article reviews the research process and includes reflection on methodological issues and outcomes giving voice to the teacher-researchers by drawing on the reports they have compiled. The research recommendations are for more projects which use action research to promote change in our schools.     

Situating secondary schooling in the transnational social field: contestation and conflict in Greater Toronto Area classrooms

This article situates secondary schooling within the evolving transnational social field. Drawing on 43 interviews with teachers and former students with transnational connections in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Canada, I examine how transnational practices and dispositions fit within existing curricular and pedagogical frameworks in secondary schools. It is suggested that the ‘ways of being’ and ‘ways of belonging’ for transnational students are in conflict with the teachers’ views on how students ought to act and feel within classroom settings. When transnational secondary students travel to their sending societies for ongoing periods, the data reveal disconnections at school that threaten the dominant classroom norms. When there is sustained direct contact with multiple countries, including both travel and new modes of communication, this may create knowledge and vivid experiences for transnational youth who are ‘betwixt and between’, but also leads to concerns by teachers about a ‘strategic’ use of Toronto-area schools and fears about ‘dual loyalties’. Finally, many of the transnational youth find their teachers’ assumptions of schooling superiority in the Global North to be sorely misdirected, and perhaps even harmful. These discordances highlight the existence of competing systems of capital within GTA classrooms.     

Student teachers' concerns and accomplishments on main school placements: what school mentors can learn from them

The article highlights the concerns and accomplishments of secondary school student teachers during their main attachment to schools. It also reports on the things school mentors do that student teachers find helpful and unhelpful. While the author does not make any ‘grand’ claims, he does offer a number of grounded good practice pointers that school mentors might want to engage.     

Liberating the learner through self-assessment

An international agenda to raise educational ‘standards’ and increase the accountability of schools has the unintended consequence of increased uniformity around pedagogical practices, and of introducing assessment practices that influence the way students experience learning. This paper explores how the self-assessment experiences of primary and secondary school students in relation to their learning reflects their perceived respective institutional demands to account for their learning. Students’ dilemmas and experiences of school-based assessment include the use of pre-defined criteria for assessment tasks focusing the learner’s attention to ‘getting to the identified outcome and in the right way’. When school assessment systems do not reflect students’ socially and culturally valued learning, this reduces conversations around learning to that of outcomes. In contrast, by supporting learners to self-assess in increasingly sophisticated ways, teachers encourage students to think about their learning across contexts, and liberate them from thinking only about institutional assessment demands.     

Middle-class parents’ educational work in an academically selective public high school

This article reports the findings of a study on the nature of parent–school engagement at an academically selective public high school in New South Wales, Australia. Such research is pertinent given recent policies of ‘choice’ and decentralization, making a study of local stakeholders timely. The research comprised a set of interviews with parents and teachers (n = 15), through which parents – all members of the school’s Parents’ and Citizens’ group – theorized and explained their involvement with the school, and teachers spoke about their views on this involvement. Results are organized around three themes: ‘how parents worked to nurture their children’s schooling’, ‘reasons behind parents’ involvement with the school’, and ‘communication and use of parental resources by the school’. Overall it was found that while parents were making significant efforts to involve themselves in the education of their children and with the school more broadly, the reasons for their involvement were not always consistent, but instead revealed a range of motivations for and conceptions of parents’ roles within schools, which at times were at odds with the teachers’. Through this, the study contributes to our understanding of middle-class parent engagement at an unusual and particular type of school.     

Bureaucracies in Schools—Approaches to Support Measures in Swedish Schools Seen in the Light of Skrtic’s Theories

In Sweden, policy changes for provision of special support have been introduced, implying that teachers are obliged to provide and evaluate extra adaptations in regular classrooms prior to referring pupils to special support. The policy changes raise questions about school staffs’ views of support measures and of necessary professional competence for provision of the support measures. We conducted focus group interviews with 60 school staff representatives—headmasters, general education teachers, and special educators/school welfare teams—about their understandings of the new policy. The data were analyzed qualitatively, with the objective to explore school staffs’ approaches to the policy changes. Two main “ideal type approaches” were discerned, using Skrtic’s theories, viz. the bureaucracy approach and adhocracy approach. In the light of Skrtic’s theory, professionals’ reasoning about the new policy may reflect difficulties that are encountered in the process of implementing the policy in bureaucracy-steered schools.