Moving primary physical education forward: start at the beginning

This paper presents selected findings from a questionnaire completed by 509 primary school teachers in Scotland. Drawing on policy enactment theory, the paper focusses on teachers’ personal experiences of physical education and perceptions of the importance of physical education in their schools. More than half (56%) reported that physical education was either ‘very important’ or ‘important’, while almost 40% perceived it to be of ‘limited’ or ‘very limited importance’. ‘Staff’, ‘time’ and ‘subject status’ were the main themes they drew on to explain their responses. Our findings highlight the diverse nature of the physical education professional cultures in Scottish primary schools. From this, we propose that future initiatives to support change in primary physical education should, as a starting point, acknowledge these diverse professional cultures and move beyond the simplistic one-size-fits-all change projects that have been shown to have limited impact on practice.     

Changing the context of teachers’ work and professional development: A European perspective

Recent changes in the regulation of education systems in Europe and beyond have led to greater control over the work of teachers and the performance of schools. The paper draws upon the findings of a programme of funded comparative research, which has examined the impact of national education policy and policy change on teachers’ work and professional development in several European countries, England, France and Denmark. Within the English context, particularly, both primary and secondary teachers expressed common concerns centered on what was perceived as the demand for a ‘delivery of performance’. Many teachers considered that the more affective concerns of teaching – the sense of vocation and investment of self- were being undermined by the pressure for performance, to become “expert technicians” in transmitting externally pre-defined knowledge and skills to their pupils. Such changes have had a profound effect on the way in which teachers’ work and role are defined by government policy directives more widely within the European context. The paper considers the implications of these changed accountability structures for teachers’ professional identity and development.     

Attracting,recruiting and retaining male teachers: policy issues in the male teacher debate

Frequent calls for more male teachers are being made in English‐speaking countries. Many of these calls are based upon the fact that the teaching profession has become (even more) ‘feminized’ and the presumption that this has had negative effects for the education of boys. The employment of more male teachers is sometimes suggested as a way to re‐masculinize schools so they become more ‘boy‐friendly’ and thus contribute to improving boys' school performance. The focus of this paper is on an Australian education policy document in the state of Queensland that is concerned with the attraction, recruitment and retention of male teachers in the government education system. It considers the failure of this document, as with many of the calls for more male teachers, to take into account complex matters of gender raised by feminism and the sociology of masculinities. The paper then critiques the primary argument given for the need for more male teachers: that is, that male teachers provide boys with much needed role models.     

Creativity and performativity policies in primary school cultures

Cultures of performativity in English primary schools refer to systems and relationships of: target‐setting; Ofsted inspections; school league tables constructed from pupil test scores; performance management; performance related pay; threshold assessment; and advanced skills teachers. Systems which demand that teachers ‘perform’ and in which individuals are made accountable. These policy measures, introduced to improve levels of achievement and increased international economic competitiveness, have, potentially, profound implications for the meaning and experience of primary teachers’ work; their identities; their commitment to teaching; and how they view their careers. At the same time as policies of performativity are being implemented there is now increasing advocacy for the adoption and advancement of ‘creativity’ policies within primary education. These major developments are being introduced in the context of a wide range of social/educational policies also aimed at the introduction of creativity initiatives into schools and teaching. This complex policy context has major implications for the implementation process and also primary teachers’ work and how they experience it. The ethnographic research reported in this article has been conducted over a school year in six English primary schools in order to analyse the effects of creativity and performativity policy initiatives at the implementation stage. The article concludes by arguing that in the schools of our research the drive to raise pupil test scores involves both performative and creative strategies and that this critical mediation goes beyond amelioration toward a more complex view of professional practice. Implementing creativity and performativity policies provided important contextual influencing factors on teacher commitment. These were: curriculum coverage and task completion; and providing psychic rewards of teaching.     

Measuring the causes for the growth in special needs education. A validation of a questionnaire with possible factors explaining the growing demand for special provisions in education

In recent decades, the basic principle in Norway’s education policy has been that all students should receive adapted education within the framework of the mainstream schools. This policy notwithstanding, the rate of students for whom special support was initiated, rose from 6.2% in 2006 to 8.0% in 2014. The study reported here developed measures for the possible causes for this unwelcome development. A questionnaire with 23 statements suggesting possible causes of the increase in the use of special support was presented to 136 teachers in primary and lower secondary school. A factor analysis revealed that 12 items formed three reliable scales for possible causes behind the high demand for special provisions: ‘Focus on students’ problems’, ‘External pressure on schools’ and ‘Early support’. The teachers stated that these causes had moderate impact. The study has resulted in three scales useful in measuring three causes.     

Gender balance in teaching debate: tensions between gender theory and equality policy

This paper draws on findings from a research project funded by the Scottish Executive which analysed the gender balance in teaching and explored the underlying reasons for the decline in the number and proportion of men, particularly in secondary schools. As in other developed countries, such as Australia, the USA and Canada, the proportion of men entering teaching has declined fairly rapidly over a ten‐year period. At a time when women are participating in paid work in greater numbers than ever before, their concentration in certain areas of work, particularly in the service sector and the ‘caring’ professions, is increasingly apparent. Despite the clarity of this trend, it is evident that responses from academics and policy‐makers have been very different, with some policy‐makers linking the declining proportion of men in teaching with the problem of boys’ underachievement and a perceived ‘crisis in masculinity’, whilst some feminist writers have questioned these views, drawing on recent gender theory which questions the utility of the binary categories of ‘man’ and ‘woman’, instead suggesting that gender is performed and may have little to do with the body of the person who is involved in the particular performance. Sex and gender thus become decoupled, with the focus on individual actors freely choosing the version of gender they wish to practice. This line of argument suggests that the sex of the teacher is irrelevant; what really matters is the way in which they perform gender in the classroom. Work on the gender balance in teaching therefore provides an opportunity to reflect on underlying tensions in gender theorising and policy‐making. The paper begins by considering tensions between modernist and post‐structuralist accounts of sex and gender. Having outlined the underlying theoretical tensions, it then goes on to consider the accounts given by teachers and students of the reasons for their own choice of teaching as a career, their experiences in teaching and their views of the reasons underlying the declining proportion of men in teaching. The aim is to consider whether students and teachers believe that sex is an important variable structuring their lives, including their decision to become a teacher and their experiences of working as a teacher, or whether they regard gender as something which is chosen from a wide repertoire of options and is relatively free from the constraints of embodiment. In relation to research on the gender balance in teaching, the paper concludes by suggesting that there is a need to make use of the idea of gender as performance, whilst at the same time holding on to the foundational concepts of ‘woman’ and ‘man’. This is necessary to monitor and understand the career paths and underlying power relations of women and men in teaching and to transform these over time.     

Global gender discourses in education: evidence from post-genocide Rwanda

This paper investigates global gender policy discourses within the education realm in post-genocide Rwanda. Drawing on interview data from students in seven secondary schools and Unterhalter’s gender framework (Unterhalter, Elaine. 2007. Gender, Schooling and Global Social Justice. New York, NY: Routledge), I analyse the extent global discourses are integrated into national education documents and how students understand global discourses around ‘gender equality’. I find that in national education policies and texts, discourses around gender equality are framed as a means to development, as a human right, and in relation to the past conflict rather than for the transformation of patriarchal structures. Similarly, students draw on themes from global policy discourse around development and rights but at the same time ‘re-gender’ this for a local context, propagating a public/private divide and cultural and biological stereotypes. Consequently, gendered hierarchies and biases persist in student attitudes. Findings carry important implications for the limitations of global gender policy discourses and the challenges of changing gender norms in a post-conflict context.     

Teaching manfully? Exploring gendered subjectivities and power via analysis of men teachers’ gender performance

The notion that teachers’ classroom behaviour and interaction with pupils may be predicted on the basis of their gender underpins recent controversial campaigns to recruit more male teachers in the UK. Teachers’ performances of gender are explored in this article, which draws on three cases from a larger study to analyse the ways in which teachers ascribed male produced their gendered subjectivities in the classroom and in interviews. Findings highlight the extent of diversity in male teachers’ practice and in their constructions of gendered subjecthood, hence providing evidence to question assumptions that male teachers teach, or relate to pupils, in particular ways due to their identification as male. The analysis emphasizes the fluidity and complexity of gender, including the (novel) identification of ‘male femininity’ in male teacher performances. Yet while supportive of the argument that gender is not necessarily tied to sexed bodies, the paper illustrates how embodiment can constrain or facilitate access to, and exercise of, particular gendered discourses, with consequences for power positions. It also highlights how these processes can result in the consolidation of particularly powerful subjectivities, somewhat testing Foucauldian perceptions of power as ‘never localized’. Hence the paper presents a challenge both to education policy makers and to theorists of gender and power.     

Curriculum policy reform in an era of technical accountability: ‘fixing’ curriculum,teachers and students in English schools

Abstract

Drawing on a Levinasian ethical perspective, the argument driving this paper is that the technical accountability movement currently dominating the educational system in England is less than adequate because it overlooks educators’ responsibility for ethical relations in responding to difference in respect of the other. Curriculum policy makes a significant contribution to the technical accountability culture through complicity in performativity, high-stakes testing and datafication, at the same time as constituting student and teacher subjectivities. I present two different conceptualizations of subjectivity and education, before engaging these in the analysis of data arising from an empirical study which investigated teachers’ and stakeholders’ experiences of curriculum policy reform in ‘disadvantaged’ English schools. The study’s findings demonstrate how a prescribed programme of technical curriculum regulation attempts to ‘fix’ or mend educational problems by ‘fixing’ or prescribing educational solutions. This not only denies ethical professional relations between students, teachers and parents, but also deflects responsibility for educational success from government to teachers and hastens the move from public to private educational provision. Complying with prescribed curriculum policy requirements shifts attention from broad philosophical and ethical questions about educational purpose as well as conferring a violence by assuming control over student and teacher subjectivities.     

Karma and human rights: Bhutanese teachers’ perspectives on inclusion and disability

The Sustainable Development Goals call on countries to ensure that all children, especially the most vulnerable, are included in education. The small kingdom of Bhutan has made attempts to embrace inclusion in education at the policy level. However, research on inclusion and disability in this context is limited, and there are few studies focusing on the perspectives of Bhutanese teachers. The study presented here was led by the question ‘how are Inclusion and Disability understood by teachers in Bhutan?’ The research aims were to (a) explore the above concepts from the perspective of participants and (b) construct these concepts in a way that is contextually relevant to Bhutan. Data collection comprised qualitative interviews with 15 Bhutanese teachers. Findings revealed that participants saw disability predominantly from a ‘medical model’ perspective, but at the same time held conflicting views as to what inclusion means. They moreover mentioned lack of teacher training as an obstacle to the implementation of inclusion in Bhutan, and some believed that the country is not yet ready for inclusion. We argue that our findings call for Bhutan to strengthen the preparation of its teachers for inclusive education in order to narrow the current gap between policy and practice.     

Primary schools and network governance: A policy analysis of reception baseline assessment

Primary school reception baseline assessment was designed to produce a single ‘baseline’ data figure on the basis of which young children's progress across primary school could be measured and accounted for. This paper suggests that within the context of punitive performativity, head teachers might be considered ‘irresponsible’ if not engaging with the new accountability measure in its voluntary year. Using DfE‐accredited baseline assessment providers blurred the distinctions between not‐for‐profit social enterprises, digital policy innovation labs, edu‐business, and the state. It is argued that through a process of networked governance, these cross‐sectoral organisations successfully enticed some primary schools with the ‘moral economy’ of using baseline assessment. It is argued that baseline's simplistic reductionism allowed for the economisation of early years education assessment and for its commercialisation of comparison. This paper reports on a sample of five head teachers, taken from a much larger study that used a mixed‐methods approach involving a nationwide survey (n=1131) and in‐depth interviews with reception staff and head teachers in five geographically disparate primary schools. Baseline assessment was ‘withdrawn’ by the DfE in April 2016, quite possibly because of campaigns by early years organisations, the government's own report showing that the three separate baseline datasets were incompatible, and national research funded by the teachers’ unions, a small part of which is reported upon here.     

Does the gender of the teacher really matter? Seven‐ to eight‐year‐olds’ accounts of their interactions with their teachers

In recent years, policy‐makers in England, Australia and other countries have called for measures to increase male recruitment to the teaching profession, particularly to the primary sector. This policy of targeted recruitment is predicated upon a number of unexamined assumptions about the benefits of matching teachers and pupils by gender. For example, it is held that the dearth of male ‘role models’ in schools continues to have an adverse effect on boys’ academic motivation and engagement. Utilizing data from interviews with more than 300 7‐ to 8‐year‐olds attending primary schools in the north‐east and south‐east of England, the paper sets out to scrutinize these claims. The findings revealed that the gender of teachers had little apparent effect on the academic motivation and engagement of either boys or girls. For the majority of the children, the gender of the teacher was largely immaterial. They valued teachers, whether men or women, who were consistent and even‐handed and supportive of them as learners.     

Gendering corporal punishment: beyond the discourse of human rights

In the last few years the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children has been gathering momentum, with a submission to The United Nations Secretary General’s study on violence against children the most recent addition to the cause. Nevertheless, corporal punishment in schools is still condoned in many countries and its practice persists even where it is now illegal. However, it is usually discussed within a gender‐‘neutral’ human rights framework rather than being more usefully considered as a gendered practice, pivotal in sustaining the gender regimes of schools. Drawing primarily on an ethnographic study in four junior secondary schools in Botswana, in conjunction with other related studies in Sub‐Saharan Africa, it is argued that corporal punishment is gendered at the level of both policy and practice. Female and male students and teachers understand and experience the ‘giving’ and ‘receiving’ of corporal punishment differently as gender interacts with, and often takes precedence over, age and authority relations. Understanding corporal punishment as a gendered practice has important implications for how its persistence in schools might be more successfully addressed as part of the current drive to achieve the Millennium Development and Education for All Goals in relation to universal primary education and gender equality.     

Language,discipline and ‘teaching like a champion’

This article presents an analysis of various language policy mechanisms currently circulating in secondary schools in England, with a particular focus on those that intermingle ‘language’, ‘standard English’ and ‘discipline’. Although the connections between language, ideology and behaviour are well established within critical educational linguistics, this has not been explored in relation to current education policy in England, which is characterised by an overt focus on standardised English and behaviour ‘management’. In a grounded approach, I explore how the disciplining of language correlates with the disciplining of the body, based on ethnographic-orientated fieldwork undertaken in a London secondary school and drawing on a broad range of policy mechanisms such as curricula, textbooks, classroom artefacts and Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion industry. I show how the current linguistic conservatism found within government policy gets reproduced in school-level policies, pedagogies and classroom interactions, and highlight these relations within a network of policy actors and key terms associated with so-called ‘zero-tolerance’ and ‘no-excuses’ schools. I show how teachers are positioned as language policy managers who work within a system of surveillance, compliance, coercion and control. As such, this article contributes to current thinking within critical language policy and the sociology of education by offering an expanded view of language ideologies in schools, whereby connections between language and discipline are explicitly illustrated and critiqued.     

A special teacher for a special child? (Re)considering the role of the special education teacher within the context of an inclusive education reform agenda

Notwithstanding the recent signing and ratification by Cyprus of another International Convention on the rights of students designated as having special educational needs and/or disabilities to attend mainstream schools on an equal basis with their peers, local policy and practice promote an ‘exclusionary inclusion’ that draws a discernible line between general and special education. This paper concentrates on exploring the role of special education teachers in Cyprus in the light of policy concerns about providing the ‘least restrictive’ learning environment for this group of students and enabling them ‘to reach their full potential’. It is suggested that the role of special education teachers embodies and reflects reductionist forms of inclusion informed by deficit-oriented and assimilationist special education perspectives, while there is also evidence of a lack of professionalism and accountability. The paper draws on head teachers’ and special education teachers’ interviews in order to portray the ways in which they view and experience the role of special education teachers in mainstream schools in Cyprus. New objectives and future directions are identified and discussed.     

Students as ‘catalysts’ in the classroom: the impact of co‐teaching between science student teachers and primary classroom teachers on children's enjoyment and learning of science

This study is an investigation of the impact of collaborative teaching by student‐teachers and classroom teachers on children’s enjoyment and learning of science. The paper describes findings from a project in which undergraduate science specialist student‐teachers were placed in primary schools where they ‘co‐taught’ investigative science and technology with primary teachers. Almost six months after the student placement, a survey of children’s attitudes to school science revealed that these children enjoyed science lessons more and showed fewer gender or age differences in their attitudes to science than children who had not been involved in the project. The authors discuss how this model of collaborative planning, teaching and evaluation can both enhance teacher education and improve children’s experience of science.     

‘The world must stop when I’m talking’: gender and power relations in primary teachers’ classroom talk

The present paper examines male and female teachers’ language practices in relation to ‘censuring’ talk in the primary classroom, in the context of the debate around boys’ ‘underachievement’ and the ‘feminisation’ of primary school culture. Through an analysis of classroom observations with 51 men and women teachers, it looks to see whether gender differences could be found in the ways individual men and women teachers communicated in terms of their ‘censuring’ comments of pupils’ work or behaviour. Secondly, the paper takes issue with the notion that teachers operate within a ‘feminised’ educational culture, by looking at the ways in which teachers’ classroom talk can be seen to be constrained by two contrasting discourses relating to the power relation between teacher and pupil: a ‘traditional’ disciplinarian discourse, and a more ‘progressive’ liberal discourse. Both discourses have complex gendered and class dimensions, challenging the conception of a ‘feminised’ primary school culture.     

Mediating ‘School Direct’: The enactment of a reform policy by university-based teacher educators in England

The period 2010 to 2014 is widely acknowledged as a time of highly significant education reform in England, including of Initial Teacher Education (ITE). The Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government introduced a programme of ‘school-led’ education policies, of which ‘School Direct’ was intended to shift the balance of power, resources and modes of training teachers away from universities towards schools. Through an analysis of interviews with leaders of ITE in universities in two English regions, we examine the mediations of the School Direct policy from a socio-cognitive and activity-theoretical perspective. We identify three emotional frames for perceiving School Direct within the policy environment, drawing on the Vygotskian concept of perezhivanie. We also identify two policy enactment activities that involved bargaining within and rebrokering relationships between universities and schools. Consequently, we argue that the mediations of School Direct reported by the university leaders in our sample can be understood as limited appropriations of the policy within a highly charged emotional context where institutional risks were felt to be ever-present. We conclude that these leaders did not believe that School Direct achieved a transformation of ITE on the basis of a reconceptualisation of existing practices. The article contributes both to the scant research literature on School Direct as a significant reform by studying university leaders’ accounts of policy mediation and the socio-cognitively informed literature on policy enactment by foregrounding the emotional-affective dimension of sense-making.     

Cultural Differences in Teachers’ Work: an ethnography

The subject of this paper is one aspect of the two cultures of ‘head work’ and ‘hand work’ in secondary education. It is based upon an ethnographic study of Victorian trade teachers who had previously been employed as tradespersons. The paper concludes that particular defining characteristics were significant in the maintenance and integrity of the trade teacher work culture. These characteristics related to: work practices that were linked to identities that had been constituted in an industrial world; attitudes to work, gender, and the perceived perspective and image of mainstream teachers; and, the architecture and society of, what were once, technical schools. This group was initially distinguished by being referred to as ‘tradies’ by both themselves and others. At the same time, they worked alongside mainstream teachers who referred to themselves as ‘academics’, but who were referred to by the trade teachers as ‘accos’ (which rhymes with tobacco and is a derivative of academic).     

‘It’s not right for boys to play with dolls’: young children constructing and policing gender during ‘free play’ in a South African classroom

This paper focuses on the ways in which five- to seven-year-old primary school children in a Black/African township in South Africa construct and experience ‘free play’ in the classroom. Findings highlight the gendered manner in which play is constructed and constantly policed by these young children during ‘free play’. By foregrounding the young children’s gendered constructions and experiences of ‘free play’, the paper challenges the common sense teacher perceptions and constructions of children’s play that suggest children have ‘free choice’. The paper reveals that play is far from a ‘free’ activity as it is heavily constrained by specific contextual gender norms and expectations which limit possibilities by reproducing polarised versions of gender and perpetuate gender inequalities. Implications focus on the ways in which teachers can work with children to challenge the boundaries of gender during ‘free play’.