Organiser: Rhiannon Moore, University of Oxford
Discussant: Ben Alcott, University of Cambridge
Teachers are central to creating a society in which lifelong learning is encouraged and a community of learners created and sustained. In seeking to deliver both education for sustainable development and the sustainability of education systems, it is vital that we expand our understanding of the working experiences of teachers and headteachers as professionals, learners and agents of change.
This symposium brings together two research groups - the Young Lives study based at the University of Oxford, and the RITES (Research into International Teachers, Education and Sustainable Development) group at the Open University, UK - in the form of an interactive, facilitated discussion. The presenters will speak across different studies which have collected a range of data on teachers’ and head teachers’ professional experiences, allowing these to be explored without reducing the narrative to one of deprivation or deficiency.
The contributions for the symposium are as follows:
1. Visual and participatory methodologies for capturing teacher agency in rural Malawi
Alison Buckler and Chris High (The Open University)
2. ‘Positive deviants’ in the classroom: developing measures of teacher attitudes, instructional environments and professional knowledge for use in Ethiopia, India and Vietnam
Rhiannon Moore and Jack Rossiter (University of Oxford)
3. Do we count and plan for teachers in secondary schools?
Renu Singh (Young Lives, India)
4. Using network ethnography (NetE) to examine peer learning in a head teacher network in Ghana
Eric Addae-Kyeremeh (The Open University)
Through an interactive facilitated discussion between the contributors, the symposium first explores data collection methodologies for understanding, measuring and assessing teachers’ work. The contributors will discuss the data capture methodologies used, including a mixed methods study of teacher supply and demand; a networked ethnography of learning and experience within a head teacher network; participatory and visual approaches; and the development and validation of cross-country measures of teacher attitude, practice and professional knowledge.
The researchers will then critically consider how such data can be used to reflect on and shape the role of teachers as professionals, learners and agents of change. This is explored through a conversation on some of the findings from the five contributions. These include the way in which monitoring of teacher supply and demand in India can inform current and future projections of teacher shortages; the means by which data generated through supported peer networks can enhance head teachers’ capabilities to enact school-level change; and the possibilities of using large-scale teacher data from cross-country surveys to explore the implications of measuring teacher experiences across diverse schooling contexts.
The discussion then concludes with a consideration of how these different types of data relating to teachers can be used to shape policy which supports sustainability within education and more broadly. The critically collaborative format of this symposium will enable rich cross-institutional, cross-project, cross-paradigm insights into how findings relating to teacher ‘positive deviance’, adaptive strategies, and shared experiences from a range of countries can be used by policy makers – and teachers - to effectively challenge and shape the existing structures they work within for the better.
