03. Curriculum Innovation
Paper
Curriculum Making as Relational Practice: Reflexivity and a Qualitative Ego-network Approach
Sinem Hizli Alkan
Anglia Ruskin University, United Kingdom
Presenting Author: Hizli Alkan, Sinem
There has been a strong emphasis internationally on teachers’ professional communities and teachers being reflective practitioners to leverage the quality of education, and subsequently a recent call for a fine-grained analysis of how these relationships may explain teachers’ educational practices. This paper offers a response to this by examining how teachers’ personal reflexivity and ego-networks play a role in mediating curriculum making practices.
Reflexivity enables people to consider themselves and their social environment to navigate their way in their social contexts (Archer, 2007). Although all people practise reflexivity, the kind of internal conversations and the way reflexivity leads to action are not universal. Archer proposes four distinctive modes of reflexivity, which are multifaceted and contextually dependent, to contribute to our understanding of why people act in certain ways. The other key theoretical construct in this study is ego-network which is a personal network that focuses on the individual actors and their connections to other people with a particular purpose (Bellotti, 2015). These two key constructs provide an account of how teachers’ internal and external conversations as well as their interplay act as a mediatory role in curriculum making practices.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThis research is designed as a multi-case study by utilizing an embedded-mixed method. Eight secondary school teachers, of six from Scotland and two from Wales, with different subject backgrounds, participated in this research over one semester during 2018-2019. Data generation process involved non-participant observations, semi-structured interviews, producing reflective diaries, completing the Internal Conversation Indicator and ego-network interviews. Critical realism as a philosophical framework was used to make sense of the data and explain the interplay between the two constructs (Danermark, Ekström, Jakobsen, & Karlsson, 2002). One of the main arguments of critical realism is that the social world is stratified by distinguishing what we can observe at the empirical and the unobservable ‘real’ world. In other words, critical realism holds the idea that the objective world exists independently and even without our knowledge of it (Bhaskar, 1998). The ultimate aim of social research is to identify underlying mechanisms at the real world, that are unobservable but generate the events that we can empirically observe.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsFindings suggest that the role of reflexivity and ego-networks shed light on why teacher mediation of curriculum making practices occur differently at different times and contexts. This paper argues that there are three relational and transformative mechanisms underlining curriculum making practices: modes of reflexivity; national and organizational context; and relational goods and evils that emerge from the networks. To summarise each of these mechanisms briefly, a dynamic understanding of the modes of reflexivity is necessary to explain the distinctive ways of teachers’ actions. National and organizational context has a strong potential to shape the structure and culture of teachers’ networks and influence how teachers transfer the ideas offered from the networks. Relational goods indicate, for example, the existence of collegial trust, emotional support, and a sense of community, whereas relational evils refer to the absence of relational goods, conflicting ideas and negative connections perceived in the network. Although this research highlights the importance of the relational dimension of curriculum making and offers a conceptual and analytical framework to understand teachers’ social practices, there is a need for further research to investigate how subject background, social networks at the school level and previous experience with curricular work and professional life stories may contribute our understanding of curriculum making as social and relational practice.
ReferencesArcher, M. (2007). Making our Way through the World. Human Reflexivity and Social Mobility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bellotti, E. (2015). Qualitative networks: Mixed methods in sociological research. Abingdon: Routledge.
Danermark, B., Ekström, M., Jakobsen, L., & Karlsson, J. (2002). Explaining Society: Critical Realism in Social Sciences.
03. Curriculum Innovation
Paper
Teacher Agency for Curriculum Innovation: One small step for Irish Education, one giant leap for Irish teachers
Conall O Breachain1, Ciaran Sugrue2
1Dublin City University, Ireland; 2University College Dublin, Ireland
Presenting Author: O Breachain, Conall;
Sugrue, Ciaran
The imminent redevelopment of Ireland’s national curriculum promises to promote agency by giving teachers the autonomy to make significant decisions regarding the content, sequence and pace of instruction in their classrooms (NCCA, 2020a). While the explicit positioning of teachers as ‘change-agents’ (Fullan, 2016; NCCA, 2009, 2020) is welcome, international studies which focus on the phenomenon of teacher-agency with regard to curriculum reform are only recently beginning to emerge (Biesta et al., 2017; Pantić, 2017a; Priestley et al., 2013; Priestley, Biesta, & Robinson, 2015; Priestley & Drew, 2019a; Pyhältö et al., 2018). A review of this burgeoning pool of empirical investigations reveals a tendency to theorise agency at the level of overarching national curriculum frameworks. This is not to suggest that these studies were limited in their own terms but to emphasise the fact that they had a particular focus. A more fine-grained exploration of agency, which embraces the disciplinary-specifics of curriculum reform-measures, awakens the possibility of a more refined analysis of the phenomenon. This therefore presents the next logical phase for empirical study.
Building on the conceptualisation of Emirbayer and Mische (1998), the current work proposes a definition of agency as ‘teachers’ capacity to critically shape their responsiveness to curriculum change’. Set against the backdrop of the recent introduction of the Primary Language Curriculum - the first of a series of major national curricular reforms - the study presented in this paper draws its conceptual framing from both ‘ecological’ and ‘sociocultural’ approaches to theorising teacher agency (Biesta & Tedder, 2007; Pantić, 2017a; Priestley, Biesta, & Robinson, 2015). Agency is concieved as a situated achievement, an emergent phenomenon, which arises at the confluence between an individual and their particular contexts for action. Three dynamic, interrelated dimensions comprise the conceptual backbone of this theory of agency: the ‘iterative’ (which delineates an orienation towards the past), the ‘practical-evaluative’ (with a focus on the present context within which an individual is 'acting' and the ‘projective’ dimensions (with its focus on the future). Each dimension has a complex internal structure, each with its own orientation towards the past, present and future. Emirbayer and Mische refer to this as the ‘chordal triad of agency within which all three dimensions resonate as separate but not always harmonious tones’ (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998, p. 972). Although analytically separate, each can be found to a greater or lesser degrees in any given instance of action.
The study presented in this paper intends to address the following overarching research question: In what ways do teachers achieve agency in the context of engaging with the new Primary Language Curriculum? This overarching question was supported by a number of subordinate questions:
- How is the phenomenon of teacher agency understood by significant actors in the national policy and practice arena?
- How do teachers describe their engagement with the Primary Language Curriculum?
- In what ways does a professional learning community influence teachers’ agency in the context of engaging with the Primary Language Curriculum
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe study presented in this paper employed an exploratory, sequential, multi-methods design (Morse, 2009, 2010b), which incorporated focus groups with key stakeholders (n=10), phenomenological interviews (n=12) across four school contexts and a single-site case study of teacher agency for curriculum enactment in a professional learning community (n=6). The sequential, multi-methods design aims to move beyond a potentially reductive ‘snapshot’ in time perspective (Sugrue, 2014), as it cumulatively adds colours to the canvas of agency-understanding.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThis Irish ‘case’ points to the centrality of teachers’ ‘knowledgeability’ (Giddens, 1984) regarding the reform-effort, and highlights the sustained, supported, collaborative and incremental manner in which this needs to be developed in order for vistas of agentic possibilities to be revealed and realised for teachers. The influence of ‘mediating artefacts’ (Vygotsky, 1987) on agency’s dynamic emergence highlights another important contribution. The potential for agency, it is argued, is influenced by the material infrastructure which scaffolds the reform measure. In this regard, existing planning templates were shown to infuse the leaden feet of change with calcified reluctance. The importance of teachers’ ‘existential feelings’ (Ratcliffe, 2005, 2008) in orienting themselves to the particular reform provides a final insight of particular consequence. Arguably the curriculum-reform/agency nexus underestimates the significance of these feeling and in doing so, is in danger of relegating reform to the realm of superficial adoption or, more worryingly, teacher burn-out.
Considered in their totality, the findings suggest that agency for curriculum innovation emerges across a series of settlements, or ‘new accommodations’ and the paper presents a model for understanding the phenomenon in such terms. Appreciating how the emergence of teachers’ agency can be supported by professionals in the educational arena is the primary focus of this paper. It will present an Irish perspective on this international phenomenon. In doing so, it offers significant potential to contribute to this gradually burgeoning field of study and to support policy-makers, teachers and learners into the future.
ReferencesBiesta, G.J.J., & Tedder, M. (2007). How is Agency Possible? Towards an ecological understanding of agency-as-achievement.
Dyrdal Solbrekke, T., & Sugrue, C. (2012). Professional Responsibility: New Horizons of Praxis. Routledge.
Emirbayer, M., & Mische, A. (1998). What Is Agency? The American Journal of Sociology, 103(4), 962-1023. https://doi.org/10.1086/231294
Kelly, A.V. (2009). The Curriculum: Theory and Practice (6th ed.). Sage.
Fullan, M. (2016). The New Meaning of Educational Change (5th ed.). Routledge.
Morse, J. M. (2010). Simultaneous and sequential qualitative mixed method designs. Qualitative Inquiry, 16(6), 483–491. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800410364741
Nieveen, Nienke, & Kuiper, W. (2012). Balancing Curriculum Freedom and Regulation in the Netherlands. European Educational Research Journal, 11(3), 357–368. https://doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2012.11.3.357
Ó Duibhir, P., & Cummins, J. (2012). Towards and Integrated Language Curriculum in Early Childhood and Primary Education (3-12 years). NCCA. http://www.ncca.ie/en/Publications/Reports/Towards_an_Integrated_Language_Curriculum_in_Early_Childhood_and_Primary_Education_.pdf
Pantić, N. (2015). A model for study of teacher agency for social justice. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 21(6), 759–778. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2015.1044332
Priestley, M., Biesta, G.J.J., & Robinson, S. (2015). Teacher Agency: An Ecological Approach. Bloomsbury.
Priestley, M., & Drew, V. (2019). Professional Enquiry: an ecological approach to developing teacher agency. In An eco-system for research-engaged schools: Reforming education through research (pp. 154–170). Routledge.
03. Curriculum Innovation
Paper
Qualifications Reform and Teachers’ Curriculum-making Conceptions in Shanghai
Xin Miao
University of Stirling, United Kingdom
Presenting Author: Miao, Xin
This paper concerns reform to Shanghai’s Gaokao, a university entrance qualification, and its effects on curriculum making by teachers. In 2014, the Shanghai government launched a reform to allow students to complete the geography examination one year earlier than other academic subjects. For those who took geography as a subject for their university qualification examinations, the test took place at the end of Year 11 from May 2016. The sudden reform changed geography’s status from a marginal subject with around 4,800 examinees to a subject with over 34,000 examinees. The numbers of examinees kept rising. Over 52,000 examinees took the geography exam in May 2022. The dramatic rise in students opting for the subject also brought an increased demand for geography teachers.
This study, therefore, asks: How does qualifications change influence teachers’ curriculum making conceptions in Shanghai? This study investigates Shanghai geography teachers in two cohorts: teachers who entered before the 2014 reform, known as the Pre-Reform cohort; teachers who entered after the reform as the Post-Reform cohort. This study uses an existing framework of geography curriculum making (Lambert and Morgan, 2010; Lambert, Solem and Tani, 2015) but applies it to the Chinese context. This framework started off as a product of Action Plan for Geography in England, and travelled to American and European countries through international GeoCapabilities Project partners. It depicts teacher choices, student experiences and school geography as a Venn diagram, and locates them in the context of the discipline of geography, then stressing that discipline-oriented teaching is situated within the context of broad educational aims.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedFor this study, Lambert’s framework provides five elements for teachers to play with when drawing out their conceptions of curriculum making: teachers, students, school geography, academic geography and education. Instead of presenting the Lambert model to participant teachers, this study offers teachers the five elements and invite them to use their own words to describe the relationship. This diagram-making process was at the end of two one-to-one interviews with each participant. In previous semi-structured interviews, teachers had talked about their work as a teacher, including their work besides teaching geography, their students, their experience of teaching the subject and studying the discipline at universities. These interview topics laid a foundation to prepare teachers to comfortably talk about their conceptions of the role that they and their students play in relation to school geography, academic geography and education. This data collection process was conducted online via Teams. I first presented the same slide which had the five elements in same size. Teachers then instructed me to draw out their conceptions by asking me to move around these elements or change their shapes, and sometimes add arrows. This process also brought up deep conversations about why they prefer to organise the elements in particular ways, and how they justify their arrangement of locating and connecting the five elements.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe result reveals a homogeneity within the Post-Reform cohort, contrasting with the heterogeneity inside the Pre-Reform cohort. For example, the post-Reformers tend to view them and students as being connected by the curriculum. Only one of the pre-Reform teachers holds this view, the others either view the student-teacher relationship as direct interactions or triadic interactions between teachers, students and the curriculum. The heterogeneity between the two cohorts helps to explain teachers’ different curriculum-making conceptions.
The diagram-making process serves as a dialogical tool for teachers and teacher educators to visually imagine and interpret their understanding of teacher roles. The finding stresses the cross-cultural communicative potential for the existing geography curriculum making framework and its limitations. While Lambert’s framework shows a researcher’s optimal vision of teacher choices in curriculum making, teachers draw diagrams to reflect their choices at work. Their different starting points as well as the difference between English and Shanghai context brought diversity to interpret teachers’ curriculum making process. This research finds that a static diagram may not fully reflect teachers’ growth in different stages of their careers, nor showing the influence of their accessible resources.
To conclude, the Lambert framework provides a lens to analyse teachers’ diagrams, identifying aligned patterns and differences. It is inappropriate to import the Lambert framework to Shanghai directly. Teachers’ diagrams clearly show that their cultures and the social structures create particular conditions which necessitates a modification of the Shanghai model. Nevertheless, using the Lambert framework helps to communicate geography curriculum making in same terms across cultural contexts. It visualises the shrink of diversity when the exam orientation overrides the subject by showing two cohorts’ different interpretations on how the five elements are connected. Overall, the qualifications change has hindered Shanghai geography teachers’ imaginations of their role as curriculum makers.
ReferencesLambert, D. and Morgan, J. (2010) Teaching Geography 11-18 – A Conceptual Approach. MaidenHead: Open University Press.
Lambert, D., Solem, M. and Tani, S. (2015) ‘Achieving Human Potential Through Geography Education: A Capabilities Approach to Curriculum Making in Schools’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, pp. 1–13. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00045608.2015.1022128.
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