Ethical dilemmas in designing collaborative research: Lessons learned the hard way

In this article I use my own problematic experience as a well-intentioned educational researcher to highlight some of the dilemmas and complexities of collaboration with classroom teachers. Engaged in an otherwise pleasant and productive research project in partnership with a primary grade teacher, I experienced deep methodological difficulties linked to the ethical heart of collaborative research. Given that this model - university-based researchers entering into "collaborative" research relationships with classroom teachers - is becoming an increasingly prevalent strategy, it is important to consider fully the potential challenges and obstacles we might face in these relational research contexts.     

Research methodology,education, and theoretical fashions: Constructing a methodology course in an era of deconstruction

In this article a case is made both for the utility of deconstructive questions and also for the danger of taking such questions as a sole or overriding methodological agenda in education. The discussion is mounted by attention to grounded contexts and dilemmas rather than by a commitment to abstract concerns about ''power'' or ''Other'' or ''polyphony of voices.'' The framing dilemma is how one might construct a research methodology course that is not based on positivism, relativism, or a reification of current theory as an enduring answer for students. The article takes two substantive fields of inquiry in education- (1) inequality and access in education and (2) gender and education- to argue that following through some substantive issues for educational research can provide ways of thinking about the relative merits, power, pertinence, and relationships among quantitative, qualitative, and deconstructive agendas. Finally, the article outlines a research methodology course constructed by the author to attempt to put into practical form the assumptionsabout education and research methodology that are argued in this article.     

Formations of Mexicana ness: Trenzas de identidades multiples Growing up Mexicana : Braids of multiple identities

As California's complexion and social panorama changes in color and class so must the directions for writing ethnicity and social analysis. This qualitative study seeks to break out of paradigmatic insulation by proposing innovative perspectives and directions for creating subversive narratives about our own realities. It also seeks to inform current social analysis about Mexicana quality of life and about educationalpolicy on Mexicana educacion (education of the whole person) and school cultures. This article examines how Mexicana identities are created, shaped, and developed through the construction of narratives. I interpret these with the analytical tools of trenzas that ''braids'' critical race theory and multidimensional feminist frames, platicas (popular conversations) and cultural intuition, and the engagement of myself, the researcher, and the young Mexicanas participating in the study. By claiming our space and voicing our feelings and meanings about language, Aztlan culture and identity, and womanhood, we correct stereotypic representations that render Mexicanas vulnerable and dismissed from U.S. civic life and public education. In light of the missing discourse about young Mexicana identity formations, this research makes possible trenzas ''braids'' of multiple identities and tools for transforming educational research, curriculum, and the building of education partnerships.     

Teacher collaboration: 30 years of research on its nature,forms, limitations and effects

ABSTRACT

This article reprises and reflects on 30 years of the author’s work on teacher collaboration. The distinctive nature of this work has not been in making a case for teacher collaboration in terms of its benefits for students, teachers, or educational change. These arguments are widely available elsewhere. Rather it has examined ways of collaborating that are available to teachers, how formal or informal collaboration should be, how collaborative efforts can be misused or misdirected, and what factors must be considered when deliberately designing teacher collaboration so it will have the most beneficial effects. The article discusses the explanatory and strategic power of three concepts in particular—contrived collegiality, professional capital, and collaborative professionalism. Conclusions are drawn about next steps for educational research in terms of establishing clear typologies of teacher collaboration in relation to their impact and appropriateness in different circumstances.     

Parents' views on nursery education: Perceptions in context

The analysis describes the broad consensus which is currently emerging about the nature of the educational changes which are necessary for the creation of a 'learning society' and contrasts this vision with the contemporary reality of an education system which is every day more constrained by formal assessment. The implications of these tightening bonds for the development of universities in the third millennium are explored in terms of research evidence which documents the impact of conventional forms of assessment on student learning. The argument is made that this emphasis on 'categoric' assessment if fundamentally incompatible with aspirations towards the creation of a 'learning society'. This is partly because institutions must necessarily give their attention to obtaining high scores and cannot risk the substantial changes in the reorganisation of teaching and learning that an 'empowering' educational environment would arguably require and partly because of the power of the prevailing assessment discourse to define priorities. The article uses Lyotard's concept of 'performativity' to examine these contemporary tensions in higher education, their origins and potential significance for the creation of a 'learning society'.     

Parental collaboration in relation to children’s school lives – advanced regulation or an opportunity for solidarity?

Abstract

Parental collaboration is both promoted for enhancing children’s performance and criticized for reproducing educational inequality. The issue of parental collaboration, thus, presents an opportunity to discuss theoretical differences in current debates about education, notably the educational consequences of social background and governmentality. The article emphasizes the conflictual nature of children’s school lives and analyzes the social interplay between the involved subjects, who are connected through their engagement in common matters and concerns. Our analysis challenges approaches inspired by Bourdieu that analyze the social reproduction of inequality in terms of discrepancies between parental style and the culture of the school. It also raises questions about the Foucauldian perspective which regards policies and practices of parental collaboration as means to govern parents. Through a discussion of these analyses, the article shows how different ways of conceptualizing parental collaboration offer different opportunities for organizing collaboration and dealing with the historical problems of the school.     

Introduction: The idea of political education

This article considers the current context for renewed concern about 'political education' worldwide and in the UK. The concept 'political education' is analysed, as are normative and positive questions about the relationship between education and political outcomes. The article goes on to consider the history of and reasons for UK exceptionalism as regards this aspect of educational policy-explanations for British antipathy to political education are sought in aspects of British political institutions and political culture.     

Metaphors as a way to explore qualitative data

Qualitative data can allow us to see multiple meanings and realities of human experiences. Sometimes the variations of realities makes interpretation challenging. This article provides examples of how metaphors, related to the life history context, "extend horizons of insight and create new possibilities" (Morgan, 1997, p. 351) to view the participants, the researcher, and the story of research as well as to add to the knowledge about Finnish scientists' creative processes. Metaphors connect different layers of text (academic story (normal font), personal story (bold font), and the meta-story) and tease out a story of research with multiple faces, changing stages, views, and alternative interpretations. I do not look for conclusions or a single definition of creativity. Rather, I ask questions and trouble the "category of creativity", addressing methodological issues of educational research.     

Understanding working-class 'drop-out' from higher education through a sociocultural lens: Cultural narratives and local contexts

The 'drop-out' of working-class students from universities has been identified as one of the most pressing issues for the higher education (HE) sector in the United Kingdom. This article draws on the initial findings of a major research project that explores the meanings and implications of such withdrawal from HE amongst young working-class people. The article argues that drop-out should be seen not just as an educational problem, but also as a manifestation of sociocultural change. To understand drop-out we need to look beyond student support needs or institutional barriers to cultural narratives and local contexts. This enables us to use a sociological frame to understand the educational question, and employ the educational data to contribute to sociological debates on class. The article analyses 'drop-out' as a self-fulfilling cultural narrative that is increasingly connoted as working class, as well as being a consequence of the material exigencies of working-class circumstances. It illustrates how class identity mutates yet stays the same, with the working class still positioned in terms of 'lack'. Although the possibility of university study has become a part of working-class identity, the expectation that this experience may be 'flawed' or 'spoilt' has also become engrained. The article analyses drop-out as two sides of one coin: as both significantly influenced by local culture and as having a perceived impact upon that culture, with different effects in different locales.     

Making Connections for Future Directions: Taking religion seriously in the sociology of education

This article argues that a problem for the contemporary sociology of education is that it has operated within a 'secularisation of consciousness paradigm'. This has limited both the depth and the scope of its intellectual enquiries. Sociological analysis which elides a religious dimension not only presents an over-simplified view of social relations in 'the Modern West', but it also fails to make an authentic engagement with many socio-cultural and educational situations internationally, where God is far from dead. The article suggests various ways forward for a reorientation of sociological writing and research.     

Collaboration and contrived collegiality: Revisiting Hargreaves in the age of accountability

Andy Hargreaves is internationally renowned for his work on many topics related to educational change. His work on how educational change shapes teachers’ work, particularly with respect to teacher collaboration, is well exemplified in his award-winning 1994 volume, Changing Teachers, Changing Times: Teachers’ Work and Culture in the Postmodern Age. In this volume, he taught us the important difference between collaborative cultures and contrived collegiality. This article will bring Hargreaves’ ideas about teacher collaboration to bear as I investigate a current educational reform movement: data-driven decision making. I describe how two school systems integrated teacher collaboration as an important feature of their movements towards using data, and I explain the consequences of their efforts. I close by raising critical issues for educators and researchers to address as we consider the role of teacher collaboration in the age of accountability.     

Excluding the included: A reconsideration of inclusive education

This article examines how the development of inclusive education policies has been constrained by the adhesion of traditional regular and special education imperatives. The fragmentation of educational policy-making presses us towards exclusion; and the protection of professional interests reinforces individual pathologies and creates further exclusionary pressures. The authors contend that inclusive education is not a linear progression from 'special educational needs' and we must endeavour to understand the very different nature of these knowledge bases. Deconstruction is presented as a way of exposing exclusion as it is inscribed within inclusive education policies. The article ends with a series of openings for dialogue about inclusion which address the relationship between ideas and politics; a new politics of research; envisioning forms of schooling which eschew the modernist blueprint; reflexivity; and the teaching of inclusion.     

The Green Paper and Beyond: How primary headteachers see their deputies

This article reports the findings from interviews with ten primary headteachers on the roles, responsibilities and relationships of the heads and their deputies, particularly in the light of the 1998 Green Paper 'teachers meeting the challenge of change'. These heads were selected because their schools had figured well in the 'Performance Tables 1999: Key Stage 2 Test Results' and so should exemplify good practice. The findings suggest the following key characteristics for an ideal partnership between a head and a deputy: shared values and vision; close personal and professional relationships; clarity about boundaries; provision of non-contact time. Moreover, the article proposes a distinctive role for the deputy in an era of performativity: the 'leading professional' within the school.     

Aristoscientists,academic proletariat and reassembling the mega-machine: 21st century survival strategies of the estonian academia

The move in the United Kingdom to recruit more men into primary teaching is to tackle boys under-achievement. One explanation that has been offered as to why boys' are under-achieving is the 'feminisation of primary schooling'. This article begins by exploring the findings of a national survey of student primary teachers towards gender roles and schooling. The views of the students indicated accordance with the idea that primary schools are feminised and feminising environments. The discussion here critiques these notions and argues that current educational policy is not moving forward in a direction that will actively challenge conventional stereotyping. Rather, the move is towards one where notions of masculinity and femininity will be reinforced through a 're-masculinisation' of primary schooling.[1] The research drawn upon in this article was undertaken collaboratively with Bruce Carrington and Ian Hall (University of Newcastle), and Becky Francis (University of North London). I would like to record my thanks to them all, particularly Bruce for his contribution to this article. He provided the analysis of the quantitative data and commentary on the outline of the research project. His analysis of the qualitative data on men student teachers can be found in Carrington (forthcoming). I would also like to thank colleagues at the International Sociology of Education Conference for their comments and observations, in particular Meg Maguire, and two anonymous referees of this article.     

Partisanship in Educational Research

In his empirical study of educational research, James Tooley claims to have uncovered 'partisanship' in the 'focus content and argument of educational research'. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that Tooley's study is simply one more manifestation of the failure of many educational researchers to take account of the extensive theoretical and methodological developments that have occurred over the last four decades in the political and social sciences. It is suggested that a debate about partisanship and educational research which took these developments seriously would not be a narrow debate in which researchers with right wing affinities try to score political points against researchers of the left. Instead, it would be a more intellectually rigorous and theoretically informed debate about the complex relationship between educational values and political beliefs on the one hand and research methodologies and practices on the other.     

The Relevance of Qualitative Research

This paper addresses the relevance of qualitative inquiry to policymaking and practice; against the background of recent attacks on educational research generally, and on qualitative work in particular. It outlines the contribution of the latter, referring to some examples of this kind of work over the past couple of decades. The discussion is organised around the five capacities ascribed to symbolic interactionist/phenomenological research by David Hargreaves in an article published in 1978: 'appreciative', 'designatory', 'reflective', 'immunological', and 'corrective'. It is argued that today there is more need than ever for research serving these functions.     

Engaging with commonality and difference: Theoretical tensions in the analysis of working-class women's educational discourses

In this article the authors contribute to ongoing theoretical debates concerning the conceptualisation of multiple social identities and oppressions. The article begins by briefly tracing the path towards current critical/feminist/sociological positions 'between modernism and postmodernism', in which identities ('race', class, gender, etc.) are conceptualised as socially constructed, fluid, shifting and yet grounded in 'real' inequalities and oppressions. The article then builds upon, and contributes to, current theoretical dialogue by highlighting ongoing tensions and unresolved problematics within the theoretical approach, drawing out the particular implications of these for educational research. Issues are discussed with specific reference to recent work by Brah (1999) and illustrations are provided using examples from the authors' research with inner city, working-class women.     

Research methods as a situated response: Towards a First Nations' methodology

In this paper the author writes in retrospect about her experience of researching the creation of a culture-based curriculum in a tribal community. She is situated in the community as both an insider and an outsider, represented in this article through the use of an academic voice spliced with a narrative voice. Both her research problem and methodology emerged as a response to the community. The methodology she used was inspired by a wide range of cultural and academic traditions. Finally, rather than prescribing a particular formula for research in Native communities, she is suggesting that the model of a ''situated response,'' particular and dependent on context, would ground research in community, as well as academic, concerns.     

Rethinking reciprocity: Collaboration in labor as a path toward equalizing power in classroom research

Researchers engaged in qualitative inquiry are becoming increasingly reflective about the ethical considerations inherent within their research questions, interpretive processes, and relationships with participants. This article describes a researcher's process of negotiating reciprocity with two teachers by collaborating with them in teaching urban special education classes. The author explains how this "collaboration in labor" grew from a feminist ethic of care and sense of responsibility toward the immediate needs of participants. Such a collaborative approach helped narrow the power gaps that can emerge between researcher and participants. In addition, the author felt that it contributed to establishing trust between the participants and the researcher, to greater mutuality in the interpretation of findings, and toward increased student academic achievement in the classes studied.