Linda Dunne

Mapping the changes: a critical exploration into the career trajectories of teaching assistants who undertake a foundation degree

This article explores the changing career trajectories of teaching assistants who graduated from a university in the northwest of England with a Foundation degree in Supporting Teaching and Learning. It begins with a consideration of the changing policy context in England in relation to the role of support staff in schools. This context informed the development of three key research questions that are addressed in this article: What are the perceived benefits of Foundation degree study in the present policy climate? In what ways does engagement with a lifelong learning course impact upon professional and personal lives? Does doing a lifelong learning course like a Foundation degree encourage further study? The article then presents the research methodology employed to address these questions. A research survey was conducted with teaching assistants who had gained a Foundation degree, using a questionnaire that provided both quantitative and in‐depth qualitative data. Research findings suggest that graduates have varying perceptions about the benefits of the Foundation degree and the effect it has had on their careers. Findings also suggest that age and school sector are significant factors in determining promotion prospects. The researchers conclude that despite considerable advancements for some teaching assistants, there is a degree of disillusionment regarding professional status and career progression. Nevertheless, there are perceived personal benefits to gaining a Foundation degree, such as increased self‐confidence, awareness of one’s own learning potential and a positive impact upon professional ‘performance’ in the classroom.

Discourses of Inclusion: A Critique

This article presents aspects of a study that drew on Foucaults notion of discourse as practice to critically consider prevailing discourses of inclusion in education. An aim was to take the seemingly self-evident object of inclusion and to interrogate and question it as a potentially normalising, hegemonic discourse and as a universalising concept. The study considered how the contemporary discourse(s) of inclusion is constructed and constituted in education, and critically explored its potential effects. A multi-method research approach was adopted to address the question: whose interests are served by the way that inclusion is spoken about and (re)presented in schools? A range of educationalists, including teachers, teaching assistants and lecturers engaged in professional development programmes, were invited to give their views and interpretation of ‘inclusion’ in written form, via an online discussion board facility or as a visual representation in the form of a drawing that was then discussed. The multi-textual responses were analysed and a critical reading of the data revealed various discourses that interacted and reverberated around the themes of ‘policy’, ‘othering’ and ‘self’. The ramifications of these are discussed and it is suggested that newly emergent (entrepreneurial) discourses of ‘self’ are compatible with neo-liberal forms of governance.

Lifelong Learning: Teaching Assistants' Experiences of Economic, Social and Cultural Change Following Completion of a Foundation Degree.

This paper stems from a longitudinal research project that explored the perceptions and experiences of teaching assistants (predominantly women) who have undertaken a foundation degree. It draws upon Bourdieu’s notion of habitus and investigates shifts in economic, cultural and social capital for this particular group of educational professionals. 189 graduates were invited to respond to a postal survey that asked questions about the impact of doing a vocational degree on personal and professional lives. The survey was followed up with six case study life history interviews to provide insight into the lived experiences of the teaching assistants. Our findings suggests that whilst there were personal benefits stemming from studying for the degree, such as a perceived increase in self‐confidence, remunerated career development opportunities were limited and there was little change in terms of economic capital. There were changes and antagonisms in terms of social and cultural forms of capital. Our research exposed the personal challenges and hidden ‘costs’ involved in vocationally driven lifelong learning; especially for working mothers. We found that this group experienced a powerful conflict between fulfilling their professional aspirations and their responsibilities towards their families. In this paper we call for a more candid acknowledgement of the complex and shifting positioning of teaching assistants and the potential personal benefits and sacrifices involved in studying whilst working.

Applying Theory to Educational Research: An Introductory Approach with Case Studies

This is a book about social theory and its application to research in the field of education. Many books on theory are written by academics who are familiar with their selected theories from the outset, and confident in their application, a confidence that has been developed through familiarity and practice. This book, on the other hand, offers a picture of experience from another, much more common perspective: that of the researcher new to a theory, and unused to its application. This is the key purpose and rationale of this book: to guide the reader by example and case studies, which are often grounded in the fresh discovery of others’ theories. We think that this standpoint is important because it is often at that moment of understanding, the epiphany of realisation, that the excitement of academic work is generated. This exhilaration is often what motivates and inspires researchers, keeping them returning to texts and notebooks to discover more. There’s nothing quite like the first successful engagement with ‘difficult’ theory to make one feel scholarly, and to make substantial our hitherto tentative thinking. This book offers an in-depth analysis of the processes and procedures of assimilating and applying theories to educational research design, methods and data using actual case studies as examples, written by the authors of those studies. The book does not attempt to provide biographies of important theoreticians, nor replicate a canon of significant theories, nor does it offer a comprehensive summary of contemporary theories relevant to education. On the contrary, it captures the voices of researchers from the field and their experiences of applying theory, sometimes in an ad hoc or tentative manner. These accounts are more akin, we believe, to the reality in education research for the beginner or novice researcher who is attempting to navigate the vast and complex field of social theory application. Many frequently used theorists can be found in these pages. For example: Bourdieu, Butler, Foucault and Stenhouse and many others appear, and aspects of their work are discussed in some detail, as the theories arose in the design of the contributors’ research questions and projects or simple as they encountered them. This method of witnessing ‘theory in action’ does, we believe, offer an insight that is relevant to those new to research or coming across these theories for the first time.

Re-Visioning Disability and Dyslexia down the Camera Lens: Interpretations of Representations on UK University Websites and in a UK Government Guidance Paper.

The focus of this article is to consider visual portrayals and representations of disability. The images selected for analysis came from online university prospectuses as well as a governmental guidance framework on the tuition of dyslexic students. Greater understanding, human rights and cultural change have been characteristic of much UK governmental policy regarding disability, and legislation has potentially strengthened the quest for equality of opportunity. However, publicly available institutional promotional visual material appears to contradict policy messages. To interrogate this contradiction, this article presents a tripartite critique whereby three researchers provide a self-inventory of their backgrounds and theoretical and ontological positioning, before presenting their differing interpretations of visual representations of disability. Following an agreed methodological and analytical framework, they addressed the question: what do visual representations of dyslexia and disability look like and what messages do they convey?

Creating feminised critical spaces and co-caring communities of practice outside patriarchal managerial landscapes

ABSTRACT The experiences of five female lecturers working in higher education in the UK are explored as they engage in the search for a feminised critical space as a refuge from the masculinised culture of performativity in which they feel constrained and devalued. Email exchanges were used as a form of narrative enquiry that provided opportunity and space to negotiate identities and make meaning from experiences. The exchanges provided a critical space, characterised by trust, honesty and care for the self and for each other, that enabled a sharing of authentic voices and a reaffirming of identities that were made vulnerable through the exposing of the self as an emotional, politicised subject. Drawing on existing theoretical understandings of critical feminised spaces enabled us to create a pedagogical framework for work with students in further developing caring and co-caring communities of practice that are not alternative to, but are outside the performativity landscape of education.

From boy to man: a personal story of ADHD

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a condition that can be diagnosed and for which medication and treatment are often prescribed, with the implication that a person can be ‘made better’. However, the problems and challenges facing children with ADHD may not be overcome and may continue into adulthood, affecting life chances. In this paper we take a narrative research approach and present the life experiences of a young adult, Jake, who was diagnosed with ADHD at a very young age and prescribed medication. Following a Statement of Educational Need, Jake received support, with varying degrees of understanding, at primary school. Secondary school provided a different set of challenges for Jake, with a variable level of support from both peers and educational professionals. Since leaving school he found both success and difficulty in managing life on a daily basis. Jakes story illustrates that although UK support systems for children and young people may have evolved, such systems do not always support young adults. Young adults with ADHD do not seem to elicit the levels of support or indeed care that are appropriate to the challenges of living a life as an adult with ADHD.

'I Love a Curry': Student-Teacher Discourse around 'Race' and Ethnicity at a UK University.

Abstract This paper presents aspects of a small scale study that considered student teachers’ language and discourse around race and ethnicity at a university in the northwest of England. The first part of the paper critiques current education-related policy, context and practice to situate the research and then draws upon aspects of critical race theory and whiteness theory as frames of reference. In the research, 250 student-teachers completed questionnaires that invited responses to statements about race and ethnicity and this was followed by two semi-structured group interviews. A discourse analysis approach was taken to analyse the language used in the questionnaire responses and, in particular, the group interviews. Recurrent discursive configurations were characterised by language that signified othering, correct knowledge, personalisation and discomfort. Hesitations and silences during group discussions perhaps intimated thinking time and also maybe a reluctance to talk about aspects of race and ethnicity, and what was not said remains significant. It is suggested that a reconstruction of a teacher/educator subjectivity that fosters self-reflection on values and racial positioning, is needed in teacher education, alongside critical examination of the silences and discomfort surrounding race and ethnicity.

Spaces of inclusion: investigating place, positioning and perspective in educational settings through photo-elicitation

ABSTRACT This paper presents findings from a collaborative research study which sought to explore perspectives and understandings of the concept of inclusion, as played out in schools and colleges in northwest England, via the use of images. The research had two parts: in the first part, children and young people took photographs in their school setting that they felt represented inclusion or exclusion, offering an explanation for their choice. Some of these photographs and the accompanying comments were anonymised and formed the second part of the research that sought the viewpoints and perspectives of student-teachers, serving teachers, teaching assistants and academics via seminars and workshops. It is the responses received in the seminars and workshops that form the focus of this paper. Four images and a range of responses to them have been selected for discussion and are framed within three key inter-related themes of place, positioning and perspective. Such an analysis is made to consider how self-positioning might inform diverse interpretations of the cultural construction and visual representation of inclusion and exclusion.

Visualising Inclusion: Employing a photo-elicitation methodology to explore views of inclusive education.

This case study details a research project that explored meanings, perspectives and understandings of inclusion, using a photo-elicitation methodology. Children and young people were provided with disposable cameras and invited to take photographs in their school setting that they felt represented inclusion or exclusion. Some of the anonymised images taken were then discussed with a range of groups of adults that included student teachers, serving teachers, teaching assistants and academics. In this case study the researchers detail the methodological framework and methods employed. Two examples of images are discussed in order to draw out how photo-elicitation worked in action and the reflections that ensued.