Bridging the Divides: The Need for a Pragmatic Semiotics of Teacher Knowledge Research

In this essay, we consider four approaches to research on teacher knowledge: the scholarship of teaching, action research and teacher research, narrative inquiry, and critical-cultural teacher research. Similarities and differences among these four approaches are highlighted. The most salient difference lies in the way each approach identifies different discourses as sources of distortion in teacher knowledge research. Although some divergence within a field of study can be a valuable source of debate and dialogue, we believe the differences identified here risk dividing the field of teacher knowledge research in unproductive ways. What is needed, we propose, is a semiotic theory that acknowledges the way teacher knowledge is irreducibly mediated by multiple discourses while preserving a commitment to the idea that individual teachers' experiences can be a source of novel and useful knowledge. We examine two semiotic theories — French poststructuralism and Charles Sanders Peirce's pragmatic semiotics — and critically assess how they might facilitate more constructive dialogue among differing conceptions of teachers' knowledge research.     

An intervention to improve school and student performance

Georgia Leadership Institute for School Improvement (GLISI) used ISPI's 10 Standards of Performance Technology to share the design, development, and implementation of an intervention striving to help Georgia districts and schools share their success stories in a clear and concise format. This intervention took the form of a PowerPoint presentation, GLISI Promising Practices, and has become a successful tool for districts to share and communicate their success.     

The misallocation of students to academic sets in maths: A study of secondary schools in England

Drawing upon data gathered from 9301 Year 7 students (12–13 years old) from 46 secondary schools in England, this study represents the first larger-scale attempt to compare their actual set allocations in maths with the counterfactual position where their allocation to sets is based solely on their prior attainment at the end of primary school [using their Key Stage 2 (KS2) fine-grained scores in maths]. Through such an analysis, the study found that nearly a third of students (31.2%) had been misallocated to lower or higher sets than their KS2 results would have warranted. Beyond this, school setting practices were found to exacerbate differences in set allocation in relation to gender and ethnicity, but not socioeconomic background. The odds of girls being misallocated to lower sets in maths than their prior attainment would warrant was found to be 1.5 times higher than that for boys. Similarly, the odds of Black students being misallocated to lower sets was 2.4 times higher than for White students, whilst the odds of Asian students being misallocated to lower maths sets was 1.7 times higher than for White students. The article concludes by reflecting on the significant role that setting by attainment in secondary school can play in exacerbating already established patterns of educational inequalities in gender and ethnicity.     

The simultaneous production of educational achievement and popularity: How do some pupils accomplish it?

In spite of research showing that pupils—particularly boys—tend to experience tension between high academic achievement and popularity with peers at school, some pupils continue to maintain simultaneous production of both. This article focuses on a sample of 12–13 year‐old pupils, identified as high achieving and popular, to examine classroom subjectivities, with attention to their practices around gender and educational achievement. Data are drawn from a qualitative study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, which involved observation of classes at nine different co‐educational state schools in England, and interviews with 71 high‐achieving pupils, including 22 that were identified as high achieving and popular. The study findings belie the notion that high‐achieving pupils necessarily jeopardise their social standing with classmates. However, it also demonstrates the importance of embodiment and even essential attributes in productions of subjectivity that successfully ‘balance’ popularity and achievement. Nevertheless, high‐achieving and popular pupils are shown to undertake significant identity work, employing particular gendered performances and practices in order to maintain this simultaneous production.     

Talking back to power: snowballs in hell and the imperative of insisting on structural explanations

This viewpoint explores and shares our experience of ‘doing’ feminism in the context of its apparent ‘demise’. We were recently invited to attend an event at the Cabinet Office, to ‘discuss the impact aspirations and expectations within the community have on the educational achievement of young people in deprived areas’. The seminar was entitled, ‘Expert Seminar with the Minister for the Cabinet Office: Community Aspirations and Educational Attainment’. Appalled, both at the grammar (!), and the deficit account implications underpinning the Cabinet Office Invitation, we made contact with one another, and agreed that we would attend the seminar with the specific intention of challenging this discursive premise. We seek to use this Viewpoint to reflect on the experience in relation to academic activism and ‘speaking back’, as well as to take the opportunity to re‐state a few of the key points that detonate the deficit discourse in relation to the educational attainment of working‐class pupils.     

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender health issues, disparities, and information resources

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons, while widely diverse in many ways, share health disparities related to the stigma and discrimination they experience, including disproportionate rates of psychiatric disorders, substance abuse, and suicide. Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and the transgender communities have additional health concerns and disparities unique to each population. This paper highlights the national recognition of these health issues and disparities and presents web-based information resources about them and their mitigation.     

Apple Jumper,Teacher Babe,and Bland Uniformer Teachers: Fashioning Feminine Teacher Bodies

A student teacher group's conversation about teacher clothing as reflective of certain kinds of reprehensible or desirable teacher identities provoked the writing of this article. I use a feminist poststructuralist analysis to explore the three categories of women teachers' dress suggested by the student teachers as signifiers of women teachers' subjectivities discursively produced within the contexts of schooling. The article also challenges the three categories as constructions produced by this student teacher group in their positionality as young, White, middle-class, heterosexual female novice teachers in the Southeast region of the United States. This inquiry highlights the limitations and constrictions of women teachers' institutionalized subjectivities and suggests ways in which these limitations and constrictions offer sites for resistance, specifically in relation to clothing choices that shape and reflect a feminine teacher body.     

The teacher work sample: A tool for scaffolding and assessing preservice teachers' early field experiences

Abstract

This article describes adapting teacher work sample methodology from the student teaching level to a 4‐week, 25‐hour field experience occurring relatively early in a teacher education program. The goals of the project were twofold: (a) to examine whether an adapted version of the teacher work sample would promote planning and reflection in preservice teachers, and (b) to explore the potential of an adapted teacher work sample as an assessment tool. Adaptations to the original, such as emphasizing formative over summative assessment, are briefly described. Survey and focus group data from a pilot combined with survey data from a semester of full implementation with 270 teacher candidates indicate the teacher work sample is useful for promoting reflection and an understanding of student assessment. The advantages of the teacher work sample are maximized when teacher candidates are engaged in whole class instruction.     

Negotiating Peer Mentoring Roles in Undergraduate Research Lab Settings

Undergraduate research is viewed as an important catalyst for educational engagement and persistence, with an emphasis on the faculty mentoring relationship. Despite the common practice of having multi-tiered lab teams composed of newer undergraduates and more seasoned undergraduates serving as peer mentors, less is understood about the experience of peer mentors. Using the framework of legitimate peripheral participation, this study examined how peer mentors negotiated their roles in the lab. Nested case studies based on interviews with peer mentors, faculty members, and newer students illustrated how peer mentors establish credibility through prior lab experience and faculty-framed authority. Delegating supervision was an important component that helped newer students to accept the authority of the peer mentor. Implications for program development and future research involving peer mentoring are discussed.