Northern Ireland beginning teachers' experiences of induction: the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’

The induction of beginning teachers continues to occupy a significant position on educational policy agendas as a crucial dimension in the formation of a teacher and one upon which an emergent career is built. Whilst there is growing impetus to establish an induction model that constitutes a relevant, fulfilling experience, current arrangements continue to vary throughout the UK. This paper describes induction as it affected a sample of beginning teachers in Northern Ireland, where there is a dearth of permanent positions for those newly qualified. Highly contrasting experiences of the induction year emerged between graduates in permanent and one‐year temporary positions, and those who were short‐term temporary and supply teachers. The former completed a meaningful induction whereas the latter, because of sporadic, fragmented employment, did not. A flexible model of induction is proposed, with collaborative involvement of the higher education institutions, the schools and the local education authorities.     

Moving outdoors: further explorations of ‘child-initiated’ learning in the outdoor environment

This article reports on a study in which eight Foundation Phase teachers were supported in exploring Reggio-inspired projects in the outdoor environments of their settings. The study found that the teachers did adopt more child-initiated/centred approaches although it is maintained that in part this was related to the outdoor context in which the explorations took place. However, supporting such approaches was not easy for the teachers while many did not make regular use of their outdoor spaces. It appeared that ‘real work’ was seen to take place within classrooms and was focused on the learning of subject content.     

Professional role and identity of Icelandic preschool teachers: effects of stakeholders’ views

In this article, we explore the reality of Icelandic preschool teachers who are, as in most other countries, predominantly female. The gendered nature of the role and the current identity adopted by preschool teachers appear to impact on their perceived status and professionalism. In this process, stakeholders in early childhood education (ECE), as well as the preschool teachers themselves, play important parts. The question that underlies the paper is: ‘How do the views of preschool teachers and stakeholders in ECE affect the preschool teachers’ professional identity?’ The data used to answer the question are from focus group research carried out with preschool teachers and stakeholders in ECE in one community in Iceland. These stakeholders, besides preschool teachers and staff within the preschools, were parents, professionals at the municipal preschool office and politicians. The theoretical perspective informing the methodology of the research was ‘symbolic interactionism’ and the concept of ‘democratic professionalism’ was used as an aspirational framework to analyse the data. The findings reveal connections between the ideology relating to the preschool teachers’ educational role, their limited leadership and the gendered views of stakeholders. At the end of the paper, implications and recommendations for preschool teachers are suggested.     

‘Drawing and playing are not the same’: children’s views on their activities in Icelandic preschools

Play is an important part of early childhood education and has been defined from different perspectives and paradigms. However, definitions of play have been studied more from adults’ perspectives than from those of children themselves. This ethnographic research, with children aged three to five years and built on sociological constructs, will explore children’s views on play in two preschool settings in Iceland. Video-stimulated recordings were used to support children’s conversations about their different activities in the settings, to explore which activities they considered play. Most of the children said that they were playing when they took on roles and could decide what to do with the material. When the children were preparing the play or were drawing, they usually said they were not playing. These findings add to the understanding of play from children’s perspectives and are valuable to the research field and for educators working with young children.     

Taking a ‘reality’ check: Expanding pre-service teachers' views on pedagogy and diversity

The outcomes of a two-pronged ‘real-world’ learning project, which aimed to expand the views of pre-service teachers about learning, pedagogy and diversity, will be discussed in this paper. Seventy-two fourth-year and 22 first-year students, enrolled in a Bachelor of Education degree in Queensland, Australia, were engaged in community sites outside of university lectures, and separate from their practicum. Using Butin's conceptual framework for service learning, we show evidence that this approach can enable pre-service teachers to see new realities about the dilemmas and ambiguities of performing as learners and as teachers. We contend that when such ‘real-world’ experiences have different foci at different times in their four-year degree, pre-service teachers have more opportunities to develop sophisticated understandings of pedagogy in diverse contexts for diverse learners.     

‘Always allowing the voice’: expectations of student participation and the disciplining of teachers' practice

Student participation in higher education classrooms is considered important for learning and achievement, but what is meant by participation is rarely made clear. In the literature, it often refers to various forms of verbal participation, which are celebrated and also critiqued. In particular, Western pedagogical assumptions and expectations of classroom participation can marginalise students from non-Western cultures. This article discusses the findings from a study of university teaching staff in New Zealand who spoke about their experiences of teaching a diverse range of students. Analysis of narrative data investigates what participation means for these teachers and how they enact it in their classrooms. It reveals the norms and assumptions that underlie their narratives and considers how these norms discipline teachers' practice.     

‘No One Should Destroy the Forest': Using photo-based vignette interviews to understand Kenyan teachers' views of the environment

In the midst of the current environmental crisis, scientists, academics, authors, and politicians worldwide are urging citizens to create sustainable communities. However, there is little capability to build a sustainable society without an informed, active, and engaged populous. This requires more than just environmentally knowledgeable citizens. It requires a society that understands the principles of the environment and can also exemplify them in daily life. In order to create a more environmentally literate world, there has been a push for environmental education integrated into schools. This qualitative study sought to examine Kenyan teachers’ perspectives on the human–nature interaction by conducting vignette focus-group interviews. It is a subject not widely explored but vital for conservation not only in this area, but also other areas that seek to have an ecological informed populous. The vignettes were created using photographs and explanations of the photographs that the participants collected and emailed to the authors. For the focus-group vignette interviews, there were a total of 55 participants (30 females and 25 males). After InVivo analysis, we had 6 codes (resentment, pride, perils, blame, pragmatism, and self-interested) within 3 major themes. This study has implications for informing science education to combat these traditions of subjecting students to a science curriculum that demotes Kenyan cultural heritage and lifestyle. By incorporating local knowledge such as the ideas discussed in this paper into Kenyan science education, Kenyans can reach one of most challenging objectives of education, which is to produce children who are fundamentally aware of their environment.     

Students’ views of oral performance assessment in mathematics: straddling the ‘assessment of’ and ‘assessment for’ learning divide

This paper explores the views of a group of students who took an oral performance assessment in a first-year mathematics module. Such assessments are unusual for most subjects in the UK, but particularly within the generally homogenous assessment diet of undergraduate mathematics. The evidence presented here resonates with some, but not all, of the existing literature on oral assessment and suggests that, despite concerns about anxiety and fairness, students see oral assessments as encouraging a focus on understanding, being relatively authentic and reactive to their needs. We argue that, suitably implemented, oral assessment may be a viable assessment method for straddling the ‘assessment for’ and ‘assessment of’ learning divide in higher education.     

Swiss student‐teachers' views of social pedagogy

In recent years a number of policy and practice initiatives concerning pastoral care in schools in England have led to schools increasingly being expected to take a leading role in addressing a widening range of concerns regarding the welfare, care and education of children, and in working more closely with parents and other professional agencies in addressing these. This has included a consideration of the notion of ‘social pedagogy’ as widely practiced in mainland Europe. This paper explores the views of student‐teachers in Switzerland, a country where social pedagogy is well developed, regarding the role of the school in addressing pupil problems. The findings indicate that these Swiss student‐teachers felt schools should take the lead role primarily in areas regarding poor academic progress, bullying, general misbehaviour and disaffection, and less so in areas of a more personal nature for pupils where schools may be less accountable. The findings provide some pointers concerning how Swiss student‐teachers would benefit from greater attention being given to considering such pastoral care issues in their training course.     

Enquiry-based science in the infant classroom: ‘letting go’

Enquiry-based science in primary classrooms is key to encouraging children's interest and curiosity about the world around them and as a result helps to stimulate their understanding and enjoyment of science. Yet many primary teachers lack the confidence to implement enquiry-based approaches effectively. The reasons are myriad and often result in the teacher controlling and orchestrating the lesson leaving little room for children's exploration and autonomy. This paper explores how one infant school teacher was willing to relinquish control and ‘let go’ and expand her pedagogical repertoire to manage the many obstacles to including enquiry-based science in her classroom. The autonomy the children were given resulted in genuine enquiry-based science with the consequential benefit to their learning. Furthermore the teacher's confidence and self-efficacy seem to have been raised ensuring that that she would continue to include enquiry-based science as part of her practice in the future. As a model for other primary teachers this approach could help them overcome their reticence to engage with enquiry-based science.     

‘Snapped’: researching the sexual cultures of schools using visual methods

Visual methods are often marginalised in educational research and have not been employed to collect information about sexuality at school. This paper examines the viability and effectiveness of conducting research about the ‘sexual cultures’ of schools in New Zealand using photo‐diaries and photo‐elicitation. ‘Effectiveness’ is judged by what the visual methodologies literature purports are the benefits of these methods. These advantages include providing participants with greater autonomy over what and how data is collected. The paper argues it is feasible to employ visual methods to research sexuality in schools. Such methods offer participants alternative means of recounting their stories, can help illuminate an esoteric object of investigation like ‘sexual cultures’ and engage participants less likely to volunteer for sexuality research. The use of visual methods is not without challenges however. Securing ethics approval and school participation along with problems with camera retrieval and protecting participant agency were some difficulties encountered in the current study. For those wishing to pursue less conventional research methodologies in educational settings, this discussion highlights potential benefits and struggles.     

Additional workload or a part of the job? Icelandic teachers' discourse on inclusive education

The aim of this article is to examine the discourse of Icelandic compulsory school teachers on inclusive education. From 1974 and onwards, the education policy in Iceland has been towards inclusion, and Iceland is considered to be an example of a highly inclusive education system with few segregated resources for students with special educational needs. In particular, the article focuses on what characterises and legitimises teachers' discourse on inclusive education, the contradictions in the discourse and how teachers have involved themselves in the process. We use the approach of historical discourse analysis to analyse the discourse as it appears in interviews with teachers and media articles on education as well as in key documents issued by the Parliament. The article provides an insight into the complexities of this topic and draws attention to underlying issues relevant to inclusive education.     

Novice teachers' work: constructing ‘different’ children?

Developing a teacher identity is an ongoing and multifaceted process. In part, the process involves finding a voice amid the clamour of other, often contradictory, voices and complex conditions in which teachers find themselves. Drawing from a larger study of teacher professional identities, this paper explores how two beginning early childhood educators talk about what it means to teach. The paper focuses on how these novice teachers position themselves, and are positioned, by their understandings of the ‘child’. This focus on children is particularly relevant to understanding teacher identities for in educational contexts, teachers and children are inextricably linked – they are part of a relational pair. Using critical discourse analysis as a way of examining interview data, I discuss how a discourse of the ‘normal’ child constructs particular identity positions for children and the adults who work with them.     

‘We are the professionals’: a study of teachers’ views on parental involvement in school

The study examines teachers’ attitudes and experiences regarding home–school cooperation. Teachers constitute a powerful group in school compared with parents, and this relationship is interpreted through Bourdieu’s concept of social field, as a power relation. The empirical analyses are based on a mixed‐methods approach with survey and qualitative interviews among teachers in Norway. The results show that while teachers experience the interaction in a positive way, they try to limit parents’ influence through emphasising their own professionalism, thus leaving parents with the role as supporters. Teachers who relate to well‐educated parents are especially conscious of maintaining a distance towards the parents in order to keep them in their place.     

‘Control must be maintained’: exploring teachers’ pedagogical practice outside the classroom

Drawing on qualitative data, this article presents an analysis of six secondary science teachers’ expectations and practices related to teaching outdoors during a professional development programme. Using Foucault’s and Bernstein’s theories of ‘space’, routines and set practices, I argue that participant teachers’ fear of losing control of their students when in contexts outside the classroom was constructed as place specific in terms of boundaries (or lack of), familiarity and disturbance. Teachers’ ‘fearful’ expectations when outside triggered the initial use of regulatory technologies that were frequently more assertive and controlling than their usual classroom practice, resulting in increased authoritative teaching approaches. However, once technologies of power were developed for use outside, teachers were able to translate and apply their normal dialogic teaching approaches from the classroom. The article concludes with a discussion of student self-regulation through collaborative group work as a step towards resolving the tensions between dialogic pedagogy and teaching in new contexts.     

‘If they're the customer,I'm the meat in the sandwich’: an exploration of tertiary teachers' metaphorical constructions of teaching

Metaphors are a primary influence on the way we perceive and construct our world; they are also a way of revealing beliefs and attitudes that might otherwise be difficult to identify. Furthermore, metaphor has been found to be an effective way of shifting people's beliefs, attitudes and behaviour. This paper details the findings of a pilot study designed to explore New Zealand tertiary teachers' understanding of the consumer metaphor, and metaphor more generally, within tertiary education. Examining the responses of over 200 tertiary teachers to questions concerning their use of metaphor in relation to teaching, using Sfard [1998. On two metaphors of learning and the dangers of choosing just one. Educational Researcher, 27, 4–13] and Martinez and colleagues' [2001. Metaphors as blueprints of thinking about teaching and learning. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(8), 965–977.] system of categorising metaphor, our findings suggest that teachers are generally resistant to the consumer metaphor as it is applied to tertiary education. However, rather than rejecting the metaphor outright, teachers have tended to transform the metaphor from a purely behaviourist interpretation to a more cognitive interpretation, thus repositioning the student as active within the teacher?learner relationship, and focusing on transformation or enlightenment as the product of learning. The ambiguity of the metaphor may be contributing to a mismatch of expectations between teachers, institutions and policy-makers.     

Enhancing student self‐worth in the primary school learning environment: teachers' views and students' views

This paper reports the findings from a study of teachers and students' views regarding self‐worth in the primary school learning environment. The revised New Zealand curriculum recognises the importance of self‐worth in students' motivation and ability to learn. While the need to enhance self‐worth in the classroom has been well established in the literature, similarities and differences between teachers and students' understanding of the impact of various classroom interactions on self‐worth has not received the same attention. The purpose of the research reported on in this paper was to provide further insight for teachers, thereby enabling them to strengthen classroom relationships and their students' learning experiences in ways commensurate with enhancing students' feelings of self‐worth.     

Ethical competence – a comparison between the Swedish and the Icelandic curricula and some teachers’ views

The aim of this article is to highlight some conceptions of ethical competence identified in interviews with teachers in religious education in Sweden, and within analyses of policy documents in a Swedish and an Icelandic educational context. As a starting point we take seven interviewed teachers’ comments about what they view as important ethical competences for their pupils to have. A comparative analysis of Swedish and Icelandic policy documents with regard to the conceptual understandings of ethical competence is made, as well as a comparison between the policy documents and teachers’ comments. The Icelandic curriculum is chosen because it differs from the Swedish one in a sense relevant to an analysis of the teacher interviews. The analyses imply a tension between theoretical and analytical conceptions of ethical competence and an action competence. Finally, some possible threads to consider in developing a broadened and deepened understanding of ethical competence are outlined.     

Illuminating the ‘boy problem’ from children's and teachers' perspectives: a pilot study

The apparent educational underperformance of boys has received phenomenal attention worldwide for many years. In the UK, it has led to various government reports and policies aimed at raising boys' achievement. This small-scale qualitative-interpretive pilot study, undertaken in one urban primary school in North Wales, reports the findings from exploring boys', aged six to seven years, perceptions of education. It also presents teachers' perceptions of how boys' learn and what they regard to be visible gender differences in the classroom. The research suggests that although many boys within this age group seemed generally positive about school and learning, certain issues were emerging for some boys that, if not addressed, could result in disengagement and/or underperformance. Factors include: issues related to boys' reading and literacy; boys' preference for screen-based, digital devices; gender binaries in relation to learning styles and behaviours; gender-specific syndromes; and teacher concerns about the impact of a ‘feminised’ education sector. The objective of this paper is to examine, after decades of research studies and government reports, what do we really know about the perceptions of young male learners and their experiences within the context of the primary classroom?