Enhancing teacher voice and leadership through research activity in schools

Through engaging in research, teachers can develop their educational practices and, as Giroux (1988) stated, they need to be facilitated with opportunities and space to allow them to undertake critically reflective... [ view full abstract ]

Through engaging in research, teachers can develop their educational practices and, as Giroux (1988) stated, they need to be facilitated with opportunities and space to allow them to undertake critically reflective professional development. Giroux adds that the ability to share ideas and experiences is invaluable to enhancing educational practices. This is difficult in a context of educational reforms that “reduce them teachers] to the status of high - level technicians carrying out dictates and objectives decided by experts far removed from the everyday realities of classroom life” (Giroux, 1988, p.121). However, as Kincheloe (2003) argues, teaching is a political activity that involves making values-based decisions about education. This implies that teachers need knowledge and information about educational practices in order to understand and make good decisions about teaching and learning.

Research activity helps teachers to generate ideas facilitating them to develop a collective power that should not be underestimated (Freire, 1984). One of the advantages of teachers as researchers is their potential for change, informing a set of educational priorities that they outline for themselves (Kincheloe (2003). Teacher researchers are empowered by their investigations to engage with change processes in ways that are informed by practice and literature. This empowerment enhances their leadership abilities and as teachers become knowledge creators through their research activities they will take on leadership roles. Further, this will also spread and disperse the leadership activity throughout the school engaging staff in developing new skills and understandings of the challenges in leading new ideas and thinking. In this way leadership becomes associated with engaging in research, evidence and critical reflection (Belkohdja et al., 2007).

This paper reports focus groups of teacher leaders and prospective leaders discussing undertaking research activity. Focus groups were conducted throughout a research engagement initiative over one academic year involving 15 participants across 12 schools within one schools Multi-Academy Trust. Schools represent a range of locations around the midlands and south of England. All schools are in areas of socio-economic deprivation. Analysis of these data were initially conducted with the focus group participants as part of their research engagement and following this discussion were further interrogated combining themes drawn from the data with theory from the literature (Lingard et al, 2008). BERA (2011) and University ethical guidelines have been followed throughout.