Teacher Agency, Professional Development and School Improvement 9781138093713, 9781138093744, 9781315106434

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. ‘… a difference needs to be made’
Performativity, priority and purpose in education reform
Portraits of teachers in landscapes of change
Teachers’ stories
The research process
A difference needs to be made
The quest for school effectiveness and school improvement
Professionalism and professionality, agency and advocacy
The role of teachers in changing schools
Progressing hopefully
References
2. Improving schools in context
Innovation without change and the alchemy of reform
School improvement and the ‘apparatuses of the state’
Challenging the deficit discourse
The world beneath the surface
What matters to teachers
Education or production? A crisis of purpose
Capacity for school improvement
Evidence and experience in practice
Undermining transformation
Regaining purpose
An alternative script for improvement
References
3. Professional development, identity and agency
Positioning teachers at the heart of school improvement
Professionalism: new wine in old wineskins?
Activists and agents
The post-professional
Reproduction, evolution or subversion?
Beneath the surface of school change: agency and structuration
Creative leadership and critical pedagogy
Postmodern interpretations: professionalism, professionality and portraiture
References
4. The role of teachers in changing schools
The art and science of portraiture
Miniatures
Gallery 1: Professional stances in relation to formal school
improvement
Gallery 2: School improvement as teachers saw it
Agency for improvement
References
5. Leading school cultures to support teacher agency
Imposed, selected and constructed environments
Gallery 3: School landscapes of change
Creating and negotiating imposed and constructed environments
Risky journeys: trusting teachers to lead
Encouraging agentic dispositions and identity work
Questions of transferability
Constructing environments and identities in school improvement
References
6. An agentic framework for education
Building in an agentic perspective
Authentic improvement: actors, agents and activists
‘Stories of action in theories of context’
Creating conducive conditions for teacher agency
A call to action: reinstating teachers in the school
improvement discourse
References
7. Agency in action: participation and voice
Asserting teacher-led development
Space for dialogue
Starting (values and concerns)
Leading (evidence and action)
Sharing (knowledge building and change making)
Introducing critical pedagogy: navigating the landscape of orthodoxy
Exploring the potential for critical pedagogy
From technical problem solving to emancipation
Evidence of critical pedagogy
Risks and rewards
References
8. Agency for sustainable futures
Spheres of influence
Knowledge systems and the emancipatory democratic project
Ecocentricity
Loving life and learning
Risk, trust and harmony
Funds of knowledge
Recognition and advocacy
Activating agency for transformation
Knowing, being and doing
References
Index

Citation preview

TEACHER AGENCY, PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT

Highlighting the role of teachers in school change, Teacher Agency, Professional Development and School Improvement explores the important related issues of professional identity, teacher self-efficacy, leadership and autonomy in the context of contested improvement agendas. Providing analytical frameworks and practical models, this book:     

Offers examples of projects, programmes and narratives to illustrate the role of teachers in school change Invites readers to reconceptualise professional development and re-imagine school improvement Focuses on enabling teacher agency as the foundation for improvement Emphasises the importance of human agency to influence environments, lives and learning Provides strategies for improvement with integrity amidst powerful accountability requirements and external forces for change.

At the heart of this book is a fresh perspective on schooling, in which teacher agency is considered a fundamental dimension of professional development and key to school improvement. This raises necessary and challenging questions about purposes and processes in education. With practical ideas and strategies that can be used to inform and evaluate practice and policy, Teacher Agency, Professional Development and School Improvement is essential reading for headteachers and teachers wishing to lead changes to improve their school and for teacher educators who support them. Judy Durrant is Head of Postgraduate Programmes in the Faculty of Education, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK.

TEACHER AGENCY, PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT

Judy Durrant

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Judy Durrant The right of Judy Durrant to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-1-138-09371-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-09374-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-10643-4 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Taylor & Francis Books

For Chris, Mark, Emma and Claire

CONTENTS

List of illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction

viii ix 1

1

‘… a difference needs to be made’

2

Improving schools in context

21

3

Professional development, identity and agency

41

4

The role of teachers in changing schools

62

5

Leading school cultures to support teacher agency

84

6

An agentic framework for education

102

7

Agency in action: participation and voice

117

8

Agency for sustainable futures

136

Index

5

151

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures

2.1 2.2 4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 7.1

Cycles of material and cultural reproduction Cycle of structuration by agentic reproduction Christine’s drawing – ‘sawn in half’ ‘Teaching as I would like it to be’ ‘Teaching as it is now’ Organisational contexts for teacher agency (after Bandura, 2001) Organisational environment restricting agency Organisational environment enhancing agency Leading the agentic dimension Evidence of critical pedagogy in teacher-led development: teachers’ comments

31 36 70 76 78 85 90 91 95 129

Tables

2.1 Scales and levels of evidence and analysis 3.1 Professional and pedagogic implications of different educational emphases 4.1 Professional stances in relation to school change and agency 5.1 Enablers and constraints for teacher agency 6.1 Analytical framework comparing perspectives for education 7.1 Relating educational emphasis, professional identity, action research and pedagogy

33 48 73 92 104 130

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have been privileged to meet and work with many inspirational teachers, headteachers and teacher educators, in schools, universities and other education settings, through postgraduate programmes, research, school-based projects, conferences and collaborative endeavours. I have learnt a great deal from the academic discourse and professional debate amongst students and colleagues, academics and practitioners: the storytellers, landscapers, artists and architects of education. I am most grateful for the rich discussions that have informed and challenged my thinking and for opportunities, encouragement and support along the way. I would like to thank the teachers who gave their time to participate in my research, and headteachers and schools for their support. They have been generous with their time and in their willingness to share their stories and contribute to this publication. I appreciated the wise guidance and encouragement of my supervisors in conducting my doctoral study. Love and thanks to my family: to Claire and Emma for their forbearance, to Mark for writing conversations and to Chris for all the cups of tea. Names of individuals and schools participating in the research have been changed. Every effort has been made to remove identifying information to preserve anonymity. All the research material included in this book has been authenticated by participants who have given permission for its publication.

INTRODUCTION

This book challenges teachers and others working in education to navigate the current priorities, requirements and expectations for school improvement in unique situations and contexts, while daring to think differently. At the heart of the book is a conviction that human agency is central to how we live and work together, therefore fundamental to education. Agency as a dimension of identity prompts our actions and also contributes to shaping the environments in which we live, work and learn. Adopting an agentic perspective amongst teachers gives a powerful positive emphasis for school change that supports confidence in learning and self-efficacy in leadership amongst children and young people. This provides a focus for improvement amidst accountability requirements that too often emphasise deficit in relation to externally set standards and targets, widening the gaps between privileged and disadvantaged individuals and communities. A focus on teacher agency enables teachers to concentrate on the real issues and concerns for schooling, for the people with whom they work every day. Inclusive, creative, participative pedagogies and methodologies encourage more open, hopeful and affirming cultures for education and build in a reciprocal focus on wellbeing. While providing a theoretical foundation, the intention of this book is eminently practical, offering principles, illustrations and frameworks for enacting such approaches in any setting. Enabling, embracing and embedding teacher agency requires us to reconceptualise professional development and learning so as to transform our organisational cultures through locally instigated change. The discussion is focussed both on teachers and on teachers’ concerns. It draws on a small-scale doctoral study which explored how teachers respond and contribute to organisational change. Written portraits of the day-to-day experiences of six teachers explored their positioning by giving voice to individuals’ ideas, views and reflections, employing pictures and metaphors to enliven the narratives. The teachers’ portraits

2 Introduction

were set within the complex and changing landscapes of two schools with contrasting circumstances and cultures, enabling critical consideration of how the symbiotic relationships between individuals and organisations may be locally influenced. The study arose from my long-standing personal and professional commitment to teacher-led development, in which teacher agency is considered to be a vital dimension of professional development and identity in relation to school improvement. This book joins the call for an emphasis on nurturing individual agency, participation, self-efficacy and voice amongst educators and their students, to enable mutual benefit and human flourishing. Individual agency is the means by which a better balance might be achieved in education, making a real and lasting difference towards a more just and hopeful world. The doctoral study took place within the performative regime of English governments in the second decade of the 21st century, where a change of government took place in 2010, during the year of study. Here, as always, policymakers and practitioners navigate tensions between centralised accountability and personal values, beliefs and motivations, amidst interweaving currents of alternative discourses. Teachers have important questions to ask about the purposes and processes of education: their experiences, concerns, views and voices are therefore vital in school improvement. This raises critical questions about concepts of teacher professionalism, professionality and identity in relation to school improvement. Professional development ranges across a spectrum from mechanistic, centralised ‘training’, to reflective, collaborative, enquirybased professional learning, to transformation as an outcome of professional action. My research resulted in the development of a framework which reconceptualises professional development and identity to include an agentic dimension in relation to school improvement that is enacted in unique local contexts. This is intended to complement, rather than substitute for, current approaches, such that schooling involves epistemological, ontological and agentic dimensions: knowing, being and doing. The evidence from the research offers a vital counterpoint to often negative portrayals of schools and teachers, offering helpful perspectives and hopeful alternatives where there is so often a fixation on problems and deficits. Individual narratives reveal divergence between teachers’ perceptions of the formal school improvement agenda and their commitment to changes that needed to be made. This raises questions about how organisational leadership enables or constrains their agency. Conducive cultures transform professional identity as teacher leadership is unleashed, where the local context becomes a resource for change rather than a limitation to be overcome. Teachers work from the here and now, using their own evidence, accommodating nuance and reciprocity, contrasting with blanket reforms designed to iron out contextual distinctions in the name of systemic progress. Agentic approaches demonstrate the value of taking the risk to ‘let go’ and let teachers lead. They incorporate criticality and collaborative power to enhance children’s and young people’s educational outcomes and experience. Here, it is helpful to think of agency and teacher leadership providing a foundation for professional learning outcomes and pedagogic transformation, as opposed to training for implementation.

Introduction 3

These ideas for education and schooling deserve consideration within broader concerns about human, economic and environmental sustainability. Much can be learnt from traditional values, knowledge systems and discourses, which divert us from individualistic, materialistic, competitive and ultimately destructive ways of life towards collective and mutually beneficial ways of knowing, being, learning and living together. Educators have a unique responsibility in shaping schools and education systems towards a humanly viable balance for individuals, communities and the planet, nurturing children’s and young people’s agency through their own. There is therefore an urgent need to embrace an authentic agentic dimension for schooling. The ‘risky journeys’ that ensue can change individual mindsets and organisational cultures. The intention here is not to offer the rhetoric of unattainable alternatives, but to demonstrate that much valuable, effective work is already currently being done to close the worrying and often damaging gap between teaching as it is assumed to be characterised in policy and teaching as so many teachers, headteachers, principals and teacher educators – who are arguably the experts – would wish it to be. This is not about reducing workloads for an easy life and providing therapeutic remedies; it involves shifting focus to more human-centred approaches and fairer ways of working in which teachers can flourish, feel they can shape their future and are compelled to commit themselves to the profession in the long term. This work lies on the axis between policy imperatives, global to local, and the stories of individual struggle and triumph with which educators are concerned from day to day. A change of mindset, if genuine, is accompanied by a path of alternative action. Where these approaches based in an agentic perspective flourish and take root, the hegemony of school improvement priorities is necessarily challenged. Genuine transformation can happen within existing parameters through collaborative, creative political work, by professionals assured of their aims and purposes within the context of wider agendas. This involves changing organisational structures and cultures from within. Navigating the tensions, dilemmas, conflicts and disappointments that will inevitably arise is a necessary part of the political work that needs to be done. Intelligent, innovative and relentlessly demanding advocacy on the part of teachers, headteachers and systems leaders ensures that the interests of children and young people are championed, working with generic criteria while pushing for the right kinds of change. This requires practical and political support from teacher educators and policymakers. Human agency needs an explicit place in both teachers’ and students’ identity and it should be advocated as both an aim and a means for professional development. Agency should reside in school structures, cultures and processes, in pedagogy and within the curriculum, challenging self-imposed as well as structurally inherent limitations. There are always choices for curriculum and pedagogy. Even within the most prescriptive regimes, teachers can introduce creative teaching and learning to encourage inclusion, ownership and voice. There are many different ways to teach – and to learn – the same knowledge and skills. Each teacher and each student needs space to find their own path …

4 Introduction

Eight- and nine-year-olds who had been reading Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland drank a tiny cup of ‘shrinking potion’ (coloured lemonade) to reduce themselves to the size of ants. Suspending disbelief, they journeyed through nearby woods, scaling fir-cone mountains and crossing blade of grass bridges; they battled fearsome beetles and might drown in a raindrop. They sat on logs to share their experiences and generate interesting words, before ‘growing’ again to return to class to write. Incorporating an agentic dimension for schooling enables teachers and their students to experiment, reimagine and recreate what education might mean. Approaching prescribed content from an agentic perspective may involve blurring the boundaries of classrooms to consider what the immediate environment and people’s available knowledge and experience might offer and how children and young people might lead the way. It is possible in any classroom, in any school. It need not cost anything except imagination, but it may sometimes involve rethinking school, reconceptualising lessons and reconsidering classrooms. Teachers who dare to think differently can move towards more inclusive, creative, dialogic approaches in which there is recognition of stories and voices, relationships are strengthened and confidence grows. This is the foundation for asking questions, acquiring knowledge, developing identity and informing action, for both adults and young people. Thus teachers’ and students’ lives and learning are enhanced, informing a balanced and sustainable agenda for their own continuing education and development.

1 ‘… A DIFFERENCE NEEDS TO BE MADE’

School reforms and initiatives have profound effects on the lives and work of teachers and other education professionals. Increasingly over the last few decades, the teaching profession has been under siege, requiring ongoing reappraisal of definition and identity within organisations in pursuit of improvement. In the dynamic and volatile climate of contemporary education policy, this raises continual questions about the role of teachers within the hegemony of school organisations, in relation to processes of school change and decision making. These questions challenge concepts of teacher professionalism, problematise the professionalisation processes that teachers undergo both pre-service and as their careers develop, and concern the nature of the professionality that is enacted as teachers go about their work from day to day.

Performativity, priority and purpose in education reform It is widely acknowledged that schools are subject to global neoliberal forces that pervade all aspects of teachers’ lives and work, with concomitant effects on children and young people. There are few places in the world that are not influenced by the ‘Global Education Reform Movement’, with the telling acronym ‘GERM’ (Hargreaves et al., 2001), with its emphasis on measurable performance (Ball, 2016; Sahlberg, 2016), setting a course for school improvement and systemic change in education that is governed predominantly by standards, targets and benchmarks of attainment and progress. There has been an upsurge of managerialist approaches to standardise the measurable parameters of improvement for economic and political ends and to centralise accountability against prescribed criteria, to ensure organisations and the individuals within them are on the required improvement trajectory. Schools compete for position in national league tables, while nations keep watchful eyes on their PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) rankings (OECD, 2018). This movement, which has been represented as an insidious

6 ‘… a difference needs to be made’

‘germ’, a ‘slouching beast’ to be confronted (Ball, 2016) or a ‘juggernaut’ to be resisted (Frost, 2004), is characterised by relentless and overwhelming emphasis on performance, which threatens to annihilate alternative or additional aims for education. Teachers are subjected to particular ways of working which, whether explicit or tacit, are framed by purposes for schooling driven by market forces and global comparison, where processes become centrally controlled and target driven. Professionals are commodified (Robertson, 2007) and objectified as ‘factors’ (Biesta, 2016) in processes of competition and marketisation. Such universal political ‘creep’ silently negates challenge to its dominance, removing the possibility and relevance of debate, and threatens to undermine the purchase that teachers, teacher educators and other education professionals have over their lives and identities, professional practices and working environments. It can threaten not only their expertise, integrity and judgement, but also their humanity. Performative aims, presented technically within political reform as eminently rational and incontrovertibly beneficial, change not only the nature of teaching, but also teachers’ personal, emotional and spiritual constructions of themselves (Ball, 2003). These global forces focus attention and energy on aspects of education that can be measured, such that we come to value most what we can measure, thereby engaging whole education systems in the ‘nonsense’ of ‘measuring what doesn’t matter’ (van der Wateren and Amrein-Beardsley, 2016) instead of agreeing what we value as the starting point. It is the worst form of the tail wagging the dog, as nations clamour for higher rankings, while headteachers involve their schools in ‘game playing’ by manoeuvring pupils so as to increase performance within the system (Spielman, 2017). Teachers’ values-based priorities are compromised as pedagogies are prescribed within narrow curriculum tramlines; children are tested and categorised while their choices for their own education are limited by schools to meet externally set benchmarks. The Director of the Education and Skills Directorate at the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), which administers the PISA tests, has recognised the negative implications of performativity, arguing a case for a different kind of 21st century learning (Schleicher, 2010). He contrasts a 20th century approach that focused on basic education, ‘as though schools needed to be boring and dominated by rote learning before deeper, more invigorating learning could flourish’, with the need for contemporary education that includes elements of critical thinking and creativity in problem solving and decision making, developing skills of discernment. He concludes that: Last but not least, education is about the capacity to live in a multi-faceted world as an active and engaged citizen. These citizens influence what they want to learn and how they want to learn it, and it is this that shapes the role of educators. (Schleicher, 2010) Nearly a decade later, the performative agenda shows no signs of abating. Where generations of school students and their teachers are beset by neoliberal framing which dictates what schooling should be, deeper questions need to be asked about how people can flourish within the pervading system, influence their own

‘… a difference needs to be made’ 7

situations and prospects, and contribute to systemic change. Teachers’ conversations capture the anxieties of this professional climate. We agonise over sub-levels of progress and share strategies to turn red to green in ‘RAG’ ratings of performance status. We create ‘flight paths’ for children’s progress, monitored through regular ‘data drops’, and remove them from subject classes they love for interventions to improve test scores in subjects deemed to matter more. Schools select and exclude students to massage school statistics, while government funding is directed to rescue schools in disadvantaged regions where communities have lost confidence and teachers are leaving. In response to a significant and entrenched decline in applications, inspectors in England are holding university and school-based providers of initial teacher education accountable for maximising recruitment, while the government has reduced the entry requirements (Ward, 2018). Where there is much cause for concern in these global trends, action is prompted at local level to counteract damaging and unhelpful effects for individuals and schools. This is not a therapeutic argument about assuaging fundamental professional issues with platitudes to improve wellbeing and reduce stress. Critical thinking, reflexivity, debate and dialogue have a vital role to play in problem solving in teachers’ everyday practice but also, as Ball (2016) asserts, in recognising what is helpful and trustworthy. This critical advocacy may involve resisting destructive forces and restricting harm, while establishing alternative points of view and different ways of working. All participants within the system, from children and adolescents to teachers to system leaders, may be involved in pushing the boundaries within their own spheres of influence, as a core purpose of education and professional practice. This promotion of people’s existence as subjects of action and responsibility, rather than as objects of the directions of others, is referred to by Biesta (2014) as ‘subject-ness’. If active and engaged citizenship born out of creative and critical thinking is to be incorporated into the curriculum and embedded in pedagogy as an aim for children and young people, then this must also be modelled by their teachers if it is to have any integrity.

Portraits of teachers in landscapes of change In this book I adopt a position of advocacy for teachers as leaders of change and drivers of school improvement, drawing on experience and evidence from previous research and development work (Frost et al., 2000; Durrant and Holden, 2006). This positioning was the foundation for my doctoral research. I set out to illuminate ways in which teachers respond and contribute to improvement in different organisational and policy contexts, and how they are nurtured and supported or constrained and frustrated in their endeavours. I considered the extent to which teachers can operate effectively within externally imposed policies and organisational structures, cultures and norms of practice and the extent to which they are able to exert structural and cultural influence. A message emerging emphatically from the study was the contested nature of improvement: the matters upon which teachers were compelled to focus their attention were not necessarily those prioritised in formal school improvement processes.

8 ‘… a difference needs to be made’

There is an explicit connection here between individuals and organisational improvement, concerned with the relationships between agency and structure (Giddens, 1984). The doctoral research that provides the basis for this book examined the nature of the complex interaction between individual teachers’ values, concerns, perceptions, experiences and actions, and processes of school improvement in the context of national educational reform and global societal change. It explored relationships between leadership and learning, education and schooling, professional action and identity, within the lived experiences of teachers and their students. Central to the discussion are questions about how teachers’ agency is enabled or constrained by organisational structures (themselves responsive to systemic enablement and constraint) and how teachers thereby contribute to improvement as they themselves define it. This in turn relates to the grand narratives of education reform, where the nature, definition and purpose of school improvement is contestable in an ‘age of supercomplexity’, or even ‘liquidity’ (Barnett, 2008). Many would argue that teachers should be working at the leading edge of change, intellectually, emotionally and politically (Bascia and Hargreaves, 2000). The research explored whether teachers perceive themselves to be victims, instruments or instigators of improvement in different situations. The evidence showed not only how the teachers contributed and responded to formally defined school improvement, but also what they were working to improve and would like to change, within and beyond formal school and national agendas. The study encompassed the nature and extent of teachers’ engagement with school change processes and their perceptions and experiences of contributing to school improvement ‘from within’ (Barth, 1990). Central to the investigation was a valuing of teachers’ stories.

Teachers’ stories The starting point for methodological development was Bruner’s (1991) assertion that people have a natural disposition towards narrative construction of reality, where their thinking is mediated through cultural products such as language and symbols. An important foundation for the research was therefore an understanding of the notion of teachers’ stories and their role in the research process. This invites the reader to take seriously the notion of the ‘researcher as storyteller’ (Apple, 2009). Narrative is necessarily personal and interpretative; its eventual form excludes other possible stories as we search for the stories we want to tell (Thomas, 2011; Schostak, 2006). The research questions for this study took a deliberately phenomenological stance, where teachers’ interpretations – what they thought and perceived – were as important as the technical and instrumental dimensions of their work – what they did and how they behaved. This is particularly significant because teachers’ thoughts and perceptions influence how they engage with their organisations and enact their professionalism. Stories enable us to gain access to complex worlds and lives, comprising human elements and the social and cultural forces that shape them (Bolton, 2014) and making tacit and intangible phenomena explicit. This kind of reality is concerned with verisimilitude – the ‘truthlikeness’ of stories and interpretations that are nuanced

‘… a difference needs to be made’ 9

(Murphy, 2005). The forces and factors that condition how teachers think and act are understood narratively, ‘by the stories teachers live and tell’ (Anderson, 1997: 131), indeed some would argue that story is the only way to know teaching and understand the local phenomenon of practice (Doyle, 1997). According to Beijaard et al.’s (2004) research, teachers define their identities by a narrative thread that draws together their interactions with their ‘professional knowledge landscape’ into living, personal theories. In this study, I developed a concept of teacher portraits within school landscapes of change, focusing on six teachers in two contrasting schools.

The research process I set out to capture the experiences and identities of the individual teachers, presented as textual portraits within the contextual landscapes of their schools based on a range of information. The two English schools selected for investigation are not intentionally ‘typical’, they are simply two schools chosen from many. The first, which I named ‘New Futures Academy’, was an academy launched at the start of the period of study, created from a merger of predecessor schools to drive up standards in what became the last few months of the Labour Government, entering the uncharted waters of the coalition between Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in May 2010, during the period of study. The second school, which I named ‘Castlegate’, was a well-established special school for primary and secondary aged students with severe, profound and complex learning needs. Both were selected as ‘moving’ schools (Stoll and Fink, 1996) undergoing considerable change and initially shown to be on an improving trajectory. Research methods were selected and adapted to examine the rich, fine grained detail of individual professional lives in relation to changing organisational settings. This involved exploration of the experiences and perceptions of six teachers of different ages, genders, career stages and roles, selecting three within each school in order to provide an element of organisational as well as individual contrast. Further explanation of the research design is included in Chapters 4 and 5, where the evidence from the study is presented. Central to teachers’ narratives is the much-referenced notion of ‘making a difference’ (Fullan, 1993; Day, 2017) to students’ lives and learning.

A difference needs to be made Clearly ‘difference’ is not neutral; its parameters are contestable, connecting with the purposes of education from the teacher’s perspective. The most experienced teacher in my study, Pam (pseudonyms are used to protect anonymity), articulated powerfully the ways in which she adeptly navigated waves of reform and changing school priorities, carving out her own path founded on personal values and professional priorities. She used new policies and frameworks strategically, as ‘hooks’ for her own agenda, finding alignment and support for what she knew needed to be done. Thirty-three years ago, Pam had applied for a teaching job in New Futures Academy, intending to stay for a couple of years. Now, she pondered her reasons for staying:

10 ‘… a difference needs to be made’

People say you stay because you make a difference. I came here because a difference needed to be made. Sometimes I think I can make a contribution to that. Pam was at pains to point out that she wouldn’t want to claim to be saving the world. Nevertheless, she articulated clearly how her work as a subject leader in school connected with broader aspirations to influence students’ lives and wellbeing and community social development. A wide range of outcomes were integral to her projects with charities and agencies, working with families in the school’s deprived local catchment. She had also contributed to education and aid programmes in areas of Asia, ‘way up in the jungle’, seeing these experiences as crucial to her professional learning and deliberately feeding her cultural understanding and world view back to students. Such sophisticated, multifaceted and integrated views of professional development and school improvement have no blueprint and cannot be centrally directed or mandated; they require professional commitment, in Pam’s case involving personal risk taking, and have immeasurable impact and scope. As will be seen in later chapters, the difference teachers make can be just as profound for small-scale, localised, teacher-led initiatives as for overtly impressive international work and high-status projects; influence is different for each individual teacher and for each unique context. It may be felt profoundly in one young person’s life, in a relationship that counts at a significant time, in a moment that matters, in the igniting of passion for a subject that sets them on a particular path. The question of the nature of the difference that needs to be made is one with which all educators need to engage, so as to reconcile their own purposes with that of their organisation and the state. Reaching a personal resolution of this that feels satisfactory may be essential in order for teachers to make peace with their professional selves. It is imperative that school development and systemic reform take account of this dynamic between individuals, the structures that surround them and the policies and processes that govern and shape improvement. This includes understanding the true nature of the interconnected, reciprocal and relational work that reflects and responds to the complexities of individual teachers’ lives, values and identities, within their organisational and societal contexts. Developing deeper understanding requires continued debate about how educational research relates to our purposes and intentions for education. The trend towards a ‘culture of performativity’ is manifest in the increase of ‘discourses of scientism, efficiency and usefulness in the criteria for government funded research’, where causality and practical reasoning begin to dominate a field comprising social and discursive practice (Smeyers and Depaepe, 2007: 8). We are held captive by idealised images of efficiency, output and quality indicators, negating risk ‘as if everything could be organized along the lines of air traffic control’ (Smeyers and Depaepe, 2007: 10). A particular empirical conception of quantitative research which is supposed to identify ‘what works’ in school, might actually undermine education quality and school improvement (Smeyers and Depaepe, 2007, after Smith, 2003). In pursuing our quest for ‘what works’ we must therefore not only question the nature of the evidence presented and how it relates to the field, but also ask ‘what for?’ (Biesta, 2007). Smeyers and Depaepe (2007) contrast

‘… a difference needs to be made’ 11

the ‘gold standards’ of scientific research that drive sweeping reform, with more descriptive and qualitative evidence that takes account of context and intentionality, thus enabling us to attend to inequalities that are the real causes of differences in school performance. This, they argue, should exhort education scholars to practical action. They assert (after Wittgenstein, 1953) that another way of living one’s life is possible, as the key to making a difference both individually and collaboratively. Much of the burden of reform is shouldered by individual teachers, who need appropriate political and also methodological frameworks for thinking and action, if they are to be supported as intellectuals and activists, rather than objectified as implementers, technicians and ‘bundles of skills and competences’ (Ball, 2016: 1056). Such structuring helps ‘non-positional’ teacher leadership (Bangs and Frost, 2016) to thrive in all areas and at all levels of an organisation, becoming dispersed or ‘stretched’ across members of the school community (Harris and Muijs, 2003) as well as residing with integrity in roles and responsibilities. Fullan (2003) made a similar case for engagement of teachers as ‘agents of change’, arguing that we cannot take action unless we raise our consciousness and develop insights about change itself. He concluded that we must find ways to live more productively and proactively with the ‘unresolvable’ problem of change, which connects us with refreshing reality in the face of our ‘task and finish’ cultures. It seems vital to acknowledge that change is not always positive and that what constitutes improvement is contested, value-laden and politically charged. Therefore the extent to which teachers are genuine agents of change, as opposed to their energies being harnessed as implementers of change, is fundamental. In this book I explore the possibilities of recognising, valuing and enhancing human agency in the change conundrum, by explicitly building an agentic dimension into teacher professional identity and development. This demands that teachers’ leadership, enquiry and agency are formally incorporated within school improvement processes, locally and systemically, involving them in debates about educational purposes and processes. Concepts of professionalism, professional identity and development in relation to school improvement are necessarily challenged, not only organisationally, but also in terms of how teachers and other educators can move beyond self-concepts that might limit individual capacity to lead change (Power, 2008).

The quest for school effectiveness and school improvement School improvement, as a distinct body of theory and a focus for advocacy by groups of academics, policymakers and practitioners, emerged in the 1970s and 1980s as a field of study concerned with qualitative studies of educational change. Its proponents advocated development processes of ‘collegial engagement based on principled discussion … self-evaluation and professional reflection…’ (Wrigley, 2009: 6). An emphasis on change management, self-evaluation and ownership tended towards democratic principles and inclusive processes. More recently, research was directed towards systemic improvement (Hopkins et al., 2011). However the loose, fragmented and variable connection with student learning outcomes has drawn criticism (Hopkins

12 ‘… a difference needs to be made’

and Reynolds, 2001). School improvement has been contrasted ideologically, theoretically and methodologically with the school effectiveness movement, which is concerned with quantitative studies, particularly of performance measures, and the quest for the identification and transmission of ‘what works’ (Wrigley, 2003). School effectiveness research has long been criticised for producing a tautology of platitudinous factors or recipes (Elliott, 1996), for a technicist and reductionist approach and for disallowing alternative viewpoints (Thrupp, 2001), resulting in uncritical reinforcement of its own development (Fielding, 2007). Where the attainment of targets has been achieved, Fielding (2007) suggests that this may be despite, rather than because of, policies based on effectiveness. The school improvement perspective offers alternative models, analytical frameworks and insights for investigation and a focus on processes as well as outcomes. The importance of balancing intellectual (academic or performance) outcomes with the moral outcomes of wellbeing and ‘virtue’ that lead people to become good citizens is championed by Hargreaves (2001). Improvement is a process of increasing the quality of those intellectual and moral outputs, in other words it is a changing state as opposed to the static state of effectiveness. A central concept for linking school effectiveness and school improvement within Hargreaves’ theory is capacity for improvement, that is, the ability to manage change successfully, both in relation to reform and in negotiating periods of instability. Thus Stoll (1999) distinguishes between school effectiveness, as the level of performance achieved, and school improvement which involves developing and maintaining the culture, strategies and conditions whereby the school can define a direction for change and set organisational goals, maintain stability and momentum and engage in self-evaluation. Thus an improving school has the wherewithal to maintain and gain effectiveness. This clarity of definition between school effectiveness and school improvement has become muddied. As Wrigley (2003) has argued, the school improvement discourse has been ‘colonised’ through the advancement of the performative agenda, such that references to school improvement now fulfil previous definitions of effectiveness, predominantly emphasising attainment measured in test and examination scores. School improvement plans are therefore focused on raising measurable standards that have external currency, at the expense of broader outcomes. Development of less tangible aspects such as positive organisational and professional culture, vales-based discernment and capacity for self-evaluation may be devalued in importance. In the chapters that follow, the concept of school improvement is assumed to be contested and the research evidence shows how the formal improvement agenda in each school has been acknowledged, fulfilled, adapted, enhanced, appropriated and sometimes subverted and superseded by teachers in working towards what they believed to be important.

Professionalism and professionality, agency and advocacy The concept of professionalism is constantly changing and being redefined in relation to the ‘norms’ which govern being and behaving as a professional within specific organisational and political conditions and in relation to given status (Evans,

‘… a difference needs to be made’ 13

2008; Crook, 2008). Professionality is defined as the ‘singular unit’ of professionalism, reflecting knowledge, skills and procedures constituting the teacher’s practice (Hoyle, 1975) which condition the individual’s stance in relation to professionalism as collectively defined. The nature of teachers’ professionality influences the ways in which teachers contribute to processes of school improvement and how they perceive their roles, whether formally defined or informally assumed. Thus much analysis of the lives and work of teachers focuses on professional identities in context. An important aspect that is relatively neglected in these debates is the perceived and collectively agreed purpose of professional activity in relation to the learning and educational experience of children and young people. It is human agency which connects school and system directions and priorities for change with individual professionals’ values, motivations and activity. The concept of agency, although neglected in policy, is fundamental in exploring roles and identities in relation to school change. Agency enables choice concerning one’s core work, in relation to personal interests, motivations, values and hopes. Professional identities are negotiated through the interaction between personal agency and ‘social suggestion’ (Vähäsantanen et al., 2008). In an era of increasingly strong social control, where education organisations accountable to the state are driven by efficiency and profitability, the recipes for teachers’ survival and success are demanding. Day and Gu’s (2010) extensive study suggests that in order to manage their ‘new lives’ and ‘make a difference’ in the 21st century, teachers need:       

subject and pedagogic knowledge technical skills and personal competencies a sense of moral purpose, motivation and agency passion and commitment emotional intelligence and emotional wellbeing stable and positive professional identity resilience.

These include professional knowledge, attributes and attitudes with which few would disagree. However, applications of these may flourish or founder at the mercy of changing organisational conditions and wider policy frameworks, which can be affirming and effective, but equally are subject to ebbs and flows conditioned by political whims and inconsistencies (Priestley et al., 2011). Changes and contradictions can distort moral purpose and even challenge responsibility to students so that ‘practice can come to be experienced as inauthentic and alienating’ (Ball, 2008: 54). There is a focus here on what the teacher must know, have and be, which needs to be counterbalanced and promoted through recognition of the teacher’s role and potential within organisations and education systems. Autonomy and agency are founded not only on knowledge, skills, personal commitments and attributes in relation to roles and responsibilities, but also on the acquisition of self-confidence, self-respect and selfesteem, aspects of identity which are socially acquired (Honneth, 1995). Amidst de-

14 ‘… a difference needs to be made’

professionalising forces, concessions to reduce workload are unlikely to impinge significantly on this deeper recognition that underpins self-efficacy and human agency. The concept of human agency is complex and requires caution in its interpretation. Day et al. (2007: 110) define agency as ‘intentional acting aiming at self-protection, self-expansion and mastery of social reality’. This includes intention to modify the environment, driven by the individual, but there is a suggestion that this can be selfishly or altruistically motivated. However people may also be motivated by a concern for educational purpose and effectiveness, rather than a desire to improve personal professional conditions, expectations and outcomes. In Bandura’s (2001) view, agency is the essence that defines human beings such that they are able to achieve their desired outcomes through organising, enacting and regulating their own behaviour. As Frost et al. (2000) suggest, a distinctive conceptualisation of professionalism, in which teachers’ agency and sense of self-efficacy are cultivated so that they can make a difference, may be fundamental to teacher morale, and thereby retention and career progression, but is also key to organisational and systemic improvement.

The role of teachers in changing schools While global forces and national reforms march on, involvement of teachers in the political and professional discourse is essential to achieve a balance of priorities, to address local needs and concerns. In an argument still resonant today, Giroux (1985) points out that teachers are too often reduced to technicians implementing the latest reform: intelligence, judgement and experience ‘do not count’ (p. 46). He contends that teachers should engage critically with practice and reform as ‘transformative intellectuals’. The value of teacher agency may be increasingly being recognised in the policy rhetoric (Priestley et al., 2015), but so much is dependent on organisational context that many teachers may not recognise the trend. Where systemic barriers still exist and organisational structures and cultures are unsupportive, as identified in my study to a much greater extent in one school than the other, this tends to push teachers towards the restricted, as opposed to extended, end of the professionality continuum (Hoyle, 1975; Evans, 2008). More than two decades ago, Hoyle (1995) identified the semantic uncoupling of ‘professional’ (as either noun or adjective) from the concept of a profession and recognised a trend towards a technicist view of teaching as based on skills and competences, concerned with training, delivery and efficiency, emphasising compliance and accountability as opposed to influence and responsibility and management as opposed to leadership. This seems truer than ever in the most performative regimes. However, as discussed in later chapters, there are schools where extended professionality abounds and there are individuals who can transcend the barriers in any place. Encouraging examples of individual agency emerged from teachers’ narratives in my research and can be facilitated within accredited programmes and projects, as illustrated in later chapters. It is vital, therefore, to keep the stories of educators’ endeavours alive, documenting and communicating their activity in enacting the politics of curriculum and pedagogy. Teachers sharing how they have applied their ‘socially and pedagogically critical intuitions’ can inform and inspire other practitioners’ action

‘… a difference needs to be made’ 15

(Apple, 2009: 38). This helps to improve collective understandings of how conjoint agency within school communities plays out in terms of real improvement: the differences that need to be made. Apple (2009) sees this storytelling as a ‘tragic gap’ that it is imperative to fill. Authentic improvement is evaluated not only against statutory benchmarks, but in terms of people’s lives, learning and meaning making.

Progressing hopefully Despite the well-documented pressures and constraints on the teaching profession, many individual practitioners, school communities, children and young people, and their families, do progress hopefully. In the face of managerialist emphasis on system, process and product, teachers and other educators manage to achieve balance in the ‘lifeworlds’ (Sergiovanni, 2000) of their organisations. While building human capital to increase externally demanded effectiveness of performance, they live fulfilling lives, central to which is enhancing the lives of others. A still more active and urgent emphasis on survival and sustainability is suggested by Apple: Ordinary people aren’t ‘crushed’. They are actors, individually and collectively, historically and currently. (Apple 1995: xiv). He recalls many examples of resilience, where people take action, engaging in critical and creative work, to defend an ‘ethic of caring, community, social justice and critical literacy’ (p. xxii). This harks back to ‘old values’ of professional service, trust and expertise (Ball, 2008) which may contradict new accountability frameworks and belie performance management. Educators in the public sector who are used to working in complex, fractured and often contradictory policy environments can develop resilience to waves of reform and work around limiting factors to progress their own agendas. Incorporating an explicit agentic perspective, as explained in the chapters to follow, supports teachers and other education professionals in envisaging more clearly, thereby enacting more effectively, their own individual role in school improvement, contributing to deciding its purpose and shaping professional identities and actions to achieve greater power and momentum. It seems that teachers, headteachers and schools are not always faced with stark alternatives if they wish to ‘resist the juggernaut’ of performativity (Frost, 2004), of either provoking direct confrontation or being crushed in its path. They may find ways to ride it or subvert it, managing a kind of co-existence, not just for self-protection, but in order to introduce improvements that benefit students’ learning and wellbeing (Galton and MacBeath, 2008), as will be seen in later chapters. Where asset rather than deficit models are adopted, members of the school community are less likely to assume the role of villains or victims. They are more likely to believe in their own self-efficacy and find opportunities to take initiative, adopting the role of agents of change (although they

16 ‘… a difference needs to be made’

may not recognise this language). They can do this within, around and sometimes despite the current systems of high stakes accountability and continued surveillance, particularly if the organisational culture encourages and nurtures such a mindset. Later chapters explore and exemplify how teachers have found and exploited opportunities to ‘make hope practical’, which depends partly on the extent to which their schools have ‘resources of hope’ (Wrigley et al., 2012) that can contribute to improvement and partly on the extent to which they, as leaders, can draw on their own spiritual and moral ‘reservoir of hope’, the source of values and vision from which the flow of effective action is motivated and sustained (Flintham, 2010). It is important to heed Apple’s (1995) warning that significant evidence can be missed if we simply view people, through our use of language and our cultural perspectives, as ‘human capital’ or as structural forces in relation to the implementation of reform, a resource to be gathered, stockpiled and deployed to further socio-economic ends. Unless we believe that teachers can have real agency, we may not look for it and the story we listen for, record and report may be a different one. Using local sites of analysis, taken for granted situations can be examined from new perspectives, investigating relationships, structures and mindsets that reinforce or challenge systemic norms. This also involves acknowledging multiplicity, rejecting binary analysis in favour of weaving together similarities and differences that cannot be separated (Lingard, 2009). In recognising ‘the possibility of the existence of difference’, the research identifies and reports people’s ‘desire for alternative futures’ (Schostak, 2006: 178) as a foundation for change. The focus for analysis in this book lies beyond pedagogy, towards relationships and actions that can result in structural change. Apple (1995) urges that this requires a post-modernist, post-structuralist emphasis on identity politics, multiple and contradictory power relations and non-reductive interpretations. In applying this to the complex organisational environments of two schools that were subject to the ‘deficit discourses and practices’ of the neoliberal policy environment (Ball, 2016: 1046), the research explored what it is like for teachers to live in, work in and experience schools as day-by-day ‘sites of struggle’ (Apple, 2009; Schostak, 2006). The evidence shows that teachers are often much more than technicians implementing externally mandated and internally driven change. Teachers already do contribute to rich, broad and deep educational experiences, enhance their students’ lives and have aspirations for everyone to contribute to a better world in which people can live well together. Amidst global uncertainties, political volatilities, local inequities and individual concerns and disappointments, a difference is being made in classrooms, schools and communities. This book is concerned with how to build this more powerfully into the orthodoxy of professional development and identity, problematising the aims and processes of school improvement and education reform, such that teachers fulfil their rightful role in leading meaningful change through their own agency.

‘… a difference needs to be made’ 17

REFLECTIONS    

What difference needs to be made in your own context? Which stories are told and which stories go unheard? When and where does your school or setting become a ‘site of struggle’? Who wins? What is the most important thing governments could do to recruit and retain teachers?

References Anderson, L.W. (1997) ‘The stories teachers tell and what they tell us. An essay review of teachers’ professional knowledge landscapes’, Teaching and Teacher Education, 13(1), 131–136. Apple, M.W. (1995) Education and Power. 2nd edn. New York: Routledge. Apple, M.W. (2009) ‘Is there a place for education in social transformation?’ in Svi Shapiro, H. (ed.), Education and Hope in Troubled Times: Visions of Change for Our Children’s World. New York: Routledge, pp. 29–46. Ball, S.J. (2003) ‘The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity’, Journal of Educational Policy, 18(2), 215–228. Ball, S. J. (2008) ‘Performativity, privatisation, professionals and the state’, in Cunningham, B. (ed.), Exploring Professionalism. Bedford Way Papers (33). London: Institute of Education, University of London Publications, pp. 50–72. Ball, S.J. (2016) ‘Neoliberal education? Confronting the slouching beast’, Policy Futures in Education, 14(8), 1046–1059. Bandura, A. (2001) ‘Social cognitive theory: an agentic perspective’. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 1–26. Bangs, J. and Frost, D. (2016) ‘Non-positional teacher leadership: distributed leadership and self-efficacy’, in Evers, J. and Kneyber, R., Flip the System: Changing Education from the Ground Up. London: Routledge, pp. 92–107. Barnett, R. (2008) ‘Critical professionalism in an age of supercomplexity’, in Cunningham, B. (ed.), Exploring Professionalism. Bedford Way Papers (33). London: Institute of Education, University of London Publications, pp.190–207. Barth, R. (1990) Improving Schools from Within. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Bascia, N. and Hargreaves, A. (eds) (2000) The Sharp Edge of Educational Change. London: Routledge/Falmer Press. Beijaard, D., Meijer, P. and Verloop, N. (2004) ‘Reconsidering research on teachers’ professional identity’, Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 107–128. Biesta, G. (2007) ‘Why “what works” won’t work: Evidence-based practice and the democratic deficit in educational research’, Educational Theory, 57(1), 1–22. Biesta, G. (2014) The Beautiful Risk of Education. London: Paradigm Publishers. Biesta, G. (2016) ‘Good education and the teacher: reclaiming educational professionalism’, in Evers, J. and Kneyber, R., Flip the System: Changing Education from the Ground Up. London: Routledge, pp. 79–90. Bolton, G. (2014) Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development. 4th edn. London: Sage. Bruner, J. (1991) ‘The narrative construction of reality’, Critical Inquiry, 18(1), 1–21.

18 ‘… a difference needs to be made’

Crook, D. (2008) ‘Some historical perspectives on professionalism’, in Cunningham, B. (ed.), Exploring Professionalism. Bedford Way Papers (33). London: Institute of Education, University of London Publications, pp. 10–27. Day, C. (2017) Teachers’ Worlds and Work.: Understanding Complexity, Building Quality. London: Routledge. Day, C. and Gu, Q. (2010) The New Lives of Teachers. London: Routledge. Day, C., Sammons, P., Stobart, G., Kington, A. and Gu, Q. (2007) Teachers Matter: Connecting Work, Lives and Effectiveness. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Doyle, W. (1997) ‘Heard any really good stories lately? A critique of the critics of narrative in educational research’, Teaching and Teacher Education, 13(1), 93–99. Durrant, J. and Holden, G. (2006) Teachers Leading Change: Doing Research for School Improvement. London: Paul Chapman. Elliott, J. (1996) ‘School effectiveness research and its critics: alternative visions of schooling’, Cambridge Journal of Education, 26(2), 199–224. Evans, L. (2008) ‘Professionalism, professionality and the development of education professionals’, British Journal of Educational Studies, 56(1), 20–38. Fielding, M. (2007) ‘Community, philosophy and educational policy: against effectiveness ideology and the immiseration of contemporary schooling’, in Ball, S.J., Goodson, I.F. and Maguire, M. (eds), Education, Globalisation and New Times. London: Routledge, pp. 183–204. Flintham, A. (2010) Reservoirs of Hope: Sustaining Spirituality in School Leaders. Newcastleupon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Frost, D. (2004) ‘Resisting the juggernaut: building capacity through teacher leadership in spite of it all’, Leading and Managing, 10(2), 70–87. Frost, D., Durrant, J., Head, M. and Holden, G. (2000) Teacher-Led School Improvement. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Fullan, M. (1993) Change Forces: Probing the Depths of Educational Reform. London: Falmer Press. Fullan, M. (2003) The Moral Imperative of School Leadership. Thousand Oaks CA: Corwin Press; London: Sage. Galton, M. and MacBeath, J. (2008) Teachers Under Pressure. London: Sage/National Union of Teachers. Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press. Giroux, H. (1985) ‘Teachers as transformative intellectuals’, Social Education, 49(5), 376–379. Hargreaves, A., Earl, L., Moore, S., and Manning, S. (2001) Learning to Change: Teaching Beyond Subjects and Standards. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Hargreaves, D.H. (2001) ‘A capital theory of school effectiveness and improvement’, British Educational Research Journal, 27(4), 487–503. Harris, A. and Muijs, D. (2003) Teacher Leadership: Principles and Practice (A Review of Research). National College for School Leadership. Available at: http://www.nationalcol lege.org.uk/media-dc8-33-teacher-leadership.pdf (accessed 2011). Honneth, A. (1995) The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts. Cambridge: Polity Press (tr. J. Anderson). Hopkins, D. and Reynolds, D. (2001) ‘The past, present and future of school improvement: towards the Third Age’. British Educational Research Journal, 27(4), 459–476. Hopkins, D., Harris, A., Stoll, L. and Mackay, T. (2011) ‘School and system improvement: state of the art review’. Keynote paper presented at International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement, Limassol, Cyprus, January. Hoyle, E. (1975) ‘Professionality, professionalism and control in teaching’, in Houghton, V., McHugh, R. and Morgan, C. (eds), Management in Education: The Management of

‘… a difference needs to be made’ 19

Organisations and Individuals. London: Ward Lock Educational in association with Open University Press. Hoyle, E. (1995) ‘Changing conceptions of a profession’, in Busher, H. and Saran, R. (eds), Managing Teachers as Professionals in Schools. London: Kogan Page Ltd., in association with BEMAS, pp. 59–70. Lingard, B. (2009) ‘Pedagogizing teacher professional identities’, in Gewitz, S., Mahony, P., Hextall, I. and Gibb, A. (eds), Changing Teacher Professionalism: International Trends, Challenges and Ways Forward. Oxford: Routledge, Ch.7. Murphy, J. (2005) Connecting Teacher Leadership and School Improvement. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Press. OECD (2018) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Available at: http:// www.oecd.org/pisa/ (accessed 2018). Power, S. (2008) ‘The imaginative professional’, in Cunningham, B. (ed.) Exploring Professionalism. Bedford Way Papers (33). London: Institute of Education, University of London Publications, pp. 144–160. Priestley, M., Biesta, G. and Robinson, S. (2015) Teacher Agency: An Ecological Approach. London: Bloomsbury. Priestley, M., Miller, K., Barrett, L. and Wallace, C. (2011) ‘Teacher learning communities and educational change in Scotland: the Highland experience’, British Educational Research Journal, 37(2), 265–284. Robertson, S.L. (2007) ‘“Remaking the world”: neo-liberalism and the transformation of education and teachers’ labour’, in Weis, L. and Compton, M. (eds), The Global Assault on Teachers, Teaching and their Unions. New York: Palgrave. Sahlberg, P. (2016) ‘Finnish schools and the global education reform movement’, in Evers, J. and Kneyber, R., Flip the System: Changing Education from the Ground Up. London: Routledge, pp. 162–174. Schleicher, A. (2010) ‘The case for 21st century learning’, available at http://www.oecd. org/general/thecasefor21st-centurylearning.htm (accessed 2018). Sergiovanni, T. (2000) The Lifeworld of Leadership: Creating Culture, Community and Personal Meaning in our Schools. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Schostak, J. (2006) Interviewing and Representation in Qualitative Research. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Smeyers, P. and Depaepe, M. (2007) ‘On the rhetoric of “what works”: contextualizing educational research and the picture of performativity’, in Smeyers, P. and Depaepe, M. (eds), Educational Research: Why What Works Doesn’t Work. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, pp. 1–16. Spielman, A. (2017) Keynote speech. Association of School and College Leaders Annual Conference, Birmingham, December. Stoll, L. (1999) ‘School culture: black hole or fertile garden for school improvement?’, in Prosser, J. (ed.) School Culture. London: Paul Chapman Publishing, pp. 30–47. Stoll, L. and Fink, D. (1996) Changing Our Schools: Linking School Effectiveness and School Improvement. Buckingham: Open University Press. Thomas, G. (2011) How To Do Your Case Study: A Guide for Students and Researchers. London: Sage. Thrupp, M. (2001) ‘Recent school effectiveness counter-critiques: problems and possibilities’, British Educational Research Journal, 27(4), 443–458. Vähäsantanen, K., Hökkä, P., Eteläpelto, A., Rasku-Puttonen, H. and Littleton, K. (2008) ‘Teachers’ professional identity negotiations in two different work organisations’, Vocations and Learning Studies in Vocational and Professional Education, 1(2), 131–148.

20 ‘… a difference needs to be made’

Van der Wateren, D. and Amrein-Beardsley, A. (2016) ‘Measuring what doesn’t matter: the nonsense and sense of testing and accountability’, in Evers, J. and Kneyber, R., Flip the System: Changing Education from the Ground Up. London: Routledge, pp. 25–38. Ward, H. (2018) ‘If you say that you’re a teacher, people just feel sorry for you’, Times Educational Supplement, 23 March, 20–27. Wrigley, T. (2003) Schools of Hope: A New Agenda for School Improvement. London: Trentham Books. Wrigley, T. (2009) ‘The state of England’s schools: critical voices. Editorial’, Improving Schools, 12(1), 3–9. Wrigley, T., Thomson, P. and Lingard, B. (2012) Changing Schools: Alternative Ways to Make a World of Difference. London: Routledge.

2 IMPROVING SCHOOLS IN CONTEXT

The teachers’ narratives explored in Chapters 4 and 5 are set during a period when their schools were beset by national initiatives; academic standards may have risen overall but the gaps between privileged and disadvantaged had continued to widen (Whitty, 2006; DCSF, 2009; Bangs et al., 2011). The characteristics of high performing systems are subject to international scrutiny, while the negative effects of a relentless focus on attainment have been explored critically by many commentators, highlighting not least the emotional and psychological damage that can be inflicted on students and their teachers (Biesta, 2016; MacBeath et al., 2018; Day, 2017). Using the highest standards of attainment as the ultimate goal and the principal indicator of the best education systems and the most worthwhile schools is nevertheless consistently unquestioned in practice. In this chapter, the dynamic between large-scale reform and fine-grained school change is explored both in terms of processes of improvement and in considering the fundamental nature and purpose of schooling and who should be involved in the debate. This leads to suggestions for alternative aims and foundations for improvement in which teacher agency has a much more significant role.

Innovation without change and the alchemy of reform In the many countries where powerful central accountability has been driving school improvement, contemporary educational reform has created a ‘paradox of innovation without change’ (Priestley et al., 2011). This is characterised by a volatile and unforgiving policy environment where headteachers are forced to play a strategic game around targets and performance, for funding which cannot be guaranteed. Some of the agendas that were prominent at the time of my research have already been withdrawn or overridden, but are summarised here as an illustration of the kind of factors and forces shaping school priorities and opportunities for development.

22 Improving schools in context













The ‘National Challenge’ was introduced for those schools that did not reach minimum performance targets (DCSF, 2010). This created spectacular anomalies: at this time, a school could simultaneously fail to meet the threshold and be graded as an outstanding school (Times Educational Supplement, 2010). The ‘English Baccalaureate’ narrowed the upper secondary school curriculum to English, mathematics, science, a language (classical or modern) and either history or geography (DfE, 2010) in an attempt by the new government to reassert academic rigour. This was criticised as a ‘remorseless push back to the 19th century’, showing ‘a lamentable lack of understanding of the type of world we’re all living in and how schools work’ (Robinson, 2011: 15). In the secondary school in my study, only 1% of students achieved the required benchmark of examination passes. Academisation (DCSF, 2009), shifted schools from centralised control, national strategies and blanket reforms to devolved responsibility, but with continued centralised accountability. As one primary headteacher was told by her local authority (district) adviser, ‘You’re on your own now’. A shocking case of abuse and neglect prompted the influential agenda ‘Every Child Matters’ (Every Child Matters, 2010) integrating provision for health, social care, wellbeing and education around the child and proposing early intervention for vulnerable children. ‘Every Child Matters’ was archived on the incoming government’s website as policy marched on. Creative Partnerships, sponsored by the Arts Council (Creative Partnerships, 2008), involved over a million children and thousands of schools in creativity projects and enquiry-based change, but funding was withdrawn over the academic year 2010–2011. Schools such as the special school in my study continued without funding or additional resources. The Building Schools for the Future programme (Partnerships for Schools, 2011) invested £45 billion over 15–20 years in redesigning and rebuilding secondary schools, starting in the most disadvantaged areas, to improve learning environments and raise aspirations. The programme was halted by the next government (DfE, 2011), leaving some schools rebuilt and some not (Price, 2010). The secondary school in my research launched as an academy in old buildings, with a new sign at the gate.

In a different place and time, the strands of reform would create an alternative interplay of forces, a different socio-political and economic churn. Education has continued to fail many children and young people who are unable to attain gold standards of achievement or derive enlightenment through the alchemy of successive reforms (Clarke, 2009). Schools still battle with poor motivation and behaviour, suggesting that significant numbers of students are disenfranchised from their schooling. The persistent achievement gap, ostensibly the driver for reform, has long been attributed directly to the factors of choice and competition, autonomy and performativity, centralisation and prescription (Ball, 2001) and a focus on excellence without attention to equity (Sahlberg, 2016).

Improving schools in context 23

A focus on equity before excellence is shown to be a key factor in the performance of high-ranking countries in the PISA league tables, and countries that succeed in these metrics demonstrate consistency in the performance of students from a wide range of backgrounds and circumstances. Finland’s success in this respect is attributed by Sahlberg (2016) to a long-standing commitment to social justice and early social intervention for those with special educational needs, in the context of equity in education as part of a well-performing society where a welfare state works to iron out socio-economic disadvantage. Significantly, there has been no selection by ability, no high stakes testing and no competition, thereby removing ‘structural elements that cause student failure’ (Sahlberg 2016: 169). Yet countries persist in chasing higher ranking positions by implementing neoliberal management systems and centralised accountability frameworks in attempts to crank the performance statistics higher. Not only is the evidence flawed, undermining the value of these tables altogether, but the pursuit of these standards is accompanied by reduced confidence and motivation in learning in countries that perform best in the rankings (MacBeath et al., 2018, citing Zhao, 2017). The performativity agenda pulls against the provision of welfare and care, with teachers expected to manage and mitigate the problems of society, in schools acting as ‘social garbage bins’ (see Lingard, 2009). Apple (1995) saw caring teachers acting as social workers, holding communities together and providing support for children and families in the face of enhanced inequalities caused in part by the education systems within which they were working. Furthermore, schools’ status and success, and the focus of their school improvement activity, depended on benchmarks and priorities with contestable origins and validity and with palpable gaps between the rhetoric of the policymakers and the strategy which was left to schools. For example, Galton and MacBeath (2008) found evidence that while teachers agreed with inclusive values and principles, their expertise and resource to support this policy agenda was often seriously lacking: burdensome assessment, bureaucratic systems and paperwork overwhelmed their interactions and relationships with students, where they knew a range of tailored approaches was needed.

School improvement and the ‘apparatuses of the state’ The state’s powerful role and unique position in defining, distributing and dominating knowledge creation and transmission, also using it to shape power relations, is recognised by Carnoy and Castells (2001). They note that those who want to acquire new knowledge still have to pass through the ‘apparatuses of the state’, where knowledge is ‘transmitted’ to the young (p. 11). Reform is still widely agreed to be embedded in three ‘policy technologies’: the market, managerialism and performativity (Ball, 2003). Policymakers have a vested interest in improving the aforementioned apparatuses of the state for political, ideological, economic, social and moral reasons. This broader context influences the psychological and sociological relationships between people and their organisations. National reforms and accountability systems, themselves influenced by global pressures and forces, are the driving force behind much school change.

24 Improving schools in context

Impetus for change may also be derived internally, for example from the headteacher’s personal vision, local opportunities or individual innovation, but such changes are inevitably influenced by political ebb and flow that may not be as well founded or consistent as we might assume. According to Bangs et al. (2011), who secured remarkably candid interviews of policymakers, academics and others involved in shaping and implementing English educational reform over the last few decades, a ‘desultory’ attitude to teachers amongst some policymakers in the New Labour government (1997–2010) was at odds with the capacity building rhetoric. The unequivocal aim to raise measurable standards was seen by ministers in competitive and economic terms: Within the foreseeable future, Britain will need an education service which is capable of providing higher standards, to match those anywhere in the world, and which simultaneously promotes and supports a thriving, diverse liberal democracy. Put another way, we want to match the Asian tiger economies in terms of performance while maintaining and renewing our liberal traditions. (Barber, 1997: 5) Policymakers now admitted in their interviews that top-down policies to raise standards had had more of a negative effect than was realised at the time, while targets had a shaky evidence base and were the product of considerable guesswork (Bangs et al., 2011: 150). A lack of attention to professional development was attributed by one Secretary of State for Education to mistakenly planning for only one term of office. This research exposes in raw terms the disturbing but illuminating political backdrop that can subsume the integrity of educational purpose, explaining why schools are caught in a maelstrom of systemic reform that may not appear consistent, coherent or well founded. Those purporting to support the standards agenda in England admitted that reforms focusing on standards, broadened to include the wider ‘Every Child Matters’ outcomes concerned with health, social care and wellbeing, had not closed the achievement gap, creating a gulf between affluent and impoverished students and localities, as noted by many commentators (see Wrigley, 2009; Clarke, 2009; Hopkins and Reynolds, 2001). No panacea has been found for low academic achievement amongst the most disadvantaged. Expectations placed on schools have nevertheless increased as education has been commodified, commercialised, consumerised and centralised, then decentralised and undercut. It is an uncompromising and relentless regime within which those in the most challenging of circumstances, usually in the greatest areas of social and economic deprivation, can be trapped in a spiral of demoralisation and decline, as research by MacBeath et al. (2006) has shown. This tends to create an ‘apartheid’ of ‘performance training’ in areas of disadvantage, contrasting with the professional learning communities of higher performing schools which often tend to reflect socio-economic advantage (Hargreaves, 2003). The centralised and punitive system is still ‘saturated with negativity and an ethos of threat’ (Wrigley, 2009:4), where schools in the most vulnerable communities are those most likely to be threatened by uncertainty and badged with failure.

Improving schools in context 25

The effects of this regime on teachers, as well as children and schools, are complex and have been widely explored (see for example MacBeath et al., 2006; Day et al., 2006; Wrigley, 2009). There is continuing criticism of the deprofessionalising effects of the performativity agenda that erode trusting relationships and ‘technicise’ teachers’ work (Day, 2017). Pressures and conflicts arise from competing agendas, a culture of surveillance (Ball, 2016) and the pedagogic and epistemological constraints of instrumental, stressful, risk-averse professional cultures. An obsession with standards and ‘deliverology’ (Hargreaves and Shirley, 2009), even with the best intentions for educational purpose and process, results in a lack of consideration for sustaining teacher engagement, selfefficacy, ownership and morale, in the urgency to demonstrate improvement in order to secure further political backing (Bangs et al., 2011). Cultivating a sense of agency and self-efficacy is likely to influence teachers’ professional identity and self-efficacy in responding positively to policy (Day, 2017), but in order for this to be prioritised, agency itself needs to be acknowledged and embedded in policy.

Challenging the deficit discourse Further to this lack of sustained support for the development and affirmation of the teaching profession, MacBeath et al. (2006) have argued that school improvement policymakers require, and may lack, ‘a textured understanding of what it means for schools to meet the needs of young people on the edge of the social mainstream’ (p. 1). The two schools that are the focus of this study were attended by many such marginalised young people, by virtue of their socio-economic background or their complex educational needs or disabilities. The pressure on these schools was exacerbated by a selective education system that, to use the local vernacular, ‘creams off’ those who pass ability tests in English, mathematics and reasoning into other schools, with the effect that those in New Futures Academy, in particular, entered their secondary schools as those left behind. The pervading performative discourse discussed in the last chapter is characterised by these unhelpful dichotomies of asset and deficit, success and failure which emerge through teachers’ narratives. In hearing and reading practice-based accounts from initial teacher education, professional development programmes and teachers’ university assignments, it is striking how education professionals’ language accepts and reflects these dichotomies, without qualification or critique. For example children are habitually categorised into ‘low ability’ to ‘high ability’ classes and groups and the term ‘underachievement’ can be applied to children from when they start nursery school at three years old. Feeding the obsession with results, interventions to ensure that students adhere to predicted progress trajectories are widespread, there are schools that publish rankings of individual children by attainment (to the distress of those at the bottom of the list) and many teachers are required to run additional examination classes throughout school holidays and outside formal school hours to chase extra examination marks. Where children are selected, categorised and judged by test results which are also used to measure teacher performance and rank schools, there are clearly confusions of purpose. The

26 Improving schools in context

resulting myopic focus on closing gaps between expected and actual attainment is most damaging to the disadvantaged. The current education environment has something of the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ about it, where too often we proceed and comply without anyone pointing out the obvious flaws and dysfunctions in the system. Teachers, head teachers, parents and students are carried along with a regime with which many disagree in private. Where so many truths need to be told, ‘speaking truth to power’ needs to start with speaking truth to each other. We might truthfully acknowledge that teachers and students are likely to thrive in organisational cultures that are more socially, emotionally and environmentally aware and ensure that learning, teaching and assessment have integrity with this. We might communicate the value of effort and perseverance as well as outcome. We might promote empathy, kindness, tolerance and generosity as the most important attributes that enable people to live well together, instead of denigrating them as ‘soft’ skills and dispositions that are the business of those lower in the organisational hierarchy, always trumped by mantras of ambition, determination and excellence.

The world beneath the surface National reforms, whatever their foundation, are not consistently effective, since the constraints of complex, localised and idiosyncratic social systems of schools and their professional subcultures can override the characteristics of a particular innovation (Stoll, 1998, after House, 1974; Warren-Little, 1997). It is also the case that schoolinstigated initiatives can demand consistency which rides over variations and sub-cultures within the organisation. It has long been argued that much education reform fails to appreciate the depth, range and complexity of what teachers do and the local and political forces that shape and constrain their actions (Bascia and Hargreaves, 2000). In order to understand how to achieve educationally productive change, it is essential to look beneath the surface at teachers’ moral grounds for action and the emotional textures of their practice (Hargreaves et al., 2001). Perspectives on school improvement have been likened to an iceberg (Stoll, 1998), where tangible structural factors are easily visible on the surface and can be identified and adjusted, while beneath the surface is a huge bulk of complex affective factors, often tacit and intangible, such as relationships, empathy, values, dispositions and opinions which can only be shaped through cultural change. Reforms, whether externally or internally driven, tend to concentrate on the more visible and manageable structural elements on the surface, while failing to acknowledge the micro-political complexity beneath, with its norms of uncertainty, diversity, conflict and dispute (Morley, 2008). This involves ‘relationships rather than structures, informal knowledge rather than formal information, identities rather than roles, skills rather than designated organisational positions and, most importantly, talk rather than paper’ (p.102). Micro-political factors – personalities or unique circumstances – may therefore be more important than macro-political forces in analysing the relationships between school contexts and teachers’ perceptions and actions and in determining the

Improving schools in context 27

outcomes of change. The often unacknowledged and poorly understood sub-surface elements are the most likely elements of the change equation to be compounded by local contextual factors that can create the most challenging of circumstances for learning and achievement (Fink, 2000). It is these aspects beneath the surface upon which change may founder, if leaders of reform attempt to override them with prescription and control, presume the multi-dimensions do not matter, misread the signs or do not listen. This is as true at systemic level as within organisations. In seeking ways forward, ‘the quality of interpersonal relationships and the nature and quality of learning experiences’ (Barth, 1990: 45) are likely to be of central concern to teachers themselves, resting on their myriad assumptions and perceptions as situated professional selves. As Coffey (2001) notes, amidst continuing change, there is also much continuity in teachers’ work, for example in the focus on managing classrooms and in the central importance of the relationships and social interactions between teachers and learners. Adopting a qualitative approach to research has demonstrated that narrative individuality and circumstantial detail are essential in understanding processes of school improvement, in which teachers are arguably the principal actors. Narrative approaches, when applied to individuals and to organisations, draw out the characteristics of people’s ideas, relationships and vicissitudes that may matter more to the people in school communities than the details of national reforms and the latest tactical and strategic manoeuvres of school leadership teams. Sharing experiences, ideas and opinions helps participants to make meaning of the changes in which they are involved.

What matters to teachers Encouragingly, teacher narratives suggest that the core work of teaching remains the same and that where there is a crisis of recruitment and retention, it is not the classroom from which teachers need refuge. James, a teacher of English from the secondary school in my study, conveyed a palpable enthusiasm for literature and spoke animatedly about creative lessons where he actively challenged disaffection. With some set texts, such as Holes (Sachar, 2000), James had seen boys eager to turn the page, wanting to read a whole chapter in front of the class because they related to the humour. Much of the canon he was required to teach seemed to him to be lazy and complacent, so he leavened this with literature that would appeal to his students, lessons based on television series and use of technology such as voting using mobile phone apps. James felt that even within a pressurised and restricted curriculum he still had freedom to innovate and was rewarded by lessons that were personally motivating and enjoyable for his classes, asserting that he was ‘very keen on the “enjoy” bit’. His proudest moment, however, was being thanked in public by a student for help during an episode of bullying, which represented the vast amount of self-initiated pastoral work James undertook around the edges of his subject teaching. Christine, teaching very young children with complex learning needs, conveyed her deep love of working with the children: ‘that’s why we come into teaching, isn’t it, it’s for the children, to give them the best start they can possibly get.’ A recent

28 Improving schools in context

project with the Creative Partnerships initiative (Creative Partnerships, 2008) was brimming with happiness, energy and experimentation. Christine had relied on oldfashioned song tapes for years and wanted a different way to introduce body awareness. Working with a Creative Practitioner, they ended up on a ‘learning journey’ to South Africa: ‘we had to do the trains, the type of movement involved in that, the different types of movement for the animals in the safari park, dancing in the mines … we’re showing our traditional dances (head and shoulders, knees and toes) …’ The ‘journey’ sparked new activities: shield making, maps, use of objects, games and ‘call and response’ songs that could be used time and again. They were now adapting the approach: ‘We’re going to Australia’, ‘We’re going to the seaside’ and so on. Even children who were usually ‘completely in their own bubble’ had started to join in of their own accord. For Christine, ‘It was brilliant, absolutely brilliant’. Such details, far from being extraneous ‘noise’ in processes of reform, are of central importance in school improvement, exploring not only technical details and measurable outcomes but relationships, motivations and emotional responses amongst adults, children and young people, to capture cultures of learning and growth. What is needed … is an approach that gets beneath the surface of the organisational life of the school and recognises that schools are communities of individuals and they contain a variety of professional cultures. This means that any school improvement plan has to be based on an understanding of these complex interpersonal circumstances … it is the teachers themselves who are best placed to develop such understanding and to use it to inform their strategic action for change and improvement. (Frost et al., 2000: 7) This calls for a reinstatement of the experiences, ideas, actions and relationships of teachers, and thereby students and other members of school communities, at the centre of school improvement. Individual actions can reach beyond the rhetoric of government mandates that have often been deemed ineffective on the broader scale; there are plenty of positive, powerful stories of change if we know where to look. As argued more than two decades ago, this is about ‘bringing teachers back in’ (Hargreaves and Evans, 1997), not only with regards to the set agenda, but also to debates about educational purpose.

Education or production? A crisis of purpose The ‘production motif’ that characterises this performative, marketised culture requires that the ‘soft services of human interaction’ are rendered into ‘hard services’ that can be standardised, quantified and measured (Ball, 2003). Where those in power aim to develop educational conditions to maximise international competitiveness, profit and discipline, Ball argues that the result is a series of strategies that can be disastrous and divisive for organisations and communities. While it is important to avoid demonising academic excellence per se, this critique of neoliberal priorities calls into question

Improving schools in context 29

purposes as well as processes in education. Knowledge legitimated through pragmatic optimisation and control rather than speculation and emancipation creates a dependency culture. It results in a loss of citizenship capacity, leading to a ‘crisis of education itself’ (Bernstein, 1996, in Lingard, 2009). A system designed primarily to ensure compliance and control has not encouraged the essential widespread enthusiastic engagement with learning that is required in a society concerned more with knowledge and information than with commodities (Fielding, 2006). Indeed, its very emphasis undermines the educational process, by determining outcomes, controlling process and removing risk and choice (Biesta, 2014). There are concomitant effects on teachers as strategies for professional development and enhancement of status are overridden by performance management. With the narrowing and central direction of the curriculum comes a reduction of critical thinking, cognitive demand and intellectual depth (Apple, 1995). This is not least because universal, imperialistic application of policy forms a disjunction with the ‘local, situated, specific and contingent’ characteristics of pedagogy. According to Robinson (2011), policymakers have left pedagogy more to teachers’ discretion than curriculum or assessment. In apparent contradiction of blanket prescription and control, ‘personalisation’ is another lever that has been used to improve results by individualising learning (DCSF, 2008). However, whilst the changing demands of economic effectiveness within the knowledge society are rapid and unpredictable, Fielding (2007) identifies a ‘crisis of the human person’ resulting from the pressures of such external reform. The kind of personalisation advocated in a performative regime is expressed in targets and trajectories, using the language of business or even of warfare. Performativity works through both organisational and individual pressures and targets which diminish trust (Ranson, 2008). This involves both a destruction of the public’s and government’s trust in teachers, and a lack of trust in government on the part of teachers, which by any reckoning gives a shaky foundation for reform. In concentrating on external indicators, social outcomes are corrupted. As Gunter (1997, after Wheatley, 1994) points out, organisations are not machines, but process structures; trying to control them as machines leads to a ‘treadmill of effort and lifedestroying stress’ in which professionals are ‘despised and distrusted’, with concomitant effects on children’s education. Robinson (2011) argues, more colloquially, Often people think that human organisations are like mechanisms … But human organisations aren’t at all like mechanisms, they’re like organisms. They grow and thrive in certain conditions, they wilt and shrivel in others. You can’t improve education by imposing conformity on processes that thrive on diversity. (p. 14) This is clearly an argument that steers away from the false dichotomies and mutually exclusive binaries favoured by governments, enshrined in the rhetoric of policy and beloved of the media (for example traditional/progressive; factual/creative; didactic/ constructivist; autonomy/collegiality; teacher-led/student-centred; good/bad). As noted earlier, it has been argued that performance may improve despite, rather than

30 Improving schools in context

because of, policies based on effectiveness (Fielding, 2007), while West-Burnham (2009) concurs that schools have often changed people’s lives for the better in other ways, providing ‘stability, safety and hope’ (p. 19), again often despite the reductive system to which schools are subjected.

Capacity for school improvement The ‘capital theory of school effectiveness and improvement’ proposed by Hargreaves (2001) provides a theoretical bridge between the prevailing methodological and political approaches driven by a quest for school effectiveness and understandings of school improvement processes. Here, school effectiveness is understood to mean the ability of the organisation to produce both intellectual outcomes, involving the creation and transfer of knowledge, and moral outcomes which rely on trust and collaborative working as within professional networks. Recognising that the concept of outputs has been reduced to testing the results of academic knowledge, Hargreaves (2001) emphasises the importance of balancing intellectual (academic or performance) outcomes with moral outcomes and virtues that contribute to citizenship. As discussed in Chapter 1, improvement here is a process of increasing the quality of those intellectual and moral outputs, in other words it is a dynamic process as opposed to the static state of effectiveness. Capacity for improvement, that is, the ability to manage change successfully, depends on the interaction between the conditions within which professionals work, and the extent to which they have the skills and knowledge to contribute (Priestley et al., 2015), therefore capacity building must include consideration of the ecological relationships (MacBeath et al., 2018) between people and their organisational environment. Hargreaves (2001) asserts that building capacity into definitions of effectiveness is more helpful than invoking additional variables in order to define capacity separately. This is illuminated with reference to the concept of ‘leverage’, whereby teachers’ input, in terms of energy invested in change, is compared with quality and quantity of output. If teachers and schools cannot manage leverage effectively, school improvement is impaired (Hargreaves (2001). The notion of ‘capital’ is central to this discussion, providing the resources that provide the foundation of capacity for improvement. Distinctive and related cycles of reproduction of material and cultural capital in schools, identified by Sergiovanni (2000, after Habermas, 1987), offer a valuable point of reference which resonates well with teachers’ experience. The cycle of material reproduction in the systemsworld develops management and financial capital which contributes to development of material capital. The cycle of cultural reproduction in the lifeworld develops human capital, both intellectual and social. The systemsworld of management and organisational capital of the school is balanced and supported by the lifeworld of cultural capital. These cycles are represented diagrammatically below (Figure 2.1).

Improving schools in context 31

Material reproduction

development of material capital

enrichment of systemsworld

Cultural reproduction

development of cultural capital

development of management and financial capital FIGURE 2.1

enrichment of lifeworld

development of human (social and intellectual) capital

Cycles of material and cultural reproduction

For Hargreaves (2001), social capital – the building of trust and professional networks – acts as a ‘lubricant’ for the knowledge creation and transfer that builds intellectual capital, echoing lifeworld and systemsworld respectively. This leads to the development of cultural capital through which people understand their values and make meaning of their professional lives and identities. Both ‘worlds’ are of value and need to be properly balanced to enhance one another, but Sergiovanni (2000) argues that the lifeworld must provide the driving force, or foundation, for the systemsworld. This means that decisions about structures, processes and policies must follow from the school’s purposes and values and cannot simply be externally imposed. This accords with Hargreaves and Fullan’s (2012) argument that while business capital is a ‘wrong driver’, social capital is a ‘right driver’ for change.

Evidence and experience in practice Where technical recipes for change are based on notions of increasing human capital for productivity, there is much current emphasis on ‘evidence-based practice’ using large-scale trials as the basis for promotion of ‘what works’ to achieve student outcomes. The small print advises caution in applying approaches that at headline level are a ‘good bet’ (Durrant, 2016). The limitations of applying such seductive experimental conclusions, implying straightforward cause and effect, to the complexity of non-linear learning contexts (see Day, 2017) need to be recognised by policymakers as well as teachers. As Hargreaves and Fullan (2012) have pointed out, there are many notes of caution when applying evidence to education, including selective application and interpretation of research for selfish or political ends, lack of emphasis on processes of change, the difficulty of translating ideas from well-funded and resourced smaller scale projects into large-scale reform and the relative lack of recognition

32 Improving schools in context

of experience as a crucial component in implementation. What is purported to ‘work’ may not work very well at all in practice (see Durrant, 2016). Schools do need to be concerned with research about how best to teach science or use formative assessment, but there is so much more at stake. For teachers, it is much more complicated than following an evidence-based, subject-related script. Macroscale research evidence must therefore be balanced with meso-scale understandings, both quantitative and qualitative, about school structures and cultures and the patterns and trends within and between organisations. The reality in schools is also concerned with the hope and promise of social justice, equity and human flourishing. It is often about ‘flow’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 2008) – the deep enjoyment, creativity, engagement and involvement that cannot be quantified is difficult to plan for or pin down, but is obvious when experienced in the classroom. For teachers, the nature of practice is more of an orchestration than the following of a formula, requiring instinctive skills and abilities ‘like improvisation, grace, tact, humour, rapport, rhythm, timing, empathy…’, involving the right level of confidence, the appropriate balance between relaxed and alert, and ‘being the right you for the situation’ (Saunders, 2002: 12–13, after Maingay, 2000). These characteristics are concerned with flair, emotional intelligence and nuance, difficult to measure, formulate or prescribe. Therefore any macroand meso-scale evidence must be leavened with fine-grained micro-scale evidence from teachers’ experience in which they themselves engage with the subtleties and idiosyncrasies of practice. These complementary scales and levels of analysis and evidence are shown in Table 2.1. Micro-scale evidence has different kinds of validity, as discussed in Chapter 1. People are regarded here not as a resource or mechanism by which school effectiveness can be achieved, but in terms of human engagement, empowerment and relational working as the very purpose of school improvement. Students’ and teachers’ ideas, experiences, opinions and aspirations form the foundation and fabric of education change. However, this is an age of social media; educators are globally connected via Twitter feeds, blog and YouTube, the internet offers a boundless repository for ideas, opinions and examples and the ‘Teachmeet’ format is on the rise, where teachers present tips and soundbites to one another in a fast-paced sharing shop. It is more important than ever that claims are subjected to scrutiny and criticality of engagement is promoted and practised.

Undermining transformation Understandings of the connotations and implications of ‘school improvement’ vary from place to place and over time, but continually reinforce the dominance of the systemsworld. According to Hopkins and Reynolds (2001), a ‘third wave’ of school improvement targeted student outcomes even more clearly. While still attending to school structural and cultural development, this focused on the ‘learning level’ of classrooms and the ‘instructional behaviours’ of teachers through ‘utilisation’ of research findings and dissemination of ‘best practice’ with the aim of ‘implementation across all organisational members …’ (p. 463). This exemplifies the ‘learnification’ of

Improving schools in context 33

TABLE 2.1 Scales and levels of evidence and analysis

Macro-scale

Global/systemic level: national and international

 international comparative surveys data (e.g. PISA, TALIS)  meta-analyses, randomised control trials, effect-size studies  international research across cultures and contexts

Meso-scale

Organisational level: schools and other settings

 qualitative and quantitative data e.g. on organisation/team performance, attendance and inclusion  school self-evaluation data  school inspection reports

Micro-scale

Personal level: individuals and groups

       

students’ work assessment data practitioner research individual qualitative data narratives and biographies reflective journals records of dialogue notes and other ephemera

education (Biesta, 2014), objectifying both students and teachers as vessels for professional knowledge and skills and dodging questions of purpose and content. This language of capital and capacity is more attuned to measurement and growth of assets and productivity, a mechanical analysis where the focus is relentlessly epistemological, emphasising the generation, assessment and reproduction of knowledge to deliver functionalist ends. However, educational purpose for Biesta (2016) involves a balance of the domains of qualification (acquisition of knowledge, skills and dispositions), socialisation (initiation into ways of being and doing) and subjectification (cultivating responsibility and initiative). He goes so far as to say that ‘excessive emphasis on academic achievement causes severe psychosocial problems amongst young people, particularly in cultures where failure is not really an option’ (p. 83). The importance of people and relationships in the improvement process has been widely agreed (Hopkins and Reynolds, 2001; Day, 2017) and built into accountability frameworks. However, while democratic, distributed and transformative leadership cultures are said to build trust and inculcate a shared sense of ownership, such ‘empowerment’ is often conceived as a device to achieve compliance in delivering effective teaching and learning according to external criteria. In short, teachers and their students are ‘empowered to do as they are told’ (Gunter, 2001). Qualitative processes of collaboration and shared leadership are generally accountable in terms of ‘hard’ performance outcomes, although a broader range of outcomes may be acknowledged, particularly where policy-driven (Hopkins and Reynolds, 2001). For those implementing the policies in school, it can become habitual to seek a performative rationale for broader outcomes, for example linking the creative curriculum to improved literacy, or using mindfulness workshops to maximise performance, rather

34 Improving schools in context

than valuing health and wellbeing in their own right. Creativity and mindfulness may well increase performance, but motives matter. Over decades of attempted reform, questions about educational purpose have been effectively silenced. Managerialist approaches to school improvement have ‘little to offer educators whose passion for improvement is grounded in a commitment to social justice and democratic citizenship’ (Wrigley, 2009:7). There is a habitual glossing over of social and political issues of equity and diversity, complex processes of school and systemic change and uniqueness of context. At the same time there is neglect of the fine-grained details of classrooms and the day-to-day concerns of teachers. Fielding (2011) expresses this loss of plot succinctly: ‘If we forget history or marginalise purposes we may get somewhere faster – but not where we need to go.’

Regaining purpose Contemporary socio-economic and political challenges require that a more critical and proactive stance is encouraged in students, which can only be instigated and modelled by their teachers. Agency, participation and voice are not only vital elements of educational process, but crucial outcomes. In order to work towards sustainable futures, schools must prepare young people to contribute towards better environments for living, working and learning. This adds a new dimension to developmental work on students’ wellbeing, confidence and resilience, emphasising individuals’ action to influence their own environment, moreover to improve conditions that increase that influence. Thus schooling is the first step towards societal change and community enhancement. It is perhaps for this reason, according to Mitchell and Sackney (2009), that professional learning communities, seen as the focus for authentic school development by many, have not lived up to the expectations of enlivening learning and teaching in the two decades since the concept was introduced (see also Clarke, 2009). The rhetoric of the professional learning community does not necessarily translate into reality, according to Mitchell and Sackney’s research; they do not see the quality of deep, authentic learning promised by the learning community discourse, but find initiatives being implemented in the same ways, with the same results. Having previously advocated the development of professional learning communities as a means to ‘profound’ school improvement (Mitchell and Sackney, 2000), they more recently contend that while the concept of learning communities should still be valuable, implementation has been flawed because of inappropriate emphasis on managed systems of efficiency and production. They argue for an alternative, more appropriate and more sustainable emphasis on living, organic systems of human activity that result in growth, supporting interconnectedness and sustainability in an ecological as well as educational sense (Clarke, 2009). However, the difficulty of this must not be underestimated, since it has to be understood and enacted at the profound level of people’s values, beliefs and assumptions about educational purpose and process. This concerns the subsurface realm of school improvement to which Stoll (1998) urges practitioners, policymakers and researchers and reformers to attend – intangible, immeasurable, yet fundamental to organisational and individual learning. It

Improving schools in context 35

has an ontological emphasis, as opposed to the epistemological focus of school effectiveness. Understanding this requires transformation in its true sense, compelling us to view the issues through new lenses (Clarke, 2009), as opposed to tweaking and relabelling tired approaches to reform. It challenges us at all levels, from the macro-level of global factors, forces and comparisons, to the meso-level of systemic reform through national education policy, to the school-level unit of organisational change and capacity building, to let go of the relentless quest for better results and to ask afresh what purposes we want for education and for schooling. As West-Burnham (2018) asserts, we sometimes become so focused on developing the caterpillar that we forget that its primary purpose is to become a butterfly, not a better caterpillar. Transformation is about the moral courage to question and challenge the status quo and to develop alternative ways forward, often going against a culture that can be self-referential and self-legitimating. West-Burnham (2009) warns that we are caught between wanting to challenge the fossilised world of schooling, working to its own logic, where 19th century ideas about intelligence, learning, discipline and development abound, and wanting change to stop, through sheer exhaustion. Genuine transformation is not about doing the same things better to raise standards, it is about doing things differently, so as to engage appropriately with society as it moves on. Interestingly, West-Burnham (2009) contends that it is not curriculum or pedagogy but the integrity of individual teachers that has the greatest influence, while he suggests that the most significant and memorable impact of schools often resides in extra-curricular experiences and moments on the margins.

An alternative script for improvement For living, organic systems such as schools, the alternative script developed by Mitchell and Sackney (2009) is beguiling. Here, change is no longer a matter of implementation of ‘so-called best practices’. Instead, change is a response to ‘meaningful disturbances’ which call individuals to actions, working towards collective benefit. This may explain the disappointment and disillusionment of failed initiatives and systemic reform. It is not about the relative success or failure of one initiative or another, or even about restructuring or re-culturing; it is about what people decide to do and manage to do, so that the world makes better sense. Essentially, ‘people talk to each other and then do stuff’ (Clarke, 2009), in a democratic process of ‘disruptive initiation’ at a local scale (Hannon, 2009). Teachers can embody these ideas by conceptualising their professional roles and identities in terms of individual agency to influence educational change, both internally and in response to policy initiatives. Here, another cycle of reproduction can be identified, which seems to progress beyond Fielding’s (2007) person-centred learning, towards a less deterministic view of community where people – teachers, students and others – are habitually and actively involved in constructing their professional situations and environments,

36 Improving schools in context

rather than simply inhabiting and adapting to them. This process builds personal and interpersonal capacity, through the process of structuration (Giddens, 1984) in which people exercise their influence for individual and collective benefit. This is shown in Figure 2.2, which offers an additional dimension to the cycles of material and cultural reproduction shown in Figure 2.1. In contrast with the lifeworld’s cultural reproduction through the resource of human capital, structuration involves people as both the purpose and the means for change, building their capacity as agents and decision makers in their own and each other’s lives. Here, teachers, students and others work critically and proactively to pursue changes that accord with their values and concerns (Frost et al., 2000). Thus, agency is bound up in leadership but the two must not be confused. Teachers can pursue a more authentic path of influence that addresses their own concerns, arising out of their professional expertise and experience (Durrant and Holden, 2006). In both positional and nonpositional leadership they can pursue desired outcomes through their own agency. They balance top-down with bottom-up change and mediate it strategically in sophisticated ways, as Fullan (1994) suggests as a result of his conceptual and empirical investigations contrasting centralised and decentralised reform. This cycle does not necessarily reinforce the status quo in order to do the same things better; instead, it creates opportunities for people to shape their situations and circumstances, contributing to an organisational dynamic with transformation at its heart. The extent to which this cycle can develop and be sustained is a function both of what is expected generically of teachers – their professionalism – and of individuals’ beliefs and priorities – enacted in their professionality. These in turn are dependent on personal background as well as professional experience (Beijaard et al., 2004) and they are influenced profoundly by organisational and systemic context and by the Agentic reproduction

increase in agency, self-efficacy, individual influence

changes in structure and culture for individual and community benefit

increase in personal and interpersonal capacity FIGURE 2.2

Cycle of structuration by agentic reproduction

Improving schools in context 37

immediate environment within which change takes place, including its leadership culture as evidenced in later chapters. This new script rewrites what change is about, but also what it is for. Consideration of the extent to which these understandings fit with teachers’ perceptions and experiences is therefore needed. This perspective is not restricted to knowledge creation and transfer but involves knowledge ‘translation’(Mitchell and Sackney, 2009; Sergiovanni, 2000) to enable participants to make meaning of change. Capacity for improvement, here, is determined by the extent to which people can engage in this meaning-making and take action to contribute to the continued growth of the organisation, with mutual benefit for the whole community. Here, capacity rests less on conformity in the name of improvement and more on enabling individuals’ moral purpose, creativity and agency, socially situated and relationally conceived. In the next chapter, the professional implications of this are considered.

REFLECTIONS    

What does ‘school improvement’ normally mean? What should it mean? Which questions would you like to ask if you stepped out of your current role and responsibilities? Consider an incident, initiative or event that has most encouraged and inspired you recently: why has it made such an impression? What would you like to change, in relation to education? What can you change and what can’t you change?

References Apple, M.W. (1995) Education and Power. 2nd edn. New York: Routledge. Ball, S. J. (2001) ‘Labour, learning and the economy: a ‘policy sociology’ perspective’, in Fielding, M. (ed.), Taking Education Really Seriously: Four Years’ Hard Labour. London: FalmerRoutledge. Ball, S.J. (2003) ‘The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity’, Journal of Educational Policy, 18(2), 215–228. Ball, S.J. (2016) ‘Neoliberal education? Confronting the slouching beast’, Policy Futures in Education, 14(8), 1046–1059. Bangs, J., MacBeath, J. and Galton, M. (2011) Reinventing Schools, Reinventing Teachers. London: Routledge. Barber, M. (1997) The Learning Game: Arguments for an Education Revolution. London: Indigo. Barth, R. (1990) Improving Schools from Within. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Bascia, N. and Hargreaves, A. (eds) (2000) The Sharp Edge of Educational Change. London: Routledge/Falmer Press. Beijaard, D., Meijer, P. and Verloop, N. (2004) ‘Reconsidering research on teachers’ professional identity’, Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 107–128. Biesta, G. (2014) The Beautiful Risk of Education. London: Paradigm Publishers.

38 Improving schools in context

Biesta, G. (2016) ‘Good education and the teacher: reclaiming educational professionalism’, in Evers, J. and Kneyber, R., Flip the System: Changing Education from the Ground Up. London: Routledge, pp.79–90. Carnoy, M. and Castells, M. (2001) ‘Globalization, the knowledge society, and the Network State: Poulantzas at the millennium’, Global Networks, 1(1), 1–18. Clarke, P. (2009) ‘Sustainability and improvement: a problem of and for education’, Improving Schools, 12(1), 11–17. Coffey, A. (2001) Education and Social Change. Maidenhead: Open University. Creative Partnerships (2008) Available at: http://www.creative-partnerships.com/ (accessed 2008). Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2008) Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience. London: Harper Collins. Day, C. (2017) Teachers’ Worlds and Work: Understanding Complexity, Building Quality. London: Routledge. Day, C., Kington, A., Stobart, G. and Sammons, P. (2006) ‘The personal and professional selves of teachers: stable and unstable identities’, British Educational Research Journal, 32(4), 601–616. DCSF (2008) ‘Personalised learning: a guide’. Publication reference DCSF-00844–02008. Available at: https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/_arc_SOP/Page9/ DCSF-00844-2008 (accessed 2011). DCSF (2009) ‘Your child, your schools, our future: building a 21st century schools system’, Department for Children, Families and Schools White Paper. London: DCSF. Available at http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/21stcenturyschoolssystem/ (accessed 2009) DCSF (2010) National Challenge website. Available at: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/nationalcha llenge/ (accessed 2010). DfE (2010) ‘The importance of teaching: the schools white paper 2010’. Available at: http s://www.education.gov.uk/publications (accessed 2011). DfE (2011) ‘Building schools for the future’. Available at: http://www.education.gov.uk/ schools/adminandfinance/schoolscapital/funding/bsf (accessed 2011). Durrant, J. (2016) ‘What is evidence-based practice, and why does it matter?’ in Austin, R. (ed.), Researching Primary Education. London: Sage, pp. 9–24. Durrant, J. and Holden, G. (2006) Teachers Leading Change: Doing Research for School Improvement. London: Paul Chapman. Every Child Matters (2010) Every Child Matters: Change for Children. Available at: http:// everychildmatters.gov.uk (accessed 2010). Fielding, M. (2006) ‘Leadership, personalization and high performance schooling: naming the new totalitarianism’, School Leadership and Management, 26(4), 347–369. Fielding, M. (2007) ‘Community, philosophy and educational policy: against effectiveness ideology and the immiseration of contemporary schooling’, in Ball, S.J., Goodson, I.F. and Maguire, M. (eds), Education, Globalisation and New Times. London: Routledge, pp. 183–204. Fielding, M. (2011) University of London Institute of Education: Professor Michael Fielding. Available at: http://www.ioe.ac.uk/staff/EFPS/EFPS_30.html (accessed 2011). Fink, D. (2000) Good Schools/Real Schools: Why School Reform Doesn’t Last. New York/ London: Teachers College Press. Frost, D., Durrant, J., Head, M. and Holden, G. (2000) Teacher-Led School Improvement. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Fullan, M. (1994) ‘Coordinating top-down and bottom-up strategies for educational reform. systemic reform: perspectives on personalizing education’. Available at: http://www. michaelfullan.com/media/13396035630.pdf (accessed 2012). Galton, M. and MacBeath, J. (2008) Teachers Under Pressure. London: Sage/National Union of Teachers. Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Improving schools in context 39

Gunter, H. (1997) ‘Chaotic reflexivity’, in Fullan, M. (ed.), The Challenge of School Change. Arlington Heights, IL: Skylight Professional Development, pp. 87–114. Gunter, H. (2001) Leaders and Leadership in Education. London: Sage. Hannon, V. (2009) ‘Innovative systems: an international perspective.’ Keynote address, International Congress for School Effectiveness and School Improvement, Vancouver, BC, Canada, January. Hargreaves, A. (2003) ‘Professional learning communities and performance training sects: the emerging apartheid of school improvement’, in Harris, A., Day, C., Hopkins, D., Hadfield, M., Hargreaves, A. and Chapman, C. (eds.) Effective Leadership for School Improvement. London: RoutledgeFalmer, pp.180–195. Hargreaves, A. and Evans, R. (1997) Beyond Educational Reform: Bringing Teachers Back In. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Hargreaves, A. and Fullan, M. (2012) Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School. New York and London: Teachers College Press / Toronto, Canada: Ontario Principals’ Council. Hargreaves, A. and Shirley, D. (2009) The Fourth Way. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Hargreaves, A., Earl, L.Moore, S., and Manning, S. (2001) Learning to Change: Teaching Beyond Subjects and Standards. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Hargreaves, D.H. (2001) ‘A capital theory of school effectiveness and improvement’, British Educational Research Journal, 27(4), 487–503. Hopkins, D. and Reynolds, D. (2001) ‘The past, present and future of school improvement: towards the third Age’, British Educational Research Journal, 27(4), 459–476. Lingard, B. (2009) ‘Pedagogizing teacher professional identities’, in Gewitz, S., Mahony, P., Hextall, I. and Gibb, A. (eds.) Changing Teacher Professionalism: International Trends, Challenges and Ways Forward. Oxford: Routledge. Ch.7. MacBeath, J., Dempster, N., Frost, D., Johnson, G. and Swaffield, S. (2018) Strengthening the Connections between Leadership and Learning: Challenges to Policy, School and Classroom Practice. London: Routledge. MacBeath, J., Gray, J., Cullen, J., Frost, D., Steward, S. and Swaffield, S. (2006) Schools on the Edge: Responding to Challenging Circumstances. London: Sage. Mitchell, C. and Sackney, L. (2000) Profound Improvement: Building Capacity for a Learning Community. Lisse, The Netherlands: Swets and Zeitlinger. Mitchell, C. and Sackney, L. (2009) Sustainable Improvement: Building Learning Communities that Endure. Rotterdam, NL: Sense Publishers. Morley, L. (2008) ‘The micropolitics of professionalism: power and collective identities in higher education’, in Cunningham, B. (ed.) Exploring Professionalism. Bedford Way Papers (33). London: Institute of Education, University of London Publications, pp. 99–120. Partnerships for Schools (2011) website. Available at: http://www.partnershipsforschools.org. uk/ (accessed 2011). Price, D. (2010) ‘BBC’s excluded school drama in true portrayal shock’, Innovation Unit website. Available at: http://innovationunit.org/blog/201009/bbcs-excluded-schooldrama-true-portrayal-shock (accessed 2011). Priestley, M., Biesta, G. and Robinson, S. (2015) Teacher Agency: An Ecological Approach. London: Bloomsbury. Priestley, M., Miller, K., Barrett, L. and Wallace, C. (2011) ‘Teacher learning communities and educational change in Scotland: the Highland experience’, British Educational Research Journal, 37(2), 265–284. Ranson, S. (2008) ‘The changing governance of education’, Educational Management Administration and Leadership, 36(2), 201–219.

40 Improving schools in context

Robinson, K. (2011) ‘Profile: creative thinking’. Report: Journal of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, June, 14–15. Sachar, L. (2000) Holes. London: Bloomsbury. Sahlberg, P. (2016) ‘Finnish schools and the global education reform movement’, in Evers, J. and Kneyber, R. (eds), Flip the System: Changing Education from the Ground Up. London: Routledge, pp.162–174. Saunders, L. (2002) ‘What is research good for? Supporting integrity, intuition and improvisation in teaching’, The Enquirer, Summer, 5–22. Canterbury: Canterbury Christ Church University. Sergiovanni, T. (2000) The Lifeworld of Leadership: Creating Culture, Community and Personal Meaning in our Schools. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Stoll, L. (1998) ‘School culture’. School Improvement Network Bulletin, 9, Autumn. London: University of London Institute of Education. Times Educational Supplement (2010) ‘Outstanding school is a national challenge failure’, Times Educational Supplement, 28 May. Available at: http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx? storycode=6045164 (accessed 2010). Warren-Little, J. (1997) ‘Teachers’ professional development in a climate of educational reform’, in Fullan, M. (ed.) The Challenge of School Change. Arlington Heights, IL: Skylight Professional Development, pp. 137–178. West-Burnham, J. (2009) Rethinking Educational Leadership: From Improvement to Transformation. New York: Bloomsbury. West-Burnham, J. (2018) Seven Propositions about Educational Leadership. Available from http://www.johnwest-burnham.co.uk/index.php/seven-propositions-about-educationa l-leadership (accessed 2018). Whitty, G. (2006) ‘Teacher professionalism in a new era’. Paper presented at General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland Annual Lecture, Belfast, March. Wrigley, T. (2009) ‘The state of England’s schools: critical voices. Editorial’, Improving Schools, 12(1), 3–9.

3 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT, IDENTITY AND AGENCY

Considering the role of teachers in school improvement from the practitioners’ perspective, the discussion in this chapter is concerned with how individual teachers, and other education professionals, mediate the structural and cultural conditions, opportunities and limitations of their professional environments within the hierarchical and managerial organisations of schools, often governed by performative regimes. The highly contestable nature of professionalism and its individual manifestations in professionality are considered, amidst the socio-political uncertainties of educational purpose and process. How is it possible to manage the ‘passion and panic’ of real life (Clarke, 2000) with intuition and insight? How can teachers and other education professionals contribute to ‘the difference that needs to be made’ and what say do they have in what that difference might be?

Positioning teachers at the heart of school improvement In an increasingly fragile professional world (Lunt, 2008), the teacher’s role in relation to school change is championed with varying emphases. The exploration of professionalism by Cunningham (2008) and colleagues casts teachers variously as specialists in learning within a multi-disciplinary agenda (Whitty, 2008), as critical creators and entrepreneurs (Barnett, 2008), as responsive, productive agents who are ‘subjects of reform’ (Ball, 2008) and as ‘imaginative professionals’ (Power, 2008). In analyses that emphasise professional deficit and therapeutic remedies, deterministic perspectives, control and oppression, the professional condition itself is too often the focus of analysis, with the professional too easily cast as victim (Power, 2008). Meanwhile, Hargreaves and Fullan (2012) contend that the relentless focus on teacher quality is like looking for your keys under the streetlight when they have been lost in the shadows – perhaps easier and more obvious, but ultimately unhelpful. An alternative is advocacy for teacher leadership, where

42 Professional development, identity & agency

‘good’ teachers are understood to cultivate their own sense of agency, initiative and self-belief (Galton and MacBeath, 2008). This positioning acknowledges the difference that teachers themselves wish to make to children’s educational experiences and outcomes as powerful, and the relationship between this and school improvement as organisationally and externally defined. Teachers are potential activists committed to improving the learning, education and democratic experience of children and young people (Sachs, 2003a), at the leading edge of educational change (Bascia and Hargreaves, 2000). However, while the term ‘activist’ suggests uprising and waving of firebrands, the struggle that takes place is more likely to take the form of a groundswell of small steps as a response to a shifting professional mindset which incorporates agency as integral to professional identity. In order that it should take root and thrive beyond a few people and places, Hargreaves and Fullan (2012) argue that ‘collective transformation’ is needed, orchestrated by teachers themselves, presenting critical challenge to policy and the way that schools are structured and led. The term professional development is often referred to in a pejorative sense where teachers are passive recipients, tracked against competences and criteria or trained in technical implementation of reform. It is reconceptualised here in terms of a process in which professionals exercise agency to enhance their own professionality, and in turn expect to use their influence individually and collaboratively to shape a professional environment conducive to their vision.

Professionalism: new wine in old wineskins? In 2003, a ‘new professionalism’ was defined by the English government as concerned with professional standards, performance management, professional development and induction (Walker et al., 2011). A government-sponsored evaluation showed, on the basis of a 20% response rate, that the majority of schools were implementing these criteria and making the required links with quality of learning and teaching and standards of performance (Walker et al., 2011). Professionalism seems to be defined and evaluated by government in a self-fulfilling cycle of accountability. Yet English politicians and policymakers have admitted that during successive governments of different political persuasions, a coherent and sustained strategy for the teaching profession has been lacking. Bangs et al. (2011) note the contrast with the ‘TALIS’ (Teaching and Learning International Survey) research (OECD, 2009), underlining the importance of such a strategy, linking professional development to enhance self-efficacy, confidence and self-esteem with teacher performance. Despite its resistance to categorisation, some definitions for key concepts are necessary and valuable in relation to teacher professionalism. Evans’ (1999) definition provides a starting point: ‘an ideologically-, attitudinally-, intellectually- and epistemologically-based stance, on the part of an individual, in relation to the practice of the profession to which she belongs and which influences her professional practice’ (p. 39). Significantly, this clearly distinguishes professionalism from practice, as an influence upon it. In examining historical perspectives on professionalism in education,

Professional development, identity & agency 43

Crook (2008: 16) and Hargreaves and Fullan (2012) identify a number of definitive characteristics of professionalism including:      

extended and systematic preparation and continuing professional learning, upgrading with an intellectual component, to uphold quality and competence; expectation that members will observe norms and codes of conduct; emphasis on service to others ahead of personal reward; expectation that members will demonstrate a high level of personal integrity; autonomy to make informed discretionary judgements; collaborative problem-solving of complex cases.

Overlapping and competing discourses about the nature of professionalism in education and its individual manifestation, professionality (Hoyle, 1975; Evans, 2008), have led to sustained debate, which is due in part to the artificiality of the constructs. This has led to a plurality of understandings and definitions, such that Crook (2008) concludes that the only consensus is that it is a ‘shifting phenomenon’. A tussle over the extent to which teachers have autonomy, authority and judgement raises questions of scale – whether restricted to the classroom or extending beyond. It also concerns relative power – whether decisions about core aspects of teachers’ work, such as curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, are made at school or national level and the implications where a range of stakeholders may join the educational debate. For the policy architects of England’s New Labour government, outgoing at the time of my study, this meant that the profession needed to move from the ‘uninformed professionalism’ through the ‘uninformed prescription’ of the previous (Conservative) government, towards the ‘informed prescription’ of evidence-based practice, allegedly culminating in an ‘informed professionalism’ (Barber, 2005). Whitty (2006, after Dainton, 2005) cites this as a crude and inaccurate analysis; deficit views were promoted in which teachers as a professional body were said to be lacking in the necessary knowledge and skills, were trained and required to deliver the National Curriculum and were expected to achieve externally imposed outcomes. Hoyle’s (1975) oft-quoted continuum of professionality casts teachers in ‘restricted’ mode as classroom technicians, while ‘extended’ forms involve individuals in vision, enquiry and intellectual endeavour as well as practical activity, but as MacBeath et al. (2018) point out, there is much unfinished business. Hoyle was writing in an English context well before the advent of standardised frameworks such as the competence-based Teachers’ Standards (see DfE, 2018). Arguably these ‘extend’ teachers beyond their classrooms and involve them in professional activity that connects them with the wider professional discourse, but this is often achieved in directive – and therefore restrictive – ways, which is perhaps against the spirit of Hoyle’s intention. Furthermore, agendas beyond education are built into the mix, sometimes by stealth and with little opportunity for proper explanation, for example the requirement that teachers uphold ‘fundamental British values’ is rooted in anti-terrorist legislation (Bryan, 2012). Meanwhile, school governing bodies in England have a duty to ensure all children with a physical or mental health medical condition are properly

44 Professional development, identity & agency

supported to remain healthy (DfE, 2016b) and teachers are currently undergoing mental health training. The English government ostensibly recognised that the emphasis on teacher status and professionalism in countries that perform well in international comparisons, such as those in Finland and Singapore, may be one of the keys to the development of a world class education system (DfE, 2010). As Hargreaves and Fullan (2012) warn, it is not possible to achieve the same professional high status and recognition by using top-down control whilst skimping on resources for postgraduate study, introducing controlling professional frameworks and eroding space and time for reflection, collaboration and research by increasing bureaucracy. For some, such as Ball (2003, 2016), the problem is experienced not so much in terms of greater surveillance per se, but arises where the changing demands and judgements result in teachers asking whether they are doing enough, whether they are doing the right thing and whether they will measure up amidst contradictory purposes and motivations. This is destructive of confidence, self-worth and morale, anxietyinducing and likely to lead to overwork. Teachers’ terms of reference slide beneath their feet and they are subject to ‘values schizophrenia’ and ‘bifurcated consciousness’, becoming ‘segregated selves’ (Ball, 2003, after Smith, 1987 and Miller, 1983), as commitment and experience are sacrificed for impression and performance. Here, more effort may be expended on improving documentation of teaching, than on improving teaching itself. While some teachers may manage these contradictions satisfactorily and achieve authenticity in their practice, others are threatened by stress, illness and burnout, an assertion supported widely by research (see for example Galton and MacBeath, 2008; Day et al., 2007). Where knowledge is the predominant commodity in the educational process, as discussed in Chapter 2, the teacher’s role as ‘knowledge worker’ is not legitimated through grand narratives of speculation and emancipation but in the pragmatics of optimisation. Professional work is cast as the creation of skills rather than ideals, working for functional and instrumental purposes as both Ball (2003) and Fielding (2006) have argued. Schools are exhorted to develop ‘from within’ (Barth, 1990) but in practice they may be forced to interpret this by harnessing the energy and resources from external reform for external purposes as they strive to deliver improvement through effective implementation of imposed strategies. Meanwhile approaches that promote ‘direct instruction’, teacher expertise and subject knowledge, shared via social media, are championed by government (see Gibb, 2017), set unquestioningly within the given performative discourse. Teachers’ values, criticality, innovation, enterprise, creativity and voice can become de-prioritised in relation to performance, compliance and effectiveness. Here, practitioners’ discussion of educational purpose is rare, beyond improving learning and teaching in relation to national targets, using benchmarks which, as discussed earlier, can be quite arbitrary and unhelpful in relation to local contexts and individual needs, particularly for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. This is a disconnected, disembodied, disenfranchised professionalism. Arguably it is not professionalism at all (Whitty, 2006).

Professional development, identity & agency 45

Teachers may well resent a ‘new professionalism’ where their identities have been reconstructed and their professionalism is reconstituted as a form of occupational control with defining traits (Lingard, 2009), with policy as the main driver. Reductionist and technicist approaches to pedagogy have been used to serve the narrow goal of creating a ‘knowledge economy’. In climates of neoliberal accountability, where curriculum and classroom practice are centrally specified, policy reaches into the core work of teachers (Ranson, 2003). The march continues. National emphases differ, but by way of illustration, the English government has recently introduced a Standard for Teachers’ Professional Development (DfE, 2016a) and the new Chartered College of Teaching (2018) has developed a framework for professional recognition of 75 ‘Professional Principles’ for the ‘Chartered Teacher’. While much in these standards is essential and admirable, they are written to reinforce the status quo, geared towards improving practice to improve student performance outcomes. It remains to be seen whether responses to the 2018 consultation on ‘Strengthening Qualified Teacher Status and Improving Career Progression for Teachers’ move the language of policy beyond the example given for building teacher effectiveness – embedding approaches to managing workload (DfE, 2018). Although teacher workload is an important issue, inspiring and enlightening the profession is paramount where there is a concern to maximise teacher recruitment and retention. It is the nature of the work that is the issue. Clearly the ‘managerial professionalism’ noted by Crook (2008) is still evolving, setting expectations which may diminish teachers’ autonomy and marginalise their voice, even if the opposite is the espoused intention. There seems to be little room for passion, creativity or joy. The purpose of education is not up for question. Teachers will still have key roles in the name of delivering improved standards, but these may be more about management than leadership. There is little sign that teachers are being encouraged to ask critical questions or take significant risks; they are not ‘disturbed’ into action, (Capra, 2011). While performance management usually focuses mainly on doing the same, but better, there is little scope for the kind of creativity or dissent that leads to transformation.

Activists and agents The strand of the professionalism discourse previously discussed, in which teachers are regarded as ‘change agents’ (Fullan, 1993; Day, 2017) and ‘activists’ (Sachs, 2003a), is acknowledged by Crook (2008), envisaging a new ‘democratic professionalism’ where teachers work collaboratively with a range of stakeholders for educational change. This fits with Mitchell and Sackney’s (2009) alternative script of organic, humanly driven and motivated systems, discussed in Chapter 2. Sachs (2003b) suggests that while a ‘managerialist professionalism’ emerges from policies of accountability and effectiveness, giving teachers an ‘entrepreneurial identity’, a ‘democratic professionalism’ emerges from teachers themselves, giving them an ‘activist identity’, a positive effect less subservient to central accountability structures and regimes, instead engaging with and interpreting externally driven and internally mandated change. However, while

46 Professional development, identity & agency

teachers may combine these identities and shift emphasis from one to the other in different circumstances, Sachs (2003a) argues that teacher activism may become subsumed under the dominance of managerialist regimes, focused on economic effectiveness and the growth of human capital. Individuals and organisations faced with managing these tensions may be led towards fabrication and opacity as they articulate themselves ‘within the representational games of competition, intensification and quality’ (Sachs, 2003a: 244). Priestley et al. (2015) concur that the term ‘change agent’ has connotations of implementing change that is externally imposed, despite Fullan’s (1993) inclusion of ‘personal vision building’ as one of its key characteristics. The reality is likely to be more nuanced, with teachers situating their activity professionally and politically, working towards their own desired outcomes but negotiated within their own context and organisational priorities. The extent to which they are successful in pursuing their agendas is, of course, a function of their own capability and the ecological connection with the environment and professional culture within which they are working (Durrant and Holden, 2006; Frost and Durrant, 2004; Priestley et al., 2015; MacBeath et al., 2018). Evans’ later discussion (2008) is most helpful in this respect. She agrees with Crook (2008) that the very concept of professionalism is constantly changing and being redefined, resisting ‘old-school’ interpretations and ‘colonisation’ of the term in the name of professional development. Postmodern principles are embraced, emphasising the ‘norms which may apply to being and behaving as a professional within personal organisational and political conditions’ (Evans, 2008: 25) and the status-related aspect of teachers’ professionalism (after Hoyle, 1975). Professionality is defined as the ‘singular unit’ of professionalism. This reflects the knowledge, skills and procedures constituting the teacher’s practice which condition the individual’s stance in relation to professionalism as collectively defined. Evans (2008) goes on to explore redefinitions of professionalism. Recognising the pressures of competing agendas and the need continually to reconcile the individual stance in relation to organisational and external requirements, she understands that professionalism may be experienced as ‘demanded’, ‘prescribed’ and ‘enacted’, noting that it is only enactment that is meaningful in terms of daily practice. The individual teachers’ accounts represented in Chapters 4 and 5, in capturing perceptions, identities, attitudes, ideas and responses in relation to school change, reflect all three aspects of professionalism, particularly with regard to investigating how teachers define their expected role in school improvement and the extent to which organisational requirements are enacted, enhanced or subverted in individual reflections of professionality. Professional capital, for Hargreaves and Fullan (2012), is the key to moving beyond the baseline in teacher competences towards high status and high quality teaching which draws out the highest capabilities in students. This therefore makes the important explicit connection with intended outcomes for students. They define three kinds of professional capital: 

Human capital, which comprises the individual knowledge, skills, passion and commitment needed for effective teaching;

Professional development, identity & agency 47

 

Social capital, which gives access to one another’s human capital through relationships and collaborative working; Decisional capital, which is the ability to make discretionary judgements when the available evidence is not conclusive, and which is born of experience. This is equated by Day (2017) with agency.

The interaction of these dimensions of capital builds personal and interpersonal capacity, as both pre-requisites and outcomes of teacher-led development, in a gathering cycle of development. Gaining or improving skills and attributes through active contribution to leadership of school change enables teachers to contribute ever more powerfully to school improvement (Fullan, 1993). Personal capacity includes professional knowledge and skills, strategies for professional learning, personal attributes such as reflexivity, emotional awareness, selfawareness and self-confidence and also, importantly, clarity of purpose and commitment (Frost and Durrant, 2002). This is about people not only ‘learning to be and learning who they are’ (Point, 2009) but also ‘learning where they want to go’. It involves knowledge – the epistemological dimension – and identity – the ontological dimension. Interpersonal capacity, in contrast, is about ‘learning how to get there’, which includes participation and engagement, inter-relational skills and strategies and leadership skills (Frost and Durrant, 2002) – the agentic dimension. These three aspects – epistemological, ontological and agentic – echo Biesta’s (2016) aforementioned domains of education: qualification (knowledge, skills and dispositions), socialisation (ways of being and doing through structures and relationships) and subjectification (initiative and responsibility as an active citizen). This model has the potential to achieve integrity between children’s and young people’s education and professional development, providing a framework for professional learning to underpin an authentic professionality to support all three education domains. Furthering consideration of the end result, Stoll et al’s (2012) review of ‘great professional development that leads to great pedagogy’ offers nine claims as to the characteristics that result in improved student attainment and outcomes, concluding that professional learning should be school focused, based and led, while drawing on appropriate external expertise, incorporating enquiry and sustained, intensive professional learning experiences. The distinction made here between professional development and professional learning is interesting, where development can be considered too limiting a word for the necessary building of leadership capacity to improve pedagogy, which involves cultivating wisdom and continuing to learn. The review identifies that although professional learning should be focused on outcome, it should also be needs-based and collaborative, challenge thinking and lead to action. This seems to defend it from the accusation of professional ‘learnification’ (Biesta, 2016) which would cast this as learning for its own sake, potentially lacking content or purpose and over-emphasising responsibility on the teacher as learner. The review by Stoll et al. (2012) avoids ‘commodification’ of professional development as training that is ‘done to’ teachers, leading to a shallow or piecemeal approach, with a lack of follow-through or impact. However a range of

48 Professional development, identity & agency

interpretations would be possible, including those which would limit learning by keeping it within narrow conceptions of outcome and control. As MacBeath et al. (2018) point out, ‘Shifts in terminology are of themselves unlikely to address the substantive issues’ (p. 149). Teachers therefore need to be involved in the debate about the nature of professional identity, professionalism, development and learning. This involves acknowledging the collective advocacy, activism and leadership associated with agency, understood principally as inter-action (after Simpson, 2016) and enhancing Hoyle’s (1975) concept of extended professionality. From long experience of the well-established HertsCam network that supports teacher-led development, Hill (2014) sees leadership as a dimension of humanity that is essential to teachers’ professionality, while Ball et al. (2017) within the same context identify components of moral purpose and ‘pedagogical empowerment’. For teachers, building personal and interpersonal capacity to contribute to school development in a transformative way needs to incorporate all of these dimensions – knowing, being and doing – which are summarised in Table 3.1. Applications of this framework for planning and analysis are discussed in later chapters.

The post-professional Where policy development is subject to the steering mechanisms of neoliberal policy, teaching is clearly not devoid of the trappings of a profession but has developed as a form of ‘state professionalism’ (Lingard, 2009). The person within structures and communities is valued primarily as an instrument of progress, while moral obligations are frequently subordinated to economic obligations. However, Ball (2003) points out that performativity can have positive or negative effects – it can either inform or deform professionalism and individual professionality, as teachers and other education professionals organise themselves to meet imposed requirements. This may involve TABLE 3.1 Professional and pedagogic implications of different educational emphases

Educational emphasis

Professional orientation

Professional development

Pedagogy

KNOWING epistemological

Technical implementer concerned with competence and compliance Reflective practitioner concerned with process and identity Change agent concerned with moral purpose and transformation

Training Technical problem solving Meeting requirements Reflective practice Capacity building through intellectual and social capital Engagement Empowerment Activism

Transmission for knowledge building

BEING ontological

DOING agentic

Constructivism for self-actualisation

Critical pedagogy for agency and emancipation

Professional development, identity & agency 49

setting aside personal beliefs and commitments, resulting in conflict, lack of authenticity and resistance. Thus Ball (2003) conceived of a ‘post-professional’ who is armed with formulae and strategies suited to every eventuality and externally imposed requirement. He argued that the pinnacle of professionalism has become an enhanced adaptability to necessities and vicissitudes of policy. Working in these sophisticated ways requires education professionals to adopt new ethical codes, since positivistic and rational paradigms are no longer sufficient for conditions of supercomplexity (Lunt, 2008). Six professional requirements for educators suggested by Bottery (2004) are helpful in emphasising characteristics that create the necessary connections for teachers and other education professionals to underpin involvement in change:      

ecological and political awareness; espousal of the public good: moral purpose, responsibility and social citizenship; proactive and reflexive accountability contributing to a rich conception of education; constituency building, involving and educating stakeholders’ vision; epistemological provisionality, challenging relativism and absolutism; self-reflection and critical questioning to validate practice and contribute to change. (summarised from Bottery, 2004: 189–195)

These professional requirements, which might be said to reflect Hoyle’s (1975) extended professionality for a postmodern era, are exceptionally challenging, possibly threatening, but refreshing and thought provoking. They contrast sharply with buttoned down, knowledge-bound conceptions and frameworks; it is notable that much of what Bottery suggests would be impossible to measure. The suggested requirements above offer scope for teachers to engage with questions of educational purpose as well as process, and for challenge and dissent where appropriate. The requirements focus on how teachers address the interaction between themselves as individuals and their organisational and political settings, how teachers interpret and mediate their professional environments and the kinds of knowledge and skills they find valuable and are able to validate. Thus teachers are cast as more than cogs in the implementation machine, suggesting they contribute as self-conscious and active professionals within an educational community of practice (Wenger, 1998) following a more ecological model (again echoing Mitchell and Sackney, 2009). They are involved in managing the boundaries of the organisation and continuing to shape its role in changing society. They are not so much implementers as interpreters of policy. This requires teachers to embrace the ethics of provisionality within a world of pseudo-certainty, searching for truth and exhibiting humility and humanity in unpredictable situations, amidst targets and benchmarks that are understood in absolute terms. Professionals must continually make culture-bound and value-laden judgements, for which they must understand a range of opinions, respect and empathise

50 Professional development, identity & agency

with other people, cultivate dialogue and empowerment and cope with the ambiguity and discomfort associated with complexity (Lunt, 2008). Here, ‘not knowing’ is seen as the start of learning, not a failure of learning, as Claxton (2008) points out. The post-professional exists in the ontology of the lifeworld, where she can make meaning of the vagaries and ambiguities of culture, process and context, weighed against personal and professional values. Yet the accountability systems and structures surrounding teachers’ professional activity, and to which they are answerable, pull towards the reductionist, linear, quantifiable, resolvable epistemology of the systemsworld, dominated by the systematic and the measurable. This may hold the key to the existing gulf between professionalism as demanded and as enacted (Evans, 2008). The resulting dilemmas and issues cause teachers to mediate widely held professional theories according to their own personal theories, values and beliefs (O’Hanlon, 1993). Teachers’ constructions of their roles and identities in relation to school improvement are likely to vary over time and with situations and circumstances. The way they present their perceptions of this may depend upon who is asking and why. This is where teachers and headteachers may engage in ‘ironies of adaptation’ by working around the prescriptions in order to meet the perceived needs of their students. They may also develop ‘ironies of representation’, where they contrive ways of demonstrating that they are meeting the accountability requirements, even when they are not sure that they are doing so or that the criteria are wholly appropriate (Evans, 2008). They may bring to bear myriad experiences and interpretations of organisational change. These may include that which is instigated by external reform, that which is generated internally, and that which is unsystematic, serendipitous and happenstance. Recommendations about how teachers might be supported in contributing to school improvement are therefore likely to be complex and, even if carefully focused, cannot neatly structure conformity and compliance, but must instead embrace this complexity. The next section of this chapter offers some insights into how this support might be conceived.

Reproduction, evolution or subversion? In considering the extent to which teachers influence and contribute to school change, as opposed to the extent to which they are themselves influenced by change or respond to it, Mitchell and Sackney (2009) warn that dominant organisational narratives may tend to appear to people as ‘objective reality’. They therefore tend to slot subconsciously into the prevailing organisational discourse, reflecting Bourdieu’s notion of ‘habitus’ in relation to the ‘field’ of the school context (Margolis, 1999). Teachers are socialised into an evolving set of roles, relationships and legitimate opinions, thus they internalise relationships and expectations for operating within that domain: they develop a ‘sense of the game’ that is expressed in dispositions of opinion, taste and predilection of behaviour and view. Predominant ideas are therefore seen to reproduce themselves within the organisation and the system, which can be used as a form of social control.

Professional development, identity & agency 51

This kind of development can occur continually amongst teachers at a level of tacit understanding (Hargreaves, 1999) and ‘practical consciousness’ (Giddens, 1984) which reproduces the system. Concomitant with this may be a certain level of guilt when this is at odds with personal values and beliefs (Elliott, 1998). Teachers may conceive of their professional work in terms of maintaining the system and working within the current policy framework while striving for excellence in classroom practice. However, they may be able to articulate becoming complicit members of their organisations, socialised into the norms of the school, which is more resonant of ‘discursive consciousness’ (Giddens, 1984). The development of discursive consciousness amongst teachers is the foundation for changing the nature of their practical consciousness (Elliott, 1998). It enables teachers to increase selfawareness with regard to their own and others’ roles within their unique organisational contexts, thus conceiving new ways in which they can exercise individual agency. Retaining their own values, beliefs, dispositions and behaviours may result in more independent and less socially conditioned, even radical and non-compliant behaviour, as Galton and MacBeath (2008: 15) assert: Good teachers have always known how to be educationally subversive. They have refused to underestimate their own sense of agency and have been able to perceive the scope for radical change within their own classrooms and within their own schools. They refuse to collude with the victim mentality which relinquishes initiative, self-belief and a sense of agency. It is most likely that there is a combination of these influences depending on circumstances, resulting in a reciprocal, interdependent relationship between teachers and their contexts. Here, the structure of the organisational context is both the medium and the outcome of the knowledge and consciousness of the individuals involved (Elliott, 1998). The exercise of agency is supported and empowered by senior leaders ‘who understand that schools learn and change from the bottom up’ (Galton and MacBeath, 2008: 115).

Beneath the surface of school change: agency and structuration Structure and agency are mediated, according to Archer (2003), by an ‘internal conversation’. Archer argues that people’s actions can be enabled or constrained by society, resulting in advancement or frustration of their plans, respectively. An internal, reflexive conversation enables people to monitor themselves such that they are ‘ontologically distinct’ from their context, rather than understanding themselves to be part of the organisational mechanism and are consequently able to exercise their own agency in relation to the structures around them. In exploring the concept of agency, a helpful starting point, as stated in Chapter 1, is Bandura’s (2001) idea of the ‘essence’ that defines human beings such that they are able to achieve their desired outcomes through organising, enacting and regulating their own behaviour. This goes beyond Priestley et al.’s (2015) initial

52 Professional development, identity & agency

definition of ‘ability or potential to act’, introducing the important and complex notion of ‘desired outcomes’. Bandura (2001) identifies four core features of human agency that distinguish it from more straightforward professional action, having a clear, planned and evaluative process linked to values and personal goals, which could include educational outcomes. These core features of agency have provided a valuable framework for later discussion and analysis:    

intentionality: a proactive commitment to actions that may bring about desired outcomes; forethought: the ability to self-motivate in anticipating consequences of actions and adjusting them to achieve desired outcomes and avoid undesired ones; self-reactiveness: monitoring progress towards fulfilling desired outcomes and regulating actions accordingly; self-reflectiveness: thinking about and evaluating motives and actions in relation to values and life goals.

The problematic nature of teachers’ desired outcomes must not be underestimated, because their aspirations and intentions are inevitably conditioned by their environment. Therefore it might be more effective to desire outcomes that are achievable and align with current political and organisational priorities, yet there is likely to be a tension with individual and personal professional intentions and goals. Thus the reciprocal relationship between teachers and the surrounding context and conditions in which they work must be recognised, as Priestley et al. (2015) point out. As will be seen in later chapters, there are further and deeper questions concerning the extent to which teachers can then influence these conditions, such that enhancing their own agency becomes one of the desired outcomes they are working towards. This is made even more powerful when approached collectively. Within the distinct research area of professional identity (Beijaard et al., 2004), the complexities of teachers’ lives and identities and the many facets of their context in relation to their sense of agency, their well-being, resilience and performance, seem to be relatively well understood and documented. Day et al. (2007) consider identity as a key factor influencing teachers’ sense of purpose, self-efficacy, motivation and commitment. They contend (with Nias, 1998) that while notions of self and personal identity are used in educational theory, critical engagement with teachers’ cognitive and emotional selves is rare, yet necessary to raise and sustain standards of teaching and contribute to teachers’ effectiveness. The orientation of this argument clearly accords with conditions and factors contributing to school improvement being subsumed by narrow purposes of effectiveness, as discussed in Chapter 2. There is a danger here that what is purported to be teachers’ agency can be ‘tamed’ or ‘harnessed’ towards externally determined purposes and aims, or therapeutically directed towards improving their own self-worth and wellbeing so that they are more able to work effectively and compliantly, when this purposing negates the agentic dimension altogether.

Professional development, identity & agency 53

The extent to which teachers can conceive of their professional identity in terms of using their agency structurally involves not only addressing processes of teaching and learning within classrooms, but also critiquing and confronting educational purposes and changing ways of being and acting in school communities, articulating this through discursive consciousness as discussed earlier. Personal experience and individual professionality have to be managed in relation to living with contradictions and tensions while ensuring individual effectiveness to fulfil contractual requirements. An important consideration is how teachers can take action to contribute to the direction, as well as the implementation, of educational improvement and how they may be supported in this. Although Archer (2003) contends that society and structure are objective, agents clearly have organic, symbiotic relationships with their settings. Organisational science offers structures, roles, formal information, accountability systems and hierarchies: the components of the systemsworld. However, the organisational context arguably comprises subjective as well as objective components, including people’s perspectives on other agents and their influences and the often tacit social, emotional and cultural factors beneath the surface. Organisational science aspires towards mutual consent, shared values and vision, decision making and motivation towards certainty, but as discussed in Chapter 2, change is always problematic as micro-political perspectives must also be reckoned with, where uncertainty, diversity, conflict and dispute are the norm (Morley, 2008). The concept of agency can be particularly ambiguous for practitioners themselves. Frost (2006) clarifies it in terms of the relationship between leadership and learning. Here the practitioner is far from ‘ontologically distinct’ from the organisation as Archer (2003) would have it. Frost consistently places teachers at the heart of organisational change, as leaders and change strategists within their schools, regardless of formal position (Frost, 2004, 2006; Bangs and Frost, 2016). Teachers’ knowledge and reflexivity are crucial in monitoring and evaluating actions and making practical and moral choices, where they define themselves, explicitly or subconsciously, as agents within the organisation. In relation to Bandura’s (2001) core features of agency – intentionality, foresight, selfreactiveness and self-reflectiveness – Frost (2006) argues that people’s internal regulatory influences can be seen as working in parallel with, or as part of, external influences of structure. It is possible, therefore, for teachers to develop greater agency through a positive cycle where they influence structures politically and materially in order to support their own contributions and influence. In another positive cycle, they work on themselves to develop positive emotional responses and resilience in circumstances of failure and setback, capitalising on successes leading to a greater sense of self-confidence and self-efficacy (Frost, 2006, after Bandura, 1989). In other words they can use their own agency to develop more opportunities to influence their contexts and generate greater capacity to act. This embodies Giddens’ (1984) dualistic conception of structure as both shaping, and shaped by, human agency. As Frost et al. (2000) suggest, the key to teacher morale, and thereby retention, may be in a version of professionalism wherein teachers’ agency and sense of self-efficacy are cultivated, influencing educational effectiveness and contributing to the development of cultures, strategies and conditions that create capacity for improvement.

54 Professional development, identity & agency

Thus agency is too complex a concept to be understood either individually or of the moment. It is socially situated, may be more powerful when collaboratively conceived and has a temporal component linked to past experience and looking to the future (Priestley et al., 2016). The conjoint agency of people within organisations (Gronn, 2003) may or may not be conceived as ‘leadership’, for example when the activity is deliberate but not necessarily strategic. Conversely, leadership may or may not involve agency, depending on whether the person’s own desired outcomes are part of the picture. It is likely that collective influence is more powerful when orchestrated in a particular direction, usually by the headteacher (Angus, 1989). This requires consideration of the relationships between the activity and agency of individual teachers, the headteacher’s influence and that of other members of the community, which may include teaching colleagues, support staff, parents and students in planning, action and evaluation. It is widely held that leadership is more effective and capacity greater when dispersed among people within the school community (Harris and Muijs, 2003). The extent of such ‘leadership density’ (Sergiovanni, 2006) is unlikely to extend as far as replacing the headteacher to reduce the leadership burden, as Sergiovanni suggests, but dispersed leadership offers an attractive alternative to heroic, charismatic or autocratic models. Practical strategies whereby headteachers can support teacher leadership and increase leadership density have been identified through previous research (Frost and Durrant, 2002; 2004). They may be most powerful of all when teachers’ agency is explicitly incorporated, as opposed to harnessing teachers’ energy and commitment to pursue imposed agendas.

Creative leadership and critical pedagogy The so-called ‘old values’ of professional service, trust and expertise (Ball, 2008) can be said to exist in tension with the ‘new professionalism’ of current definition with its emphasis on standards and performance management. Effective education requires creative leadership, in which a culture is created where everyone is given permission to think differently and have ideas, while credit for this is shared. Robinson (2011) argues that this increases engagement in education and promotes the qualities upon which we depend for the future, but this may be difficult within a high stakes performativity culture. As Goleman (2011) asserts, creativity flourishes in ‘uninterrupted spaces’ and needs to be nurtured; it cannot be summoned or ‘squeezed out of people’. It can be difficult to find such uninterrupted spaces in politically pressurised or culturally constrained schools. A significant element in encouraging creativity, whether in school students, teachers or senior leaders, is to enable people to understand for themselves where and how they work best and to ‘loosen the reins’, so that they can exercise their agency in leading and contributing to change. The key question that must be returned to is the nature of that change. It is difficult to argue with Robinson’s (2011) assertion that change that improves children’s learning and life chances depends upon teachers ‘engaging and energising every single student in the system …’ (p. 15), but to what end? School change will

Professional development, identity & agency 55

not happen unless teachers make it happen, but there is an important question of scale. While some would apparently restrict teachers’ influence and action to their classrooms, or expand this to changing structures, processes and cultures, teachers may also be involved at the level of discursive consciousness (Giddens, 1984; Elliott, 1998) in debating and influencing the purposes, aims and priorities of school change at systemic level (Clarke, 2000). A transformational approach to organisational and systemic development involves those who hold the greatest power using their authority to inspire collective aspirations for people within school communities (Durrant and Holden, 2006). Senior school leaders would aim to secure a commitment to change from members of the school community, nurturing amongst all of them ‘personal and collective mastery of the capacities needed to accomplish such aspirations’ (Leithwood et al., 1999: 9). Practitioners’ contributions to improvement are made in a ‘liquid’ age (Barnett, 2008), in which they have to work habitually and creatively within norms of uncertainty and unpredictability, as organisations and systems change around them. In this, teachers must be treated with dignity and respect, not just as ‘performers who must produce results’, or ‘people with lives and careers’ (Hargreaves and Fullan, 2012) or even as ‘learners’ in pursuit of great pedagogy (Stoll et al., 2012). The earlier notion of teachers as ‘transformatory intellectuals’ (Giroux, 1985) pushes the agentic dimension somewhat further. This involves, for students as well as their teachers, ‘replacing the authoritative discourse of imposition and recitation with a voice capable of speaking on one’s own terms, a voice capable of listening, retelling and challenging the very grounds of knowledge and power’ (p. 71). The connection between teachers’ and students’ education is vital here, as they are exhorted to engage with the ‘teleological’ character of education – its sense of purpose (Biesta, 2016). A merely technicist approach is challenged where teachers expect, and are expected, to engage in critical dialogue and fight for the conditions they need in order to reflect, read, collaborate and exercise leadership. Part of the struggle, then, is for teachers to engage in the political work that enables them to continue the struggle, not only in changing practice, but in changing the conditions that enable or constrain their pedagogical work. Giroux (1985) does not underestimate the enormity of this task, but sees a way forward in teachers in their own settings ‘making the necessary inroads into opening new spaces for creative and reflective discourse and action’ (p. 75). This is true professional development, in which teachers themselves are agents. The teacher narratives that provide the basis of evidence for the next chapter are set against a backdrop of policy emphasising ‘The Importance of Teaching’ (DfE, 2010), ostensibly placing teachers at the heart of the school improvement rhetoric. De-skilling and de-professionalism may have been over-emphasised in the academic discourse where reform may sometimes have given scope for extending rather than restricting teachers’ professionalism (Whitty, 2006). Indeed Priestley et al. (2015) recognise an emerging acknowledgement of the importance of teacher

56 Professional development, identity & agency

agency in UK policy, counteracting decades of de-professionalisation, but question whether there has been sufficient attention to the necessary cultural change. Successive governments in many countries have come to see the professional as one who meets standardised criteria efficiently and effectively and contributes positively to school accountability. For Evans (2011), this represents a ‘lop-sided’ professionalism focusing ‘on teachers’ behaviour rather than their attitudes and intellectuality’ (p. 851). These are tensions across which the teacher narratives in Chapter 4 range.

Postmodern interpretations: professionalism, professionality and portraiture Although education theory and practice are founded on the modernist tradition (Usher and Edwards, 1994), analysis of teachers’ roles and identities in relation to school change defies distillation and categorisation into one clear and definitive framework. As explained in Chapter 1, a discussion of teacher professional development and identity requires a postmodern and post-structuralist perspective. Teachers, as with other professionals, are ‘situated selves’ – their identities and actions flex in relation to people, environments, situations and circumstances (Gee, 1997; Stark and Stronach, 2005). This necessitates nonreductionist, non-linear, non-causal analysis, resisting neat conceptual frameworks and typologies (Usher and Edwards, 1994; Apple, 1995). ‘The Art and Science of Portraiture’, as described by Lawrence-Lightfoot and Hoffmann Davis (1997), was immediately appealing in the searching for an appropriate way of exploring, organising and representing teachers’ stories. In this exposition, portraiture is concerned with the crossing of boundaries, the navigation of ‘border territory’, the inhabitation of multiple selves, changing roles and identities in transition (MacLure, 1996; Somekh and Thaler, 1997). These concepts are central to the lives and work of teachers. In essence, ‘portraits are designed to capture the richness, complexity and dimensionality of human experience in social and cultural context, conveying the perspectives of those who are negotiating these experiences …’ (Lawrence-Lightfoot and Hoffmann Davis, 1997: 3) A portraiture approach was appropriate to capture the nuances of individual teachers’ activities and perceptions within the professional landscape (Beijaard et al., 2004) of their changing organisations. Portraiture involves elements and adaptations of narrative in a particular representation of case study, with its own distinctive style and analytical process. This employs methodological devices such as identification of critical incidents (Tripp, 1993) to explore and interpret individuals’ professional roles, experiences, perspectives and identities. The multiple selves of teachers and researcher, as encountered and co-created, result in representation that is ‘dynamic, problematic, open-ended and complex’ (Guba and Lincoln, 2008: 279), mirroring the realities of phenomena in schools and processes of school change.

Professional development, identity & agency 57

REFLECTIONS    

What may be the benefits and risks for the organisation of raising teachers’ self-awareness as a basis for change? Is there one further step that you could take towards ‘speaking on your own terms’ in your school or setting? What desired outcomes would you aim for? What consequences might concern you? What opportunities are there for creativity and innovation in your school or setting, a) for students and b) for teachers?

References Angus, L. (1989) ‘New leadership and the possibility of educational reform’, in Smyth, J. (ed.), A Socially Critical View of the Self-managing School. London: Falmer Press, pp. 63–92. Apple, M.W. (1995) Education and Power. 2nd edn. New York: Routledge. Archer, M.S. (2003) Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ball, S.J. (2003) ‘The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity’, Journal of Educational Policy, 18(2), 215–228. Ball, S.J. (2008) ‘Performativity, privatisation, professionals and the state’, in Cunningham, B. (ed.), Exploring Professionalism. Bedford Way Papers (33). London: Institute of Education, University of London Publications, pp. 50–72. Ball, S.J. (2016) ‘Neoliberal education? Confronting the slouching beast’, Policy Futures in Education, 14(8) 1046–1059. Ball, S., Lightfoot, S. and Hill, V. (2017) ‘A breakthrough in support for school and teacher development: A profession-led masters programme’, in Frost, D. (ed.), Empowering Teachers as Agents of Change: A Non-positional Approach to Teacher Leadership. Cambridge: LfL: the Cambridge Network. Bandura, A. (2001) ‘Social cognitive theory: an agentic perspective’, Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 1–26. Bangs, J. and Frost, D. (2016) ‘Non-positional teacher leadership: distributed leadership and self-efficacy’, in Evers, J. and Kneyber, R., Flip the System: Changing Education from the Ground Up. London: Routledge, pp. 92–107. Bangs, J., MacBeath, J. and Galton, M. (2011) Reinventing Schools, Reinventing Teachers. London: Routledge. Barber, M. (2005) ‘Informed professionalism: realising the potential’. Presentation to a conference of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, London, 11 June. Barnett, R. (2008) ‘Critical professionalism in an age of supercomplexity’ in Cunningham, B. (ed.), Exploring Professionalism. Bedford Way Papers (33). London: Institute of Education, University of London Publications, pp. 190–207. Barth, R. (1990) Improving Schools from Within. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Bascia, N. and Hargreaves, A. (eds) (2000) The Sharp Edge of Educational Change. London: Routledge/Falmer Press.

58 Professional development, identity & agency

Beijaard, D., Meijer, P. and Verloop, N. (2004) ‘Reconsidering research on teachers’ professional identity’, Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 107–128. Biesta, G. (2014) The Beautiful Risk of Education. London: Paradigm Publishers. Biesta, G. (2016) ‘Good education and the teacher: reclaiming educational professionalism’, in Evers, J. and Kneyber, R., Flip the System: Changing Education from the Ground Up. London: Routledge, pp. 79–90. Bottery, M. (2004) The Challenges of Educational Leadership. London: Paul Chapman Publishing. Bryan, H. (2012) ‘Reconstructing the teacher as a post secular pedagogue: a consideration of the new Teachers’ Standards’, Journal of Beliefs and Values: Studies in Religious Education (Special Edition: Post-Secular Trends – Issues in Education and Faith), 33(2), 217–228. Capra, F. (2011) Fritjof Capra website. Available at: http://www.fritjofcapra.net/seminars. html (accessed 2011). Chartered College of Teaching (2018) Chartered Teacher Professional Principles. Available at: https://chartered.college/chartered-teacher/professional-principles (accessed 2018). Clarke, P. (2000) Learning Schools, Learning Systems. London: Continuum. Claxton, G. (2008) What’s the Point of School? Rediscovering the Heart of Education. Oxford: OneWorld. Crook, D. (2008) ‘Some historical perspectives on professionalism’, in Cunningham, B. (ed.), Exploring Professionalism. Bedford Way Papers (33). London: Institute of Education, University of London Publications, pp. 10–27. Cunningham, B. (2008) (ed.) Exploring Professionalism. Bedford Way Papers (33). London: Institute of Education, University of London Publications. Day, C. (2017) Teachers’ Worlds and Work: Understanding Complexity, Building Quality. London: Routledge. Day, C., Sammons, P., Stobart, G., Kington, A. and Gu, Q. (2007) Teachers Matter: Connecting Work, Lives and Effectiveness. Buckingham: Open University Press. DfE (2010) The Importance of Teaching: The Schools White Paper 2010. Available at: https:// www.education.gov.uk/publications (accessed 2011). DfE (2016a) Standard for Teachers’ Professional Development. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/ government/publications/standard-for-teachers-professional-development (accessed 2018). DfE (2016b) Supporting Pupils At School With Medical Conditions: Statutory Guidance. DFE00393-2014. London: Department for Education. DfE (2018) Strengthening Qualified Teacher Status and Improving Career Progression for Teachers’ Consultation. Available at: https://consult.education.gov.uk/teaching-profession-unit/ strengthening-qts-and-improving-career-progression/ (accessed 2018). Durrant, J. and Holden, G. (2006) Teachers Leading Change: Doing Research for School Improvement. London: Paul Chapman. Elliott, J. (1998) The Curriculum Experiment: Meeting the Challenge of Social Change. Buckingham: Open University Press. Evans, L. (1999) Managing to Motivate: A Guide for School Leaders. London: Cassell. Evans, L. (2008) ‘Professionalism, professionality and the development of education professionals’, British Journal of Educational Studies, 56(1), 20–38. Evans, L. (2011) ‘The “shape” of teacher professionalism in England: professional standard, performance management, professional development and the changes proposed in the 2010 White Paper’, British Educational Research Journal, 37(5), 851–870. Fielding, M. (2006) ‘Leadership, personalization and high performance schooling: naming the new totalitarianism’, School Leadership and Management, 26(4), 347–369. Frost, D. (2004) ‘Resisting the juggernaut: building capacity through teacher leadership in spite of it all’, Leading and Managing, 10(2), 70–87.

Professional development, identity & agency 59

Frost, D. (2006) ‘The concept of “agency” in leadership for learning’, Leading and Managing, 12(2), 19–28. Frost, D. and Durrant, J. (2002) ‘Teachers as leaders: exploring the impact of teacher led development work’, School Leadership and Management, 22(2), 143–161. Frost, D. and Durrant, J. (2004) ‘Supporting teachers’ leadership: what can principals do? A teacher’s perspective from research’, in Chrispeels, J. (ed.), Learning to Lead Together: The Promise and Challenge of Sharing Leadership. London and New York: Sage, pp. 307–326. Frost, D., Durrant, J., Head, M. and Holden, G. (2000) Teacher-Led School Improvement. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Fullan, M. (1993) Change Forces: Probing the Depths of Educational Reform. London: Falmer Press. Galton, M. and MacBeath, J. (2008) Teachers Under Pressure. London: Sage/National Union of Teachers. Gee, J.P. (1997) ‘Foreword: a discourse approach to language and literacy’, in Lankshear, C. with Gee, J.P., Knobel, M. and Searle, C., Changing Literacies. Buckingham: Open University Press. Gibb, N. (2017) The Power and Autonomy of Greater Freedom for Schools. Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/school-and-college-accountability (accessed 2018). Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press. Giroux, H. (1985) ‘Teachers as transformative intellectuals’, Social Education, 49(5), 376–379. Goleman, D. (2011) ‘Want creative workers? Loosen the Reins, Boss’. Available at: http://daniel goleman.info/2011/06/02/want-creative-workers-loosen-the-reins-boss/ (accessed 2011). Gronn, P. (2003) The New Work of Educational Leaders: Changing Leadership Practice in an Era of School Reform. London: Sage. Guba, E.G. and Lincoln, Y.S. (2008) ‘Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions and emerging confluences’, in Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (eds), The Landscape of Qualitative Research. London: Sage, pp. 255–286. Hargreaves, A. and Fullan, M. (2012) Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School. New York and London: Teachers College Press; Toronto, Canada: Ontario Principals’ Council. Hargreaves, D.H. (1999) ‘The knowledge creating school’, British Journal of Educational Studies, 47(2), 122–144. Harris, A. and Muijs, D. (2003) Teacher Leadership: Principles and Practice (A Review of Research). National College for School Leadership. Available at: http://www.nationalcol lege.org.uk/media-dc8-33-teacher-leadership.pdf (accessed 2011). Hill, V. (2014) ‘The HertsCam TLDW programme’, in Frost, D. (ed.), Transforming Education through Teacher Leadership. The LfL Teacher Leadership Series. Cambridge: University of Cambridge, pp. 73–83. Hoyle, E. (1975) ‘Professionality, professionalism and control in teaching’, in Houghton, V., McHugh, R. and Morgan, C. (eds), Management in Education: The Management of Organisations and Individuals. London: Ward Lock Educational in association with Open University Press. Lawrence-Lightfoot, S. and Hoffmann Davis, J. (1997) The Art and Science of Portraiture. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Leithwood, K., Jantzi, D. and Steinbach, R. (1999) Changing Leadership for Changing Times. Buckingham: Open University Press. Lingard, B. (2009) ‘Pedagogizing teacher professional identities’, in Gewitz, S., Mahony, P., Hextall, I. and Gibb, A. (eds), Changing Teacher Professionalism: International Trends, Challenges and Ways Forward. Oxford: Routledge, pp. 81–93.

60 Professional development, identity & agency

Lunt, I. (2008) ‘Ethical issues in professional life’, in Cunningham, B. (ed.), Exploring Professionalism. Bedford Way Papers (33). London: Institute of Education, University of London Publications, pp.73–98. MacBeath, J., Dempster, N., Frost, D., Johnson, G. and Swaffield, S. (2018) Strengthening the Connections between Leadership and Learning: Challenges to Policy, School and Classroom Practice. London: Routledge. MacLure, M. (1996) ‘Telling transitions: boundary work in narratives of becoming an action researcher’, British Educational Research Journal, 22(3), 273–286. Margolis, J. (1999) ‘Pierre Bourdieu: habitus and the logic of practice’, in Shusterman, R. (ed.), Bourdieu: A Critical Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 64–83. Mitchell, C. and Sackney, L. (2009) Sustainable Improvement: Building Learning Communities that Endure. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Morley, L. (2008) ‘The micropolitics of professionalism: power and collective identities in higher education’, in Cunningham, B. (ed.), Exploring Professionalism. Bedford Way Papers (33). London: Institute of Education, University of London Publications, pp. 99–120. O’Hanlon, C. (1993) ‘The importance of an articulated theory of professional development’, in Elliott, J. (ed.), Reconstructing Teacher Education. London: Falmer Press, pp. 243–256. OECD (2009) Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Environments: First Results from TALIS. OECD Publishing. Point, S. (2009) Welcome Address, International Congress for School Effectiveness and School Improvement, Vancouver, BC, Canada, January. Power, S. (2008) ‘The imaginative professional’, in Cunningham, B. (ed.), Exploring Professionalism. Bedford Way Papers (33). London: Institute of Education, University of London Publications, pp. 144–160. Priestley, M., Biesta, G. and Robinson, S. (2015) Teacher Agency: An Ecological Approach. London: Bloomsbury. Priestley, M., Biesta, G. and Robinson, S. (2016) ‘Teacher agency, what is it and why does it matter?’ in Evers, J. and Kneyber, R., Flip the System: Changing Education from the Ground Up. London: Routledge, pp. 134–148. Ranson, S. (2003) ‘Public accountability in the age of neo-liberal governance’, Journal of Educational Policy, 18(5), 9–28. Robinson, K. (2011) ‘Profile: creative thinking’, Report: Journal of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, June, 14–15. Sachs, J. (2003a) ‘Teacher professional standards: controlling or developing teaching?’, Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 9(2), 175–186. Sachs, J. (2003b) ‘The activist professional’, Journal of Educational Change, 1(1), 77–94. Sergiovanni, T. (2006) ‘Leadership and excellence in schooling’, Educational Leadership, 41(5), 6–13 Somekh, B. and Thaler, M. (1997) ‘Contradictions of management theory, organisational cultures and the self’, Educational Action Research, 5(1), 41–60. Stark, S. and Stronach, I. (2005) ‘Nursing policy paradoxes and educational implications’, in Warne, T. and McAndrew, S. (eds), Using Patient Experience in Nurse Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 63–85. Stoll, L., Harris, A. and Handscomb, G. (2012) Great Professional Development Which Leads to Great Pedagogy: Nine Claims From Research. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership. Tripp, D. (1993) Critical Incidents in Teaching: Developing Professional Judgement. London: Routledge. Usher, R. and Edwards, R. (1994) Postmodernism and Education: Different Voices, Different Worlds. London: Routledge. Walker, M., Jeffes, J., Hart, R., Lord, P. and Kinder, K. (2011) ‘Making the links between teachers’ professional standards, induction, performance management and continuing

Professional development, identity & agency 61

professional development’. NFER Research Report DFE-RR075. London: Department for Education. Available at: https://www.education.gov.uk/publications (accessed 2011). Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whitty, G. (2006) ‘Teacher professionalism in a new era’. Paper presented at first General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland Annual Lecture, Belfast, March. Whitty, G. (2008) ‘Changing modes of teacher professionalism: traditional, managerial, collaborative and democratic’, in Cunningham, B. (ed.), Exploring Professionalism. Bedford Way Papers (33). London: Institute of Education, University of London Publications, pp. 28–49.

4 THE ROLE OF TEACHERS IN CHANGING SCHOOLS

This chapter draws on teacher portraits to represent perceptions of their experiences, actions and responses in relation to school improvement. Teachers were selected by the headteacher in the special school and by a senior leader in the academy. All participated enthusiastically during the interviews, either once or twice in the course of a school year. The six teachers were selected to ensure a spread of roles, genders, ages and levels of experience. Through interview and interpretation, teachers’ tacit knowledge was made visible (Holly, 1989), aiming for an authentic, honest and enduring account (Schostak, 2006) that would be ‘worthy of attention’ (Ely et al., 1991: 156). To capture the contrasting contexts, the portraits were grouped into a ‘nested’ case study of three individual teachers in each school. The six participating teachers and their schools are known by pseudonyms:  

Lorna, Pam and James from New Futures Academy (referred to as ‘the academy’) Christine, Michael and Jess from Castlegate School, for primary and secondary aged students with severe, profound and complex learning needs (referred to as ‘the special school’).

The art and science of portraiture Portraiture was appealing as an appropriate way of exploring, organising and representing teachers’ stories, representing the essence of professional lives within complex and multi-faceted school and political settings. Portraiture is concerned with ‘listening for the story’ and crafting it into a piece of writing. To gather the qualitative data as the basis for this writing, three elicitation tools were included within semi-structured interviews. Two studies were particularly influential in the research design: Sachs’

The role of teachers in changing schools 63

(2007) use of picture postcards to research and represent teachers’ professional development and Stronach’s (2007) analysis of newly qualified teachers’ experiences conveying imagery such as ‘juggling’ and time distortion. The combination of these ideas prompted the creation of a set of twelve images of circus acts, where teachers were asked which image most resonated with them in representing their role in school improvement. According to Bolton (2014), metaphor is less emotive than reality, allowing freedom of thought and expression of ideas and feelings, including access to ‘locked’ areas of experience, and it can therefore be extremely illuminating. Similar metaphors persisted into the analysis. Two other tools were included: a card sorting exercise comprised statements about professional priorities which could be ranked according to a simple set of criteria – ‘central to my practice’; ‘part of my practice’; ‘not part of my practice’ – enabling a straightforward totalling for each statement, and a sheet with intersecting circles labelled ‘teaching as it is now’ and ‘teaching as I would like it to be’ from which ‘word clouds’ were generated (Durrant, 2013). During their interviews, teachers reflected on their responses and contributions to school change and explored their own motivations, actions and influence. The research design deliberately drew upon my theoretical sensitivity (Strauss and Corbin, 1990) as a former teacher and now teacher educator working on Master’s programmes and school development projects supporting teacher leadership and action research, which enabled interpretation and the writing of believable accounts. Rather than making transcriptions, notes were compiled and key themes identified, to guide the writing of a holistic ‘portrait text’ for each teacher which maintained the integrity of each individual’s story. The motif of the ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ was used to help focus on the ‘essence’ of each narrative without which, as with the earring in Vermeer’s painting, the portrait would not be complete (Chevalier, 1999). To help authenticate the accounts, teachers were invited to comment on their textual portraits. For Lorna, the portrait evoked an imaginative and reflective journey, which she expressed in the present tense: It is almost like walking through the corridors and listening to their voices. Michael not only endorsed his portrait, but also offered a reflexive and emotional response: It was quite a narcissistic experience reading pages about myself – and sobering to see myself laid bare like that! … Thank you for taking the trouble to send this through to me, it gave me plenty to chew on! Christine meanwhile wanted to emphasise that she still ‘stood by’ the things she had said. The emotive and personal responses suggest that the portraiture was rather different from, say, a coded interview analysis, as it represented teachers’ lives and experiences holistically such that they recognised themselves. There was, for some, a sense of reciprocal agency in telling their stories. The portraits themselves (Durrant, 2013) are lengthy, so teachers are introduced here through a series of ‘miniatures’, below.

64 The role of teachers in changing schools

Miniatures New Futures Academy Pam had seen many changes in her 36 years at New Futures Academy. Now ‘Head of Food’, she had previously held a challenging pastoral role of Head of Year. She believed fervently in the value of education as a passport to a better life and a sustainable future. In her first post in a ‘tough’ inner-city secondary school she developed a formative interest in pastoral care and ‘kids that didn’t thrive’. She expected hard work and saw it as her job to back the school’s senior leadership. She worked with families, businesses and the community to promote education, health and wellbeing, and had used her skills in international voluntary work. James was Head of Key Stage 3 English (lower secondary school) at New Futures, a post he had negotiated for himself. A passionate subject specialist, he loved to talk about the ideas and innovative approaches that he developed to engage students in his classes. He felt the restrictions of the curriculum keenly and resented teaching content that neither he nor the students enjoyed. He recounted a difficult experience of the academy’s launch and intensification of his workload had made him ill. He now chose carefully where to focus his time and energy, treading a path between necessary compliance and benefits to students, as these did not always concur. Lorna had a non-classroom role in leading professional development for the new academy, having had experience in teaching and advisory work and a variety of education roles. As a senior leader she was responsible for implementing the changes required by the Academy Executive and found increasing tensions with her preferred ways of working: building relationships, inspiring professional learning and offering support. She sometimes found her leadership undercut by poorly communicated changes and was concerned about the academy’s lack of planning or clear rationale. Making the best of it, she was conscious that colleagues valued her disposition as someone who would always ‘spread the sunshine’.

Castlegate special school Michael had had various jobs including Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator in a mainstream school. At Castlegate he was Head of Year 11, managing a class team of support staff. He was protective of his class and felt the headteacher supported his professional autonomy. He was not convinced that many of the changes would benefit students, describing his work as being more about ‘A is for apple’ and bringing guinea pigs into class. He worked tirelessly with families to help students transition beyond school, developed bespoke strategies for struggling students and had recently also been covering for a colleague’s long-term absence. Jess was the youngest of the research participants. Initially unsure she would have anything to contribute to the research, by the end of the year she had the measure of her workload and had taken on wider subject responsibility. Her classroom team thrived on ‘lots of laughs’. Jess began to volunteer with weekend swimming classes. She still visited students at her previous special school where she had regretfully decided it was too physically punishing to continue. She was certain that her future career lay in special education. Christine specialised in Early Years Foundation Stage and was involved in initial assessment of educational needs, requiring multiple liaison with different professionals,

The role of teachers in changing schools 65

families and agencies. She had an assertive but approachable leadership style, wanting to know what was going on and sitting alongside colleagues for a chat. She modelled and trialled new approaches to blaze a trail for colleagues. She was extremely busy but learning to delegate. Her first love was to be with the children; she spoke enthusiastically about creative projects and moving classroom moments. Soon after the research was completed, she was promoted to a more senior leadership role.

The portrait evidence revealed discontinuity between teachers’ views and experiences in relation to the formal school improvement agenda and their commitment to improvements that they felt were needed. Following the portrait theme, these are organised into two ‘galleries’ offering alternative views of the teachers’ perceptions of their roles in relation to school change. A third gallery in Chapter 5 explores interactions with the school environment and culture.

Gallery 1: Professional stances in relation to formal school improvement In considering how teachers respond and contribute to the formal school improvement agenda, a number of different types of stance emerged. As Stronach et al. (2002) warn, it is important to resist ‘reductive characterisation’ into teacher types where the analysis is not so clear cut. Nevertheless, a typology can be used to illustrate the ways in which teachers explained their perspectives and stances, which vary for the same person over time and according to situation. It was difficult to resist the temptation to continue with the circus motif used for the first elicitation tool, given that it resonated strongly with participants. Thus the stances that teachers may take in relation to school change are classified into the following categories: a b c d e

Spectating Tightrope walking and the flying trapeze Juggling, acrobatics and plate spinning Escapology and endurance The mask.

Spectating Confronted by relentless change, teachers adopted a stance of denial, indifference or more passive lack of engagement. Here, ‘improvement’ was happening on a broader scale than they wanted to be concerned with, they were not convinced of its value, or felt that they did not have a contribution to make. They cast themselves passively as spectators, choosing not to engage with what was labelled formally as school improvement activity. Their lack of action might be caused by a range of different factors such as time pressure, lack of understanding, lack of conviction or direct disagreement and it clearly presented a major barrier to change.

66 The role of teachers in changing schools

At Castlegate, Jess, the youngest of the teachers, was intimately concerned with students’ needs and managing her team of colleagues. She seemed to feel disenfranchised from the school improvement plan because she could not see the connection with her classroom, so she would ‘go along with’ whatever was proposed. She felt that leaders and managers ‘liked’ change but she herself wanted things to be tried and tested first. Both she and Michael described sitting in meetings thinking of all the other things they could be doing. While they were accepting rather than overtly cynical or hostile, the benefits to students were not always obvious or certain and both teachers reserved energy and judgement accordingly. Michael found plans, strategies, policies and initiatives uninteresting and irrelevant; he said he had shelves full of manuals he had never opened and he saw most meetings and paperwork as tangential to his real job. He suggested that senior leaders were sometimes ‘going through the motions’ of required changes without real conviction. He had discovered that nobody challenged him about incidental matters such as using old versions of forms. The need for change often puzzled him. Nevertheless, the headteacher of the special school was trusted by teachers to mediate external forces and interpret policy in context as well as generating initiatives. Significantly, both Michael and Jess gave examples of accepting change through trusting the headteacher initially and becoming convinced later of its value. Teachers could clearly be coaxed from spectating to participation. Neither Michael nor Jess minded change where they could see clear benefits for students, where the environment was conducive and senior leaders were supportive. These two teachers perhaps presented themselves as more passive than they actually were, while the headteacher was actively and strategically drawing them in where appropriate. At New Futures, the leadership regime, in demanding compliance, encouraged passivity. James felt that distance was created between him and senior leadership at the outset, where communications in the transition to the newly launched academy were mishandled. Lack of trust induced caution; he too described sitting in meetings, but felt more powerless than resigned, sometimes angry at being patronised and ‘told’, which alienated him from the change process. He had no outlet for his critical stance to new initiatives which he felt contradicted researchbased practice. Lorna, even as a member of the senior leadership team, could not always discern clear rationale, evidence or strategy for what was happening in the name of improvement and believed change was based on expediency and centrally controlled through mistrust of teachers’ capabilities. She found herself forced to the sidelines. James chose to direct his attentions towards his classes and relationships with students, but sometimes deliberately cultivated detachment to avoid burn-out. Lack of confidence prevented him from contributing beyond his formal role and responsibilities or challenging decision making. Nevertheless, he had a clear understanding of the priorities for the new academy and felt part of the improvement process. James was not always a spectator, but sometimes he felt forced to be and sometimes he chose to be, for self-protection.

The role of teachers in changing schools 67

Tightrope walking and the flying trapeze Professional responses here were seen as a continual balancing act, requiring judgements to be made and decisions to be taken, often in complex circumstances and often with associated risk. Michael and James navigated their contrasting contexts with little room for error. Sometimes this was starkly conceived in terms of practical standards of care, particularly in the special school, Castlegate, where incidents threatening student and staff safety were more frequent and serious. Michael was acutely aware of his responsibilities in this respect, working with extremely vulnerable young people. Here, teachers were strongly backed by senior leaders in judging where to compromise or adapt and where to comply to the letter. Other rules seemed inhumane and overrode judgement: Pam, highly experienced in pastoral leadership, thought it ridiculous that giving a hug to a distressed student contravened safeguarding regulations. Workload pressures were often difficult to balance with life outside school, the tensions creating more personal risk. Although Pam and Christine, experienced middle leaders, seemed to take this in their stride, James had succumbed to illness under the combined pressures of a new role and a young family and was consciously aiming for better work-life balance, with a confusing mixture of pressure and support from senior leaders adding to his stress. Both Lorna and James were experiencing intensification of their roles and had separately been told that the school must get ‘value for money’ from them. Handling this with integrity was challenging Jess, who initially described her life as ‘I work, I work, I work, I work’, reached a better balance by the end of the year. Both Christine and Jess were encouraged by their headteacher to relinquish current roles and tasks in order to tackle new change projects. Later in the year, Jess began to consider further ambitions for family and career that would need negotiation, while Christine realised she must delegate instead of ever more complex multitasking. Trusted senior leadership at Castlegate subtly guided professional trajectories. Teachers without exception expected to work hard and had unequivocal commitment to high standards and expectations in supporting students’ progress and meeting their needs. The most intolerable pressures, expressed vehemently and emotionally, were caused by the nature, not volume, of requirements. The pressure of performativity hung over all three teachers at the academy, reinforced by what they described as a centrally controlling and judgemental regime, amidst consensus that the school’s survival depended on getting better results. In the special school, there was still a need to show and record continual progress and teachers sometimes experienced unreasonable tension between this and students’ needs, particularly where external criteria were simply not applicable. Teachers suffered anxiety in having to make daunting choices, for example Michael was torn between reporting accurate attainment or demonstrating progress where he knew students’ attainment had been cumulatively inflated by their previous teachers. It was impossible to be honest and fulfil requirements for progress. He made his eventual decision to protect students and school against what he felt to be an inappropriate and flawed accountability system. This unreasonable choice angered and distressed him annually.

68 The role of teachers in changing schools

At New Futures, unreasonable demands arose internally from chaotic and dysfunctional management of change. Lorna felt the onus on her to implement policy that she believed to be dubious and contradictory and to carry out instructions that challenged her strong beliefs about justice, equity and respect. She was forced to break promises to colleagues she had come to see as friends and confidantes. She believed in ‘treating people well’ and found the compromise impossible. Walking a tightrope through organisational decision making that was adversely affecting colleagues’ lives undermined her own values and integrity. She often disagreed with the processes as well as the content of imposed change. Initially she diverted her attention into positive activity while seizing every opportunity to work strategically, but her inability to find an acceptable balance led to her eventual resignation. In both schools, dilemmas and risks threatening integrity were presented as part of teachers’ daily lives, requiring a continual balancing act of professional negotiation on the part of individuals. The contrast was in whether senior leaders and headteachers were working alongside them, mediating demands and inviting contributions, or set up oppositional tensions by imposing a regime that compounded dilemmas, conflicts and threats.

Juggling, acrobatics and plate spinning At face value, these were perhaps obvious images representing teachers’ stance in relation to change, signifying multiple tasks, busyness and the need to keep all aspects of teaching and management going at once. Here, teaching and leading as ‘performance’ was particularly important, with teachers acutely aware that they must not let standards or expectations slip. National Challenge benchmarks for student performance left New Futures Academy no alternative but to focus on raising standards. Pam, James and Lorna were all made aware at the academy launch that certain foundations had to be laid towards improvement: better discipline; mutual respect; improved attendance; a sense of belonging and community support. Further to this, learning and teaching must be excellent, supported by intelligent use of data and a strong culture of professional development for which Lorna had gained a ‘Quality Mark’ of external recognition. Neither Pam nor James contested the need for this performance focus in subject departments. Indeed, Pam believed that professional standards had slipped and approved of the fact that there was ‘no place to hide’ for teachers who did not ‘step up to the mark’, while James took his responsibilities for standards seriously within his team. He was acutely aware of the need to be able to demonstrate ‘Ofsted-readiness’ (for inspection) in his subject area, in terms of teachers’ and students’ knowledge of levels and sub-levels, targets, strategies and evidence for each student. This dimension seems to represent the stance of teachers who conformed to the national school effectiveness agenda most closely. Christine expressed the relationship with externally driven change as getting on with what was ‘thrown’ at her and ‘making the best of it’, building in compliance but allowing interpretation for context. Pam felt it was important to support the headteacher’s leadership and had

The role of teachers in changing schools 69

shown resilience in this, over years of changes. Jess, much earlier in her career, expressed an embryonic version of this stance. Perhaps less predictable but very prominent in teachers’ narratives was collaboration, usually referred to as ‘teamwork’. Teachers took great pleasure in collaboration and derived sustenance from their colleagues daily, whether with their classroom team and visiting professionals, as for Michael and Jess, or making wider links, partnerships and contacts like Pam’s links with local business and Lorna’s with a university partner. Christine’s work spanned different locations and areas of focus; she had instigated a great deal of collaborative activity herself in order to improve children’s services, but this was hard to maintain. She never allowed herself to be ill, but by her second interview she was sharing the work. Pam’s team included no fully qualified staff, nevertheless she rejected hierarchical management approaches, smoothing the way for colleagues to lead developments and consulting about change. She disliked working alone and did not see her job in this way at all. She encouraged mutual support with every person equally needed and valued and she did not envisage herself at the top. Structurally, both schools supported such collaboration through subject or year group teams and teachers valued this sufficiently to make it work. All teachers emphasised the enormous importance of teamwork to their personal job satisfaction and wellbeing, using language that communicated ownership, nurture, generosity and huge pride, particularly in colleagues who had progressed well and were doing excellent work. Michael depicted his team as a ‘five way marriage’, suggesting respect, tolerance, mutual understanding and the considerable intimacy of working in close daily proximity, finding a workable way to co-exist to achieve common purpose. Jess, similarly, was immensely proud of her team who brought empathy, patience, calm enthusiasm, initiative and humour into the classroom. In the very different circumstances of secondary subject team and special school classroom, the same attributes were much valued. Beyond the structure of meetings and designated roles, James and Christine actively sought ways of giving support and guidance by sitting side by side with colleagues to mentor, model and encourage, deliberately building time around the edges of the formal schedule. Lorna knew the importance of getting together over croissants and coffee for breakfast meetings, while Christine liked to offer a chat ‘over a cuppa’. Middle leaders supported colleagues in organic and relational ways, buffering and mediating top-down mandates and creating opportunities for ideas to flow the other way. This person-centred teamwork, although it was focused on improvement, made the professional context meaningful. The juggling involved finding the time beyond ‘directed time’ and contrived collegiality (Hargreaves, 1994) to do the collaborative work that teachers felt was important, integrating development with maintenance and building strong relationships. Teachers attended simultaneously to individuals and environment in organic leadership of their teams. Headteachers could not contrive this, but they could support it. At Castlegate the headteacher had taken the bold step of cancelling regular staff meetings and inviting staff to establish their own as required. Shifting emphasis towards a greater collective responsibility for improvement acknowledged preferred collaborative ways of working and passed responsibility to teachers to allocate time for what was deemed essential.

70 The role of teachers in changing schools

The teachers who embodied this stance were able to reconcile external and internal demands with their own values and concerns such that, with organisation and sheer hard work, conflict and tension could be subsumed into commitment and action. They exercised individual and collective agency in adapting and mediating change within their spheres of influence, often through positional leadership. This positive stance could be structured in, but also relied on positive individual attitude and approach.

Escapology and endurance More challenging stances in relation to school improvement related to pressure in the teachers’ designated roles. These are distinct from the balancing acts described above, in that teachers cast themselves as both victims and mediators of the potentially malign influences of change and its associated processes. Bound up in their roles and circumstances, they felt they had limited choices, but had to negotiate a path. Christine drew her own picture of being ‘sawn in half’ (see Figure 4.1) illustrating the challenges of management roles, often requiring her to be in two places at once, which she addressed through careful organisation. Michael described ‘hundreds of hammers’ over his head, depicting the pressures of managing two classes amidst unreasonably complex and daily changing arrangements, when he had to cover for a colleague’s long-term absence. He believed that the expectations were ‘impossible’, therefore imposed a limit that his team would only ‘do what they could do’, for professional survival. He described himself as a ‘sponge’, soaking up the pressures and complexities that threatened his class’s stability, in particular managing a changing round of multi-agency arrangements which he felt the young people found difficult to cope with. Michael also described a ‘Sword of Damocles’, representing the continual imposition of accountability frameworks and requirements, a graphic representation of the ‘sharp edge’ of change (Bascia and Hargreaves, 2000). Michael’s metaphors depict impending danger, which had built into an assault on his professionalism and emotional stability, requiring a cool head and a calm and measured response. Sometimes teachers had to summon considerable courage and endurance, to ensure both personal professional safety and peace of mind, protecting self and students in the face of encroaching change for which they could not see the benefit. They

FIGURE 4.1

Christine’s drawing – ‘sawn in half’

The role of teachers in changing schools 71

expressed their agency through resolutely carrying on as before. It is likely that those engaging in this kind of resistance at Castlegate were respected and trusted in the knowledge that they always worked in the best interests of their students.

The mask The final stance of the mask represents the presentation of a false outward-facing identity in relation to the teacher’s professional self, indicating significant discontinuity between what is demanded, prescribed and enacted and personal values and priorities. Here, teachers might decide to subvert, ignore or override requirements or go through the motions in the interests of their students, engaging in ‘ironies of representation’ (Evans, 2008) for accountability purposes. Michael was acutely aware of what he must do, but also of what he need not do, and seemed to have an unwritten understanding with the headteacher in this respect, serving the best interests of students whilst ticking the necessary boxes. While he recognised and was selfcritical of his own resistance to change, he also believed that some initiatives were merely cosmetic and would be ineffectual. In the academy, James, faced with inappropriate changes in assessment that he felt took them backwards, where every piece of student work had to be marked, had rehearsed his justification to his head of department of his preferred approach based in research evidence, while building a ‘trail of evidence’ demonstrating compliance. He had to run both approaches in parallel to fulfil the demands of senior leaders’ regular monitoring. There is also evidence of ‘ironies of adaptation’ (Evans, 2008), working around requirements to better meet the needs of students. In her previous job, Jess had had to demonstrate coverage of prescribed curriculum content that she knew was completely inappropriate for her class, so devised approaches that might have at least some meaning for the students. In the name of ‘financial management’, they made money boxes in papier mâché, adding one layer each week for six weeks. This frustrating compromise was necessary under scrutiny. Jess knew the priority of communication skills for those with severe and complex learning needs and she felt that teaching these under the banner of financial management for the sake of following the curriculum had been too contrived to be relevant. She contrasted this previous school with the regime at Castlegate where she was trusted with leeway to adapt the curriculum as she thought fit. The mask covers the tensions behind compliance, with teachers cast as actors in a scripted system, fulfilling requirements to the letter whilst they might be thinking and acting differently. James, as Key Stage leader in a core subject in a National Challenge school, was under intense pressure to deliver results in relation to a specified canon of literature to be studied. He knew he must not disadvantage students by diverting from the curriculum in which they would be tested. Michael had arrived at a sustainable compromise with his team, distilling learning and teaching down to deceptively simple principles, despite the complexities of the class and its environment. He gave a sophisticated account of the ecology of his classroom, focusing on developing patterns and relationships, making progress in learning and skills and gaining more independence towards students being

72 The role of teachers in changing schools

‘comfortable in their own skins’, which included investing in relationships with parents and carers. James and Michael were remarkably frank about the ways in which they still maintained standards, while meeting students’ needs to their own professional satisfaction. The schools contrasted in their response, with James held to account at New Futures through processes such as ‘book scrutiny’ by the Head of Department, while at Castlegate, Michael was trusted to manage his classroom with experience and care. Christine vehemently rejected the stance represented by the mask, stating that she would neither persist with something she knew was not working, nor abandon something successful for the sake of policy. This may have been a reflection of the relatively lower stakes of assessment in her Early Years role, but also demonstrated how Castlegate’s school culture enabled leaders to take risks. Nevertheless, inspectors had awarded her area of responsibility the highest ‘outstanding’ grading. Lorna clearly preferred an open, honest style but struggled to practise this in what she experienced as a toxic climate in the academy. She was the only teacher who chose the mask picture to represent her predominant situation. She felt compelled to give the impression everything was alright, while she had grave concerns. She was compromised in feeling she must show support for the executive leaders’ strategies, when she disagreed with both substance and process. It is difficult to see how this could have been sustainable – either she must become ‘promiscuous’ (Ball, 2008) and subsume her own values and principles within the new leadership culture at New Futures to tick the required boxes, or find an alternative professional context aligning with her values and identity.

Constructing identities The typology suggested above, although somewhat playful, identifies some important dimensions of teachers’ shifting stances in relation to school change, emerging from and illuminated by the research evidence. These are summarised in Table 4.1, showing the nature of agency associated with each stance. The complexity of teachers’ response and development in relation to organisational change is evident. They often found themselves negotiating, adapting and compromising in order to meet requirements whilst maintaining resilience and integrity. Experienced teachers working within supporting cultures could generally achieve this successfully. In turn, these teachers were willing to compromise in contributing trustfully to change when often unsure initially of the value or rationale, and in meeting external accountability requirements for the greater good (or in order to be left alone). Where teachers met with over-prescriptive aspects of the school culture, they had learnt to jump through accountability hoops and cast themselves according to prescribed notions of professionalism, at least where under scrutiny, such that their professionality was something of a compromise. This was much more difficult where short-term, tactical change had no apparent educational rationale and was imposed within a judgemental regime. Change might not be synonymous with improvement. At New Futures, this caused intolerable tensions for James and Lorna, but Pam seemed able to draw on her reserves of educational

The role of teachers in changing schools 73

TABLE 4.1 Professional stances in relation to school change and agency

Stance in relation to school change

Characteristics of identity in relation to formal school improvement

Nature of agency achieved

spectating

passive, lack of engagement, indifference, denial balancing priorities, negotiating tension, conflict and risk busyness, multi-tasking, performance, compliance, teamwork absorbing pressure and threat with courage and resilience discontinuity between values and practice, separating self and identity

agency through inaction or subversion costly and selective agency

tightrope walking and the flying trapeze juggling, acrobatics and plate spinning escapology and endurance the mask

agency aligned with school priorities agency for protection or dissention very limited agency

vision and experience to find opportunities for instigating change that still fulfilled organisational requirements. All the teachers were wrestling with different tensions relating to surveillance and compliance, which had become irritants – either relatively inconsequential or impossible to resolve. Frustrations were particularly acute where teachers felt students were disadvantaged. They battled to steer a course that would be of greatest benefit to students, while trying to sustain their own sense of self and worklife balance. Where circumstances were unsupportive, integrity was threatened and personal professional identity became compromised and destabilised by alienating purposes and processes. Where teachers were confused by inconsistency, mistrust and doubt, their prescribed identity could become detached from their sense of self which, as Lorna realised, was unsustainable. However, a stance founded on individual agency enabled teachers in certain circumstances to both challenge and contribute to change, while resisting what they saw as malign influences. According to Day and Gu’s (2010) study, teachers need stable, positive identities to succeed and make a difference in today’s schools, yet the evidence from this study supports the view that professional identities are fluid, contestable and negotiated over time according to circumstances (Coffey, 2001; Stark and Stronach, 2005). The teachers participating in this research were extraordinarily resilient, emotionally equipped for hard moral negotiation and decision making and expected to work hard. They navigated continually between ‘economies of performance’, dealing with commodities of measurable performance data, and ‘ecologies of practice’ concerned with professional experiences, beliefs and commitments (Stronach et al., 2002), finding a way to proceed with integrity according to their values and moral purpose. Sometimes they had to withdraw to a passive stance, sometimes they felt able to engage in intensive and complex activity working with the drivers, tensions, conflicts and contradictions of internal and external policy and sometimes they played the part of the implementer, falling in line with external and/or internal prescription.

74 The role of teachers in changing schools

A mismatch between requirements and personal values could cause stress, illness, discomfort, anxiety, unhappiness and disillusionment, anger, frustration or simply boredom. Some teachers could compromise and work strategically to make use of opportunities to their own purposes. Still, with the exception of Lorna, the teachers here had found a path they were currently willing to tread within their designated roles and circumstances. The emotional, moral or physical costs were balanced against the gains in advocating for students. Where headteachers and senior leaders paved their way, they felt they could ‘fly’.

Gallery 2: School improvement as teachers saw it In the second section of this chapter, I attempt to reflect truly the story that the teachers actively wanted to tell. In the interviews I explored teachers’ own definitions of ‘school improvement’ notwithstanding the formal agenda, capturing their ideas about what motivated and excited them, their commitments, passions and personal priorities, their cares and concerns. These were aspects to which they felt a personal, emotional and moral commitment and about which they became enthusiastic and animated. Here, portraiture particularly came into its own. However, it is important to establish that the intention was not to idealise the profession or stereotype teachers. Stronach et al. (2002) caution against reductionist notions of professionalism that might appeal to policymakers, their agents and researchers who comply. This second viewing of the portrait evidence is expressed in terms of elements of professionality – their individual stance expressed within settings and professional expectations. However, it moves beyond Evans’ (2008) concept of ‘enacted’ professionality, defined primarily in relation to organisational and external requirements, which in turn are part of the imposed environment, to consider an authentic professionality, bound up in professional identity, defined in relation to the self. This viewing considers teaching as teachers ideally feel it should be, along with how teaching is actually experienced, a juxtaposition which expresses teachers’ reality. This perspective can perhaps be best conceived as demonstrating what teachers want to focus on, within or despite policy and accountability frameworks. Iterative analysis of the portrait texts revealed remarkable consistency in this respect, from teachers’ narratives and from what was revealed by the elicitation tools. A succinct list of themes below emerged clearly as professional priorities:        

passion for subject or phase specialism quality, relevance and flexibility of learning research and innovation holistic outcomes relationships, respect and care families and communities collegiality inclusion and equity.

The role of teachers in changing schools 75

With the exception of Lorna, who was somewhat differently focused since she occupied a senior leadership role which did not directly involve classroom teaching, all the teacher participants from both schools spoke about all of these themes, and no additional themes emerged prominently in this respect. Lorna spoke about those which related to her role in leading professional development. Since the themes were not introduced explicitly through questioning or in the tools used, this interpretation represents with some confidence the focus of these teachers’ attention and commitment. With the caveat that this is not intended to be a generalisation, but an interpretation on the basis of six individual accounts, each theme is explained and illuminated below.

Passion for subject or phase specialism This theme was particularly pertinent for Pam and James as secondary school teachers, who spoke with a real love for their subjects of food and English literature respectively. They wanted to communicate this passion and intrinsic motivation for learning. James believed that texts should be enjoyed for their own sake, listing many that he would have liked to study, given the freedom. Pam believed fervently that food brought people and communities together, including mixed-age groups in the new academy structure, and that knowledge and skills in food and nutrition were a key to health and longevity. She fuelled her own interest with local and international projects and networks and loved to bring this learning back to her classroom. For Castlegate teachers, the ‘subject’ theme was reflected in their commitment to their chosen phase of special education (i.e. for those with special educational needs) where they recognised, with the headteacher, that they needed particular skills to enable them to work effectively in the setting. Jess recognised that her professional knowledge needed to be updated continually and, by her second interview, she had committed herself to a specialist Master’s degree and was reading assiduously. In all the accounts, igniting love of learning in students was central to teachers’ work, reflecting their own learning and scholarship. This seemed to progress beyond ‘learnification’ (Biesta, 2016) to embrace a more holistic and empowering ambition for students, to do with self-assurance, confidence, responsibility and action to shape their own lives as well as conventional knowledge-based subject learning. For Lorna, lifelong learning for teachers and other education professionals as well as for students was her passion and at the heart of her professional development programme.

Quality, relevance and flexibility of learning Within the constraints of the prescribed curriculum and given resources, teachers placed great importance on planning learning that was fun, interesting, varied and engaging. They all wanted to excite, inspire and motivate their classes, including James’ use of technology and contemporary television, Jess’s sensory and communications work and Michael bringing pets into class. External liaison enlivened the lessons, for example Pam brought in celebrity gardeners and chefs and Christine’s early years class made their imaginary journeys in the company of a storyteller

76 The role of teachers in changing schools

funded by Creative Partnerships. The focus on effective, enjoyable and engaging learning was strongly evident in teachers’ professional priorities. Although they would have liked more resources and smaller classes, fun, choice, freedom and flexibility featured in teaching as they would like it to be (Figure 4.2). Nevertheless, the teaching of knowledge, skills and understanding was never undermined. Jess distinguished learning clearly from therapy or ‘babysitting’. Pam rejected the notion of learning as entertainment and refused to ‘dumb it down’, wanting students to emerge with widened horizons and knowledge and understanding of the real world. She was frustrated by their obsession with television soap operas and wanted them to leave school with practical life skills to support healthy choices and

FIGURE 4.2

‘Teaching as I would like it to be’

The role of teachers in changing schools 77

wellbeing. She also encouraged local activism and made connections between lessons and her overseas charity work. Teaching a traditionally ‘non-academic’ subject, she applauded the disciplines of critical thinking, accurate writing and accumulation of knowledge that ‘had to be learnt’. James wished to impart his own lifelong love of literature, speaking enthusiastically about his students’ eagerness to read. Where Christine was building bridges with families of the youngest children, it was learning, rather than pastoral support, that she emphasised in the conversations. Relevance and personalisation were seen by many as key to motivation, engagement and inspiration. Michael’s work with one student was the most extreme example of a tailored response for a young person who needed almost full-time attention, around which the school’s schedule had been rearranged. While many wished for more choice and flexibility in their practice, this could still be found within the specified curriculum requirements to a certain extent, although Pam, the longest serving of the participants, recalled halcyon days of trips, activities, sports and summer camps. Above all, teachers wanted to be engaging children and young people in meaningful and beneficial classroom activity, helping them to develop, progress and ultimately ‘shine’ while developing the confidence, resilience and self-assurance to communicate their needs and shape their own lives. This was true both for the special school and the academy.

Research and innovation While few of the teachers referred to research as such, all expressed the view that practice needed to develop and move on, through experimentation, investigation and renewal. Sometimes this was at the level of subtle fine-tuning, for example where Michael described balancing his class’s ‘ecosystem’ at the start of the year. The Creative Partnerships work at Castlegate was an example of formal research supporting change and exploring change processes. Beyond this, teachers cited many other projects and initiatives, including activity instigated individually by themselves. There was much reference to the importance of maintaining variety by changing content and pedagogy, injecting enthusiasm with new ideas and projects and refreshing knowledge. Research might also involve individual reading to keep updated on developments in the subject field, to which Jess had personally committed. Christine was continually researching, developing and innovating in relation to core aspects of her work, including leadership development, while Lorna had established a comprehensive programme for staff learning in the early days of the academy, founded upon collaborative enquiry and critical reflective practice. Consensus about the importance of variety and interest suggested teachers were well aware of mutual learning experiences for teachers and students. James craved variety and choice: if he was interested and excited, this would motivate students as well. Most teachers begrudged time spent on monitoring and tracking paperwork, indeed the word ‘paperwork’ was by far the most dominant word in their summaries of ‘teaching as it is now’ (see Figure 4.3).

78 The role of teachers in changing schools

FIGURE 4.3

‘Teaching as it is now’

Teachers preferred to spend more time on planning and investigating fresh, interesting and relevant approaches to learning than on evidencing them. Christine approached innovation with an explicitly action-research approach, investigating and trialling new ideas herself before supporting colleagues in implementation. In descriptions of classrooms and relationships there was more mutuality – more sense of shared endeavour and co-discovery with students – than might have been expected, given the relatively prescriptive and performative national regime.

Holistic outcomes Alongside subject or phase commitment, all the teachers conveyed a resolutely holistic view of the purpose of schooling, citing ‘making a difference to children’s lives’ as the highest of their professional priorities. They wanted students to develop self-esteem and pride in themselves, to be not only motivated learners but confident people. Fitness, health and wellbeing were set alongside effective communication, behaviour and ability to make the right choices. It was difficult to separate academic, social and emotional benefits of learning since they were seen by all as contributing to each other

The role of teachers in changing schools 79

and as ends in themselves. Progress in the broadest sense was a source of pride for teachers as they saw students more settled and better able to cope with current and future lives. Teachers believed fundamentally in a holistic purpose for schooling, whatever the current directives. The most moving examples, where they had made a significant difference, were concerned with these holistic outcomes.

Relationships, respect and care Linked to holistic outcomes, teachers continually emphasised the centrality of developing and nurturing positive relationships with students. This included a classroom ethic of respect, which was seen not in an authoritarian sense or to further learning but, as Pam explained in her forthright way, ‘because we are all human beings’. Both she and Jess preferred students to use their first names. Similarly, Pam thought school uniform was a pointless form of social control. She understood that teachers had to win respect, it could not be imposed by status of role, while Jess said her students, some of whom were non-verbal, could ‘spot a fake a mile off’. Authenticity was therefore key. Pam’s relationships with students extended beyond the school gates and over time, having taught many of their parents and grandparents. Michael, too, stressed that his job was essentially about ensuring that students felt comfortable and safe in the classroom environment. These teachers genuinely cared for their students and wanted them to be happy and to thrive, including knowing how to conduct themselves and communicate beyond the school gates. All in some way expressed the same sentiment as Jess, that improvement would be seen in the smiles on children’s faces. Small triumphs mattered: Christine said that the first words of one previously silent child evoked an emotional response for her whole team, reminding her of the reason she wanted to teach, which was a turning point in her commitment to special education. Teachers’ overriding concern was for children to be happy and to have better lives, with learning as a vital part of the equation. As Lorna said, this meant ‘treating people well’ whether students or colleagues and expecting this to be returned.

Families and communities All the teachers’ accounts included significant reference to the importance of relationships with families and community. Teachers needed to gain support for students’ learning and development, which Christine was so keen to promote through her parental liaison work. Michael was proud of the relationships that he had built with families over the years, which involved home visits as well as communications in school and via contact books. For his vulnerable students, omissions and errors could be catastrophic for health and safety. While Michael did not believe that schools could or should change society, Pam wanted to spread learning more widely, with a vision to teach budgeting, healthy eating and the implications of lifestyle choices to students who would then take the knowledge and skills back into their families. James, previously responsible for inclusion, spoke of the

80 The role of teachers in changing schools

importance of communicating carefully with families, addressing problems straight away by staying after school to make telephone calls. Formal interactions such as parents’ evenings were hardly mentioned; teachers saw the necessary relationships as much more organic and the school boundaries as permeable, such that working with the child or young person could be seen to involve a much wider set of connections and learning activity with parents, carers and families as well.

Collegiality This aspect of teachers’ work was the only theme that did not relate directly to students but was nevertheless mentioned by all. Collegiality and teamwork were central to job satisfaction and imperative in supporting teachers’ effectiveness and development. Relationships with colleagues were viewed in the same light as those with students. For these teachers, authoritarian approaches were less appropriate than patient, fine grained support, often informally arranged with an ad-hoc conversation, a word, a nudge of encouragement, listening, advising and working beside each other. Teachers worked within designated roles and also non-positionally to enable and empower colleagues, share leadership and encourage creativity and initiative, as Jess, Pam, Michael, James and Christine described for their teams and Lorna facilitated across the curriculum. Colleagues were affirmed and praised, with teachers taking great personal pride in watching and nurturing people’s professional development. Lorna understood this when planning professional development and leading improvement designed to build collaboration and shared leadership capacity. Amidst pervading emphasis on individual performance management and work scrutiny, teachers clearly preferred to meet internal and external demands collaboratively.

Inclusion and equity Continually confronted by inequities and injustice, teachers were most concerned to ensure that students encountered fairness and equal access in their learning. Pam and James both felt concern for students who did not normally thrive and understood the need to act swiftly where problems such as bullying occurred. Pam worked through projects and initiatives to address issues such as teenage pregnancy, while she and James knew the importance of building relationships with families to help young people manage complex lives. Jess had always felt compelled to work with those who were most marginalised and vulnerable – ‘the children in the corner’. All the teachers were advocates for children and young people, praised them, believed in them and were indignant on their behalf where they were maligned either in person or in the media. They wanted them to celebrate their difference and diversity and learn from one another. James repeatedly offered students a fresh slate, saying ‘hello’ every single day to a young boy who could not toe the line, because he believed he deserved to be given a chance. All six teachers seemed to be genuinely engaged in a ‘search for goodness’ (Lawrence-Lightfoot and Hoffmann Davis, 1997) in the stories of their students.

The role of teachers in changing schools 81

Agency for improvement The two galleries of evidence in this chapter bear out wider research showing that teachers have strong commitments to children’s wellbeing and achievement, the passionate communication of subject knowledge, inculcation of positive values and attitudes and the building of individual and community relationships (Crosswell, 2006, cited in Day and Gu, 2010). Teachers’ narratives identify discontinuities between the projects, initiatives and reforms characterising the formal discourse of school change and understandings about what they themselves wished to improve, enhance and benefit. When asked about their role in school improvement, they tended to cite the bureaucratic policy architecture of meetings, folders, initiatives and projects, generated by others. When asked what they cared about, the above set of themes emerged. This was often conceived as a different kind of work from implementing policy. It was work which teachers often had to fight for time to do, while sometimes school improvement processes were at odds with their purposes, or simply seemed irrelevant. In such circumstances, teachers demonstrated Bandura’s (2001) core features of human agency, which are shown in brackets below against the strategies teachers employed:      

choosing to implement policy aligning with their desired outcomes as a vehicle for their own agendas (intentionality); colluding and compromising where no harm would be done, or for damage limitation (self-reactiveness); working ‘under the radar’ to effect desired changes despite imposed requirements (forethought and self-reactiveness); initiating their projects, involving others through collaboration and shared leadership (intentionality); contributing additional effort and committing time well beyond expectation to achieve their own aims in meeting students’ needs (intentionality, forethought, self-reactiveness); subverting requirements altogether, so as to concentrate on what matters (selfreactiveness and self-reflectiveness).

Here, teachers are not victims (Galton and MacBeath, 2008) but are using their professional imaginations, creativity, energy and commitment to achieve desired outcomes of their own volition. Where people are required to behave in ways that conflict with their personal value systems, moral purposes and preferred outcomes, they are willing to put the welfare of others above their own self-interest (Bandura, 2001). The effects of this can range from inconvenience to hard work and long hours, illness and stress, but can also be motivating and satisfying. The evidence from this study suggests that these teachers’ interests were focused firmly on students’ needs, particularly those who were vulnerable or disadvantaged. Themes of learning, inclusion, broader outcomes, respectful relationships, community outreach and subject specialism are not unfamiliar in the policy literature. Links can therefore be made between policy and teachers’ own preferred processes and a

82 The role of teachers in changing schools

personal and humanitarian focus, such that action towards their own desired outcomes can be pursued. Rather than rejecting the wider discourses, teachers can engage with, negotiate and deploy them (Barnett, 2008), introducing their own contributions, to achieve their own ends. In effect, they exercise agency in relation to their own agency, making choices about where and how to direct their time and energy to orchestrate beneficial change, to the extent that their organisations allow. Their ability to make a difference through their own actions, seeing evidence of this, and supporting this in colleagues is what gives them the incentive to persevere.

REFLECTIONS   

What metaphor would you use to depict your own stance in relation to change in your organisation? Explore ‘teaching (or teacher education) as it is now’, compared with ‘teaching as I would like it to be’. Where do these overlap or diverge? To what extent do you recognise Bandura’s (2001) characteristics of agency – intentionality, forethought, self-reactiveness and self-reflectiveness – in your own practice?

References Ball, S. J. (2008) ‘Performativity, privatisation, professionals and the state’, in Cunningham, B. (ed.), Exploring Professionalism. Bedford Way Papers (33). London: Institute of Education, University of London Publications, pp. 50–72. Bandura, A. (2001) ‘Social cognitive theory: an agentic perspective’, Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 1–26. Barnett, R. (2008) ‘Critical professionalism in an age of supercomplexity’, in Cunningham, B. (ed.), Exploring Professionalism. Bedford Way Papers (33). London: Institute of Education, University of London Publications, pp. 190–207. Bascia, N. and Hargreaves, A. (eds) (2000) The Sharp Edge of Educational Change. London: Routledge/Falmer Press. Biesta, G. (2016) ‘Good education and the teacher: reclaiming educational professionalism’, in Evers, J. and Kneyber, R., Flip the System: Changing Education from the Ground Up. London: Routledge, pp. 79–90. Bolton, G. (2014) Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development. 4th edn. London: Sage. Chevalier, T. (1999) Girl with a Pearl Earring. London: Harper Collins. Coffey, A. (2001) Education and Social Change. Maidenhead: Open University. Day, C. and Gu, Q. (2010) The New Lives of Teachers. London: Routledge. Durrant, J. (2013) ‘Portraits of teachers in landscapes of change: exploring the role of teachers in school improvement’, PhD thesis. Available at: http://create.canterbury.ac.uk/ 11664/ (accessed 2018). Ely, M. with Anzul, M., Friedman, T., Garner, D. and McCormack Steinmetz, A. (1991) Doing Qualitative Research: Circles Within Circles. London: RoutledgeFalmer.

The role of teachers in changing schools 83

Evans, L. (2008) ‘Professionalism, professionality and the development of education professionals’, British Journal of Educational Studies, 56(1), 20–38. Galton, M. and MacBeath, J. (2008) Teachers Under Pressure. London: Sage/National Union of Teachers. Hargreaves, A. (1994) Changing Teachers, Changing Times: Teachers’ Work and Culture in the Postmodern Age. London: Continuum. Holly, M.L. (1989) ‘Reflective writing and the spirit of enquiry’, Cambridge Journal of Education, 19(1), 71–80. Lawrence-Lightfoot, S. and Hoffmann Davis, J. (1997) The Art and Science of Portraiture. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Sachs, J. (2007) ‘Learning to improve or improving learning: the dilemma of teacher continuing professional development’, keynote presentation, International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement, Portoroz, Slovenija, January. Schostak, J. (2006) Interviewing and Representation in Qualitative Research. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Stark, S. and Stronach, I. (2005) ‘Nursing policy paradoxes and educational implications’, in Warne, T. and McAndrew, S. (eds), Using Patient Experience in Nurse Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 63–85. Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1990) Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. London: Sage Publications. Stronach, I. (2007) ‘What kind of future for “professionalism”?’, keynote presentation, International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement, Portoroz, Slovenija, January. Stronach, I., Corbin, B., McNamara, O., Stark, S. and Warne, T. (2002) ‘Towards an uncertain politics of professionalism: teacher and nurse identities in flux’, Journal of Education Policy, 17(1), 109–138.

5 LEADING SCHOOL CULTURES TO SUPPORT TEACHER AGENCY

This chapter begins with the third and final gallery of evidence, presenting analysis of the teacher portraits within their contrasting school landscapes, to examine the ways in which school structures and cultures influence the role of teachers in contributing and responding to school change. Both schools were initially selected as ‘moving’ schools (Stoll and Fink, 1996) undergoing considerable change and shown to be on an improving trajectory. While teachers’ accounts were the main source of evidence for the study, landscape texts were developed to provide the context for each set of three narratives to give a ‘nested case study’ structure (Thomas, 2011), taking into account how the schools presented themselves publicly, how they were judged and how they were observed (Durrant, 2013). Headteachers contributed their perspectives on change in additional interviews. The schools’ change landscapes demonstrate powerfully the uniqueness of processes and factors combining to influence organisational development.

Imposed, selected and constructed environments The framework used for analysis is Bandura’s (2001) identification of a continuum of different environmental structures, representing a gradation of the scope and focus of people’s personal agency, from imposed, to selected, to constructed environments. In the imposed environment, individuals have little opportunity for action to achieve their desired outcomes. In the selected environment, they can influence particular aspects of their situations and relationships to their own ends. At a smaller scale, people are able to construct their environment, making decisions and taking action to shape their world and influence its components and interactions, towards their desired outcomes. Figure 5.1 represents this visually. While it is important to resist slipping uncritically into a dichotomy of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ school, there was a stark contrast in the ways in which school change was communicated, organised and implemented. Broadly, Castlegate, the special school

School cultures and teacher agency 85

imposed environment

selected environment

constructed environment

FIGURE 5.1

Organisational contexts for teacher agency (after Bandura, 2001)

for students with severe, profound and complex learning needs, demonstrated a positive professional culture to support a coherent vision and strategy for improvement, which teachers attributed largely to the headteacher and senior leaders. New Futures Academy, the newly launched non-selective secondary school, was on an improvement trajectory at the start of the study but elements of dysfunction were apparent in teachers’ accounts and its leadership team were apparently employing reactionary, contradictory tactics for financial and organisational survival. Each school’s culture affected teachers’ perceptions of their professional roles and identities, ability to exercise agency and contribution to change. Senior leadership was arguably the most important influence in this respect. However, teachers from both schools experienced both positive and negative influences on their agency – in Bandura’s (2001) terms their ability to build a strong constructed environment, influence the selected environment and mediate the imposed environment to beneficial effect. Teachers from both schools offered striking consensus on structural and cultural factors that enabled or undermined their agency and that contributed positively or negatively to their own and their students’ experiences, lives and learning.

Gallery 3: School landscapes of change New Futures Academy: a regime of imposition New Futures Academy was in transition, a ‘school on the edge’ (MacBeath et al., 2006). It had just launched as a new organisation and was under pressure to raise standards. The evidence characterises, almost caricatures, a school focused on tactical, short-term measures to improve effectiveness that became ever more reactionary as

86 School cultures and teacher agency

flaws of structure and design were exposed, first emerging internally and then exposed externally. The emphasis on performance within an audit culture forced teachers into obeying prescription, using a language of military surveillance and expectation which Pam recounted: teachers had ‘nowhere to hide’ and must ‘step up to the mark’. At the same time, they were disappointed in the lack of promised resources and were worn down by change. James has a classroom full of boxes, the computer did not work and the door handle was broken. The imposed environment had encroached to the extent that teachers might see little scope to construct their professional environment. Lorna, aiming to inspire professional learning and ignite colleagues’ passion, saw they were being trained to rectify their deficiencies, Teachers felt that they and previous colleagues were blamed collectively for low standards, despite small improvements in results which Lorna attributed to relentless performance training (Hargreaves, 2003). Even experienced and effective practitioners were, in Lorna’s words, ‘de-professionalised by prescription’ and reduced to ‘hoop jumping’, required to implement imposed blanket requirements in their core work of teaching, learning and assessment, as James also testified. Pam’s analysis, drawing on 33 years’ experience at the school, was sophisticated and contextualised. She clearly understood the deeply rooted and long-standing socioeconomic deprivation of the locality, exacerbated by academic selection at 11 years old, reinforcing remaining students’, and thus teachers’, sense of failure and abandonment. She recognised the damage that league tables had done to non-selective schools’ reputation and status. The school was trapped in the uncompromising pursuit of results to combat spiralling demoralisation and decline, where, as MacBeath et al. (2006) found, teachers habitually became the scapegoats for failure under an ethos of threat and recruitment and retention were bound to become problematic. The academy’s launch had created confusion amongst teachers, with breakdowns in communication and erratic decision making leading to lack of trust, frustration, uncertainty and suspicion, for example uncertainty over job contracts. Meanwhile, teachers did appreciate personal messages of praise from the headteacher. The rationale for change was not always made clear and structures and communications failed to take account of people’s motivations and meaning making. The pressure and dysfunction reduced opportunities to contribute creatively to improvement and workloads intensified. The ineffectiveness of a top-heavy executive and senior leadership hierarchy (allegedly accounting for 80% of the salary budget) coupled with sponsorship from an organisation perceived as distant and disengaged, were compounded by lack of co-ordination between senior leadership roles and responsibilities. Inadequate and fragmented development planning, a flawed curriculum model and internal conflict were all issues raised in teacher interviews and identified in a later inspection. This culture eroded teachers’ trust and diminished social and intellectual capital (Hargreaves, 2001), creativity and voice, in direct opposition to the collaborative, capacity building approach that teachers preferred. It led to reactive fire-fighting against daily occurring problems, since there were no clear terms of reference through which to operate strategically. Nevertheless, in a predominantly imposed environment, there are examples both of selection and construction of the academy’s organisational environment, indicating

School cultures and teacher agency 87

that teachers did exercise influence to achieve their own ends. Pam was proactive in promoting her subject’s wider aims within the academy’s new pastoral structure, while James negotiated his own formal role, supported newly qualified teachers and thrived on pedagogic innovation. Lorna had renamed her role to reclaim it (substituting ‘coordinator’ with ‘leader’) and had established a quality-marked professional development programme to promote excellence in learning and teaching, which she knew was counter-cultural to the directive approaches insisted upon by the leadership executive. Organisationally imposed environments competed with opportunities for construction: the power of the executive could always be enforced, while Lorna played for teachers’ professional engagement, inspiration and enlightenment. There were greater opportunities for teachers to exercise agency in their immediate contexts and designated roles, normally resorting to ‘positional’ leadership. Pam, as head of food, wrote a paper setting out her vision for all-age pastoral groupings, which she was implementing with her team and extended into the community. James spent many hours planning bespoke lessons, rejecting packaged schemes of work which would have saved him time but compromised students’ enjoyment and satisfaction. Relationships with students and colleagues figured powerfully in teachers’ conceptions and constructions of their immediate environments. The ways in which teachers defined their constructed environment (for example as people, as structures, as activities, as priorities) determined the ways in which they influenced it and thereby the scope of their agency. James explained how he selected carefully the aspects of the environment that he was prepared to influence, depending on a range of factors: professional confidence, the level of formal authority he held in relation to the specific aspect in question, the risk in relation to his personal accountability, conviction about research-based approaches, personal satisfaction, benefit to the students and, not least, the effect on his workload. He had learnt how to avoid overburdening himself without falling foul of the regime. Lorna experienced the greatest professional conflict, in a double bind where, as a senior leader, she was required to contribute to imposition and prescription, which clashed directly with the professional culture towards improvement that she had set out to construct. Pam was able to be more of a strategist in her subject leader role, acutely aware of how to fit her own agenda to that of the academy. She thrived on challenge and, in a non-core subject out of the league table spotlight, had greatest purchase on the organisational environment and her constructive role within it. She could also draw on experience of previous less prescriptive regimes. Within a managed, systems-driven culture, she was able to pursue beneficial change resolutely and seemed to feel less at the mercy of imposition.

Castlegate School: constructing a learning and leading community At Castlegate, the headteacher’s philosophy of change had powerful influence over the ways in which teachers conceived of their roles and identities. He and his senior leaders were much more personally present in teachers’ accounts than those of New Futures Academy. The headteacher thought explicitly about the extent to which the

88 School cultures and teacher agency

teachers exercised agency in construction of their environment. The three teachers who participated in the research, by no means passively compliant, felt trusted and empowered in their own classrooms, welcomed the ‘open door’ approach to leadership and derived great satisfaction from positive relationships. Even Jess, who was relatively early in her career and quite new to the school, was able to articulate this clearly showing she had been effectively inducted into the culture; she had undoubtedly been carefully nurtured, such that in her second interview she had greater confidence, articulated new commitment and had taken on extra responsibility. Where working in a school for those with profound and multiple learning needs, it might be expected that relationships, communication and care would be prioritised, while classroom teams would naturally be conducive to collegiality. That said, it was consistently evident that the culture was deliberately built and sustained. It could have been very different. The performative policy environment was ever present in teachers’ narratives, but despite the stream of external requirements and directives, along with considerable internal innovation, teachers were encouraged to construct classroom environments and team activity around the children’s needs and were invited into decision making. Furthermore, they in turn expected and encouraged this initiative and autonomy from their colleagues and within their teams. The lifeworld predominated, allowing teachers to make meaning for themselves (Sergiovanni, 2000) underpinning collective capacity for improvement. The headteacher’s expectation was that teachers would select aspects of the wider organisational environment to which they could contribute. He orchestrated change, recognising strengths and weaknesses and actively drawing people’s influence together in conjoint agency (Gronn, 2003). For example, he used performance management processes to link teachers’ work into the school improvement plan, allocating time for consultation, discussion and choice around organisational priorities and leadership tasks. Carefully judged personalised words of encouragement, offers of support and presentation of opportunities encouraged risk taking and innovation with strong organisational backing. Where Christine was leading the implementation of a new reporting system, she understood the issues for colleagues having trialled it, but felt confident in taking it forward. Jess initially rejected a designated leadership role but by the end of the year she had set her sights more ambitiously, gently challenged by the headteacher to find her niche in the field of special education. Thus the headteacher was himself constructing the school environment, an important element of which was his belief in co-construction. He exercised his personal agency to draw his staff into the process of improvement and the realisation of a vision that reached into the wider community. Teachers and other staff became part of this construction and undertook a variety of responsibilities within an organic system of change. All three teachers described a mutually supportive, collaborative culture in which they took responsibility for nurturing colleagues and from which they themselves derived sustenance. They therefore promoted an agentic ethos by enabling their teams and other colleagues to contribute. Christine in particular explained how she nurtured this in informal, friendly ways, building relationships, encouraging, modelling and listening. She made herself available to find out what was going on,

School cultures and teacher agency 89

prompting informal conversations that were experienced as ‘a chat’ but which she used strategically. Although she normally had a clear idea of what she intended to achieve, she allowed for opinions and contributions, orchestrating activity at middle leadership level to co-construct improvement. In the interface between imposed, selected and constructed environments at Castlegate, teachers’ accounts show that they trusted the headteacher as the mediator and interpreter of policy and external initiatives, relying on him to explain implications of directives and judge what needed to be done. They would support him in contributing to change even when not yet convinced of its rationale. Christine mirrored this confidently in her area of responsibility, explaining that she had designed the curriculum to meet students’ needs and would then map the new external requirements to fit. Thus imposition was converted into construction in the best interests of the school, reflecting the tenor of Fullan’s (1993) ‘lessons of change’, where every situation is an opportunity, while what matters is decided by those directly concerned, not centrally mandated. Nevertheless, there was still some discontinuity at Castlegate in relation to external demands for accountability in performance and evidence of progress. Jess and Michael distanced themselves from changes in this respect, sometimes feeling little more than spectators. Sometimes the requirements caused undue stress and anxiety in trying to forge a path that both fulfilled the necessary targets and sat acceptably with teachers’ values, but again the headteacher provided a wide safety net such that teachers felt confident that they were supported to prevail. External and internal reporting structures, coupled with the many initiatives and projects, overlaid on to myriad daily arrangements in a busy, multi-agency school, sometimes seemed to teachers to overcomplicate improvement activity and created overwhelming expectations and tensions. Michael protected students by trying to construct an oasis of calm in the immediate classroom environment, with shared understanding amongst his team that not all expectations could be met. Sometimes, agency could be used to reduce activity, for example Christine’s planned arts developments were laid on one side for a year to allow for settling and consolidation. Doing fewer things, but the right things, and properly, was agreed to be preferable to continual change. It was also significant that improvement processes were themselves subject to collaborative reflection and evaluation. The overall impression at Castlegate was that there was always room for initiative and always room for negotiation.

Creating and negotiating imposed and constructed environments Returning to Bandura’s (2001) model, the New Futures Academy’s scenario can be depicted as in Figure 5.2, where the imposed environment dominates and closes in, with external imposition being compounded by further pressures, restrictions, demands and directives through the strictly controlling management regime. Without consistent leadership, the extent of the selected environment was therefore very much determined by the experience, confidence and circumstances of individuals who

90 School cultures and teacher agency

carved out their own niche of activity where they judged this to be possible and worthwhile in terms of benefits to students versus personal and professional cost. At Castlegate, the culture was more as depicted in Figure 5.3 where the imposed environment was mediated firmly and strategically by the headteacher, who translated policy into something meaningful for the school’s unique context and then gave teachers plenty of leeway for interpretation. Notwithstanding the contrasting circumstances and professional cultures of the two schools, both demonstrated powerful examples of teacher agency in the construction of immediate and wider environments and both also included elements of imposition and constraint. In each school, teachers variously avoided, coped with, contributed to and embraced change but it manifested in different ways. At Castlegate there was a sense of working together for shared moral and educational purpose within the given policy climate for the intrinsic benefit of students, but there were still tensions for teachers dealing with top-down change. At New Futures, teachers who participated in the research were just as deeply committed to the students but there seemed to be a lack of coherent direction or process, where everything was subsumed by the quest for the extrinsic reward of a good inspection and higher league table status, with added scrutiny from the recent launch of the academy. Returning to the teachers’ narratives, there is remarkable consistency between these two very different schools and school cultures in terms of what teachers saw as enablers of their agency and what they felt undermined them in pursuing their desired outcomes. The six teachers in the study had a high level of political literacy in relation to education policy (although some were more vocal than others), therefore ‘desired

dominant imposed environment extent of selection depends on individuals limited construction

FIGURE 5.2

Organisational environment restricting agency

School cultures and teacher agency 91

mediated imposed environment

opportunities and support for selection

constructed environment

FIGURE 5.3

Organisational environment enhancing agency

outcomes’ were never considered within a policy vacuum. However, the benefits to their students were at the top of their agenda and individual and organisational priorities did not always align. Table 5.1 uses single words elicited either directly or implicitly from the portraits to summarise teachers’ views on enablers and constraints in constructing their environments, the antonyms sketching enabling and constraining cultures respectively. Despite the two schools’ very contrasting professional and leadership cultures and circumstances, it is by no means the case that enablers are predominantly identified from the Castlegate narratives and constrainers from New Futures Academy; teachers from both schools contributed substantially to both lists. The cultural significance of headteachers’ and senior leaders’ personal and conjoint agency should not be underestimated. Many of the enabling characteristics can be subsumed under Lorna’s term ‘treating people well’, which involves positive relationships, respect, recognition and involvement. However, also notable are the high standards and expectations set by teachers and the need for clarity and consistency. Teachers were not arguing for a laissez-faire approach. Relational work is not a therapeutic approach or a ‘soft option’, it is the foundation for the trust necessary for change to ensure quality of education. It is disturbing that some approaches identified as constraints, which all come from real examples within teachers’ narratives from both schools, are morally questionable. Beyond this mediation and orchestration by senior leaders, teachers through their own agency responded individually to enablement or constraint and were often able to find strategies to achieve their desired goals despite organisational and political limitations. The overriding motivation for their agency was their uncompromising advocacy for students and, secondary and supplementary to this, providing support for colleagues, particularly within their designated subject, age or task related teams. In putting students’

92 School cultures and teacher agency

TABLE 5.1 Enablers and constraints for teacher agency

Enablers

Constraints

flexibility clarity integrity alignment collaboration support connected safety balance affirmation belief requesting modelling kindness generosity praise approachability reasoning opportunities engagement relevance hardworking leverage needs fun

rigidity obfuscation inconsistency dysfunction individualism pressure disjointed threat burnout denigration disdain demanding telling aggression exploitation judgement avoidance conflict requirements boredom pettiness overburdened exhaustion targets drill

needs first, they relied firmly on their own judgements which sometimes compelled them to work around, beneath and beyond policy directives.

Risky journeys: trusting teachers to lead The debate about positional and non-positional teacher leadership is well known (Bangs and Frost, 2016; Frost, 2014). Schools can provide ‘opportunities for skilful participation, inquiry, dialogue and reflection’ which should evoke leadership in all teachers (Lambert, 2003: 422), inspired by working collaboratively and engaging each other within a professional culture. This potentially unleashes the ‘sleeping giant’ of teacher leadership (Katzenmeyer and Moller, 2001). However, where leadership is limited to roles, tasks and responsibilities set within hierarchical structures of authority and power, these opportunities may disappoint and much of what is experienced may not be leadership at all, being a relabelling of delegation or implementation. This places a ceiling on the activity of professional learning communities, as Mitchell and Sackney (2009) found (see Chapter 2). The key to an agentic dimension within teacher leadership is Bandura’s (2001) reference to teachers’ desired outcomes as the purpose of the action. The evidence from the teacher portraits suggests that this is a complex question of negotiation within context. Principals and senior leaders can involve teachers in shaping the culture and

School cultures and teacher agency 93

structure of the school such that there is a measure of alignment, while teachers can find ‘hooks’ within the formal agenda to pursue their own concerns and intentions. As discussed at the end of Chapter 4, the consistent concerns for these teachers were:     

passion for knowledge and excellence in learning; holistic outcomes acknowledging relationships, respect and care; enquiry, innovation and collegiality; families and communities; inclusion and equity.

The portrait and landscape evidence showed that teachers who are in touch with students’ needs and are aware of their own values and moral purpose discern when and how to call these themes for improvement into play when they have the scope to do so. Teachers supported in non-positional leadership filtered their intentions through their own strategic judgements about what was worth pursuing, deciding which aspects of their practice were ‘deal breakers’ – not for compromise – and which could be negotiated. Reforms that focus on ‘improving student outcomes’ and on evaluating impact in these terms, miss the point that there are so many versions of what this might mean. Teachers along with other stakeholders deserve to participate in the debate, which includes acknowledgement of the implications of wider accountability frameworks within which their schools operate.

Encouraging agentic dispositions and identity work I have found the influence of the portraits and landscapes research increasingly powerful in my own practice as a teacher educator. In the second part of this chapter, I consider shifts in my own thinking that have distanced me from ‘professional development for school improvement’ in the more traditional sense. Applying the theoretical and methodological thinking in this involves making explicit the agentic dimension within postgraduate programmes such as Master’s degrees and consultancybased projects supporting teacher-led, enquiry-based change and action research. The following example from an English primary school shows how focusing the activity on one school priority, in this case assessment, can nevertheless support agency and teacher leadership through the vehicle of enquiry or action research (see also Durrant, 2016). This example is notable in that support staff as well as teachers were involved.

EFFECTIVE ASSESSMENT AND FEEDBACK: A WHOLE SCHOOL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECT St Ursula’s Catholic Junior School in the Diocese of Brentwood, UK, worked in partnership with Canterbury Christ Church University to support action research to improve assessment and feedback, a priority identified through inspection. Teachers and teaching assistants shared their values through stories that demonstrated their love for their work, which were distilled into a word collage

94 School cultures and teacher agency

for the staffroom. Having thus established shared priorities, they considered together what effective current practice in assessment and feedback looked like and how this would be evidenced, then generated a mass of questions from which they designed development projects using enquiry to support change. This was an acknowledged risk for the head. She recalls needing ‘nerves of steel’, seeing ‘fear on people’s faces’ and described the project as an ‘emotional rollercoaster’ in terms of leadership (D’Netto, 2014: 5). Initial discussions led to the uncovering of inconsistencies and anomalies in marking and feedback. It was challenging to move from there to the initiation of enquiry and development projects, which relied on people’s individual and collective commitment and energy with no reduction in the normal workload. Amidst considerable ‘messiness’ (flipchart posters and sticky notes, challenging discussions, feeling a way forward, being careful not to tread on toes), teachers read about current research, audited current assessment practices and trialled and evaluated new strategies. This instigated much more dialogue with pupils as well as between teachers. The headteacher noticed changes in classroom culture and relationships (teachers getting in amongst children) with increased awareness of the children’s individualised responses and the psychological effects of different kinds of feedback. Assessment became more personalised and sensitive to disposition as well as need. Teaching assistants found that children wanted teachers to write neatly and did not like their work ‘stamped’ (to show they had had oral support) because they thought it meant they were being ‘told off’. Further, children said they needed more time to act on the feedback received. School policy was rewritten to allow for more judgement and discretion. Teachers tracked a shift from content-centred to child-centred feedback, selecting from a repertoire of evaluated assessment and feedback approaches. Children were now more ready to perceive themselves as effective learners as different forms of assessment communicated to them in a range of affirming ways, providing support to balance challenge. Even in the year of the project, significantly improved levels of progress were made, particularly for children identified as vulnerable and at risk of underachievement. The headteacher noted, ‘My learning walks showed more and more good and outstanding practice by teaching assistants and teachers as they shared learning destinations with children. Colleagues were using assessment in classrooms as the bridge between teaching and learning’ (CCCU, 2014: 27). This project was intended to ‘professionalise’ teachers and teaching assistants, setting them free from prescription. Teaching assistants developed confidence to instigate their own learning and teaching forum that reported to senior leaders. All staff wrote up their projects to gain professional recognition (see TLA, 2018). At a final conference to which external delegates including other headteachers were invited, teachers and teaching assistants shared their development work and the headteacher and teaching assistants gave impressive presentations at a postgraduate conference at the university. The school has

School cultures and teacher agency 95

subsequently hosted groups of student teachers, demonstrating sustenance of enquiry-based, teacher-led development beyond the life of the funded project. (summarised from CCCU, 2014)

Having led a number of such projects, it is clear that each is distinctive in focus and structure but they share common principles and features which are discussed in more detail in Chapter 7. Figure 5.4 summarises aspects of organisational development that leaders can inculcate in order to enhance the agentic dimension: recognition, inclusivity, criticality, dialogue, creativity and sustainability. Arising from each of these are respective aspects of professional activity that are enhanced: voice, participation, enquiry, challenge, innovation and balance. Inevitably there are overlaps; the model is intended more to help explore connections than to define categories. An interplay of these factors is reflected in the example above. Crucial to the success of the project was the headteacher’s recognition of both teachers’ and teaching assistants’ extended professionality. Letting go of the process and bringing in external facilitators enabled a more critical professional dialogue to generate questions about practice supported by the evidence of a wealth of stories about children and classes everyone knew and cared about. These questions led to enquiries based on their own concerns, which gave a high degree of ownership and an authentic rigour to the process. Professional learning and leadership led to creative confidence, thinking about

AT ION

VOICE

INN

IRY

OV

QU

EN

recognition

criticality

creativity LEADING THE AGENTIC DIMENSION

IPA RT IC

dialogue

PA

B

N ALA

CE

TIO

N

inclusivity

sustainability

CHALLENGE FIGURE 5.4

Leading the agentic dimension

96 School cultures and teacher agency

assessment and feedback differently to support innovation, with permission to challenge school policy. By paving the way for all staff to be involved, part of the incentive for participation became supporting and sharing with one another. At the final conference, nobody wanted to miss anyone else’s presentation and colleagues asked for timeslots to practice in the school hall, to develop confidence and ensure the inputs were of high quality. Teachers devised engaging and inspiring activities and provocative questions, rather than boring each other with back-to-back slideshows. The project shifted the dynamic towards more dialogue, participation and voice for children, teachers and teaching assistants, creating a more sustainable balance founded on the values and care for children’s progress and wellbeing articulated at the start of the project. Organic and holistic connections between layers of leadership and learning can be identified (MacBeath et al., 2018): student, professional, organisational and some systemic influence through dissemination. Further discussion of the methodologies and strategies is included in Chapter 7. A vital characteristic of the set of linked factors in Figure 5.4 is that it applies equally powerfully to professional development that enhances teachers’ (and others’) agency, to pedagogical principles that will enhance the agency of children and young people and to ways of living and working in community and society, as will be discussed further in Chapter 8.

Questions of transferability Approaches that enhance and embed an agentic dimension are innately tailored to context because they rest on the ingenuity and situational understanding of teachers themselves, who know both students and context best. Teachers’ knowledge in this respect is not a crippling ‘bias’ in methodological terms or a millstone around the neck in reforms aiming to ameliorate difference, but a rich resource that provides the basis for improvement. Teachers have a good idea of what the issues are and what needs to be done. This is why ‘clarifying professional concerns’ is a vital starting point in teacher-led development (Frost et al., 2000; Durrant, 2004). Thus the approaches led by teachers, unlike many reforms that require ‘rollout’ of uniform strategies, tend to be inherently appropriate for need and fit for purpose. Improvement processes that deploy teachers’ political literacy, collaborative ethos, creativity and care can enable necessary fine-tuning to subsurface local and cultural factors, upon which successful change leadership rests. Knowledge building and culture changing require shifts of mindset at organisational level, which are possible in any scenario. The transferability of teacher leadership approaches in the face of significant systemic and cultural challenges has been considered by Hanan Ramahi, a school principal in Palestine, and Amina Eltemamy, a teacher researcher working with a small number of schools in Egypt (Ramahi and Eltemamy, 2014). Together they identify the following key features of non-positional teacher leadership, which resonate with the English example above and in which agency is prominent: 

enhanced agency that leads to empowerment and restored professional status;

School cultures and teacher agency 97

   

reflective practice that fosters job-embedded learning and offsets professional underqualification; collaboration facilitated by dialogue that enhances participatory practices and a sense of collective agency; networking that extends communities of learning beyond the confines of the school or country; knowledge-building that liberates individuals from the orthodoxy of external expertise and hierarchical knowledge dissemination, and top-down reform (p. 8).

They make the important point that ‘capacity for transformation at the individual, professional, organisational and system levels will rest on the extent of its facilitation’ (Ramahi and Eltemamy, 2014: 8). Along with the building of knowledge, skills and confidence, headteachers and principals must have courage to let go, and build trust in others’ leadership. In order to ensure feasible and sustainable development, the importance of support and systematic scaffolding of developments cannot be underestimated (Bangs and Frost, 2016). Locally grown approaches can be supported nationally and systemically. In the Philippines, Education For All (2009–2015) priorities were increasing school enrolment, elementary completion and transition to junior school, reducing drop-out, improving achievement and developing inclusive approaches to ensure equal access for disadvantaged groups (Grimes, 2015). However, one issue in achieving these targets was that governments lacked understanding of how to support teachers locally in improving teaching and learning. The Basic Education Sector Transformation (BEST) programme, in aiming to address these issues, identified a paradigm shift ‘away from reliance on prescriptive training to school-based, localised and context-specific professional learning which can respond to strategy at a local level’ (Grimes, 2015, my italics). The important point here is that teacher-led development is not an alternative to reform and need not be oppositional to it. Realistic, relevant change that gives teachers opportunity and freedom to engage, apply and innovate is based on support rather than judgement and correction. Learning Action Cells (LACs) were a national policy initiative forming the backbone of this activity (Republic of The Philippines Department of Education, 2018). This involved schools owning the development process through   

discussion of issues relevant to professional practice and school priorities; listening and learning through sharing practice; responding to external perspectives including education theory and research.

A wealth of teacher-friendly materials and packs focusing on aspects such as mathematics, literacy, inclusion and action research methodology were produced by BEST’s LAC team, carefully piloted and evaluated with teachers themselves, which generated enthusiasm and momentum. This work in LACs had the same areas of focus that were identified in the teacher narratives in the study in England: developing teachers’ subject and pedagogical knowledge and skills to improve engagement and achievement; inclusion and holistic outcomes for education;

98 School cultures and teacher agency

collaborative, enquiry-based professional learning to support innovation and creativity in the classroom. Teachers gave enthusiastic accounts of their development projects at a national conference (BEST, 2016) as the work gained momentum. Local factors might be idiosyncratic (for example in the Philippines a teacher complained that her classroom was being eaten by termites), nonetheless the consistency of enabling and constraining factors for teacher agency and leadership emerging from projects and programmes at different scales across the world is remarkably consistent and Bandura’s (2001) concept of constructed, selected and imposed environments rings true.

Constructing environments and identities in school improvement Each of these projects and programmes has required inclusive leadership, where all teachers are encouraged to reconceptualise their role as agents in school improvement regardless of role and position. Teachers in my study and reflections during programmes and projects offer unequivocal evidence of the cultures that support teacher-led development, as shown in Table 5.1 and Figure 5.4. While recognising that leadership and inclusion are concepts as ‘slippery as eels’, Mac Ruairc and colleagues (2013) summarise clearly how schools can connect them: Working towards leading an inclusive model of schooling, in the current climate in particular, requires acts of agency and advocacy. This requires that leaders’ learning is facilitated so that criticality, reflection and trust are key elements of this process of development. (p. 4) They argue that in such leadership journeys we need to be prepared for disruption of thinking, for challenges to our value positions and for ambiguity and dissonance prompting discursive consciousness that leads to change. The challenge to policymakers is to take the risk of creating the systemic conditions for this to happen. Explicit recognition and enhanced understanding of the agentic dimension gives teachers greater confidence and choice in interpreting the organisational landscape, defining their place within it and changing it through their own influence. This is likely to be more powerful when envisaged as an inevitable element of systemic reform, rather than as something to be overcome or that is in opposition. The habitual emphasis on individualism in our society is thus offset by relational work that improves people’s collective quality of life and supports mutual learning within organic professional cultures. This includes working strategically to identify and make use of opportunities within the grand narratives of systemic reform, contributing proactively to internally instigated change and pursuing their own change agendas. Teachers can be encouraged to create their own self-portraits, as ‘landscapers’ (Reynolds, 1996), paving their own and each other’s ways as agents in school improvement. This kind of authentic professional development requires a shift of emphasis from independence to

School cultures and teacher agency 99

interdependence, from exploitation to stewardship, from survival of the fittest to respect for diversity, from implementation to involvement. Vital to this is a critical pedagogy within professional learning and development where people can raise questions, challenge norms and contribute to construction of the change agenda. By providing process frameworks and structures, along with inspiration and support to take leaps of faith with innovative, participative, enquiry-based development, as the headteacher at St Ursula’s allowed for her staff (see also Mylles, 2014), there is a genuine practical possibility of transforming the culture of schools to improve children’s learning, wellbeing and development beyond ‘production line’ models of schooling. This moves towards Kincheloe’s grounded vision of inspiring students with ‘impassioned spirit’ to use education for good. Teachers can model this approach as ‘empowered, learned, highly skilled democratic citizens who have the confidence and the savvy to improve their own lives and to make their communities more vibrant places in which to live, work and play…’ (Kincheloe, 2008: 8). Kincheloe warns that if we cannot articulate such a ‘transformative, just and egalitarian critical pedagogical vision’ then we face a different kind of risk – that of reducing schooling to behaviour management: ‘taming, controlling and/or rescuing the least empowered of our students….’ (Kincheloe, 2008: 8). We also risk reducing teaching and school leadership to a matter of compliance and control. To avoid these risks, school senior leaders and policymakers need to create safe and supportive spaces for dialogue and action at organisational level and in decision making and policy design. Agentic professional communities offer exciting opportunities for professional learning and leadership, where critical and inclusive dialogue engenders change. This process builds trust to formalise the development of a more agentic professionalism, with individual expression in teachers’ extended professionality. The next chapter explores a model for schooling in which the dimension of agency is given greater prominence for both teachers and their students.

REFLECTIONS   

How can you increase the constructed organisational environment and provide selected opportunities within your own setting? What strategies are used to mediate and interpret the imposed environment appropriately? Review your organisation in relation to the aspects of organisational development and professional activity that enhance agency (Figure 5.3). What do you do well? What aspects do you need to work on?

100 School cultures and teacher agency

References Bandura, A. (2001) ‘Social cognitive theory: an agentic perspective’, Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 1–26. Bangs, J. and Frost, D. (2016) ‘Non-positional teacher leadership: distributed leadership and self-efficacy’, in Evers, J. and Kneyber, R., Flip the System: Changing Education from the Ground Up. London: Routledge, pp. 92–107. BEST (2016) Basic Education Sector Transformation Action Research Symposium, 9th ICTED Conference on Teacher Education, ‘Teacher Agency and Educational Reform: Articulations, Conditions and Possibilities’, University of The Philippines, Manila, 2 September. CCCU (2014) Effective Assessment and Feedback: A Risky Journey. Brentwood: Canterbury Christ Church University with St Ursula’s Catholic Junior School. D’Netto, C. (2014) ‘A risky journey: nerves of steel and enlightenment’, in ‘Effective Assessment and Feedback: A Risky Journey. Brentwood: Canterbury Christ Church University with St Ursula’s Catholic Junior School , pp. 5–8. Durrant, J. (2004) ‘Teachers leading change: frameworks and key ingredients for school improvement’, Leading and Managing, 10(2), 10–29. Durrant, J. (2013) ‘Portraits of teachers in landscapes of change: exploring the role of teachers in school improvement’. PhD thesis. Available at http://create.canterbury.ac.uk/ 11664/ (accessed 2018). Durrant, J. (2016) ‘What is evidence-based practice, and why does it matter?’ in Austin, R. (ed.), Researching Primary Education. London: Sage, pp. 9–24. Frost, D. (ed.) (2014) Transforming Education through Teacher Leadership. The LfL Teacher Leadership Series. Cambridge: University of Cambridge. Frost, D., Durrant, J., Head, M. and Holden, G. (2000) Teacher-Led School Improvement. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Fullan, M. (1993) Change Forces: Probing the Depths of Educational Reform. London: Falmer Press. Grimes, P. (2015) Teacher Education: Restructuring Pre-Service and In-Service Teacher Training for Learner-Focused Instruction towards Global and ASEAN Integration Practices, Perspectives and Prospective. Basic Education Sector Transformation (BEST) presentation. Available at http s://forumguro.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/on-teacher-education-restructuring-pre-ser vice-and-in-service-teacher-prof-devt-by-peter-grimes.pdf (accessed 2018). Gronn, P. (2003) The New Work of Educational Leaders: Changing Leadership Practice in an Era of School Reform. London: Sage. Hargreaves, A. (2003) ‘Professional learning communities and performance training sects: The emerging apartheid of school improvement’, in Harris, A., Day, C., Hopkins, D., Hadfield, M., Hargreaves, A. and Chapman, C. (eds), Effective Leadership for School Improvement. London: RoutledgeFalmer, pp. 180–195. Hargreaves, D.H. (2001) ‘A capital theory of school effectiveness and improvement’, British Educational Research Journal, 27(4), 487–503. Katzenmeyer, M. and Moller, G. (2001) Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Helping Teachers Develop as Leaders. 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Kincheloe, J.L. (2008) Critical Pedagogy Primer. 2nd edn. New York: Peter Lang. Lambert, L. (2003) ‘Leadership redefined: an evocative context for teacher leadership’, School Leadership and Management, 23(4), 421–430. MacBeath, J., Dempster, N., Frost, D., Johnson, G. and Swaffield, S. (2018) Strengthening the Connections between Leadership and Learning: Challenges to Policy, School and Classroom Practice. London: Routledge.

School cultures and teacher agency 101

MacBeath, J., Gray, J., Cullen, J., Frost, D., Steward, S. and Swaffield, S. (2006) Schools on the Edge: Responding to Challenging Circumstances. London: Sage. Mac Ruairc, G., Ottesen, E. and Precey, R. (2013) ‘Leadership for inclusive education; setting the context’, in Mac Ruairc, G., Ottesen, E. and Precey, R. (eds), Leadership for Inclusive Education: values, vision and voices. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, pp.1–8. Mitchell, C. and Sackney, L. (2000) Profound Improvement: Building Capacity for a Learning Community. Lisse, The Netherlands: Swets and Zeitlinger. Mitchell, C. and Sackney, L. (2009) Sustainable Improvement: Building Learning Communities that Endure. Rotterdam, NL: Sense Publishers. Mylles, J. (2014) ‘Foreword’, in Frost, D. (ed.), Transforming Education through Teacher Leadership. The LfL Teacher Leadership Series. Cambridge: University of Cambridge, pp. ix–x. Ramahi, H. and Eltemamy, A. (2014) ‘Introducing teacher leadership to the Middle East: starting with Egypt and Palestine’, paper presented within the symposium: ‘Changing teacher professionality through support for teacher leadership in Europe and beyond’, ECER, Porto, 2–5 September. Republic of the Philippines Department of Education (2018) Learning Action Cell Policy. Available at: http://bit.ly/LACPolicy (accessed 2018). Reynolds, C. (1996) ‘Cultural scripts for teachers: identities and their relation to workplace landscapes’, in Kompf, M., Boak, T., Bond, W.R. and Dworet, D. (eds), Changing research and Practice: Teachers’ Professionalism, Identities and Knowledge. London: Falmer Press. Sergiovanni, T. (2000) The Lifeworld of Leadership: Creating Culture, Community and Personal Meaning in Our Schools. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Stoll, L. and Fink, D. (1996) Changing Our Schools: Linking School Effectiveness and School Improvement. Buckingham: Open University Press. TLA (2018) Teaching and Learning Academy. Available at: http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/ education/our-work/research-knowledge-exchange/teaching-and-learning-academy/tea ching-and-learning-academy.aspx (accessed 2018). Thomas, G. (2011) How To Do Your Case Study: A Guide for Students and Researchers. London: Sage.

6 AN AGENTIC FRAMEWORK FOR EDUCATION

The analysis of teacher portrait and school landscape evidence confirmed the inadequacy of current concepts of school effectiveness and school improvement to scaffold authentic contemporary understandings and analysis of school change and the actual and potential role of teachers in the process. Others are unequivocal about the limitations that recent global imperatives, political priorities and economically driven, performative models for systemic reform have placed on transformative potential. As previously discussed, the collaborative potential of professional learning communities has been harnessed for tactical gains in a climate of competition (Mitchell and Sackney, 2009) and broader school improvement processes are habitually subsumed under the school effectiveness banner in many regimes worldwide (Wrigley, 2003). In Chapter 2, it was argued that school effectiveness emphasises epistemological processes, relationships and outcomes – concerned with knowing, while school improvement also encompasses ontological processes, relationships and identities – concerned with being and becoming. However the evidence in Chapters 4 and 5 showed that much of teachers’ professional activity lies beyond these parameters, particularly where school improvement and school effectiveness have essentially become synonymous. In response to this, a further agentic dimension of schooling is conceived and explained in this chapter, to express and frame teachers’ commitments, energy and moral purpose channelled into action through their own agency. This agency includes both the instigation of teachers’ own activity and the interpretation of internally and externally driven change through ‘channelling’ wider agendas to achieve individual and collective desired outcomes. Teacher agency can be positively mediated through supportive organisational contexts but can also overcome considerable limitations imposed by organisational regimes, through individual persistence, creative determination and micro-political manoeuvring.

An agentic framework for education 103

Building in an agentic perspective Characterisation of this third, agentic perspective for schooling complements the epistemological and ontological dimensions. Agential processes, relationships and outcomes are concerned with doing. The consideration of psychological aspects of agency in relation to professional environments (Bandura, 2001) is extended to include teachers’ agency in relation to their professional identities, with sociological aspects in relation to discursive consciousness, agency and structuration, as explored in Chapter 3. These ideas encapsulate, illuminate and extend the concept of professionals working effectively within organic systems (Mitchell and Sackney, 2009). A framework for education that builds in this dimension is outlined in Table 6.1, where detailed elements of the agentic perspective are set out in the final column, for comparison with ontological and epistemological dimensions. The agentic dimension is not intended as an alternative but offers a working set of ideas for this distinctive additional emphasis. The three dimensions together comprise a model for conceptualising and developing aspects of education, giving due recognition to the agential aspects of the process. Although this has been developed in relation to schooling, the framework could also be applied to other aspects of education, including higher and further education. The framework is offered not definitively, but as a starting point, to stimulate discussion and interpretation and to subject policy and practice to scrutiny from a new angle. The agentic dimension moves on from the cycles of material, cultural and structural reproduction shown diagrammatically in Chapter 2 (Figures 2.1 and 2.2). Here, the teacher’s professional role and identity as an agent of change takes into account both formal and informal roles and contributions, i.e. positional and non-positional leadership, as exemplified in teachers’ stories. Broader dimensions of agency, sense of self-efficacy and contribution to school and sometimes systemic change that emerge from the empirical evidence are reflected in this third, agentic dimension. This typology offers a fresh lens with which to approach the development of education and conceive of teacher professionalism, thereby professional development and learning. The agentic dimension represents a transition from the building of material, social and intellectual capital and thus capacity for improvement, towards the building of agency that underpins all these aspects of organisational and personal growth, agency that is integral to educational purpose. This is the foundation of sustainable, transformative change that starts with the values and intended outcomes of educators, both individually and collaboratively, extending to include students and others in more democratic, inclusive forms of schooling. The development of these ideas can challenge our work as teachers, headteachers, teacher educators, researchers, consultants and policymakers. It provides a critical framework to give an agentic perspective on policy design. There is much still to explore, but consideration of the implications and possible applications of this model, drawing and building upon the ideas and elements in the final column of Table 6.1, can be introduced to support the development and extension of teachers’ professionalism and professionality, in which agency is integral to process and outcome, linking professional identity explicitly with school improvement as collectively defined.

People related to context Leadership

Structure and culture

Drivers

Policy landscape

individuals exist within organisation hierarchical, charismatic; possibly autocratic; hero-innovators, super-heads; line management and monitoring; structured support and backup

global comparison, economic progress accountability for performance outcomes roles and hierarchies focus on structure emphasis on status and authority

qualification:* results imposition by external decision makers, national reforms

knowledge ways of knowing transmission of knowledge, understanding, information

Central concern

Areas of emphasis

Epistemological perspective

Dimension of education

TABLE 6.1 Analytical framework comparing perspectives for education

implementation of national or organisational policy by individuals, groups and agencies organisational comparison and competition social and moral development; broader educational outcomes tasks and teams focus on culture and structure emphasis on processes and collaboration social groups operate within system distributed and shared leadership; empowering implementation; leaders of learning; coaching and mentoring; contributing to teams; all are stakeholders

identity ways of being development of relationships, interactions, selfknowledge, emotional intelligence and emotional literacy socialisation*: relationships

Ontological Perspective

generation of ideas and actions by local participants, interpretation and choice individual and collaborative values and intended outcomes students’ needs in local context; sustainable development goals interactions and relationships structuration ~ emphasis on enabling and empowerment people interact within community headteachers orchestrate conjoint agency and non-positional leadership; self-efficacy increases agency; high leadership capacity and density; trust

agency ways of acting enactment of participation, democracy, citizenship, leadership, voice, self-efficacy, agency, activism subjectification*: responses

Agentic perspective

social and emotional aspects of learning such as self-confidence, resilience and character self-evaluation as part of development within a learning community; views of all stakeholders taken into account; student and parent surveys and ratings

attendance and inclusion measured to judge engagement

Success criteria: organisational

Success criteria: individual

performance and progress measured against national benchmarks; inspection against national framework; rankings in league tables

academic performance and progress measured against targets and predictions by tests and examinations

dissemination and roll-out

lifeworld # organic systems independent learning post-modernity qualitative reflection, self-study and selfevaluation case studies; sharing good, best and next practice contexts and cultures affecting implementation broader range of outcomes including health, safety, wellbeing, participation and metacognition

systemsworld # managed systems dependent learning modernity quantitative formulae for effective classroom and leadership practice large scale trials; ‘what works’

Research emphasis and application

(school) improvement

(school) effectiveness

Conceptual standpoint

Ontological Perspective

Epistemological perspective

Dimension of education

ongoing reflexive evaluation by members of community; participation, decision making and action as part of normal discourse of development; self-regulation

determined locally by, with and for individuals; fit for purpose and context; flexible and formative assessment; agency itself as outcome collaborative progress more important than individual achievement

transformation, (de- and re-schooling) ecosystem complex communities interdependent learning liquidity narrative action research; experience as evidence collaborative, enquiry-based learning to inform and support change participation and voice

Agentic perspective

nested accountability: individual > organisation > region > national government monitoring and surveillance products, outputs, statistics, performers

Accountability

Professional development

Professional discourse

Teachers

knowledge and expertise in curriculum content, pedagogy, behaviour management restricted professionality technical–rational: tactical debate about how to perpetuate the system transmission, transaction, prescription; courses and training; performance management

products/objects* technicians, implementers, managers

international comparisons and rankings of achievement in core academic subjects

Success criteria: national

Students

Epistemological perspective

Dimension of education assimilation of personal narrative experience; sustainability targets including human wellbeing and ecological stability internal shared responsibility to and for each other mutual and reciprocal regulation participants, co-learners, co-constructors, researchers, decision makers, leaders, agents agents/subjects* leaders, actors, participants in democratic community of practice; capacity builders knowledge and understanding of critical thinking, practitioner enquiry and processes of change change agency discursive consciousness+: critical debate about the purpose and potential of the system democratic participation; education as transformation; critical enquiry linking theory, policy and practice; collaboration connecting with communities

comparisons recognise diversity of cultures and contexts; value added measures; case study allows qualitative insights into process collective accountability in relation to external and internal requirements self-evaluation, appraisal learners, stakeholders, customers, respondents future citizens, future leaders reflective practitioners, collaborators, learners, researchers, coaches and mentors, implementers knowledge and expertise in social, emotional and interpersonal understanding extended professionality practical consciousness+: professional debate about the nature and implications of the system sharing ‘good practice’ and implementing ‘what works’; teacher research; informal and formal support; critical reflective practice; coaching and mentoring

Agentic perspective

Ontological Perspective

traditional approaches; questionable importance of academic performance in times of social, economic and environmental uncertainty; contestable validity of performance measures (targets and grades)

disadvantage gap widens; zero tolerance of failure creates psychological damage; standards plateau; recruitment and retention crises where there is most need for capacity building

Sustainability

Risks

* after Biesta (2016) # after Sergiovanni (2000) ~ after Giddens (1984)

Epistemological perspective

Dimension of education

relies on human initiative, creativity, enterprise and mutual commitment for sustainable local change; low-cost activity for greater reward (high leverage); sustainable retreat from standards agenda trades performance for other commodities: trust, equity, integrity no central control or monitoring can lead to inappropriate or dangerous models of education; safeguarding issues; power-mongering; progress in pockets; people and institutions falling through gaps

affirming of people’s interests and concerns, takes into account conditions and holistic outcomes; danger that improvement is subsumed into effectiveness; initiative overload leads to intensification and burnout; funding shifts for tactical gains lack of debate about educational purpose disenfranchises teachers and students; systemic reform fails to meet expectations; organisations fall into complacency and stagnation

Agentic perspective

Ontological Perspective

108 An agentic framework for education

The intention here is not to argue for complete decentralisation as a school improvement free-for-all. A review by Fullan (1994) demonstrated that there was unconvincing evidence that either centralised reform or decentralised change necessarily achieved the desired improvement. He concluded that whilst centralised reform was concerned with restructuring, it was not necessarily concerned with education; it was local knowledge, skills, motivation and commitment that mattered most, but even then, this did not necessarily reach to the heart of school purposes and processes. Conceptually and empirically, Fullan argued for a more sophisticated blend of both top-down and bottom-up strategies. In Chapter 2, conjoint agency and the building of leadership density are considered as important in ensuring that school change moves in a coherent direction, normally orchestrated by headteachers or principals who would tend to hold the balance of power. The idea that teacher leadership is most powerful and agency is best supported when conditions are conducive, as demonstrated by the contrasting school landscapes in Chapter 5 is well established and evidenced (see Bangs and Frost, 2016; Priestley et al., 2015). In order to achieve this, teachers need to be able to work strategically within political and regulatory frameworks, whilst contributing to school improvement in meaningful ways, drawing on their knowledge, skills, enthusiasm and commitment arising from their personal professional values, passions and concerns. Making agentic professionality explicit enables schools to build organisational capacity for improvement through locally initiated, teacher-led change which inevitably involves mediation and interpretation of external agendas for change. This is particularly challenging in turbulent times, where the rhetoric can be contradictory, for example emphasis on localism and devolution arguably contrasts with greater centralisation of power. Teachers need to be intellectual and civic leaders in order to provide guidance to children and young people, which demands much more than academic qualification and pedagogic skill. Thomas (2012) contends that what is needed is a form of teacher professionalism which meets society’s complex and multiple needs whilst developing more localised and engaged education systems. She urges that accountability driven by attainment indicators can undermine teachers’ creative autonomy as ‘curriculum designers’, while narrow definitions of ‘teacher quality’ can prevent full local engagement in and between schools and communities. Alternatively, structural reform could provide opportunities and frameworks for local, creative and collaborative developments. Realistic counter-hegemonic approaches for school improvement therefore balance wider reform with localised engagement. The agentic framework supports teachers to move beyond stories of ‘being and becoming’ (Pinnegar and Hamilton, 2011; Fielding, 1999), to stories of strategy and action. This approach casts teachers not merely as characters in the workplace landscape, but as ‘landscapers’ at local and organisational scales (Reynolds, 1996). Methodologies for shaping cultures and contexts through agency in action are discussed in Chapter 7.

An agentic framework for education 109

Authentic improvement: actors, agents and activists In classrooms and around the school, there may still be a considerable gap between professionality as prescribed and enacted, as Evans (2008; 2011) suggests. Teachers’ accounts show clearly that to assume that this is an ‘implementation gap’, requiring more attention to their transition from ‘prescription to professionalism’ as centrally defined (Barber, 2005; Hopkins et al., 2011), is an over-simplification. Evans (2011) asserts that ‘The “real” shape of teacher professionalism will be that that teachers forge for themselves, within the confines and limitations of the context set by the government’s demanded professionalism’ (p. 868). However, Evans conceives of such agency in terms of the extent to which teachers ‘buy in’ to a particular professionalism, which does not quite align with supported development of professional self and identity contributing to a constructed professional environment, as discussed in Chapter 5. Teachers exercise considerable discretion and agency in the extent to which they subscribe to imposed performance regimes or engage with internal change projects. They demonstrate a nuanced approach according closely with Elliott’s (1993) ‘situational understanding’: ‘Good practice is not a matter of reproducing pre-programmed responses but responding intelligently and wisely to a situation as it unfolds on the basis of discernment, discrimination and insight’ (p. 18). Teachers’ professional identities here are clearly a reflection of complex situated selves, responding holistically and in context, recognised in relation to different people, things, environments and situations (Gee, 1997; Stark and Stronach, 2005). This influences professionality, including teachers’ decisions about what constitutes school improvement and how they choose to respond in the ‘dynamic tension’ between agency and structure (Day et al., 2006). Teachers’ narratives demonstrate complex processes of discretion, interpretation and action in this respect. The casting of policymaking and policy implementation into ‘two solitudes’ as suggested by Fink (2001) is too stark a duality and the concept of ‘enactment’ is too restricting. Actors are directed according to a script, which they interpret with different levels of effectiveness and conviction. With agency, the impetus comes from within, much more akin to script writing, direction or improvisation. The notion of teachers as ‘activists’ (Sachs, 2003) allows them more intellectual and political scope to achieve their ends. Teachers’ professionality is more sophisticated and more engaged than that of policy implementation, coming closer to Barnett’s (2008) ‘deployment of discourses’, seeking opportunities afforded by systemic reform and political initiative as well as internally driven change to achieve individual and collective purposes, including the shaping of their own organisational environments and cultures.

‘Stories of action in theories of context’ Teachers at Castlegate and New Futures not only exercised different degrees of agency in constructing their environments, but also had agency in constructing their situated selves, thereby their professional identities, as agents of change. The environment was

110 An agentic framework for education

therefore not always the overriding factor in the extent to which teachers could exercise agency, since this also depended greatly on the teacher’s character and disposition, which in turn was undoubtedly influenced by experience, as Priestley et al. (2015) assert. This applied both in their interpretation of formal roles and in the development of informal or non-positional approaches. In several cases it involved creation of new roles for themselves, which they then set out to define. Teachers’ identities – the meaning they attach to ‘being a teacher’ – in relation to school improvement cannot easily be imposed within grand theories of systemic reform. It follows that the subtleties of practice cannot easily be evaluated using standardised frameworks, or assessed according to limited quality criteria and stated competencies. Professional identities can, however, be developed (i.e. constructed) through a reflexive learning process, around a sense of self that is reconstructed over time (Day et al., 2006; Giddens, 1991), taking proper account of the socio-political context. Thus professional identity in relation to change draws on personal experience and character, but also on the developing and nurturing forces surrounding teachers, the messages they pick up from headteachers and senior leaders and the structures surrounding school development and accountability. The recognised instability and constructed nature of teachers’ professional identities suggests that their development as agents in school improvement processes demands proper attention from policymakers, headteachers, teacher educators and advisers, where systemic reform could provide a backdrop of opportunities for localised initiative and development. There are always choices that can be made, in language, in tone, in modelling and framing change, so that it affirms a more positive and proactive version of professionality and builds the agentic dimension in. The vital role of storying in articulating teachers’ voices and experiences to enhance the agentic dimension is emphasised by Frost (2014). Gee (1997) argues that a person’s trajectory is ‘meaningless’ unless it has been narrated by self and others. However, Goodson (1999) warns that if teachers’ stories are used only as a ‘breathing space’, focusing on a ‘vernacular of the particular’ as divorced from the ‘vernacular of power’, then the space quickly becomes a stifling vacuum. He asserts that ‘It is a matter of some urgency that we develop stories of action within theories of context – contextualising stories if you like – that act against the kinds of divorce of the discourses which are all too readily imaginable’ (p. 132). Narratives may be coerced for the purposes of constraining and controlling belief, or encourage emancipation through freer expression and creation of new meanings (McEwan, 1997). They can also hold theory and progress knowledge creation (Frost, 2014). Stories are used by teachers to investigate the ‘vernacular of power’ and to navigate, and where necessary challenge, the interface between discourses (Barnett, 2008). This contrasts sharply with establishing a new narrative paradigm as a comfortable therapeutic retreat from reality, against which Goodson (1999) warns. Scaffolding storying with supportive frameworks and facilitation emphasising teacher agency guards against indulgent reflexivity, unproductive discussion or inwardlooking professional development. When supported in developing self-efficacy and agency, teachers have greater potential to construct self and identity. As professionals

An agentic framework for education 111

consciously exercising agency and voice, they are more likely to challenge the ‘promiscuity’ that Ball (2003) describes, where they are urged towards cultivating success through making themselves ‘calculable rather than memorable’ within imposed performative agendas. They are less likely to be victims and more inclined to be perpetrators of organisational change. As the evidence in Chapters 4 and 5 has shown, constructed environments with opportunity for powerful agentic activity can exist side by side with imposed environments that are ultimately restrictive, which should offer hope for the agentic dimension within any regime. Agentic approaches can help to reduce the discontinuities between professionality as demanded and as enacted that can cause so much soul searching, tension and stress (Evans, 2008). Having acknowledged the barriers to progress and success, teachers recognise personal and collective strengths and resources – the components of ‘complex hope’ (Wrigley et al., 2012). Where an agentic perspective is explicitly communicated and continually reinforced, with appropriate external and internal support, this hope can be turned into planning and action. In introducing an agentic perspective, teachers’ identities and roles, often interpreted and shared as characters within their own stories, are collectively conceived as part of the landscape of change. These understandings, frameworks, tools and approaches can be integrated into school improvement projects and programmes.

Creating conducive conditions for teacher agency While it is clear from this study that individual teachers may respond and contribute differently in the same organisational environment, cultural norms govern the ways in which they perceive their professional identities and actions. Nevertheless, shared, sensitive acknowledgement of political and micro-political contexts enables teachers to negotiate and navigate. This can be skilfully orchestrated to maximise opportunities for the intentionality, forethought, self-reactiveness and self-reflectiveness that characterise human agency (Bandura, 2001). Conversely, heavy-handed, centrally controlled leadership approaches including ‘performance training’ (Hargreaves, 2003) can stifle this activity to the extent that the professional environment becomes almost entirely imposed, with no room for agentic manoeuvre. An optimistic view is that the balance between constructed and imposed environments and identities (Bandura, 2001) is mediated not only by the influences within organisational cultures, particularly of headteachers and senior leaders, but also by the extent to which individuals’ self-efficacy and decision making is effective in relation to their own agency. Headteachers’ and teachers’ construction of the environment within which they operate requires and also inculcates the enlightened professional values suggested by Bottery (2004) as detailed in Chapter 3. These include the need for ecological and political awareness of factors influencing practice, a sense of moral purpose, an internalised and reflexive accountability, inclusive approaches to leadership and management of change, acceptance of the provisionality of knowledge. Perhaps most important is the need for critical questioning of their role and situation in relation to educational purposes.

112 An agentic framework for education

An agentic perspective emphasises the characteristics shown below, derived from the framework in Table 6.1, which challenge the current hegemony.              

teachers are cast as agents of change, leaders and collaborative learners; students are participants, leaders and learners in a democratic, inclusive community; leadership density and capacity are high; the headteacher, with senior leaders, orchestrates conjoint agency; research and decision making are inclusive, incorporating critical debate of external perspectives and mandates; ideas and action are generated locally, at small scale, with interpretation, adaptation and choice; professional development is achieved through discursive consciousness, selfefficacy and agency, recognising reciprocal relationships between people, environment and wider context; enquiry supports situational understanding, self-knowledge and contextual knowledge; learning is interdependent, co-constructed and negotiated; assessment is meaningful, flexible and formative; shared internal responsibility rests on high levels of trust and moral purpose; dialogic and narrative methodologies are taken seriously; schools are transformed from within; change reaches outwards to the wider community, and inwards to individual values and purposes.

These characteristics overlap to enhance school improvement work to add a new dimension, counterbalancing current priorities in education and schooling. An agentic emphasis lends greater power and purpose to the epistemological and ontological dimensions of improvement. Thus a ‘call to action’ concludes this chapter.

A call to action: reinstating teachers in the school improvement discourse Negotiations, discussions and enactments of professionalism are likely to be more valuable to the wellbeing and continuation of the profession than definition. The struggle of professionalism is recognised by Stronach et al. (2002) to extend beyond the pragmatic, as teachers ‘traffic between twin abstractions, the “ideal” and the “unrealised”’ (p. 132). Here, practice is seen as merely the ‘residue’ of this abstraction. While this residue of practice may command the most attention, Stronach et al. contend that in order to embrace the agentic perspective of schooling, ‘professionals must re-story themselves’ (p. 131), developing a ‘narrative ethic’ of identity formation by restoring trust. From the organisational point of view, storying is central to fostering authentic school improvement (Doyle, 1997). As Priestley et al. (2015) argue, this involves understanding the ways in which

An agentic framework for education 113

agency is shaped by past experience, and how it is being enhanced or disabled. Where this element is missing, where there is no opportunity for teachers to bring experiences of change and identity to the fore, change becomes a blunt mechanism where those involved are mere cogs in a wheel. Engaging critically with agentic dimensions of schooling, as characterised in the last column of Table 6.1, reinstates teachers within the discourse of professionalism and may enable some repurposing of school improvement by teachers themselves, moving towards collective desired outcomes. The application of particular principles, tools and frameworks incorporating agentic emphasis moves beyond the abstract. There is practical work to be done and there are decisions to be made, for which individuals have to take responsibility, as Bandura explains: To make their way successfully through a complex world full of challenges and hazards, people have to make good judgements about their capabilities, anticipate the probable effects of different events and causes of action, size up socio-structural opportunities and constraints, and regulate their behaviour accordingly. (Bandura, 2001: 2) In rapidly changing and uncertain times, people’s individual and collective (organisational) capacity for self-development, adaptation and renewal is crucial, since an organisation’s capacity to develop, adapt and renew depends on the existence of these capacities amongst its members. Conversely, where agency is limited and suppressed, school environments and professional cultures could become characterised by lack of care, respect and esteem, with marginalisation of difference and suspicion of diversity. Critical dialogue and creativity would be stifled and unsustainable workloads and practices would be demanded with unreasonable expectations. Turning the model around, this would tend to deter professionals from participating in processes of change, with no voice to challenge practice and no impetus engage in enquiry, undermining innovation. This could destabilise professional lives and priorities, to the extent that these ways of working become unsustainable for individuals and organisations. Furthermore, if teachers were to model this opposite view in pedagogy, curriculum and relationships (see Figure 5.4), the results for students would be stark:      

reduced dialogue: less opportunity for challenge; muffled criticality: suppression of enquiry as a basis for education; devalued creativity: restricted innovation in processes or products; lack of inclusivity: passive participation, no respect for diversity; unsustainable practices: lack of balance in lives and learning; lack of recognition: no voice in shaping their world or their own future.

A perspective that brings agency and structuration explicitly into the discourse provides a foundation and impetus for action by teachers, giving children and young people knowledge, skills, confidence and self-esteem, a sense of responsibility for the world and a stake in their own futures. It is imperative that students

114 An agentic framework for education

are educated in ways that acknowledge the necessary balance between knowledge, personal development and agency. The sustainable way forward is to support teachers’ participation in constructing education environments and processes, so that they contribute to decisions about the nature and purpose of schooling and can take the lead in making changes to these ends.

REFLECTIONS   

What is the relative emphasis of the three dimensions – knowing, being and doing – in your organisation and in your teaching? What would be the benefits of greater emphasis on the agentic dimension? What would be the disadvantages and drawbacks?

References Ball, S. J. (2003) ‘The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity’, Journal of Educational Policy, 18(2), 215–228. Bandura, A. (2001) ‘Social cognitive theory: an agentic perspective’, Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 1–26. Bangs, J. and Frost, D. (2016) ‘Non-positional teacher leadership: distributed leadership and self-efficacy’, in Evers, J. and Kneyber, R., Flip the System: Changing Education from the Ground Up. London: Routledge, pp. 92–107. Barber M. (2005) ‘Informed professionalism: realising the potential’. Presentation at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers Conference, London, 11 June. Barnett, R. (2008) ‘Critical professionalism in an age of supercomplexity’, in Cunningham, B. (ed.), Exploring Professionalism. Bedford Way Papers (33). London: Institute of Education, University of London Publications, pp.190–207. Biesta, G. (2016) ‘Good education and the teacher: reclaiming educational professionalism’, in Evers, J. and Kneyber, R., Flip the System: Changing Education from the Ground Up. London: Routledge, pp. 79–90. Bottery, M. (2004) The Challenges of Educational Leadership. London: Paul Chapman Publishing. Day, C., Kington, A., Stobart, G. and Sammons, P. (2006) ‘The personal and professional selves of teachers: stable and unstable identities’, British Educational Research Journal, 32(4), 601–616. Doyle, W. (1997) ‘Heard any really good stories lately? A critique of the critics of narrative in educational research’, Teaching and Teacher Education, 13(1), 93–99. Elliott, J. (ed.) (1993) Reconstructing Teacher Education. London: Falmer Press. Evans, L. (2008) ‘Professionalism, professionality and the development of education professionals’, British Journal of Educational Studies, 56(1), 20–38. Evans, L. (2011) ‘The “shape” of teacher professionalism in England: professional standard, performance management, professional development and the changes proposed in the 2010 White Paper’, British Educational Research Journal, 37(5), 851–870. Fielding, M. (1999) ‘Communities of learners. myth: schools are communities’, in O’Hagan, B. (ed.), Modern Educational Myths: The Future of Democratic Comprehensive Education. London: Kogan Page, pp. 67–87.

An agentic framework for education 115

Fink, D. (2001) ‘The two solitudes: policy makers and policy implementers’, in Fielding, M. (ed.), Taking Education Really Seriously: Four Years’ Hard Labour. London: RoutledgeFalmer, pp. 225–237. Frost, D. (ed.) (2014) Transforming Education through Teacher Leadership. The LfL Teacher Leadership Series. Cambridge: University of Cambridge. Fullan, M. (1994) ‘Coordinating top-down and bottom-up strategies for educational reform. systemic reform: perspectives on personalizing education’. Available at: http://www. michaelfullan.com/media/13396035630.pdf (accessed 2012). Gee, J.P. (1997) ‘Foreword: a discourse approach to language and literacy’, in Lankshear, C. with Gee, J.P., Knobel, M. and Searle, C., Changing Literacies. Buckingham: Open University Press. Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press. Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Goodson, I.F. (1999) ‘Representing teachers’, in Hammersley, M. (ed.), Researching School Experience: Ethnographic Studies of Teaching and Learning. London: Falmer Press, pp. 122–133. Hargreaves, A. (2003) ‘Professional learning communities and performance training sects: the emerging apartheid of school improvement’, in Harris, A., Day, C., Hopkins, D., Hadfield, M., Hargreaves, A. and Chapman, C. (eds), Effective Leadership for School Improvement. London: RoutledgeFalmer. pp. 180–195. Hopkins, D., Harris, A., Stoll, L. and Mackay, T. (2011) School and System Improvement: State of the Art Review. Keynote paper presented at International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement, Limassol, Cyprus, January 2011. Draft paper available at: http://www. icsei.net/icsei2011/State_of_the_art/State_of_the_art_Session_C.pdf (accessed 2011). McEwan, H. (1997) ‘The functions of narrative and research on teaching’, Teaching and Teacher Education, 13(1), 85–92. Mitchell, C. and Sackney, L. (2009) Sustainable Improvement: Building Learning Communities that Endure. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Pinnegar, S. and Hamilton, M.L. (2011) ‘Narrating the tensions of teacher educator research in moving story to research’, in Kitchen, J., Ciuffetelli Parker, D. and Pushor, D. (eds), Narrative Inquiries into Curriculum Making in Teacher Education. Bingley, UK: Emerald, pp. 43–68. Priestley, M., Biesta, G. and Robinson, S. (2015) Teacher Agency: An Ecological Approach. London: Bloomsbury. Reynolds, C. (1996) ‘Cultural scripts for teachers: identities and their relation to workplace landscapes’, in Kompf, M., Boak, T., Bond, W.R. and Dworet, D. (eds), Changing Research and Practice: Teachers’ Professionalism, Identities and Knowledge. London: Falmer Press. Sachs, J. (2003) ‘The activist professional’, Journal of Educational Change, 1(1), 77–94. Sergiovanni, T. (2000) The Lifeworld of Leadership: Creating Culture, Community and Personal Meaning in Our Schools. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Stark, S. and Stronach, I. (2005) ‘Nursing policy paradoxes and educational implications’, in Warne, T. and McAndrew, S. (eds), Using Patient Experience in Nurse Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.63–85. Stronach, I., Corbin, B., McNamara, O., Stark, S. and Warne, T. (2002) ‘Towards an uncertain politics of professionalism: teacher and nurse identities in flux’, Journal of Education Policy, 17(1),109–138. Thomas, L. (2012) ‘Re-thinking the importance of teaching: curriculum and collaboration in an era of localism’. RSA Projects. Available at http://www.thersa.org/__da

116 An agentic framework for education

ta/assets/pdf_file/0008/570716/RSA-Re-thinking-the-importance-of-teaching.pdf (accessed 2012). Wrigley, T. (2003) Schools of Hope: A New Agenda for School Improvement. London: Trentham Books. Wrigley, T., Thomson, P. and Lingard, B. (2012) Changing Schools: Alternative Ways to Make a World of Difference. London: Routledge.

7 AGENCY IN ACTION Participation and voice

In my own postgraduate teaching and consultancy focussed on supporting teachers in leading change underpinned by enquiry, the use of visual elicitation tools, portraiture and metaphor in research has given confidence in encouraging experimentation with more risk taking and innovative methodologies. The agentic dimension has become increasingly explicit, using ideas from the framework in Chapter 6 to support teachers and headteachers in enabling greater scope for teacher agency. This chapter explores practical approaches for facilitators, headteachers and others involved in leading projects and programmes incorporating an agentic dimension. Adopting the principles and nurturing the characteristics of critical pedagogy (Bryan and Durrant, 2014) can be culture-changing for schools and transformative for participants.

Asserting teacher-led development Whether entirely school-based or involving universities and other agencies as partners and facilitators, these approaches accord with research setting out the characteristics of professional development linked to improvements in pedagogy (Stoll et al., 2012) but ideally emphasise enquiry-based teacher-led improvement rather than the language of action research and ‘CPD’ (continuing professional development which can have particular connotations linked to training and instruction). It is important to release this enquiry-based work from pervading positivist paradigms and dubious assumptions about concepts such as validity when applied to school- or classroom-based qualitative work, where enquiry and leadership are reciprocal (see Durrant, 2016a; Frost, 2007). Where small-scale enquiry by teachers is criticised for its lack of generalisability, Lincoln and Guba (1985) note that transferability is established through ‘thick description’ which resonates once again with qualitative, particularly narrative, approaches. Validity in this context is achieved in research terms, through trustworthiness,

118 Agency in action: participation and voice

dependability, credibility and confirmability (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Accounts and evidence are authenticated amongst peers in terms of whether they ‘ring true’, how teachers and others can interpret and apply them and their currency in the improvement process (Somekh, 1995). The language and concept of action research linked to professional development has considerable credence in this field and these are often the terms used when schools approach the university to support partnership projects. However, as Frost (2007) explains, there is a danger that assumptions are made about the need to follow linear or cyclic processes aiming to generate ‘findings’, diverting attention away from leading change. Saunders (2002) offers a reminder that ‘what works’ is set within an ethical and intellectual discussion, which means that knowledge generated with and by teachers has to ‘evolve’ rather than ‘accumulate’. She distinguishes between ‘convergent’ knowledge creation, concerned with synthesis of knowledge that can inform broad action, and ‘divergent’ creation of ‘knowledge-in-action, changing and dynamic, context-specific understandings …’ (p. 14) which is more forward-facing. She contends that in order to value this divergent kind of knowledge creation, we must resist seeking to control it either politically or epistemologically. For example although some teachers’ accounts of research and development are published academically or assessed against academic criteria, others may be legitimately and valuably shared in a presentation to colleagues, blog, newsletter or booklet. Where action research is commissioned by schools wanting ‘quick fix’ outcomes, this may rest on assumptions about controlling this as convergent knowledge creation, assuming it is possible to establish particular kinds of cause and effect and evaluating too simplistically. This can be exacerbated by the desire to minimise costs and time, which inevitably reduces critical debate. Unfortunately, such reduction is invariably counterproductive. Teacher-led development can quickly lose momentum through misconceptions about its value and purpose and the claims that can be made.

Space for dialogue Creating space for a more sophisticated dialogic process engages and inspires teachers to ask questions and interrupt thinking so that alternative possibilities can be considered (Ainscow, 1999), which automatically generates investigation and enquiry. Narrative and visual interpretations are valuable not only as research instruments but also as ‘dialogic artefacts’ (Denzin and Lincoln, 2008) which are as important for the tellers as for the listeners (Anderson, 1997). Empathising, challenging and imagining at a level of discursive consciousness provides the basis for change (Elliott, 1998). Narratives combine moral, emotional and political perceptions and judgements, memories and thoughts (McEwan, 1997) as well as practical elements. Teachers’ stories can therefore be viewed as ‘co-ordinates’ (Lankshear, 1997) through which teachers and others can get their bearings and find direction within the school’s change landscape and the wider educational and political discourse as a project or programme evolves. The opportunities for making and sharing stories are often limited to sketches and snapshots that can only whet the appetite, but these are then taken up by

Agency in action: participation and voice 119

teachers to use in their own enquiries, which can prove to be revelatory in terms of understanding and attitudes towards students. The example below shows how a reflective enquiry tool was used to create a safe space to gain insights into the lives of students whose disengagement was giving cause for concern.

REFLECTIONS AND RELATIONSHIPS TO ADDRESS DISENGAGEMENT As head of Year 11 in a secondary school (15–16-year-olds), Annie wanted to investigate the causes for educational disengagement and find out why students were feeling ‘lost in a system that is supposed to support them’. She used semi structured interviews within which students drew ‘living graphs’, timelines that prompted reflection, with explanation through annotation. High stakes testing had had an alarming effect on their self-worth and engagement and some did not feel capable of success. However some needed more challenge, while others were threatened by expectations and would benefit from encouragement. Annie’s interviews uncovered a sense of ‘learned helplessness’ resulting in low motivation and a tendency to give up. She concluded that she and other pastoral leaders needed to find alternative ways to communicate priorities in a positive and encouraging way, raising self-worth in the students. Relationships with teachers, parents, peers and schools were crucial to engagement and disengagement and this could make a difference to students’ responses to external as well as internal factors. Use of reflective tools such as living graphs could help to develop social awareness amongst teachers who could then work through the issues, strengthening relationships through the dialogue. Thus students would be better placed to deal with both internal and external factors undermining their engagement (see Finch-Johnson, 2018).

This investigation was conducted for the dissertation of a Master’s programme supporting transformational leadership. Living graphs were adopted as a reflective tool, which could be used by other teachers who had students giving cause for concern. As well as uncovering useful understandings and insights, the tool structured dialogue that might otherwise have been difficult to elicit, guided by suitable ethical protocols (see Durrant and Holden, 2006) which were shared with the school pastoral team. Professional development in this instance is not a preconceived input of ‘training’ preceding implementation, but the inherent development of professional knowledge, identity and agency that occurs through involvement in processes of change that involve teacher-instigated enquiry. This links critical pedagogy for students with critical pedagogy in professional learning. The approaches advocated in this chapter start from teachers’ own professional concerns, ideas, situations, circumstances and identities, rather than from a PowerPoint script, package, policy document or expert input (although teachers might choose to build these in where relevant). By generating questions within an agentic discourse, teachers and others

120 Agency in action: participation and voice

are drawn to engage with wider research ideas and evidence directly relevant to their own focus. The opportunities are compelling, with a wealth of material freely available online for selection and critique, which can be filtered through teachers’ discussions and explorations. Another primary school example is summarised below to illustrate the nature of these projects (see also CCCU 2013; Durrant, 2014).

‘CHILDREN SEE THINGS DIFFERENTLY FROM US’: A PRIMARY SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PROJECT Blean Primary School, Kent, worked with Canterbury Christ Church University to involve all teachers in year-long action research projects as part of the school improvement plan. The headteacher wanted the project to provide a framework for teachers to lead improvements to teaching and learning themselves. In the project ‘How much can I talk in class?’ teacher researchers initially intended to ‘measure’ how much time children spent talking compared with adults, but found the project increasingly led by the children’s needs. This generated a range of creative approaches to encourage children to talk without continual direction and closed questioning by teachers. Strategies to support talk were evaluated and refined to become part of the teaching repertoire. In reception class, the children learnt active listening techniques including the importance of eye contact. They responded to pictures and other stimuli in paired talk. They learnt a series of hand signals to give cues to speakers such as ‘slow down’, ‘tell me more’ or ‘I don’t understand’ without interrupting the flow. Thus even the youngest children sustained discussion without adult intervention. The children used their ‘tools for talk’ with enthusiasm and eventually taught them to older classes. Another class used the National Geographic ‘picture of the day’ to develop language skills such as use of adjectives and generate questions. Children’s curiosity developed markedly around the scenes and topics introduced. A ‘conversation station’, like a bus stop with seats, was installed in another class, with pictures and questions to stimulate talking. When moved into the corridor, children from different age groups started conversations. Teachers started to see much more discussion in which children took the lead. Individual teachers at Blean Primary School were given complete freedom to choose their focus for enquiry. The developments in talking were only one strand of the activity. Teachers involved students in enquiry and gathered evidence on a wide range of themes which led to some important implications for school development, for example:

   

leadership development for the youngest summer born children; celebrating mistakes to encourage growth mind-sets (Dweck, 2006, in CCCU 2013); finding ways to use ‘carpet time’ more effectively; active learning in mathematics;

Agency in action: participation and voice 121

   

mini ‘brain breaks’ to improve wellbeing; peer support and understanding for dyslexia; developing a students’ learning charter and undertaking student learning walks; involving children in defining ethos and culture through photographs which unexpectedly revealed the importance of stillness and spirituality.

The balance shifted noticeably towards greater involvement of children in their learning, as a result of their participation in enquiry. Assumptions were challenged and children were motivated by teachers’ responsiveness and flexibility. Beyond the end of the project, this research culture has continued to develop, facilitated internally.

There is plentiful guidance to scaffold teachers’ engagement in school improvement, whether as part of accredited programmes such as Master’s degrees or within schools’ development time. Supportive frameworks and strategies for leadership and collective agency to maximise impact are well established (see Durrant and Holden, 2006; Frost and Durrant, 2002, 2003; Frost, 2011, 2014, 2017; Durrant, 2004, 2016a, 2016b). The intention is not to repeat this here, but to give a flavour of different principles and approaches that reinforce the agentic dimension, in the hope that this will inspire further exploration. This is organised into three main sections which follow the typical rhythm of school-based projects: 1. 2. 3.

Starting (values and concerns) Leading (evidence and action) Sharing (knowledge building and change making).

The chapter ends with an evaluation of a series of such projects, exploring the extent to which they demonstrate characteristics of critical pedagogy with the potential for genuine transformation.

Starting (values and concerns) There are many configurations in which these approaches might operate, from inhouse developments to school-university partnerships, from multi-school federations, networks and professional learning communities to initiatives funded by governments and agencies within national reform. There are complex questions to ask when ‘brokering’ a project or programme amidst multiple agendas, to agree clear purpose and aims, a viable structure of support, sufficient time and funding and decide where and how the learning is to be shared. Practical details such as location, schedule and refreshments are crucial. By way of illustration, a series of school-based projects with Canterbury Christ Church University have been structured around a sequence of six to eight after-school sessions so that teachers do not have to miss lessons, usually with a final conference or sharing event that may be

122 Agency in action: participation and voice

opened up to colleagues within and beyond the school. A typical series of sessions is as follows (see Hill, 2014 for a similar structure for teacher-led development work groups):        

Project launch: possibilities and potential Session 1: Sharing professional values and concerns; generating questions Session 2: Firming up questions and focus for change/action planning Session 3: Gathering and using evidence: inclusive and ethical approaches Session 4: Interim reflection: what are we learning? Session 5: Collaborating to lead change; planning for maximum impact Session 6: Evaluation and reflection; preparing to share Sharing conference on a development day

There are of course many variations on this, for example Session 1 could be incorporated into a launch, individual support could be offered online, and a sharing conference could be regional to bring groups together. Within award-bearing programmes such as a professionally focused Master’s degree, the process can be scaffolded as a series of teaching sessions as developed by Frost et al. (2000). Since such approaches could be said to challenge the orthodoxy of top-down, knowledge-based professional development, the initial stages are crucial in establishing shared understanding of aims and principles amongst participants and it is valuable to present a united ‘launch’, in which headteachers or other senior figures pledge support and explain the strategic context for a group or initiative. For example the headteacher of St Ursula’s RC School (see Chapter 5) connected their school-based project with a priority for improvement identified in inspection, but also made clear that she wanted to give opportunities for teachers and support staff to develop as leaders and researchers; she launched the project with enthusiasm as a collaborative journey for the whole staff. Facilitation, whether internally or externally arranged, involves creating space and time for reflection, dialogue and collaborative planning, where it is vital to resist the temptation to provide a series of ‘research methods’ inputs. Although knowledge and skills are important, they need to focus as much on leadership as on methodology and methods (Frost, 2007): materials, resources and workshops scaffold thinking and planning for teacher leadership, maximise interaction and focus on teachers’ own concerns. The ubiquity of slide presentations is challenged, with sessions often employing flipchart paper and pens, sticky notes, some handouts to structure reflection or planning and examples of teacher-led development to stimulate ideas and show what can be achieved (see Frost and Durrant, 2003). Groups ideally meet in a classroom or hall with room to move people and furniture to suit the task. Knowledge and ideas are generated in the room from people’s experience, while facilitators’ expertise lies mainly in framing process rather than inputting information. The facilitator or project leader responds to ideas, guides enquiry and leadership and keeps the collective project on track. This requires protected time for collaborative planning, creating a kind of force field against the busyness of school. Liaison with someone who has sufficient authority to prioritise the programme or project within the setting is essential, to review regularly and address any

Agency in action: participation and voice 123

issues. School-based groups can gather their own local momentum but when working across schools, teachers who find themselves isolated as the only person engaged in this work in their schools find support within the group and can be encouraged to find allies and request agenda space to progress their leadership. Getting in touch with values and concerns establishes a reflective space for programmes and projects with an agentic dimension, conveying a message of individual and collective responsibility, demonstrating that participants will be valued and listened to because their ideas and experience matter, but that they must also provide one another with mutual support. This important reflection can be prompted in a variety of ways. The following approaches have all worked well: 





In threes, share one positive story from the last few days to illustrate an aspect of your job that gives satisfaction. Identify common threads in the stories and write representative words on coloured shapes that are then glued on to a large sheet of card to make a ‘patchwork’, from which the facilitator or members of the group might notice patterns and themes. A smart version of the collage can be made, or the original kept as a reminder of the starting point. Sketch a tree on a large sheet of card and distribute paper shapes: green leaves, yellow triangles and blue droplets. In small groups, write desired outcomes for education (leaves) and then the ‘toxins’ (triangles) and ‘nutrients’ (droplets) that respectively undermine and contribute to a professional culture that supports these outcomes (Southworth, 2000). Display these on the tree and discuss as a whole group the patterns, issues and possible tensions that arise in working towards these outcomes. Draw an ‘onion’ diagram and annotate the layers (outer to inner) with ‘symbols, rituals, heroes and values’ epitomising the school culture (Hofstede, 2001). This can be done either individuals or in teams or groups. Contrasting versions may highlight interesting issues and concerns.

These or similar activities will automatically generate discussion, highlight issues and anomalies and engage participants in insightful reflection about aspects of their practice that matter to them. Distinctive dimensions can be explored, such as perceptions of the role and value of faith in a church school. Relationships between colleagues strengthen through conversations that do not normally happen. Whether within a broad theme (such as St Ursula’s focus on assessment and feedback, see Chapter 5) or left to individual choice and discretion (as at Blean, above), an agentic approach needs to move to a consideration of desired outcomes, to establish individual or collaborative aims for improvement. Questions may be generated collaboratively or individually. It is likely that themes will emerge across a project that can then be connected, which may reflect current school priorities or identify new ones. A combination of frameworks to support this might draw from both action research and leadership literature. Headteachers can use this strategically to orchestrate change. It is helpful to have bespoke formats and processes to structure the identification and refinement of concerns, for example a simple sheet on

124 Agency in action: participation and voice

which to record a broad theme, the specific focus for improvement and a related enquiry question (Frost and Durrant, 2003). Teachers can then move towards planning action to address their questions and further their aims (for more examples of teacher-led projects see Durrant, 2014; Corner, 2012; Frost, 2014, 2017).

Leading (evidence and action) As teachers begin to work on their areas of focus, activity encompasses collaboration, gathering and using evidence and experimenting with practice (Frost et al., 2000; Durrant, 2004). Action learning sets or appreciative enquiry (see Kaser and Halbert, 2009) can enable structured and facilitated sharing of practice, discussion of emerging issues and action planning. Although a great deal of useful guidance is included in the action research literature, it is notable that where outcomes are envisaged as ‘findings’, this may encourage teachers to aim for paper- and presentation-based research reports, where it is likely to be a great deal more powerful to emphasise leadership of change, with intended outcomes expressed in terms of impact on students, professionals and schools (Frost and Durrant, 2002). Thus enquiry is less about ‘finding things out’ and more about engaging students, colleagues and others in a process of improvement, informed and evaluated by enquiry evidence. There are many interesting ideas and methods that provide welcome alternatives from ubiquitous questionnaires (which look a bit like test papers) and interviews (which are incredibly time consuming). Methods that have been illuminating and empowering in teacher-led development are listed below, illustrative of a much wider range:      

Photographs and films can create pictures of experience and opinion, either practically or metaphorically, for example children can show ‘where I like to read’ or ‘places that make this school special’ (as at Blean, see above). Drawings and reflective devices such as ‘life graphs’ (Finch-Johnson, 2018, see above) express what may be difficult to talk about or write down, capturing emotional aspects of experience. Video diaries, reflective journals or critical incidents can be analysed by writers themselves to draw out issues for consideration and further investigation or to evaluate experience of an initiative. Selection from pictures or sorting card statements can reveal aspirations and preferences, stimulating useful dialogue (as in my own research, see Chapter 4). Pip Wilson’s ‘Blob trees’ (Wilson and Long, 2009) are a visual way of capturing experiences and emotions and open up talk as students (or colleagues) empathise with the blob people in different poses and guises. The ‘mosaic approach’ brings together a variety of methods to gain a range of perspectives on lives and learning (Clarke and Moss, 2011); although developed with very young children the ideas can be applied in any setting.

Qualitative methods can of course be used alongside surveys, interviews and observations and quantitative information may be invaluable for identifying

Agency in action: participation and voice 125

patterns and trends. However, more interactive and engaging methods can often more explicitly support the change process, enhancing the agency of students, colleagues and others by listening to their experiences and opinions, strengthening relationships through dialogue and involving them in decision making. The use of a selection of methods draws together strands of leadership and enquiry to explore a theme or issue from a variety of perspectives. Teacher leaders develop confidence in using strategy, intuition and creativity, being open to serendipity and surprise. Important considerations of selection, choice and management of the processes need structuring and scaffolding, which may involve tailored inputs and advice from facilitators along with recommendations of reading, responsive to the choices and needs of participants. There is an enormous wealth of ideas and material available but teachers may not have time to look, or the confidence to know that creative, inclusive, qualitative approaches have currency, especially if the label of ‘research’ is being used. Reassurance is needed about what is or is not appropriate and pointers can be given to support individual teachers’ aims. It is imperative to ensure enquiry is ethical so that the interests of people and organisations are met, data protection requirements are adhered to, recognition and respect of all participants is paramount and interpretations are accurate and authentic. Aligned with an agentic perspective, the ethical aspect of enquiry needs explicit attention to support teacher leaders through the ‘knotty’ ethical issues that may ensue in practitioner enquiry (Somekh, 1995), in which scenario-based discussions are often helpful.

Sharing (knowledge building and change making) Schools often envisage that the outcome of a project or programme will be a report or article that meets ‘academic’ criteria and this may well be the case for some (see Finch-Johnson, 2018; Corner, 2012) but this does not in itself give indication of the value of the work for professional learning or school improvement. More immediately relevant is sharing and creating new in-situ knowledge within a local or regional community, network or group of schools. This can sometimes extend nationally or internationally (see Frost, 2011, 2014, 2017) but for greatest significance and impact, an important aspect to nurture is the sense of belonging that strengthens relationships and authenticates voices for change within a school community or network. This has a different feeling from giving a presentation to unknown people at an external conference because there is a shared sense of building new knowledge, skills and understandings together, with authoritative support for following through into further action and connection. Within a single school such as Blean Primary School (see above) or St Ursula’s RC Junior School (see Chapter 5), teachers were encouraged to see their end of project conferences as an opportunity to share what they had learnt about process and the key messages arising from their development work. Everyone was excited to see what others had done and a mixture of interactions and opportunities was given. Teachers showed films on students’ perceptions of ethos (with popcorn), built structures with straws and marshmallows (to illustrate growth mind-sets) and hosted quizzes and time

126 Agency in action: participation and voice

challenges. They invited audiences to sit on the carpet to role play class discussion, to tour the school looking at learning environments, to try out picture-based learning conversations, examine students’ work and draw one another’s portraits (showing the emotive nature of feedback). It was notable that far from there being a dearth of theory, this was woven in (along with healthy critique) as teachers had researched and read diligently to inform their developments. At the end of each conference, it is helpful to provide space for everyone to reflect, for example to identify three learning points and one action point which can then be followed up. Such events not only give ideas to improve practice, but are overwhelmingly affirming of the expertise, commitment and creativity of colleagues and their students. Each event is unique and setting it in motion takes courage on the part of headteachers, senior leaders and external facilitators particularly if there are external visitors. There are many possible variations, both for participation (for example involving students and parents) and in the medium used (where there are many technological possibilities). Removing restrictions and allowing teachers’ leadership to extend to sharing their insights and developments is, without exception, inspirational, with teachers feeling pride and a sense of collective commitment. Evaluative comments at Blean Primary School emphasised the creativity, passion, commitment and expertise of colleagues, the interesting, engaging and thought-provoking content, practical ideas to follow up and the sense of community and value of belonging and learning together (CCCU, 2013). The projects tap into layers of knowledge that may be buried, reinforcing the importance of emotions and relationships and giving people permission to imagine, play and dream. As well as making a difference to their immediate practice and environment, schools experience culture change and, where conditions are conducive, the momentum continues.

Introducing critical pedagogy: navigating the landscape of orthodoxy A critical disposition is essential in teachers’ and others’ reciprocal responses during processes of teacher-led development and is often inherent in teachers’ discussions, as evidence comes up against experience and practice. The notion of teachers as ‘transformative intellectuals’ (Giroux, 1985), considered in Chapter 3, is helpful here in the context of developing critical pedagogies for professional learning and development towards teachers’ subjectification (Biesta, 2016) as well as in the classroom as applied to children’s and young people’s learning and development. Giroux (2011) argues that we need to develop political literacy in order to navigate the orthodoxy of ‘instrumental logic’ that is organisationally and systemically prevalent, such that pedagogy becomes a political and moral endeavour. There is a lack of ‘safe places’ for such discourse in schools (Clandinin and Connelly, 1996). Inducting teachers and other education professionals into this process is particularly challenging where teachers feel they need ‘permission’ to be critical and question practice amidst compliance requirements, judgement and accountability. Nevertheless, Apple (2009) argues that ‘we need to use and expand the spaces in which critical pedagogical “stories” are made available so that

Agency in action: participation and voice 127

these positions …. seem actually doable in “ordinary” institutions such as schools and local communities’ (p. 38). This process appeals to people’s ‘better selves’, enabling the ‘transgression’ necessary for organisational and systemic change (Kay, 2011). Fundamental to education for democracy is a pedagogy that supports a ‘critical, self-reflective, knowledgeable’ citizenship to enable people to make moral decisions and undertake socially responsible actions, to raise political consciousness (Giroux, 2011). Critical thinking is not simply a higher order extrapolation of reasoning, but a political and potentially subversive process, leading inevitably to action. Characteristics of critical pedagogy are summarised from Freire (1998): 1. Teaching as political, ideological, ethical activity; 2. Teacher capacity to be critical and curious, challenging practice with disposition for change; 3. Decision making that takes the risk of breaking with the current situation; 4. Teachers as learners and learners as teachers; capacity to learn underpins capacity to teach; 5. Learners learning through dialogue, exploring one other’s different perspectives; 6. Silence and listening integral to teaching as the learner has something to say as well; 7. Everyone speaking ‘with’ and not ‘to’; 8. Teaching creating possibilities for knowledge production and construction, not just transfer; 9. Relationships and environments acknowledged as important for learning; 10. Discipline and freedom arising from challenge combined with hope. This set of ideas matches well with the agentic framework offered in Chapter 6 (Table 6.1) and it may challenge the established hegemony when used in teacher education and to underpin professional learning. Freire warns that ‘teachers cannot be effective when they remain in the thrall of an exploitative school system that robs them of their own voice’ (1998: 13). However, he advocates realism: individual teachers cannot imagine transforming the world, but they can certainly ‘demonstrate that it is possible to change things …’ and in volatile times, they can be ‘full of hope for a better world…’ (p. 110). He urges teachers to seek greater authenticity in the moments they spend in school, coupled with enjoyment in the rigorous and hopeful process of seeking improvement. This process can be structured through approaches such as those outlined above. Such relevance and authenticity is the foundation for agency, an antidote for education systems limited by emphasis on transmission of a canon of knowledge by teacher technicians. There is an important role for teacher educators here, to take people into new spaces where change can be imagined and implemented. Many headteachers and other education practitioners are forging this path in partnership with higher

128 Agency in action: participation and voice

education and other agencies, or generating it for themselves (see Frost, 2014, 2017; Ramahi and Eltemamy, 2014).

Exploring the potential for critical pedagogy A series of nine projects at Canterbury Christ Church University, including the work at St Ursula’s summarised in Chapter 5 and at Blean, above, were undertaken from 2010–2014. The projects included three in primary schools, four in secondary schools, one involving a group of nine schools in a local ‘Learning Alliance’ and a local authority project focusing on special educational needs and disability involving 17 schools and colleges in all phases of education. It is difficult to quantify exactly how many teachers and other education professionals were involved at different levels but at least 100 were named authors in project reports and many others had been otherwise involved. Each school’s project culminated in a booklet, costed into the consultancy fees, which was edited from teachers’ and head teachers’ own accounts (e.g. CCCU, 2013, 2014). Midway through the Blean Primary School project, teachers shared their work in progress with other members of the school community, including support staff and governors, at a whole school development day off-site. The room was buzzing. Reflections on ‘What are we learning?’ were structured under headings: our school, our students, research and ourselves. The comments, summarised in Figure 7.1, indicated that after only a few months, the project was starting to demonstrate some of the characteristics of critical pedagogy listed earlier. It was notable that teachers were enjoying intellectual stimulation and challenge. Listening to children was proving revelatory, uncovering inaccurate assumptions and different perspectives, while teachers seemed to have moved from a reactive to a proactive stance as a result of their enquiries. This raised the question of whether similar characteristics were evident in the other projects.

From technical problem solving to emancipation An analysis of teachers’ and headteachers’ accounts across ten project booklets (Durrant, 2016b) identified the kinds of outcomes and impact reported and considered evidence of critical pedagogy underpinning teachers’ and students’ agency. The analytical framework from Chapter 2 (Table 2.1), was adapted to include the implications for ‘action research’, which was the banner under which most of the projects operated (Table 7.1). A continuum was identified between a) technical problem-solving, b) development of more generic understanding and reflection and c) emancipatory and transformative activity. The first, technical interpretation is limited problem solving geared to quick fixes and often bounded within single classrooms. Reflective practice discourse in the second line of Table 7.1 emphasises skills and relationships, process and exploration as well as evaluation against criteria (Moore, 1999). The third row of the table represents the teacher as a progressive agent of change, through critical pedagogy

Agency in action: participation and voice 129

Research has helped us ‘press the pause buon’.

We were imposing our own assumpons and interpretaons and now we are more likely to listen.

There is more dialogue.

FIGURE 7.1

Incorporang the children into our research has been powerful.‘Children see things differently from us.’

We can challenge each other professionally without taking it personally.

We are thinking more and aware of children’s responses to feedback.

The children are developing a language for learning and feedback.

Research has given us the confidence to test theory in pracce.

We are able to make professional choices.

Evidence of critical pedagogy in teacher-led development: teachers’ comments

and radical enquiry, where classrooms host the negotiation of fresh meanings and possibilities rather than ideological reproduction and control (Moore, 1999). This provides a continuum from transmission to transformation. For analysis of the project accounts, a grid was constructed in which detailed evidence of student, professional and organisational outcomes and impact using Frost and Durrant’s (2002) framework was further categorised into the three areas of emphasis shown in Table 7.1. It was significant that these were teachers’ accounts written for a professional audience under generic headings (e.g. title, focus, what was done, what was learnt, next steps), therefore captured what teachers wanted to communicate without being led towards any particular emphasis. While there was plenty of evidence of use of action research for technical problem-solving and for reflection and understanding – the first two categories in Table 7.1 – (Durrant, 2016b), there was also encouraging evidence of critical pedagogy with emancipatory and transformational outcomes, the nature of which is explored below.

Evidence of critical pedagogy Focussing first on students, there are many examples of enhanced criticality and investigation by students themselves, of improved learning and wellbeing and shifts towards holistic conceptions of learning. Teachers had created opportunities for open-ended student-led projects either individually, in groups or at home. Choice, freedom and exploration had markedly improved motivation and engagement:

130 Agency in action: participation and voice

TABLE 7.1 Relating educational emphasis, professional identity, action research and pedagogy

Educational emphasis

Professional identity

Action research

Pedagogy

Epistemological (knowing)

technicians concerned with competence and implementation reflective practitioners concerned with process and identity change agents concerned with organisational and societal transformation

… as technical problem solving

transmission

… for understanding and reflection

constructivist

… for emancipation

critical

Ontological (being) Agentic (doing)

teachers noticed that students became risk takers and challenged themselves and each other. Children felt ‘listened to and important’ but this was carefully focused, for example in proactively involving young summer born children in leadership or in finding ways to enable children unable to speak to make their views known. Increased critical dialogue had enabled students to understand one another’s viewpoints and change their own learning environment, for example young children with dyslexia felt misunderstood, leading to the purchase of children’s books giving insights for peers. Elsewhere, secondary school student researchers had developed their research questions about supporting deep learning and presented their evidence to their teachers and at a national schools’ conference. Children had developed approaches to support their own learning and shared them with other classes, as in the Blean example above. In terms of professional learning, teachers had become more curious and critical about their practice leading to a range of improvements and intentions. Head teachers and teachers wrote enthusiastically about the ways in which transformative enquiry encouraged risk taking and agency to fuel teachers’ passion. Even where there was careful planning, teachers recounted being drawn in different directions and challenging assumptions and perspectives through enquiry. Realisation of the value of children’s perspectives became a resource for learning. Children pointed out injustices in their schools, leading to teachers instigating more inclusive practices. Cultural change thus extended beyond initial areas of focus for enquiry and the accounts of whole-school improvement are compelling. These include students making friends across normal friendship groups, children feeling safer, feeling able to make mistakes and explore, through interactions and adjustments instigated by the projects. Learning becomes expressed as partnership and there are many examples of flattened and even overturned hierarchies of power at different scales through student participation and enquiry. Improvements were by no means all qualitative or a matter of interpretation. In one secondary school where in the previous year 29% of students had been excluded for a fixed period, teacher leaders identified significant concerns about attendance and inclusion which their project gave them opportunity to address. A ‘new leaf’ nurture group was established and restorative approaches were

Agency in action: participation and voice 131

introduced to address physical and verbal conflict. This resulted in a substantial reduction of serious behaviour incidents from 836 in 2013–2014 to 194 the following year, a fall of no less than 76% (cited in Durrant, 2016b). In these projects, teachers negotiated focus, enquiry and leadership to fit into the socio-political context of their schools, while head teachers oversaw the broader rationale and alignment with other developmental activity. In all cases, critical dialogue amongst professionals and with students had increased and often this had influenced culture. Teachers’ accounts valued learning with and from students, while critical dialogue about learning as well as for learning had increased. There was often a sense of recapturing and applying what was already tacitly known and of gathering evidence to support intuitions. Projects provided opportunity and structure to support necessary changes. Teachers drew courage from enquiry evidence to legitimate approaches with classes that were less formulaic or routinised and more personalised. Sometimes they were surprised at what they were ‘allowed’ to do. Relationships and environments were reinstated as important for learning as Freire (1998) suggests; interventions by teachers ensured that learners felt safe and confident, as well as being energised and kept ‘on track’. The risks and freedoms afforded to participants through the projects reaped many rewards, giving grounds for ethical, just decision-making on the basis of new evidence. While assumptions about cause and effect need to be treated with caution, the evidence suggests that schools had improved academic performance through critical and constructive pedagogies, which headteachers attributed to the projects. The following list summarises critical pedagogic characteristics demonstrated in the project outcomes:          

Negotiating focus for enquiry and making ethical and political decisions according to teachers’ concerns and contexts; Challenge and questioning leading to imperatives for change; Transformative critical dialogue accommodating diversity and improving understanding and empathy; More ethical, inclusive and just practices and decision making; Flattening and flipping of power hierarchies; Knowledge building in unique settings; Relationships and environments acknowledged as important for learning; Calm, quietness, physical comfort and emotional safety to build confidence; Surprisingly wide scope for risks and freedoms; Hope.

Risks and rewards Critical pedagogy requires the creation of ‘intellectual and discursive space’ to develop approaches that are not constrained by limiting notions of outcomes or skills (Barnett, 2008). The role of critical educator is interdependent with active

132 Agency in action: participation and voice

citizenship, in which research, teaching and service are interconnected (Giroux, 2009). Teacher educators, headteachers and school-based mentors are well positioned to lead this political work, seeking inventive and realistic practical approaches that work within the system, whilst challenging aspects that restrict and dull professional activity and close down people’s agency (Bryan and Durrant, 2014). Thus the properly risky characteristics of education can be protected from ‘causal technologies’ that seek to control professional learning (Biesta, 2007), such that teachers can establish spaces for genuinely enlightening and empowering education for their students. Cultures tend to reference inwardly, to offer a sense of stability through collective understanding as Barnett (2008) points out, however they ‘gain their bearings’ through contrast with other cultures. The projects considered here show that real change that matters to individuals is achieved locally in response to fine grained identifications of concerns and needs that would not necessarily show up in broad brush, quantitative analysis. A hub of criticality and discursive consciousness generates momentum within schools. Teachers’ and headteachers’ accounts of these projects suggest that schools are changing from within and encouraging people to think differently. Meanwhile, reflexive commentaries in Master’s assignments that support teacher-led development indicate the importance of gaining a wider perspective, the value of evidence and the possibilities of adopting an agentic mindset (see Durrant, 2016a). This wider challenge may be rendered more possible not only by making the political more pedagogical but also by ensuring that we make the pedagogical more political (Barnett, 2008). Agency does not depend on waiting for the system to change, it is about what can be done now, within and about the current situation. Programmes and projects that enable the agentic dimension to flourish offer professional refreshment and visible cultural change, but more than this, they change professional identities and concepts of professional learning. Claire Corner (2012), who led a creative project with 14–15-year-olds designing imaginary worlds, noted how she herself experienced the discomfort associated with creativity and critical thinking, as a leader and researcher. Sharing these reflective insights is as important as relating tangible improvements, carrying an innate hopefulness in teachers’ accounts when enquiry-based projects are shared and teacher leaders support and empathise with one another. Enquiry methodologies become more engaging and innovative as confidence builds. There are inevitably systemic challenges that arise, however. Headteachers and system leaders must be prepared for the possibility that teachers may ask difficult questions and propose and instigate real, radical change. Different forms of evaluation and criteria for success may have to be designed or adopted in order to measure what is genuinely valued. Finally, beyond the projects and programmes, schools need to consider the question of sustainability. This leads to an exploration of alternative perspectives supporting a more holistic agentic dimension, which are considered in the next chapter.

Agency in action: participation and voice 133

REFLECTIONS    

To what extent do different groups of people in your organisation think of themselves as leaders? What does leadership mean in your organisation? What are the implications of this? Who knows about teachers’ and students’ concerns and aspirations? Who needs to know? How could more opportunities for collaborative enquiry and teacher leadership be created?

References Ainscow, M. (1999) Understanding the Development of Inclusive Schools. London: Falmer Press. Anderson, L.W. (1997) ‘The stories teachers tell and what they tell us. An essay review of teachers’ professional knowledge landscapes’. Teaching and Teacher Education, 13(1), 131–136. Apple, M.W. (2009) ‘Is there a place for education in social transformation?’ in Svi Shapiro, H. (ed.), Education and Hope in Troubled Times: Visions of Change for Our Children’s World. New York: Routledge, pp. 29–46. Barnett, R. (2008) ‘Critical professionalism in an age of supercomplexity’, in Cunningham, B. (ed.), Exploring Professionalism. Bedford Way Papers (33). London: Institute of Education, University of London Publications, pp. 190–207. Biesta, G. (2007). ‘Why “what works” won’t work: evidence-based practice and the democratic deficit in educational research’, Educational Theory, 57(1), 1–22 Biesta, G. (2016) ‘Good education and the teacher: reclaiming educational professionalism’, in Evers, J. and Kneyber, R., Flip the System: Changing Education from the Ground Up. London: Routledge, pp. 79–90. Bryan, H. and Durrant, J. (2014) ‘More than “providers”: positioning the university proactively in continuing teacher education and school improvement’, presentation at Teacher Education Advancement Network conference, Birmingham, 16 May. CCCU (2013) ‘“Learning together to enjoy and achieve”: action research to improve learning and teaching at Blean Primary School, 2012–2013’. Available from http://www. canterbury.ac.uk/education/our-work/research-knowledge-exchange/themes/professiona l-organisational-and-leadership-development.aspx (accessed 2015). CCCU (2014) ‘Effective assessment and feedback: a risky journey’. Available from http:// www.canterbury.ac.uk/education/our-work/research-knowledge-exchange/themes/p rofessional-organisational-and-leadership-development.aspx (accessed 2015). Clandinin, D.J. and Connelly, F.M. (1996) ‘Teachers’ professional knowledge landscapes: teacher stories – stories of teachers – school stories – stories of schools’, Educational Researcher, 25(3), 24–30. Corner, C. (2012) ‘Into another world: from creativity to creative learning’, Improving Schools, 12(20), 116–129. Clarke, A. and Moss, P. (2011) Listening to Young Children: the Mosaic Approach. 2nd edn. London: NCB.

134 Agency in action: participation and voice

Denzin, K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (2008) ‘Introduction: the discipline and practice of qualitative research’, in Denzin, K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (eds), The Landscape of Qualitative Research. 3rd Edition. London: Sage, pp. 1–44. Durrant, J. (2004) ‘Teachers leading change: frameworks and key ingredients for school improvement’, Leading and Managing, 10(2),10–29. Durrant, J. (2014) ‘“Children see differently from us.’ A fresh perspective on school improvement’, Professional Development Today, 16(2). Durrant, J. (2016a) ‘What is evidence-based practice, and why does it matter?’, in Austin, R. (ed.), Researching Primary Education. London: Sage, pp. 9–24. Durrant, J. (2016b) ‘Risky journeys: critical pedagogies in teacher-led, enquiry-based school development’, paper presented at International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement, Glasgow, 6–9 January. Durrant, J. and Holden, G. (2006) Teachers Leading Change: Doing Research for School Improvement. London: Paul Chapman. Dweck, C.S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Random House. Elliott, J. (1998) The Curriculum Experiment: Meeting the Challenge of Social Change. Buckingham: Open University Press. Freire, P. (1998) Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy and Civic Courage. New York: Rowman and Littlefield (tr: P. Clarke). Finch-Johnson, A-J. (2018) ‘The complexity of disengagement’, Contemporary Educational Leadership, 3(4/2016), 15–24. Frost, D. (2007) ‘Practitioner research and leadership: the key to school improvement’, in Coleman, M. and Briggs, A. (eds), Research Methods in Educational Leadership and Management. 2nd edition. London: Paul Chapman. Frost, D. (2011) ‘The International Teacher Leadership Project’, INFORM, 12, November. University of Cambridge Faculty of Education: Leadership for Learning. Frost, D. (ed.) (2014) Transforming Education Through Teacher Leadership. University of Cambridge: Leadership for Learning. Frost, D. (ed.) (2017) Empowering Teachers as Agents of Change: a non-positional approach to teacher leadership. University of Cambridge: Leadership for Learning. Frost, D. and Durrant, J. (2002) ‘Teachers as leaders: exploring the impact of teacher-led development work’, School Leadership and Management, 22(2), 143–161. Frost, D. and Durrant, J. (2003) Teacher-Led Development Work: Guidance and Support. London: David Fulton. Frost, D., Durrant, J., Head, M. and Holden, G. (2000) Teacher-led School Improvement. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Giroux, H. (1985) ‘Teachers as transformative intellectuals’, Social Education, 49(5), 376–379. Giroux, H.A. (2009) ‘Disposable futures: dirty democracy and the politics of disposability’, in Svi Shapiro, H. (ed.) Education and Hope in Troubled Times: Visions of Change for Our Children’s World. New York: Routledge, pp. 223–240. Giroux, H.A. (2011) On Critical Pedagogy. London: Bloomsbury. Hill, V. (2014) ‘The HertsCam TLDW programme’, in Frost, D. (ed.), Transforming Education Through Teacher Leadership. University of Cambridge: Leadership for Learning, pp. 73–83. Hofstede, G., (2001) Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kaser, L. and Halbert, J. (2009) Leadership Mindsets: Innovation and Learning in the Transformation of Schools. London: Routledge. Kay, S. (2011) ‘Grand narratives and small stories: learning leadership in the cultural sector’. Cultural Leadership Programme report for CLP evaluation, ‘Leadership Works’. Available at: http:\\www.culturalleadership.org.uk (accessed 2012).

Agency in action: participation and voice 135

Lankshear, C., with Gee, J.P., Knobel, M. and Searle, C. (1997) Changing Literacies. Buckingham: Open University Press. Lincoln, Y.S. and Guba, EG. (1985). Naturalistic Inquiry. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. McEwan, H. (1997) ‘The functions of narrative and research on teaching.’ Teaching and Teacher Education, 13(1), 85–92. Moore, A. (1999) Beyond refection: contingency, idiosyncrasy and reflexivity in teacher education’, in Hammersley, M. (ed.), Researching School Experience. London: Falmer Press, pp. 13–53. Ramahi, H. and Eltemamy, A. (2014) ‘Introducing teacher leadership to the Middle East: starting with Egypt and Palestine’, paper presented within the symposium: ‘Changing teacher professionality through support for teacher leadership in Europe and beyond’, ECER, Porto, 2–5 September. Saunders, L. (2002) ‘What is research good for? Supporting integrity, intuition and improvisation in teaching’, in The Enquirer: the CANTARNET Journal, Summer. Canterbury: Canterbury Christ Church University internal publication, 5–22. Somekh, B. (1995) ‘The contribution of action research to development in social endeavours: a position paper on action research methodology’, British Educational Research Journal, 21(3), 339–355. Southworth, G. (2000) ‘How primary schools learn’, Research Papers in Education, 15(3), 275–291. Stoll, L., Harris, A. and Handscomb, G. (2012) Great Professional Development which Leads to Great Pedagogy: Nine Claims from Research. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership. Wilson, P. and Long, I. (2009) The Big Book of Blob Trees. London: Speechmark.

8 AGENCY FOR SUSTAINABLE FUTURES

School is not a preparation for life, but part of life. For children and young people, it can be incredibly damaging if we get it wrong. School, along with home, community and society, is where we model our values and priorities. Education needs to be enlightening, engaging and transformational, opening up new ways of seeing the world, being in the world and changing it for the better. It must move us forward hopefully, not hold us back until we self-destruct through our own ‘self-improving systems’ (Greany, 2014). The transition from practical to discursive consciousness that prompts teachers to lead change, referred to in previous chapters, can also be a catalyst for action in teacher education, research, consultancy, inter-agency working, policymaking and political activism. In this chapter some alternative perspectives are offered that have challenged my own thinking about education and schooling, both theoretically and in demonstrating practical action through individual and collective agency. The abiding influence is to transcend centuriesold notions of subjects, schools and classrooms and to frame education in challenging and exciting new ways – globally, holistically and agentically. It is valuable to explore the ecological connections between people and their environments (Priestley et al., 2015; Mitchell and Sackney, 2009) within the essential discourse of sustainability. The United Nations, in its ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’, has agreed a set of 17 interrelated goals (United Nations, 2015). Around these goals, the UN sets the following priorities: People: ending poverty and hunger for human dignity and equality and health; Planet: managing consumption and production, using natural resources sustainably for present and future generations; Prosperity: ensuring prosperous and fulfilling lives through progress in harmony with nature; Peace: fostering peaceful, just and inclusive societies, free from fear and violence;

Agency for sustainable futures 137

Partnership: implementation through a revitalised Global Partnership for Sustainable Development. (summarised from United Nations, 2015) If education is fundamental to these goals which address urgent issues for humanity, it must promote and enact the message that people can be agents in their current spheres of influence, and extend that influence further. In school and in society, this requires the cultivation of a ‘pedagogy of voice’ (Ranson, 2000) in which different perspectives are valued, choices are offered and participation in decision making is structured in, to enable ‘co-operative agency’.

Spheres of influence Young people’s influence can have global reach and astonishing effect where it does break through. An 11-year-old girl, Naomi Wadler, ‘managed to galvanise a global movement’ (Ramaswamy, 2018) when the ‘March for Our Lives’, on 24 March 2018, called on US Congress to act on gun violence. The British media reported that the most compelling moment was the 3 minutes, 30 seconds in which Naomi’s speech was heard live by hundreds of thousands of people and went viral on the internet. In 2019, 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg was acknowledged as ‘the most high-profile climate activist in the world’ (Smith, 2019) and was touring a round of political engagements such as the World Economic Forum conference to convey her straight-talking message (Thunberg, 2019). She began by regularly striking from school, calling for specific government action on climate change, and uses social media to reach a global audience. After six months nearly one and a half million children had joined her; in September 2019, she extended her invitation to adults. These and other compelling examples re-emphasise the importance of acknowledging young people’s influence as current, rather than merely hypothetical. Whether this influence is global, national or local, it has immense significance for the lives that are touched and the power of agency as experienced. Returning to schools, if our expectations of students in the classroom extend only as far as what they will write on their examination papers, how much may this limit their expectations of themselves? The agentic dimension for schooling is immediate, authentic and relevant, requiring advocacy for all students as active citizens who can and do exercise leadership. Yet in his interview for my research, Michael said he felt the media had contributed a consistently detrimental portrayal of schools and young people: The continuous negative portrayal of school … it really got me down … The media just reflects huge torrents of negativity which I don’t think are what I experience really from the people I’m working with and the general reality of what’s going on, and I think that’s really destructive to everybody involved. Meanwhile Pam, drawing on her long experience of teaching in a secondary school in an area of considerable disadvantage, said she firmly believed that

138 Agency for sustainable futures

education is as much to do with aspiration for a wider role for young people as with equipping them with qualifications. She concluded: they’re fantastic and they’re the gateway to the future and so it’s no good knocking them. We’ve got to give them every skill in the book to get through the 21st century …. they’ve got to save the planet – ’cause they have – and if they haven’t got the educational skills to do it, well … Pam was concerned with building individuals’ ability and motivation to contribute to society, starting with their own families, including cooking nutritious meals at home, creative projects and local and international charity work. Students thus acquire knowledge and skills beyond and between subjects and develop understandings of themselves and their identities intensively at school. In individual ways and at different scales, they are engaged in the world now and able to influence it for good. The nature of this influence, and whether it continues, is forged in the important years of schooling, in which children, young people and their teachers deserve to have a say.

Knowledge systems and the emancipatory democratic project Within the wider educational discourse, it is notable that there are growing arguments for improvement that emphasise social and environmental sustainability through more ecological models, as considered in Chapter 2. Interestingly, these ideas resonate with the principles underpinning indigenous cultures where traditional knowledge systems have much to offer in contemporary societies. For example, in the Inuit territories of Canada, traditional principles have been used as a foundation for public services of education and health care (Nunavut Government, 2012; NCCIH, 2019). The knowledge system of the Inuit culture, Qaujimajatuqangit, is based on the guiding principles of mutual trust and respect, stewardship, living in balance and harmony with one another and with the environment, collaborative relationships, consensual decision making and resourceful problem solving, with the aim of enhancing humanity. These principles, underpinned by values of ‘connection’, ‘work’ and ‘coping’, are about people taking responsibility for interdependently changing their world for the better. The NCCIH website states: ‘We take the approach that Indigenous ways of knowing and being, including concepts of spirituality, connectedness and reciprocity to the land and all life, self-reliance, and self-determination advance health equality and outcomes’ (NCCIH, 2019). These approaches are being used to underpin community resources such as parenting guides. Epistemologically, this recaptures contextualised and emotional knowledge that tends to be negatively framed or marginalised in formal curriculum discourse (Coffey, 2001). Ontologically, it echoes traditional professional values of trust, respect and loyalty that many teachers recognise and pursue. In relation to agency, it inculcates a reciprocal responsibility. In these cultures, epistemological, ontological and agentic perspectives, respectively supporting ways of knowing, being and acting, are bound together, to recapture the authenticity of community and

Agency for sustainable futures 139

improve individuals’ experience, development and wellbeing, safeguarding the present and the future. By articulating and comparing their views of organisational culture in relation to reflections on the state of the world, people can, and must, challenge the ‘reproductive logic … supported by default structures, habits and norms’ that perpetuates injustice and reduces reform to ‘insignificant rearrangements of inherited modes of schooling’ as Wrigley et al. (2012: 212) have suggested. Engaging with one another’s stories develops individual and collective vision, where people are agents in the construction of their own identities, environments and cultures in new and powerful ways. Thus, Giroux’s notion of education as an ‘emancipatory project’, deeply rooted in ‘expanding the possibilities of critical thought, agency and democracy itself’ (Giroux 2011: 43) becomes eminently plausible. This helps to explain why young people such as Naomi Wadler and Greta Thunberg have achieved such influence. Extraordinary stories find resonance, raise issues and galvanise action. ‘Status-quo stories’ can be profoundly destructive in reinforcing negative messages, but narratives can alternatively be transformed around relationships to support learning and social change (Keating, 2009). The use of ‘hashtags’ on social media is a contemporary way of giving stories emphasis with direction; harnessing technological infrastructure for beneficial means is itself a Sustainability Goal (United Nations, 2015). As teachers and leaders, it is important to search for new opportunities and ideas to create space for agency and voice in culturally effective ways, starting locally and individually. Where there is a danger of limiting this with deep-seated assumptions, entrenched perspectives and habitual ways of working, it is invariably productive and inspiring to let young people’s leadership flourish.

Ecocentricity The sustainability agenda is not just about schools: transgressing and blurring the boundaries between school and community can have inspiring influence. Conceiving schools and education systems in ecological terms as part of a web of community connections is enticing as a way of moving towards environmental sustainability, essential for human survival. As an example, the ‘Incredible Edible’ movement, which has spread from the small town of Todmorden in northern England, operates across three interlocking ‘plates’ of community, learning and business (Clarke, 2012; Incredible Edible, 2018). While initially food-based, community, learning and business have become connected in myriad ways to benefit the whole town, easing poverty, providing employment, transforming the local landscape, supporting local farming, sponsoring art and drawing the community together in social action. Fresh resources and ideas abound, including a list of things that schools and individuals can do for free. Such challenges to orthodoxy are gaining ground, as argued persuasively by Clarke (2012: xvii): The widespread and diverse set of narratives that examine alternatives to the mainstream are creating the fault line in the conventional story … busting the

140 Agency for sustainable futures

myth of consumer growth and economic progress it opens us up to the possibility of new rhetorical positions based upon a new reading of how to live sustainably. He goes on to explain that a deterministic view of mandated reform does not help us achieve what we want for our futures. Success might lie beyond, as well as between and within our existing ideas about school and in family lives lived differently. Steps in this direction can be supported by processes such as Forest School (2018), which has ambitions far beyond ‘learning in the woods’, having its own inclusive, democratic and creative as well as ecological philosophy and ethos that brings a new dimension to educational activity. This is holistic, ethical, innovative and equitable work, relying on inclusive, critical, relational approaches, as shown in Figure 5.4, that engage with fresh perspectives on lives and living together, building on the processes and attributes that already reside in our schools and their environments and communities, as illustrated in Chapter 7. Sustainability is not a strap line, fad, category or tick box, it is necessary for our future. Taking courage to generate grassroots, ‘pop-up’ activity and hook into ideas and activities that initially feel ‘alternative’ may be the way to go, rather than being what happens by default, if nobody comes to the rescue.

Loving life and learning This is not just about looking after the earth, but about our humanity. There is no choice but to embrace an all-age, holistic perspective, if we are to counteract destructive social forces and anti-educational modes of schooling that are disenfranchising many children and young people. Professor Tanya Byron, a psychologist well established in the public domain as an advocate for children and young people, sketches a worrying picture: I often meet children who are struggling at school to such a degree that it has severely compromised their mental health and daily functioning. There are thousands of children today who are showing increasing rates of depression and anxiety disorders, struggling to hold on to a positive sense of self-worth. (Byron, 2015: iii) She concludes that while the causes are undoubtedly complex, one vital factor is that schools’ antiquated systems are simply inappropriate and outdated. As an antidote, she argues that schools should recapture a sense of creativity, enquiry, fun and thirst for discovery to counteract the suffering that results from being ‘force-fed, over-tested and misunderstood’ (Byron, 2015: iv). Byron (2015) asserts that curious, digitally literate young people are subjected to educational processes that do not fit at all with how they think. She contends that the system is blandly designed on ‘conveyer-belt’ principles, such that those who are unable to adapt (the disadvantaged, the disengaged, the different) leave school feeling unsuccessful and unable to carry on learning and thinking for themselves.

Agency for sustainable futures 141

The cracks in the system are particularly evident at times of transition between each level of schooling, and into employment. Although the discussion here arises from the current UK context, situations of psychological stress are evident worldwide: in hothouse cultures bolstered by private tutoring; the poverty of disadvantaged districts and struggling families and displaced and traumatised migrant populations; in marginalisation due to abilities, needs and situations different from the majority; in gifts and talents going unrecognised. Byron (2015), with Claxton and Lucas (2015), argues for the development of life skills of tenacity, resourcefulness, imagination, logic, self-discipline and self-awareness, collaboration and curiosity – skills through which students develop more confidence in any situation. It is of utmost concern that mental ill health, disengagement and disempowerment not only present barriers to education but can be exacerbated by schooling in its current guise, as Byron’s (2015) evidence shows. Vulnerable children and young people may be put at risk by ill-conceived approaches that are giving cause for concern, for example the effects on children’s mental health and wellbeing of the persistent and sustained use of ‘isolation rooms’, including for those with special educational needs, are coming under increasing scrutiny (TES, 2019). When people are well, happy, supported, engaged and empowered, they tend to flourish socially, emotionally and academically. If something is going wrong even so, inclusive and humane approaches must surely prevail. This might mean changing the context, environment and relationships so that they are more suitable, rather than expecting all the change to be on the part of the child or teenager. Enhancing students’ wellbeing, recognition and empowerment should provide a secure foundation for the fulfilment of all three dimensions of educational purpose, as identified by Biesta (2016): qualification, socialisation and subjectification. It would enable more young people to leave school able to continue their education and confident to make their own contribution. Valuing teachers’ commitment and voice and enabling their stake in educational purpose and process is a sound basis for the development of an extended, empowered professionality that accommodates affective and emotional aspects of schooling (Day, 2017) and makes practical connections. This is achieved by ensuring people are listened to, being responsive to need, avoiding blanket solutions, taking time to discern what is happening and ensuring there is appropriate scaffolding and guidance. Instead of banging square pegs into round holes (and doing damage in the process), we may need to accept that sometimes the holes need reshaping. Challenging, critical education and aspiration are much more likely to be cultivated from a position of safety, belonging and recognition. Many more young people would enjoy their childhood and flourish in adolescence, if more schools felt like good places for people to be.

Risk, trust and harmony The implications of this argument for school communities, education leaders and education policymakers are complex. Many of the incongruities in experience and tensions and contradictions for individuals and schools discussed in Chapters 4 and 5 arise from discontinuities between imposed policy directives and external

142 Agency for sustainable futures

accountability requirements, compared with the values, moral purposes, intellectual foci and practical aspirations of teachers. However, the evidence in Chapter 5 reinforces that policy is differently mediated by headteachers and senior leaders. The erosion of the lifeworld by systems dominance may be more a function of internal change management strategies than of the nature of policy itself. Teachers can often use political priorities and external agendas strategically to enact their own vision and achieve their educational purposes. Two examples of schools that have forged their own paths are worth considering here. West Rise Junior school in Sussex, UK is regularly featured in the national press and was named ‘Primary School of the Year’ in 2015 by the Times Educational Supplement. Most of the students come from two nearby housing estates in an area of socioeconomic deprivation. At school, the children keep bees, learn clay pigeon shooting, archery, fly fishing and working with gun dogs, paddle boarding, foraging and farming. They run an art room with an artist in residence and host a radio station. Headteacher Mike Fairclough attributes the children’s academic success to the school’s creative approaches, founded on trust combined with risk taking. In his book Playing with Fire (Fairclough, 2016), he presents a compelling argument that the only constraints placed on schools, headteachers and teachers are highly reasonable: priorities for health and safety and that everything should have a high impact on learning and contribute to raised standards. Emphasis is placed on evidencing progress and accurate self-evaluation. Inspectors have commented on the level and breadth of achievement, a ‘rich and diverse’ curriculum and outstanding behaviour and safety (West Rise Junior School, 2018). While the resident water buffalo might grab the headlines, the school has achieved a creditable performance in standardised tests, not least because teachers have given the children additional mathematics tuition as threshold requirements have been pushed higher. The headteacher rejects the view that systemic and bureaucratic barriers prevent creative approaches, responding that ‘the biggest barrier to children having magnificent experiences is the low expectation teachers and parents have of the children in their care’ (Fairclough, 2016: 44). In another primary school in southern England, Richard Dunne, headteacher of Ashley Church of England Primary School, Surrey, has built his school’s philosophy around a flexible curriculum of ‘enquiries of learning’, taught through the seasons and informed by seven ‘Harmony Principles’: cycles, interdependence, geometry, beauty, diversity, wellbeing and oneness (Dunne, 2015; see also HRH Prince of Wales, 2010). Children learn to know and respect the natural world and understand the importance of healthy lifestyles and environmental stewardship. Key to their learning is development of students’ leadership for sustainability (Ashley CofE Primary School, 2018). The headteacher explains how the principles integrate with ‘meaningful outcomes that help young people to find well-being and purpose in their own work and lives’ (Dunne, 2015). The curriculum is carefully planned to set learning in real life and give young people leadership to ‘take us to a more harmonious, more sustainable future’ (Dunne, 2015). Striking images show students developing their own leadership in an alpine landscape, absorbed by the patterns of Islamic art, growing their own food and calm in meditation. This

Agency for sustainable futures 143

school, too, has its own beehives in which children are engrossed. Like West Rise, it is highly successful in meeting external targets and requirements. These contrasting schools are juxtaposed here to show that there are many roads to travel that are equally viable within the same ostensibly prescriptive system. These schools which have their own apparently idiosyncratic characters and value systems can still fulfil generic policy requirements to the highest level, while education looks fun, serious and engaging. In both schools, children leave school with qualifications, knowledge and skills that will support their lives, but broader, wider, deeper outcomes are in evidence, with students’ leadership development being particularly significant. Meanwhile, headteachers recount ways in which they create a professionally fulfilling and personally enhancing environment for all those who work with students, drawing on people’s very particular talents and creativity to enrich the learning.

Funds of knowledge There are plenty of examples of teachers, classes, headteachers and schools ‘doing differently’ to inspire such learning and leadership, where a top-down regime is met more than halfway, such that apparent systemic limitations are surmounted. Teachers may feel that their sphere of influence is severely limited, yet individual actions might matter most and help to restore balance, as teacher narratives in my study demonstrate: James helping a student through an episode of bullying, Christine and colleagues encouraging a child to speak for the first time, Michael giving one-to-one support outside the classroom. By giving lunchtime sanctuary to an anxious child, or sharing an inspiring book or film, teachers change lives by passing on something of themselves. The apparent ceiling on individual agency, assumed to be imposed by governments and often reinforced by headteachers and their leadership hierarchies, is most disturbing because, as Fairclough (2016) points out, it may be illusory. There is nothing to stop deficit-based educational models being replaced by approaches based on teachers’ intuition and children’s funds of knowledge (Moll and Greenberg, 1990) for co-constructive potential, as implied by all teachers in this study. A school-based research and development project, ‘Building Communities: Researching Literacy Lives’ (Cremin et al., 2015a), supported by the UK Literacy Association, shows how children’s funds of knowledge can be accessed and drawn in. Teacher researchers visited the homes of selected children in their primary school classes to explore alternative literacies. They found that where reading and writing were based on a reading scheme and a prescribed canon of literature, some literacies experienced by the children had not impinged on the classroom at all. A girl showed her teacher some beautiful Indian dancing; she said that her grandmother, now in the USA, had been telling her traditional tales by Skype, while her mother had told her stories of her own childhood in India (Cremin et al., 2015b). Teachers were liberated by the research stance which required looking, listening and learning as opposed to instructing and assessing. Through the teachers’ research, deficit discourses (Comber and Kamler, 2004) were challenged by connecting with children’s lives and literacies outside school. The extent of the

144 Agency for sustainable futures

discontinuity between the curriculum created centrally and imposed on children and their daily lives was realised, allowing the knowledge gathered by teachers to bring new, different literacies into the classroom (Cremin et al., 2015).

Recognition and advocacy These enquiry-based, relational and inclusive approaches, by providing critique and counterpoint to insularity and prescription, prompt movement towards an appropriately balanced holistic, transdisciplinary, intercultural and change-focused education for sustainable development. Academic capability is enhanced by acknowledging the importance of recognition and respect, which provides a foundation for developing the agentic dimension of schooling. This can be enhanced by entering children’s lifeworlds, developing greater understanding of the diversity they can bring to schooling and learning and of the agency many already display in their own lives beyond school. Students’ assumptions about what school is about, the extent that they can draw on their own experiences and what counts as legitimate knowledge, can severely limit their own contributions, unless recognised and nurtured by teachers, which requires that teachers themselves are respected and nurtured. The teachers who participated in my research were trying to capture these capacities, as evidenced in the ways in which they expressed their attitudes and relationships with their students, wanting them to realise their potential in the world: I’ve helped to make that child happy. I like the care and I like the nurture role and trying to make a difference to their lives in that way … (Jess)

Young people are fantastic. I think they are. They do have a conscience. They are interested in people less fortunate than themselves … (Pam) I say hello every single day, give him that chance, because in the end, he’s a kid. (James) The students really liked their teachers because for them [the teachers] were a point of reference … so I think there were some very good relationships. (Lorna) It’s for the children; that’s why we come into teaching, isn’t it, it’s for the children, to give them the best start they can possibly get. (Christine) They make so much progress that it shines out of them. (Michael)

Agency for sustainable futures 145

Emancipatory, dialogic pedagogies concerned with participation, voice, discovery, fun and choice embody values threaded through teachers’ narratives. Here, as Michael, James, Pam, Christine, Jess and Lorna each expressed in different ways, learning is not just for progress, but for recognition and liberation. It thrives on the ethic of care, as well as imparting knowledge, allowing students to be themselves and to work out what this might mean. It has both personal and global purpose, reaching far beyond school. Academic achievement and satisfaction, for students and professional practice, development and identity are founded on relationships, respect, enjoyment and engagement. Such approaches reduce hierarchical dualities (high/low ability; good/bad school; leaders/followers) and eliminate for schools unnecessary binary choices (Claxton and Lucas, 2015): traditional/progressive; academic/practical or vocational; subject knowledge versus character and capability. In Bandura’s (2001) terms, imposition of performative regimes can leave many teachers and schools personally and organisationally compromised in terms of moral purpose and intended outcome and blamed for lack of success as externally defined. In relation to the agentic cycle that Bandura identifies, the imposed environment closes in, limiting teachers’ sense of self-efficacy and thereby constraining their individual and collective capacity to contribute to change and strive for improvement. This explains why, despite their rhetoric of empowerment, professional learning communities can fail to live up to expectations, either in ethos or in outcome. As Fairclough (2016) has demonstrated, policy is something to work with, rather than fight against, which involves marshalling collective professional knowledge and experience and applying critical, social and political understanding. Risk taking takes place within this milieu, not in defiance, as the selective environment is pushed wider through creative and wellinformed choices.

Activating agency for transformation Addressing this agentically involves teachers and students themselves in repurposing school improvement, reconceptualising professional development and reclaiming professional identity: Repurposing school improvement for sustainability, to encompass  academic development – knowledge building and thinking skills  personal development – identity and life skills  agentic development – empowerment and leadership skills. Reconceptualising professional development to embed an explicit agentic dimension, involving teachers in methodologies for change that recognise and promote agency in professional learning and agency through leadership, resulting in extended and enhanced professionality. Reclaiming professional identity for teachers and other educators, as architects and actors in the development of curriculum and pedagogy and as landscapers of organisational culture and systemic change.

146 Agency for sustainable futures

Although there is a danger in aiming for ‘repurposing’ that we always fall back on habitual ways of working (MacBeath et al., 2018), the examples in this book show that within, beyond and despite the pervading political regimes of the day, there are ways of transforming education to fulfil its deeper and more holistic purposes. Transformational leadership involves inspiring others with vision and attending to values and emotions for a higher, collective purpose, building trust, loyalty and confidence. However, Bottery (2004) warns that transformational rhetoric has been colonised by policymakers to become another ‘business management tool’ (p. 19). Although school inspection reports cite excellent transformational leadership as a factor in meeting performance targets, it is difficult to reconcile transformation with political prescription and control (Currie and Lockett, 2007). Therefore, where the language of transformation has been appropriated, the concept itself needs liberation. Real transformation requires teachers to problematise their ideas and actions and challenge assumptions about how their views and actions are shaped (Cranton, 2016). Profound changes in perspective can then be adopted and enacted, rejecting the casting of ‘disengaged onlooker’ (Clarke, 2012) and taking action. My research and experience offer hopefulness about what teachers are already doing, and about what schools might become. Unfortunately, as many commentators have suggested, this is too often despite rather than because of what policy dictates (see Byron, 2015; Fielding, 2007). The redundant concepts of school effectiveness and improvement (Clarke, 2009) still govern and frame the current socio-political situation within which most educators work, driven by globally generated reform and accountability. Teachers’ own stories illuminate the practical, relational ways in which they are contributing and responding to improvement, driven by their own vision, values and voices. This spills over organisational boundaries, transgresses policy tramlines, flows out from inspirational projects and programmes and is captured in myriad classroom moments, to influence students’ lives, families and communities. An agentic dimension is often already present, representing intentionality, forethought, self-reactiveness and self-reflectiveness (Bandura, 2001) permeating teachers’ daily work. It will occur more frequently if we look for it and if we build it in. A top-down focus on performance is disappointingly inadequate for the challenges facing our society and the planet. It sidesteps the concerns of many individuals within school communities, fails to recognise people’s potential and limits change that matters. A ‘sustainable retreat’ from the relentless pressure of attaining upward trajectories of performance is not only acceptable and desirable, but may also be necessary (Clarke, 2009; Hannon, 2009). It is important both because of the damage caused by the inequities and imbalance in the current system, and because we ought to be leaving more room to focus on other important aspects of education. Adopting more enlightened and appropriate ideas about educational processes and outcomes requires a change of mindset and emphasis.

Agency for sustainable futures 147

Knowing, being and doing One of the difficulties with innovative and genuinely transformative intentions is that they come up against evaluative criteria which have been developed within the existing system. Unless the criteria by which we judge success are included in the transformation, new ways of working do not register. The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) has developed a set of competences for education for sustainable development, under the headings of ‘holistic approach’, ‘envisioning change’ and ‘achieve transformation’. In the detailed framework each of these is related to aspects of ‘learning to know’, ‘learning to be’ and ‘learning to do’ (UNECE, 2012: 14–15), mirroring the dimensions discussed in Chapter 6 (Table 6.1). An additional aspect, ‘learning to live together’, is thought provoking as a competence, suggesting that focusing on what we can achieve collectively is the only way forward. This involves inter-generational, inter-cultural, international and interdisciplinary engagement to develop new worldviews, negotiate possible futures and challenge unsustainable practices, in the classroom, the staffroom and the boardroom. An accredited framework being piloted by the ‘Rounder Sense of Purpose’ project based at University of Gloucester, UK, provides a set of competencies in teaching education for sustainable development (Vare, 2018). This developing model suggests how to scaffold thinking and action without closing down innovation through prescriptive criteria. Twelve competences, distilled from the wider UNECE framework, focus on:   

thinking holistically: systems, attentiveness, transdisciplinarity, evaluation; envisioning change: futures, empathy, innovation, responsibility; achieving transformation: participation, engagement, action, decisiveness.

Refreshingly, dialogic and open-ended approaches to assessment allow for ‘unforeseen influences and unexpected outcomes’ to provide scope for transformative change (Vare, 2018). The kinds of methodologies and evaluative frameworks that encourage local individual and collective agency, as discussed in Chapters 6 and 7, contribute to education for sustainable development, moving from an ego-centric to an eco-centric mindset (Clarke, 2012). Incorporating an agentic dimension for education within the curriculum, and as the basis for pedagogy, is therefore indispensable as a priority for repurposing school improvement and reconceptualising professional development towards a sustainable future. This kind of professional work demands that we make connections out into the world and with one another, and reaching inwards to our values and beliefs about what is right and beneficial in our own unique contexts (Clarke, 2012). The professional attributes and agentic dispositions identified in Chapter 5 (Figure 5.4) integrate to generate momentum for thinking holistically and then envisioning change, with the potential for genuine transformation, starting with the self. This involves moral courage and often spiritual commitment. Promoting recognition, dialogue, criticality, creativity, inclusivity and sustainability supports systematic and

148 Agency for sustainable futures

proactive commitment to voice, challenge, enquiry, innovation, participation and balance, in relation to teachers’ values and life goals (see Figure 5.4). This stimulates authentic and insightful professional development, with agency at its heart. Political processes that open up opportunities for genuinely transformative development to teachers and other education professionals must also present them to children and young people in school. This involves critical perspectives that challenge orthodoxy, contest hegemony and acknowledge power dynamics, enabling transformation of the self with awareness of the political and ideological constraints. The resulting agentic integrity in classrooms, staffrooms, schools and systems involves educators and their students combining energy, ideas and commitment interdependently, to shape the organisational and political environment according to their own collective intentions. Such creative responses to schooling require purposeful, courageous, culturally nurturing leadership, which puts children and their teachers in a helpful space, using the world’s plentiful resources around them. This shows teachers, senior leaders and headteachers developing the agentic culture in a cycle which gathers momentum and hope. In individual classrooms, reaching out into schools and communities, teachers can create spaces for critical dialogue within and about the curriculum as the basis for change, giving children and young people trust and choice in their own education.

REFLECTIONS    

What constitutes your ‘core work’ in the sphere of education within which you have influence? Are there unsustainable practices in your workplace? What are the implications if they continue? How might you challenge them? To what extent is ‘learning to live together’ part of the curriculum? How would you like to position yourself as an agent in the educational process?

References Ashley CofE Primary School (2018) Available from: http://www.ashleyschool.org.uk/ (accessed 2018). Bandura, A. (2001) ‘Social cognitive theory: an agentic perspective’, Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 1–26. Biesta, G. (2016) ‘Good education and the teacher: reclaiming educational professionalism’, in Evers, J. and Kneyber, R., Flip the System: Changing Education from the Ground Up. London: Routledge, pp. 79–90. Bottery, M. (2004) The Challenges of Educational Leadership. London: Paul Chapman Publishing.

Agency for sustainable futures 149

Byron, T. (2015) ‘Foreword’, in Claxton, G. and Lucas, B., Educating Ruby: What Our Children Really Need to Learn. Carmarthen, Wales: Crown House Publishing. Clarke, P. (2009) ‘Sustainability and improvement: a problem “of” education and “for” education’, Improving Schools, 12(1), 11–17. Clarke, P. (2012) Education for Sustainability: Becoming Naturally Smart. London: Routledge. Claxton, G. and Lucas, B. (2015) Educating Ruby: What Our Children Really Need to Learn. Carmarthen, Wales: Crown House Publishing. Coffey, A. (2001) Education and Social Change. Maidenhead: Open University. Comber, B. and Kamler, B. (2004) ‘Getting out of deficit: pedagogies of reconnection’, Teaching Education, 15(3), 293–310. Cranton, P. (2016) Understanding and Promoting Transformative Learning: A Guide to Theory and Practice. Stirling, 3rd edn. Virginia: Stylus Publishing. Cremin, T., Mottram, M., Collins, F., Powell, S. and Drury, R. (2015a) ‘Building communities: teachers researching literacy lives’, Improving Schools, 12(2), 93–100. Cremin, T., Mottram, M., Collins, F., Powell, S. and Drury, R. (2015b) Researching Literacy Lives: Building Communities Between Home and School. London: Routledge. Currie, G. and Lockett, A. (2007) ‘A critique of transformational leadership: moral, professional and contingent dimensions of leadership within public services organisations’, Human Relations, 60(2), 341–370. Day, C. (2017) Teachers’ Worlds and Work: Understanding Complexity, Building Quality. London: Routledge. Dunne, R. (2015) ‘Applying the principles of harmony to learning’, Food and Culture, Sustainable Food Trust, 13 November. Available from http://sustainablefoodtrust.org/article s/applying-the-harmony-principles-to-learning/ (accessed 2018). Fairclough, M. (2016) Playing with Fire: Embracing Risk and Danger in Schools. Woodbridge: John Catt Educational. Fielding, M. (2007) ‘Community, philosophy and educational policy: against effectiveness ideology and the immiseration of contemporary schooling’, in Ball, S.J., Goodson, I.F. and Maguire, M. (eds), Education, Globalisation and New Times. London: Routledge, pp.183–204. Forest School (2018) Available at: https://www.forestschoolassociation.org/ (accessed 2018). Giroux, H.A. (2011) On Critical Pedagogy. London: Bloomsbury. Greany, T. (2014) ‘The self-improving school system: competing policies undermine the coalition’s admirable aims’, IOE London Blog, 6 March.Available at: https://ioelondon blog.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/the-self-improving-school-system-competing-policie s-undermine-the-coalitions-admirable-aims/ (accessed 2018). Hannon, V. (2009) ‘Innovative systems: an international perspective’, keynote address, International Congress for School Effectiveness and School Improvement, Vancouver, BC, Canada, January. HRH Prince of Wales with Juniper, T. and Skelly, I. (2010) Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World. London: HarperCollins. Incredible Edible (2018) Available at: http://incredibleediblenetwork.org.uk/ (accessed 2018). Keating, A.L. (2009) ‘Transforming status-quo stories: shifting from ‘me’ to ‘we’ consciousness’, in Svi Shapiro, H. (ed.) Education and Hope in Troubled Times: Visions of Change for Our Children’s World. New York: Routledge, pp. 210–222. MacBeath, J., Dempster, N., Frost, D., Johnson, G. and Swaffield, S. (2018) Strengthening the Connections between Leadership and Learning: Challenges to Policy, School and Classroom Practice. London: Routledge. Mitchell, C. and Sackney, L. (2009) Sustainable Improvement: Building Learning Communities that Endure. Rotterdam, NL: Sense Publishers.

150 Agency for sustainable futures

Moll, L. and Greenberg, J. (1990) ‘Creating zones of possibilities: combining social contexts for instruction’, in Moll, L. (ed.), Vygotsky and Education. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. NCCIH (2010) National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health. Available at: http:// nccih.ca/en (accessed 2019). Nunavut Government (2012) ‘Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit’, Department of Human Resources, Nunavut Government website. Available at: http://www.gov.nu.ca/hr/site/beliefsystem. htm (accessed 2012). Priestley, M., Biesta, G. and Robinson, S. (2015) Teacher Agency: An Ecological Approach. London: Bloomsbury. Ramaswamy, C. (2018) ‘The 11-year old who galvanised a global movement at the March for Our Lives’, Guardian, 26 March. Ranson, S. (2000) ‘Recognizing the pedagogy of voice in a learning community’, Educational Management and Administration, 28(3), 263–279. Smith, A. (2019) ‘They see us as a threat because we are having an impact’, Observer, 21 July, 8–11. TES (2019) ‘Beware isolated incidents, mental health charity warns’, Times Educational Supplement, 19 July, 6. Thunberg, G. (2019) No One is Too Small to Make a Difference. London: Penguin. United Nations (2015) Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Available at: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld (accessed 2018). UNECE (2012) ‘Learning for the future: competences in education for sustainable development’, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, Strategy for Education for Sustainable Development. Available at: https://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/env/ esd/ESD_Publications/Competences_Publication.pdf (accessed 2018). Vare, P. (2018) ‘A rounder sense of purpose: developing and assessing competences for educators of sustainable development’, in Form@re, 18(2). doi:10.13128/formare-23712 (accessed 2019). West Rise Junior School (2018) Available at: http://www.westrisejunior.co.uk/ (accessed 2018). Wrigley, T., Thomson, P. and Lingard, B. (2012) Changing Schools: Alternative Ways to Make a World of Difference. London: Routledge.

INDEX

academisation 22, 66, 68, 86, 90 accountability 1, 2, 5, 7, 15, 21, 23, 33, 42, 45, 50, 53, 56, 70–4, 87, 93, 108, 111, 126, 142, 146 action research see research, action activism: teacher 41, 45, 48, 51, 109, 136; student advocacy 7, 48; for students 3, 80, 91, 137–8, 144; for teachers 41 agency 3, 13, 34, 37, 54, 91, 93, 102–14, 125, 136–7, 143; characteristics of 52–3, 111, 146; conjoint 54, 88, 91, 108, 112; human 7, 11, 81, 84; and structure see structuration; student 96, 125, 128, 137–9; teacher 1–3, 16, 25, 35–6, 42, 47–8, 51–6, 72–3, 82, 87–90, 98, 117–132 agentic dimension 1–4, 11, 15, 36, 47–8, 52, 92, 95–6, 98–9, 102–14, 117–132, 137, 145–8 Apple, M. 8, 15–16, 23, 29, 126 Ball, S.J. 5–7, 11, 13, 15–16, 22–3, 28, 44, 48–9, 54, 72, 110 Bandura, A. 14, 51, 53, 81, 84–5, 89, 92, 103, 111, 113, 145–6 Biesta, G. 6–7; 10, 21, 29, 33, 47, 55, 107, 12, 141 capacity 12, 30, 33, 37, 97, 113, 145; building 24, 30, 35–6, 47–8, 53, 103; personal and interpersonal 47–8 capital 16, 30–1, 33, 46, 46–8, 86, 103

change 5, 6, 8, 11, 21, 23–4, 26–8, 30–1, 35–7, 45–56, 65, 84–5, 113, 127, 130–32, 145–8; agent 11, 16, 45–6, 48, 98, 103, 109, 111, 128, 130; management 68, 111, 142; strategy for 66, 82, 87–9, 98, 102, 108, 147; teacher response to 65–8, 72, 90 citizenship 6–7, 29, 131 Clarke, P. 22, 24, 34–6, 41, 139–40, 146–7 collaboration 69, 80, 88–9, 96, 97–8, 108, 122, 138 consciousness: discursive 51, 53, 55, 98, 103, 118, 132, 136; practical; 51, 136 creativity 6, 27, 24, 37, 54–5, 95, 113, 125–6, 132, 140, 143, 147 criticality 6–7, 29, 32, 34, 42, 44–5, 55, 95, 98–9, 111, 113, 127, 129, 131–2, 147–8 critical pedagogy see pedagogy, critical culture 1–3; 11, 12, 16, 26–7, 30–3, 35–7, 54–6, 72, 85–8, 90–2, 96, 98–9, 108–9, 111, 113, 117, 123, 126, 130–2, 139, 148 curriculum 3–4, 7, 27, 29, 45, 71, 75, 108, 113, 142, 144–5, 148; National 43 Day, C. 9, 14, 21, 25, 33, 44–5, 47, 52, 109, 141; and Gu, Q. 13, 73, 81; deficit discourse 1–2, 15–16, 25–6, 43, 143 democratic processes 11, 33–5, 45, 103, 127, 140 deprofessionalisation 26, 44, 55–6 dialogue 4, 7, 95–7, 99, 113, 118–22, 125, 129–31, 145, 147–8 discursive consciousness see consciousness, discursive

152 Index

ecological approach 34, 49, 73, 111, 136, 138–9, 147 effectiveness, school see school effectiveness elicitation tools 63, 65, 74, 119 epistemology 35, 47–8, 50, 102–7, 112, 130, 138 equity 22–3, 32, 34 Evans, L. 12, 14, 42, 46, 50, 56, 74, 109 evidence–based practice 31–2, 66 Fielding, M. 12, 29, 34–5, 44, 108, 146 Frost, D. 6–7, 14–15, 36, 46–7, 53–4, 92, 96, 110, 117, 121, 124–7, 129 Fullan, M. 9, 11, 31, 36, 41–7, 55, 89, 108 game playing 6, 21, 50 Giddens, A. 8, 36, 51, 53, 55, 107 Giroux, H. 14, 55, 126–7, 139 Hargreaves, A. 24–6, 41–4, 55, 111 hope 15–16, 111, 127, 132, 146, 148 humanity 6, 48–9, 82, 137, 140–1 identity 6, 16, 47, 139; see also professional identity inclusion 4, 11, 23, 79–81, 95, 97–9, 103, 113, 125, 130–1, 140, 144, 147 integrity 7, 26, 35, 43, 47, 73, 148 knowledge 29, 37, 44–5, 47, 51, 76, 111, 113, 143–4; creation 23, 31, 33, 96–7, 118, 122, 125, 127, 131, 145; funds of 143–4; professional see professional knowledge; sharing 125; subject 75, 81, 97 landscape 2, 9, 56, 84, 98, 108, 111, 118, 145 leadership 14, 33, 37, 51, 53–4 98–9, 122–3, 145–6, 148; capacity 47, 80; creative 54; density 54; senior 66–9, 71–2, 85–92, 95–7, 108, 110–12, 132, 142–3; student 125, 130, 137–9, 142; teacher 2, 36, 41, 45, 47, 53–4, 69, 87–9, 92–4, 96–8, 103, 108–10, 122, 125–6, 130–2, 142 learning 29, 32, 34, 44, 47–8, 53, 71, 75–80, 97–9, 112, 120–21, 127–31, 141–3 lifeworld 15, 30–1, 36, 50, 142, 144 MacBeath, J. et al., 15, 21, 23–5, 30, 43, 46, 48, 146; Galton and 15, 23, 44, 51 making a difference 9–10, 16, 27, 41–2, 78 Mitchell, C. and Sackney, L. 34–5, 37, 49, 102–3, 136 moral purpose 13, 26, 30, 37, 48, 73–4, 81, 90, 93, 102, 111–12, 127, 142, 145

narrative 9, 27, 117–18, 139; grand 8, 44, 98; organisational 50; teacher 62–3, 110, 112, 143 neoliberalism 5–6, 16, 23, 28, 45, 48 ontology 35, 47–9, 53, 102–7, 112, 130, 138 outcomes: desired 54, 84, 90–91, 123, 145–8; student 10–12, 24, 32–4, 47–8, 52,93; holistic 78, 81, 97, 129, 138–44, 147 pedagogy 3–4, 6–7, 14, 29, 32, 47–8, 97, 113, 117, 126–7, 137, 145; critical 48, 99, 117, 119, 121, 126–32, 145 performance management 29, 45, 80, 88, 146 performativity 2, 5–7; 10–12, 14–15, 21–5, 28–9, 33–4, 44–5, 48, 54, 67, 78, 81, 88, 110, 145–6 policy 4, 9, 22–5, 29–30, 33–5, 42, 45, 49, 97–9, 103, 141–2, 146; interpretation 66, 73; 109; school 94, 96 portraiture 1, 9, 56, 62–65, 74, 93, 98 Priestley, M. et al., 14, 30, 46, 51–2, 54–5, 108–9, 112 professional 49–50; development 2, 10, 11, 24, 29, 42, 47–8, 68, 75, 80, 87, 93, 98–9, 103, 110, 117–132, 145, 147–8; dilemmas 67; identity 2, 9, 11, 13, 25, 35, 41, 45, 48, 50, 52–3, 56, 73–4, 103, 109–11, 132, 145; knowledge, 13, 33, 47, 53, 96, 118–19, 145; language 25; learning 2, 10, 43, 47–9, 75, 86, 95, 98–9, 103, 119, 125–7, 130, 132, 145; learning community 34, 92, 99, 102, 121, 145; practice 32, 42, 71–5, 94, 97, 109, 126, 130; relationships 27–8, 33, 69, 79–80, 89, 91, 123; selves 10, 27, 44, 52, 56, 73–4, 109–10, 147; stance 65, 68–9, 128; support 69, 80, 88; surveillance 44, 73, 86 professionalism 2, 5, 12–14, 36, 41–50, 53–6, 99, 103, 108–9, 112–13 professionality 13–14, 36, 41–3, 46–8, 53, 56, 74; extended 49, 95, 99, 103, 108–11, 141, 145 purpose 4, 7, 10,13, 15, 21, 24, 28–9, 31, 33–5, 44, 47, 49, 52–3, 55, 78–9, 99, 103, 108, 111, 118, 141, 145 reflective practice 48, 55, 97, 122, 128, 130, 132 reform 5, 8–11, 21–3, 26–9, 31, 34–6, 50, 96–8, 102, 110, 121, 140, 146 relational work 10, 69, 91, 144, 146

Index 153

research 10–11; 32, 78, 122, 125–6, 129–30, 132, 136; action 93, 97, 117–23, 128–30; ethics 125 risk 3, 10, 29, 94, 99, 127, 130–2, 142, 145 school effectiveness 12, 30, 32, 44–5, 52–3, 68, 85, 102, 146 school improvement 1–3; 7, 8, 11–12, 15, 26–7, 32, 34, 41, 46, 50–2, 81, 98, 102, 108, 112, 130, 145–6; plan 66, 88; projects 93–5, 97–8, 111, 117–132 self–efficacy 14–15, 25, 42, 52–3, 103, 110–12, 145 self–evaluation 11, 33, 142, 147 social justice 15, 23–5, 32, 34, 130–1, 139 standards 5, 11–12, 21–4, 56, 68, 85–6, 91, 142; teacher 43–5 Stoll, L. 9, 12; 26, 34, 47, 55, 84 stories 4, 8–9, 14–15, 28, 56, 62–3, 95, 110–12, 118, 126–7, 139, 146 structuration 8, 36, 51, 53, 109, 113 subjectification 7, 33, 47, 126, 141

sustainability 3, 15, 34, 95–6, 132, 136–148 systemsworld 30–2, 50, 53 teacher–led development 2, 48, 93–5, 97–8, 108, 117–132 therapeutic approaches, rejection of 7, 52, 76, 91, 110 transformation 2, 32, 35–6, 42, 55, 99, 103, 128–9, 136, 146–8 trust 29, 66, 86, 91, 97–8, 112, 138, 142, 146, 148 values 6, 12, 13, 31, 34, 36, 44, 49–54, 70, 72–3, 81, 93, 98, 108, 111, 123, 136, 142, 146–7; British 43 voice 4, 34, 44, 55, 95–6, 111, 113, 125–27, 137, 139, 141, 147 wellbeing 139; student 10, 15, 23–4, 34, 43–4, 78, 81, 96, 99, 130, 140–1; teacher 44, 52, 66, 69, 129–30 workload 13, 45, 66, 70, 81, 86–7 Wrigley, T. 11–12, 16, 24–5, 34, 102