Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemResearching teacher agency in primary school science: a discursive psychological approach( 2004)This ontological study is concerned with analyses of the problem of the scientific reform of the primary school curriculum. It was conducted at a time when a solution was sought through State mandated curriculum and standards specification and primary teacher accountability. The case study developed as an interactive ethnography (Woods 1996) written from the point of view of the facilitator of a whole school science curriculum project. The focus of the enquiry emerged as an exploration of social episodes in the life of two experienced Early Years teachers engaged in the yearlong project. Discursive psychology became the theoretical framework for the analysis of the primary teachers' professional identity formation in their professional work=place conversations with the author. Pronominal coding has been used to mark the teachers' psychological location in their storylines of the implementation of enquiry-based science education in their classes. In the teachers' accounts they simultaneously position themselves in their acts and actions and in the local moral order of duties and responsibilities. A significant disparity is shown to exist between the ontologies of the primary teachers' and research accounts, which present mental state analyses of teachers' lack of confidence or reluctance to teach science related to limited scientific understanding. The. study offers a schematic model of social action that theorizes human agency as, developing and functioning within the interactional nexus of local community settings. The community operates in the lives of these teachers not as a latent, abstract concept; instead it gives ideological differences and teachers' understandings of themselves significance in everyday educational practices.
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ItemClash of cultures: mainstream teachers' working knowledge and English as a Second Language (ESL) pedagogy( 1995)Within the international and Australian ESL field there has been a growing emphasis placed on mainstream teachers catering more effectively for the ESL students in their classes. This thesis is an ethnographic case study of the development of two mainstream teachers' working knowledge in ESL. It explores the strategies and skills that the two mainstream teachers adapt into their teaching after attending a ten week professional development course titled 'ESL in the Mainstream'. This was done through classroom observations, interviews and critiques of the teachers' planning, implementation and reflection of lessons observed. The study revealed that the practice of tapping students' already existing knowledge and language bases is not commonly utilised with students traditionally perceived as deficient. This research further suggests that mainstream teachers of working-class and LOTE background students may view them as lacking the necessary cultural capital, and therefore impose content and behavioural standards with little consideration and respect for student input. ESL teachers responsible for professional development need to understand the encultured pedagogical beliefs of mainstream teachers in order to assist them to reconsider what are complex personal and professional issues in the foundation of their own teaching.