Teachers’ racialised habitus in school knowledge construction: a Bourdieusian analysis of social inequality beyond class

This article examines the school experiences of Chinese Canadian youth, a population often ignored by the academy under the model minority discourse. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theoretical insights, I raise and discuss the concept of teachers’ racialised habitus. I explore how teachers’ racialised habitus structures their practices of knowledge construction via formal and hidden curricula, and how it consequently affects Chinese Canadian youth’s identity construction. I argue that habitus, as an important theoretical tool that links the social and the individual as well as past, present and future, can also be used to study other forms of social inequality beyond class. This article makes both theoretical and empirical contributions to the research on habitus by highlighting teachers’ racialised habitus in relation to the perpetuation of racism in the educational field.     

Transnational strategies and lifelong learning in the shadow of citizenship: Chinese migrants in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

ABSTRACT

The Chinese are one of the oldest immigrant communities in Europe, and in some countries among the most economically successful. Media portraits of immigrant Chinese, however, are often filtered through racialised stereotypes, as culturally insular and economically savvy opportunists working in low-end take-outs, retails, and garment workshops. Based on ethnographic research conducted in a small European state Luxembourg, this article examines different modalities of learning and transnational strategies among three groups of Chinese migrants – temporary workers, visa overstayers, and restaurant owners. In analysing their pragmatic struggles, creative agency, and unending hopes for better lives, the paper illustrates how they engage in what Aihwa Ong calls the dual process of self-making and being made, vis-à-vis the Eurocentric citizenship regime, knowledge hierarchies, and exclusionary labour market. I offer a reading of their agentic, melodramatic everyday experiences as forms of lifelong learning, whether intended or unintended, that are rendered invisible and deficient in immigration laws, labour market practices, and sociocultural expectations. The paper challenges the Eurocentric citizenship regime and highlights immigrants’ heterogeneous ways of learning and transnational practices as part of the humanness often silenced in the global cycle of coloniality and inequality.     

Constructing and addressing differences in inclusive schooling – comparing cases from Germany,Norway and the United States

ABSTRACT

The central concern of this article is to compare the constructions of differences in inclusive school settings between countries with different school systems. The focus is to find out how constructions of differences generate participation and (dis)advantages and, thereafter, how the constructions are related to the structure of the school system and its formal rules. The aim is to contrast constructions produced by teachers who work in a multi-tracked school system with those from single-track ones. Grounded in Karl Mannheim’s [1980. Strukturen des Denkens. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp] theory on the sociology of knowledge, the analysis targets the practical expressions of constructing and addressing differences. The investigation is based on group discussions with teachers. The comparative results suggest that teachers construct differences between students in different ways, linked to the formal school-based context in which they work. While German teachers construct ‘total identities’ based on achievement and limit students’ participation in teaching settings, their colleagues from Norway and the US conceive of accomplishments built on trust with teachers and the need to feel participation in class. The outcomes indicate that the construction of differences and teaching are related to the structure of school which go along with expectations towards the students.     

Working the Borderlands: working-class students constructing hybrid identities and asserting their place in higher education

Abstract

Through the case-study experiences of 24 White and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) working-class students from three very different universities, we aim to illuminate the often hidden struggle for recognition and respect for classed, ‘raced’ and gendered ways of being in the university. We discuss how the students perceive their identities in relation to their universities and their peers, and whether they feel the need to adapt and change their classed/’racialised’ identities in order to survive and progress or whether they resist any pressures and expectations to do so. We explore the tension between ‘assimilation and belonging’ and ‘betrayal and exclusion’ for White and BAME working-class students and consider the intersectional implications. We draw on the concept of hybridity to show the fluidity and fusions of transitioning and developing identities. The article also seeks to contribute further to the illumination of habitus as generative, through a process of hybridity.     

Sustaining teachers’ stories to live by: implications for teacher education

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we focus on questions around who we are as teacher educators as well as our responsibilities in helping pre-service teachers compose forward-looking stories as they prepare to begin teaching. We draw on the results of two studies in this paper: one a semi-structured interview study with 55 second- and third-year teachers in two Canadian provinces and one narrative inquiry into the experiences of early career teacher leavers. These studies showed how early career teachers’ stories to live by fuel their desires to become teachers. Teaching was a way to try to live out and sustain their stories to live by, that is, participants continued to live out their stories to live by shaped in early personal knowledge landscapes and embodied in their personal practical knowledge. We also learned that when teachers could not sustain their stories in the professional knowledge landscapes, their stories to live by shifted to stories to leave by, and they left teaching.     

Migrating selves: reconstructing and renegotiating Black immigrant academic identities

ABSTRACT

This study set out to explore how Black immigrant academics (BIAs) reconstruct their identities within academe. Utilising the research methodology of narrative inquiry, this article explores how BIAs came to see themselves across those communities, which were of primary importance to them in the reformation of their identities. Through the construction of narratives of experience, their lived and told stories emphasised the diversity of their identities that were negotiated with others within personal, historical and situational contexts. The study of BIAs’ lives from their perspective, in which they actively and socially develop their identities, not only provides a lens through which they can be understood as shifting constructions of identity but allows them to rethink who they are and have become and what influence power relations have in promoting or negating their sense of academic self.     

Collaborative Practitioner Research: A Case of Lesson Study in a Small Jewish School

ABSTRACT

Lesson study is a form of professional development where a group of teachers identifies a problem of practice on which they would like to make progress in their teaching. Over an extended period of time, the teachers study the topic and plan a lesson together. One member then teaches the lesson while the others observe; the group reflects afterwards on student learning. The cycle repeats, building teachers’ professional knowledge and their shared views of pedagogy over time. In this article, we argue that lesson study is a collaborative form of practitioner research and we show how this is so by sharing an example of a lesson study cycle conducted in a synagogue school.     

Lesbian and gay teachers and sex/uality education policy enactment in schools

ABSTRACT

This paper examines lesbian and gay teachers’ identities and experiences in schools in the context of school policies relating to homophobia and to sex and sexuality education. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 12 lesbian and gay teachers working in English and Welsh schools, and using the concept of ‘policy enactment’, I analyse the ways in which school policies around homo/bi/transphobic bullying and sex/uality education and their enactment are perceived by lesbian and gay teachers. The article examines teachers’ personal experiences in relation to sexuality in school, and then broadens out into related issues for pupils and a discussion of the varied approaches to sex and relationships education in the schools. I argue that the enactment of these policies is not straightforward, and that they could be better supported by a more inclusive and comprehensive sexuality education curriculum.     

Disrupting Eurocentric epistemologies: Re-mediating transitions to centre intersectionally-minoritised immigrant children,families and communities

In this article, I examine intersectionally-minoritised immigrant children’s transitions from community-based pre-kindergartens to elementary schools (kindergartens) in the most segregated school system in the US. Attending to issues of blockage and fragmentation inherent to transitions, I analyse transition supports, interpreting and critiquing them through the perspectives of Latinx immigrant teachers and mothers. Through interviews, I listen to, learn from and reposition Latinx immigrant teachers and mothers as important constructors of knowledge who hold valuable (albeit often disprivileged) perspectives for reorganising the ecology of transitions. Centering the experiences of immigrant mothers and their young children, I problematise dominant understandings and conceptualisations of transition, unveiling how these privilege dominant ways of being and behaving. In doing so, I shed light on the possibility of re-mediating transitions in ways that centre the perspectives of Latinx immigrants.     

‘It’s not about punitive’: exploring how early-career teachers in high-poverty schools respond to critical incidents

ABSTRACT

This article explores how early-career teachers working in high-poverty schools in Australia account for their decision-making during critical classroom incidents. Classroom management solutions are problematized by investigating how two teachers take up particular positions, make decisions, and enact what they believe to be ‘quality teaching’ in context. Through a combination of interviews and observations of teachers ‘in situ’, we examine what these teachers do, why they do it, what informs their decisions, and how they reflect on their actions. The complexity of teachers’ work in schools located in high-poverty areas is highlighted. We argue that both early-career teachers prefer to position themselves within ‘pastoral’, in contrast to ‘disciplinarian’, discourses, as part of constituting the school as a site of possibility and teachers who advocate for youth growing up in poverty.     

Male Teachers in Feminised Teaching Areas: Marching to the beat of the men's movement drums?

Calls for more male teachers are prevalent in current gender debates in education. A dominant argument in this debate is that boys are often alienated from school because of a lack of male role models in feminised areas of the school curriculum and in primary schools. Little research has investigated male teachers' accounts of their work within feminised environments. Drawing on data collected in two research studies in music education, this paper focuses on accounts given by male teachers about (a) practices adopted specifically to work with boys and (b) the role of the male music teacher. Analysis of these data suggests that some male teachers working in feminised areas of the school curriculum adopt practices which, rather than challenging dominant constructions of masculinity, sometimes reinforce gender stereotypical behaviours in boys. We argue that calls for increasing the number of male teachers in feminised areas of schooling need also to be informed by open discussion of the underlying assumptions about masculinity which teachers themselves bring to their work.     

Educating force multipliers: constructing terrorism in a US public high school

ABSTRACT

This article ethnographically explores a specialized Homeland Security program at a US public high school, paying careful attention to the program’s discursive constructions of terrorism and national security. In particular, this analysis examines how the Homeland Security program framed its study of national security as both anti-racist and objective. I contend that the invocation of anti-racism and objectivity can advance Orientalist discourses in the classroom. Critical education scholars need to address how teachers and students rely on liberal precepts like anti-racism to maintain dominant understandings of war, terror, and security.     

Digital neocolonialism and massive open online courses (MOOCs): colonial pasts and neoliberal futures

ABSTRACT

Through evaluating dominant MOOC platforms created by Western universities, I argue that MOOCs on such platforms tend to embed Western-centric epistemologies and propagate this without questioning their global relevance. Consequently, such MOOCs can be detrimental when educating diverse and complex participants as they erode local and indigenous knowledge systems. Arguing that the digital divide is an exacerbation of historical inequalities, I draw parallels between colonial education, specifically across Sub-Saharan Africa, and ‘digital neocolonialism’ through Western MOOC platforms. I analyse similarities in ideology, assumptions, and methods of control. Highlighting evolving forms of coloniality, I include contemporary problems created by neoliberal techno-capitalist agendas, such as the commodification of education. Balance is needed between the opportunities offered through MOOCs and the harms they cause through overshadowing marginalised knowledges and framing disruptive technologies as the saviour. While recommending solutions for inclusion of marginalised voices, further problems such as adverse incorporation are raised.     

Curriculum as open-ended inquiry in higher education

Abstract

Throughout the world, education curriculum are determined and guided by knowledge perceived as being critical for the advancement of humanity. Often such progress is indicated and determined by curriculum shaped by the ways of knowing of the dominant cultural group or languages that have achieved hegemonic status in such communities, in the process marginalizing any ‘indigenous’ ways of knowing as embedded in the language of other cultures. Sometimes such curriculum have little or no connection with contemporary reality. In this article I therefore argue that inclusive curricular knowledge types are critical in education in order to enable all people, individually and collectively, to progress without being inhibited by the hegemony of so-called ‘scientific’ knowledge. I also argue that knowledge as embedded in a language is power, and should therefore be connected to reality. Using critical social theory, I propose an alternative, inclusive treatment of knowledge types in education curriculum – open-ended inquiry – in order to level the learning field for all learners, and, in so doing, to adequately prepare tomorrow's world citizenry.     

Teacher efficacy: An investigation of Economics teachers

Abstract

In an era of unprecedented curriculum change it is not surprising that many South African teachers have begun to question their ability to affect learner performance. Teachers have to engage with a changing learner culture, with new curriculum content and are under pressure to embrace different teaching strategies without fully understanding the theoretical principles on which they are based. In this paper the authors explore high-school Economics teachers' beliefs about their capacities to influence learning. This paper is based on a quantitative empirical investigation into Economics teachers' efficacy beliefs about the teaching of Economics. Economics teachers from each of the 45 Department of Education delineated districts in KwaZulu-Natal province were selected to be participants in the study. We argue that while Economics teachers perceive their role as important in the learning process, male teachers in particular see the teacher as the dominant influence on learner performance, and are more confident than female teachers of their knowledge and teaching abilities.     

Pedagogical reasoning: the foundation of the professional knowledge of teaching

ABSTRACT

Much of the debate about that which comprises teachers’ professional knowledge has been important in the academic literature but does not necessarily reflect the reality of how they think as they construct the knowledge that underpins their practice. Typically, teachers are not encouraged to spend time talking about teaching in ways that are theoretically robust, or to unpack their teaching in order to show others what they know, how and why. Because they are busy ‘doing teaching’ they are not commonly afforded opportunities to ‘unpack’ their practice to explore and articulate the reasoning underpinning what they do. This paper argues that the essence of teachers’ professional knowledge is bound up in the teaching procedures they employ and that knowledge is accessible and demonstrable through the pedagogical reasoning that underpins their decision-making, actions and intents; all of which come to the fore when their pedagogical reasoning is examined. If teaching is to be more highly valued, it is important to more closely examine the nature of teachers’ pedagogical reasoning as it offers a window into the complex and sophisticated knowledge of practice that influences what they do, how and why.     

‘If you’re wrong for the place you just don’t survive’: examining the work of early career teachers in context

ABSTRACT

This article presents evidence from across the segregated secondary school system in NSW, Australia, through the close analysis of three cases of teachers’ work in contrasting schooling contexts. Through this comparative approach, the relationship between school context and the work of the early career teacher is foregrounded, troubling views of teaching as reflecting a certain kind of life cycle in which early career teachers in particular are seen to be subject to pressures such as stress and burnout. In contrast, I argue that specificities of context, exacerbated by a market-based policy approach which has driven greater levels of differentiation between schools, have particular consequences for teachers, both in the nature and scale of the challenges with which they are faced. In demonstrating how teachers’ work is affected by context, I also speak back against recent, often ill-defined discourses of ‘classroom readiness’ and ‘teacher quality’, which emphasise the roles of teachers and teacher educators rather the systems within which they work.     

The Civic Lessons and Immigrant Youth (CLAIY): Implications for Teacher Education

ABSTRACT

In this article, we draw from the Civic Lessons and Immigrant Youth study to present key issues and implications related to teachers' work with immigrant youth. This synthesis draws on data and analyses from over six years of work examining the experiences, skills, and roles of teachers of immigrant youth as they navigated the complex terrain of teaching topics of citizenship in settings when not all youth had formal citizenship rights. Major themes include: the significance of building trusting relationships with immigrant students; the importance of approaches to teachers' knowledge building and legitimization of their immigrant students; and, finally, the prevalence of teachers' concern with the safety of their undocumented students. Subsequently, we pose questions for the field of teacher education in an era when immigration, education, and citizenship are intersecting in complex ways. Amid over-generalized conceptions of teaching for diversity, this article contributes to understanding how experienced teachers who supported immigrant rights practiced their craft, creating affirming environments in schools.