Jayne Keogh

Accounting for achievement in parent-teacher interviews

This paper examines features of the talk in a number of teacher-parent interviews recently audio-recorded in a secondary school in Brisbane, Australia. The central topic of the talk is the academic achievement of the student. In offering accounts of the students achievement, participants offer ‘moral versions’ of themselves as parents and teachers. These institutional identities are oriented to and elaborated in the course and in the organisation of this talk. The student about whom the talk is done is present but largely silent, an ‘overhearing audience’ to this talk. The analysis shows how parents and teachers talk two institutions, and the relation between them, into being.

Creating Catch 22: zooming in and zooming out on the discursive constructions of teachers in a news article

The media regularly present negative news articles about teachers and teaching. This paper focuses particularly on one such news article. Using reflective analytic practices, first we zoom in to conduct a detailed analysis of the text. We find that complex and contradictory moral categories of teachers are assembled within and through the text. We then zoom out to consider the potentially detrimental effects of such public discourses on teachers and the teaching profession. We make visible the dominant discourses in this text, illuminating some of the societal issues and practices that are textually constituted within this and other news articles about teachers. We provide evidence of a public discourse that might be contributing towards continuing concerns and negative public opinion regarding teacher quality and schooling standards. We argue that such news articles may well work to influence public opinion regarding declining teacher quality and standards, and views of public schools as being in crisis, creating moral panic.

Curriculum for homes: A study of a school letter 1

Abstract Language, in the form of talk and printed materials, is the main medium through which parents and teachers meet and their relationships are constructed. Parent‐teacher contact language enables participants to present versions of their institutional selves and their worlds to each other. These worlds are not neutral, but reflect social ideologies as well as commonsense ‘practical’ concerns. This paper analyses a letter sent from an independent secondary school in Queensland to parents of attending students immediately prior to the commencement of the winter vacation. Textual features which construct the public image of the school, and position the readers in relation to the author‐as‐institutional‐agent will be discussed. Versions of parenthood, studenthood/childhood and the school are evidenced within the text by the use of competing moral categorisations and stories. The analysis provides a method that could be applied in observing the positioning of school personnel, parents and students in oth...

Pronouns as positioning practices in home-school communications

Abstract This study explicates the discursive constitution of particular parent-teacher relationships in home-school communications. It focuses on examples of this type of communication originating from three Australian secondary schools. Analysis shows that these texts constitute particular domains of social action for teachers, parents and students. Certain textual devices are used which constitute the private everyday worlds of homes as school ordered versions of the world. A study of pronoun use in particular shows how parents, teachers and students are positioned and position each other in relation to such discursively constituted facts and knowledges which are produced according to official, public, school agenda. By using certain pronouns, and, at times, invoking other institutions as authorities, the Principals of the three schools are seen to textually colonize home space. The article concludes that home-school interactions thus enter into and enact the relations of ruling of the larger extra-local social world of which they are a part.

Looking Forward, Looking Back... Recounts, Recollections and Flights from the Field by Teacher Educators

This chapter illustrates what can be learned about teacher education through a narrative self-reflection of three academics at various stages in their career (earlycareer, mid-career and experienced teacher educators). The three teacher educators shared a “shock” through their respective involvement in the reconceptualisation and redevelopment of the Bachelor of Education (Primary) core program at their university.

Who cares? Tensions and conflicts from the field of teacher education

In Australia, teacher education is characterised by ever-increasing regulation, from teacher registration bodies, government policy directives, and university administration and procedures (Grossman and McDonald, 2008). Teacher educators’ responsibilities to these stakeholders, as well as to their students (pre-service teachers) and the mentor teachers and schools that act as hosts for field placements, create a complex working environment with, at times, conflicting interests.