Primary teacher identity,commitment and career in performative school cultures

The research reported here maps changes in primary teachers' identity, commitment and perspectives and subjective experiences of occupational career in the context of performative primary school cultures. The research aimed to provide in‐depth knowledge of performative school culture and teachers' subjective experiences in their work of teaching. Themes in the data reveal changed commitments and professional identities. The teachers who had an initial vocational commitment and strong service ethic were the older teachers in the sample. While some of the younger teachers expressed vocationalism in the form of wanting ‘to make a difference’, they also stressed the importance of time compatibility for family‐friendly work and child care. In the ‘highs’ and ‘lows’ of school life a number of factors supported some of the teachers' initial commitments, thus, providing ‘satisfiers’ in their work. However, some factors impacted negatively on teacher commitment. The psychic rewards of teaching provided the main basis of commitment and professional work satisfaction. Teacher strategies in performative school cultures highlighted the impact and saliency of testing regimes. There was evidence, however, of teacher mediation of policy and their investment in a more creative professional identity in their involvement in nurturing programmes and creative projects. Whether the schools and teachers developed creative approaches to increase test scores or to ameliorate the worst effects of testing they demanded increased effort and commitment from the teachers. Teachers in the contemporary context, who had in many cases experienced a career in another occupation prior to teaching, seemed much more adept and realistic in both recognising and managing their range of parallel commitments and identities. They have become more strategic and political in defending their self‐identities. Some evidence suggests their priorities have been to hold on to their humanistic values and their self‐esteem, while adjusting their commitments.     

Time for curriculum reform: the case of mathematics

Mathematics education is rarely out of the policy spotlight in England. Over the last 10 years, considerable attention has been given to improving 14–19 mathematics curriculum pathways. In this paper we consider some of the challenges of enacting curriculum change by drawing upon evidence from our evaluation of the Mathematics Pathways Project (MPP). From 2004 to 2010 this project, which was directed by England's Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, aimed to improve the engagement, attainment and participation rates of 14- to 19-year-old learners of mathematics. Our particular focus is upon the temporal problems of piloting new curriculum and assessment and we draw on Lemke's discussion of timescales, heterochrony and the adiabatic principle to consider the interlocking and interference of various change processes.     

Footedness in world soccer: an analysis of France '98

Most football players and coaches agree that players are capable of learning to use both feet with equal frequency and efficiency – that is, become 'two-footed'. There is also some consensus that two-footed play is associated with skill in individual players. If these assumptions are true, then the world's elite football players should be substantially less 'one-footed' than the rest of the population. To examine this issue, we quantified the pattern of foot use in a sample of 236 players from 16 teams in the 1998 World Cup (France '98). Our findings indicate that World Cup players are as right-footed as the general population (~79%). The remaining players were largely leftfooted and as biased towards the use of their preferred foot as their right-footed counterparts. Very few players used each foot with equal frequency. Remarkably, both left- and right-footed players were as skilled, on average, with their non-preferred foot as they were with their preferred foot, on the rare occasions when they used it. Therefore, it is unlikely that infrequent use of one foot compared to the other foot can be accounted for by skill differences between the feet. Players were most asymmetrical for set pieces; nevertheless, first touches, passes, dribbles and tackles were rarely performed with the non-preferred foot as well. Our results support a biological model of foot preference and performance, as well as demonstrating the usefulness of soccer for studies of lateral asymmetries.     

Careers Under Stress: Teacher Adaptations at a Time of Intensive Reform

There is currently a crisis of recruitment and retention of teachers in the United Kingdom. One feature of this trend is the number of teachers who are leaving the profession prematurely in reaction to the changed nature and organization of their work. This article focuses on how the crisis was experienced at the level of the individual. It explores the perceptions and interpretations of a group of teachers who left teaching or who considered leaving but remained by making adaptations to their roles; adaptations of retreatism; downshifting; and self-actualisation. The article uses data from a longitudinal study of a sample of English primary school teachers who are experiencing or have experienced occupational stress and stress-related illness. Unpredictable and stress-induced breaks in the teachers' careers are defined as `fateful moments' involving a `reassessment' and `redefinition' of each teacher's self, commitment and career. This case study of teacher stress makes emerging patterns and experiences of teacher career in the conditions of `late modernity' highly visible. The article concludes by arguing that the new and unplanned disruption in careers can involve the teachers in repeated re-inventions of the self (a stressful and convoluted process in itself) and that a reconceptualisation of teacher career is required.     

为“民主的专业主义”而辩护

译者说明在当今世界的大多数国家,专业的性质已日益由国家来决定。于是,在英国教育中便相继产生了“自由市场和强力政府”、中央控制下的分权过程和“远程操纵”的明显悖论。教师教育新近政策的变化,使教师之间产生了“新企业家”和“老集体主义者”的专业分裂;当下的教师专业主义使得全国教师工会具有一定的专业防御性质便不再让人觉得难以理解。然而,从社会学的角度来看,为替代专业主义的传统模式和新工党政府试图削弱教师自主权的“管理式的专业主义”,当前需要对于教师专业主义进行重新认识和重新建构,在这一方面,“民主的专业主义”充满着希望,即教师必须积极地与包括学生、家长、社区和政府等利益相关者一同工作,主动把握和创造由国家政策的变革所提供的专业进步之机会。     

Conceptualising transitions from vocational to higher education: bringing together Bourdieu and Bernstein

Abstract

In this paper we provide a framework for conceptualising transitions from Vocational Education and Training (VET) programmes to Higher Education (HE), by bringing together Bourdieu’s and Bernstein’s theoretical approaches with the view to attend to the often side-lined epistemic and pedagogical parameters. We utilise the Bourdieusian tools of field, habitus and capital to capture the relational, material and cultural aspects of HE transitions. In using a Bernsteinian lens we shed further light into how social agents acquire differentially structured and valorised knowledges and develop a sense of themselves as hierarchically positioned knowers. The metaphor of transitional frictions is utilised to capture the ongoing struggles that students with a VET background experience as they make the transition to HE. We argue for the need of widening epistemic access and putting in place enabling pedagogies that can ease these transitional frictions, thereby potentially increasing the chances of successful HE participation and completion.     

Undergraduate Students’ Conceptions of Mathematics: An International Study

In this paper, we report on an international study of undergraduate mathematics students’ conceptions of mathematics. Almost 1,200 students in five countries completed a short survey including three open-ended questions asking about their views of mathematics and its role in their future studies and planned professions. Responses were analysed starting from a previously-developed phenomenographic framework (Reid et al., 2003) which required only minor modification. Students’ conceptions of mathematics ranged from the narrowest view as a focus on calculations with numbers, through a notion of mathematics as a focus on models or abstract structures, to the broadest view of mathematics as an approach to life and a way of thinking. Broader conceptions of mathematics were more likely to be found in later-year students (p<0.001) and there were significant differences between universities (p<0.001). The information obtained from the study not only confirms previous research, but also provides a basis for future development of a monitoring questionnaire.     

Unsung Heroes: Exploring the roles of school-based professional experience coordinators in Australian preservice teacher education

The literature on practicum in preservice teacher education provides varied and detailed accounts of the roles of the student teacher, the supervising teacher, and the university-based teacher educator. However, the school-based professional experience coordinator, usually the principal or deputy principal, has been dismissed as an administrative outsider to the essential triad of supervision. Feedback from the field suggested that the coordinator's role may in fact be crucial in ensuring that practicum is an occasion for quality learning. This paper reports on a study to explore ways in which a small selection of professional experience coordinators contribute to the establishment, support and appraisal of high quality practicum experience in a variety of settings. The research fills a gap in the existing literature on the practicum by providing some illumination of the varied ways the school-based coordinator role is filled. In addition, the paper raises questions about selection and support of coordinators, about ownership of the practicum, and argues for a reconceptualisation of the practicum as the site where all shareholders engage in the partnership, with continual opportunities for construction, reconstruction and renewal of the teaching profession.