Action research as a school-based strategy in intercultural professional development for teachers

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Teaching and Teacher Education 27 (2011) 911e919

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Teaching and Teacher Education

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Action research as a school-based strategy in intercultural professionaldevelopment for teachers

Auxiliadora Sales a,*, Joan A. Traver a, Rafaela García b

aUniversitat Jaume I, Dept. Education, Campus Riu Sec, 12071 Castellón, SpainbUniversidad de Valencia, Dept. Theory of Education, Avda. Blasco Ibañez, P.O. Box 22110, 46071 Valencia, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 9 January 2010Received in revised form4 March 2011Accepted 8 March 2011

Keywords:Intercultural educationInclusive educationTeacher professional developmentAction researchCase study

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ34 96 4729808; fax:E-mail addresses: asales@edu.uji.es (A. Sales), jtr

Rafaela.garcia@uv.es (R. García).

0742-051X/$ e see front matter � 2011 Elsevier Ltd.doi:10.1016/j.tate.2011.03.002

a b s t r a c t

Teacher professional development is a key factor for transforming professional and school culture. Thisarticle describes a case study undertaken in a Spanish school during the 2007e2008 academic year. Ouraim is to explain how action research methodology was applied to encourage professional and schoolculture towards an intercultural and inclusive approach. Our results show that the training processchallenged teachers’ pre-existing deficit theory perspectives and empowered them as leaders for schoolchange. The conclusions identify the key factors that enabled teachers to engage in critical reflection, andto implement strategies for collaborative work and community participation in school.

� 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

In thefieldof 21st centuryeducation, cultural diversity representsa challenge for teachers’ professional development and trans-formation of schools. As teacher educators, our aim is to developprofessional learning processes that encourage transformation inschools towards an intercultural, inclusive educational approach.

This approach implies a conception of education and culture asan open, dialogical and dynamic process (Holliday, 1999), andtherefore calls for an educational model that understands diversityas a value and a norm rather than a deficit or a problem; a modeldesigned to combat racism and exclusion through dialogue, coop-eration and democratic participation (Armstrong, Armstrong, &Barton, 2000; Kincheloe & Steinberg, 1997; McCarthy 1990). Insummary, what is need is an intercultural, inclusive model thatencourages citizens’ cultural enrichment, by acknowledging andrespecting diversity, through exchange, dialogue and critical activeparticipation in a democratic society based on equity, justice andsolidarity (Sales & García, 1997, p. 42).

Teachers are a key factor in school improvement and thisimprovement can and must be encouraged through teacher profes-sional development (Darling-Hammond, 2006). In many cases the

þ34 96 4729264.aver@edu.uji.es (J.A. Traver),

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success of educational changes is shaped by teachers’ critical capacity,professional self-esteem and degree of autonomy to innovate and becreative (Gale & Densmore, 2003; Skrtic, 1995).

In Spain, however, teacher education and professional devel-opment still continues to be grounded on deficit theory, whichjustifies the implementation of compensatory educational pro-grammes (Brodin & Lindstrand, 2007; Lloyd, 2008) and segregationmeasures in schools (Escudero, 2009; Sleeter, 2009). Spain’s mostrecent Education Act (Ley Orgánica de Educación), passed in 2006,addresses student diversity through two specific regulations:compensatory education for ethnic and immigrant minorities, andspecial programmes for pupils with “specific support needs”,implemented by the Spanish autonomous governments. Schools inwhich more than one third of the pupils are considered to be at riskof social exclusion are known as Compensatory Education Schools(CAES in Spanish) and are allocated extra human and materialresources.

Professional development for practicing teachers in Spain isorganised through Teacher Training and Resource Centres, publi-cally funded bodies that attend to requests for training and organisewhat are known as ‘in-service teacher training programmes’.Two types of programmes involve the participation of externalfacilitators: a) scientific and didactic in-service training (CDIT)programmes and b) school-based in-service training (SIT) pro-grammes. CDIT programmes are run outside school premises andteachers request them on an individual basis. Evaluation of these

A. Sales et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 27 (2011) 911e919912

programmes has shown that they do not have a significant impacton school practices (Walters & Vilches, 2000).

The second type, school-based in-service training (SIT) pro-grammes, take place in the school and are designed on the basis ofneeds and demands previously identified and agreed on by the staff.They aim to bring together and consolidate the school’s staff asa unit. School-based professional development canprovide the rightenvironment for change in the school culture and strengthen theimpact of innovations in the classroom (García, 2003; Gale &Densmore, 2003). It was first promoted in Spain in the 1980sthrough critical pedagogy models (Martínez Bonafé, 1989), but inthe last two decades it has been neglected in favour of moretransmissive, technique-basedmodels, which generate a dichotomybetween the university and the school, theory and practice,academics as experts and teachers as practitioners (Sáez, 2004).Furthermore, the compensatory and technique-based modelprecludes the development of intercultural and inclusive profes-sionals and cultures, since teachers are socialised into schools asaworkplacewhere they expect students to be sorted and divided bya variety of categories eincluding age, ability, race and gender(Young, 2008).

The purpose of this study was to develop action researchprocesses that would help to construct intercultural, inclusiveschools through the professional development of their teacherswithin the context of a SIT programme in which we participated asexternal facilitators.

In Spain, antecedents to the intercultural and inclusive approachof SIT programmes can be found in the network of LearningCommunities (Elboj, Puigdellívol, Soler & Valls, 2002) (www.comunidadesdeaprendizaje.net), based on the Accelerated SchoolsProject (Levin, 1998). The school transformation process begins bytaking a community approach to raise teachers’ awareness aboutthe principles of dialogical learning. A second model, the inclusiveschools network (Echeita, 2006), is based on the IQEA (Improvingthe Quality of Education for All) Project (Ainscow, 1999) and thesubsequent publication of the Index for Inclusion (Booth & Ainscow,2000) as a self-evaluation tool for schools. Thismodel applies actionresearch as a strategy for school improvement, designed to reflecton school cultures, policies and practices.

We therefore start from a conception of professional develop-ment within the framework of school-based in-service training(henceforth SIT) programmes that considers school as a privilegedplace to learn about interculturality, inclusion and democraticculture (Darling-Hammond, 2006). This approach must recogniseteachers as leaders for change in school (Essomba, 2006; Muijs &Harris, 2006), and provide the resources and strategies to trans-form it into a quality school for all (Ainscow, 1999; Darling-Hammond, 2001; Stoll & Fink, 1996).

The implications for teacher educator practice can be seen in thenew role of ‘critical friend’, a figure that encourages and accom-panies teachers through the process of creating a professionallearning community. As teacher educators, we “draw on ourpersonal and professional journeys towards our understanding ofinclusion and interculturality in school” (Hink, 2005, p. 121).

The strategy that we consider to be coherent with the inter-cultural and inclusive professional development approach totransforming school culture is action research, because as O’Hanlon(2003, p. 25) points out: “the action research process itself modelsdemocratic procedures that are fully inclusive and gives a voice toall participants, especially marginalized ones.” According to themulticultural and social reconstructionist approach, criticalconsciousness can be nurtured through the examination ofsystemic inequities in school (Grant & Sleeter, 2006). Hence, actionresearch provides the strategy for a professional developmentmodel: inclusive, collaborative, democratic, focused on learning,

critical and transformative (Carr & Kemmis, 1993; Elliott, 1991;McNiff, 1999; Whitehead, 1989). Action research can provide theresources to deconstruct teachers’ professional identity when itemerges as a racist and exclusionary construction, and favoursempowerment of teachers and the school community (Kailin,2002; Magos, 2007). It takes the school as a learning unit (Elliott,1993); it encourages collaboration between teachers (Dooner,Mandzuk, & Clifton, 2008; Hiebert, Gallimore, & Stigler, 2002;Zwart, Wubbels, Bergen, & Bolhuis, 2007) to create inclusivelearning communities in schools as part of a planned process(Busher, 2005; Perrett, 2003). The literature therefore demon-strates that, firstly, action research is a channel for developing thecapacity of school communities to expose and challenge deeplyentrenched deficit views of ‘difference’, which define certain typesof students as ‘lacking something’ (Ainscow, 2005; Trent, Artiles, &Englert, 1998). Secondly, because it is collaborative, participatory,democratic and designed to develop critical community learning(Armstrong & Moore, 2004; Elliott, 1991; Kemmis & McTaggart,1988), it opens the way for changes in the school culture by acti-vating the levers for change (Senge, 1989) and encourages partici-pation, understood as the shared experiences and negotiations thatresult from social interaction within a purposive community(Wenger, 1998). This participatory nature, based on a long-termcommitment to working together, takes teachers out of theirtraditional isolation towards a new, collaborative school culture(Vulliamy & Webb, 1991).

Following the action research phases proposed by Kemmis andMcTaggart (1988) and the school transformation models, theresearch team structured the SIT programme in four phases: a)Raising awareness for change: initial stimulation of teaching staff toquestion how they view school-related challenges; negotiation andcommitment to change; and community involvement in theprocess; b) School self-evaluation, exploring the school reality withthe whole community and discussing the common vision of schoolculture; c) Decision making and implementation: teachers moti-vate community participation in decision making and learn tomanage decisions from a position of shared leadership; and d)Reflection and future proposals: teachers appraise the entireprocess and draw their initial conclusions about the trainingprocess and the changes that have occurred in the school culture.

The focus of the researchwas to analyse how the action researchstrategy applied in a SIT programme led to changes in the teachers’perspective that contributed to transforming the school culturetowards an intercultural, inclusive model. By analysing the processas a case study, we were able to identify the key factors that helpedto empower the teaching staff and develop a more democratic,participative school culture.

2. The case study

Weused a qualitative case studymethodology (Bogdan & Biklen,2003; Stake,1995). This enabled us to understand the complexity ofthe education process, starting from the context and perceptions ofthe agents involved. The case study explores the role of actionresearch strategy in a SIT programme that responded to thedemand by the teaching staff of a primary school in the Autono-mous Region of Valencia, Spain. Aspects revealed in the case studyenable us to learn from what is a unique and valuable case in itsown right (Stake, 1995), and at the same time increase knowledgeabout teacher training that helps managers take decisions ona larger scale (Zeichner, 2007).

The research questions proposed were as follows:

a) What changes occur in the teachers’ perspective as a result ofthe action research strategy applied to the SIT programme?

A. Sales et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 27 (2011) 911e919 913

b) How does SIT programme impact on the school culture?c) What are the key factors in the training process that help

promote changes?

The case study was therefore used to analyse the changes in theteachers’ perspective and their effect on changes in the schoolculture in order to identify the key factors in the process and theirimpact on the SIT programme.

2.1. The case

To carry out the case study we approached a primary schoolwhere we had previously been involved in cooperative learningand intercultural education programmes. The teaching staff wishedto improve practices with a view to providing a better response todiversity within the community. The action research proposal wasincluded in the SIT programme that the school submits annually tothe Teacher Training and Resource Centre. This programmeproposal, endorsed by the research team, was implemented duringthe 2007e2008 academic year.

Some background information is needed in order to understandthe context. The schoolwas a privately owned infant (3e6 years old)and primary (6e12 years old) school, but wholly managed withpublic money. It is classified as a Compensatory Education School,since over 30% of the pupils are at risk of social exclusion, and assuch, requires additional human and material resources from thepublic administration system. The school was located in the portdistrict of a Mediterranean city with some 900 000 inhabitants,where the large Roma population make a living from scrap metaltrading or as market traders. However, in the last fifteen years,certain parts of the neighbourhood have suffered such a degree ofurban deterioration that families with the financial means to do sohave moved out and other families havemoved into the abandonedhouses, or live in makeshift shacks or family vehicles. Some Romafamilies have become involved in street-level drug trafficking, andas a result face related problems with the police. The school hastaken in the children of these Roma families, 90% of all the pupils,which has caused a decline in its reputation in the neighbourhood(among long-standing members of the community). The school hasa staff of 19 teachers, including a Compensatory/Special Educationteacher, a school psychologist and a support teacher in the infants’department. None of the teachers are from the Roma community,and very few staff members live in the school neighbourhood. Thestaff, appointed by the head teacher, generally remains in the schooluntil retirement. In the last six years at least seven new teachershave joined the staff, with a corresponding fall in the average age ofstaff members. These new teachers have not witnessed the evolu-tion of the school or the deterioration of the neighbourhood; theycame into the situation as we now know it. This circumstance hasled to certain discrepancies between senior and junior staff, in termsof the school’s welfare and educational functions. Volunteers froman NGO help out in the school dining room alongside contractedmonitors. A Roma association also covers the cost of an educationalsupport teacher. For the most part, the school is pedagogicallyorganised according to levels: classes of between 16 and 20 childrenare divided into three streams, each with one teacher. The schoolhas high rates of absenteeism and school failure: most of the pupilsfrom the school do not go on to secondary education, and thereforenever obtain the most basic education certificate. Many pupils arepushed towards vocational training workshops until the age of 16when they can legally start work.

Some of the teaching staff had already met the research teamduring a cooperative learning programme the team had runpreviously at this school. Our initial relationship with the schoolmanagement team and the teaching staff was therefore very

amicable and informal. It should also be pointed out that none ofthe researchers were from the Roma community.

2.2. The school-based in-service training (SIT) programme

The SIT programme, which took place during the 2007e2008academic year, is summarised in Table 1. The interventions carried outby the research team and the teaching staff, together with the docu-ments produced during the four phases of the process, are described.The documentation highlighted in bold was used in the case study.

2.3. Data collection

For the case study we analysed the contents of the documentsfrom the in-service training process, which provided evidenceabout the changes in teachers’ perspectives and in the schoolculture during the four action research phases:

a) Minutes of the training sessions: minutes were taken on a rotabasis by members of the research team and the teaching staff.The issues discussed, participants’ contributions and conclu-sions reached were noted down and the final text was revisedand approved by all participants in the following session.

b) Semi-structured interviewswith teaching staff: during the self-evaluation phase, the research team interviewed the 19members of the school teaching staff to gather their opinionson the school culture. The interviews gave us an insight intoeach individual’s perceptions and enabled us to appreciate theplurality of perspectives (Mertens, 1998).

c) Minutes of the Analysis and Proposals (APRO) Committeemeetings: a committee created with representatives from eachstakeholder group (3 teachers, 3 pupils, 1 father and 1 mother)to work on a self-evaluation report. The minutes covered theissues discussed, participants’ contributions and the agree-ments reached by members of the working committee. Theminutes were taken by a volunteer teacher and were subse-quently approved by all participants.

d) DVD recording of the community assemblies: debates on theproposed changes and the agreements reached among theschool community were recorded by a research team memberand analysed in the training sessions.

e) Minutes of the one-day seminar: this document, written by theresearch team, detailed the conclusions reached in the meetingbetween professionals from various schools in the region.

f) Focus group: the school’s 19 teachers made a final evaluation ofthe training process and the resulting changes. The focus groupelicited information that painted a portrait of combined localperspectives, enabling the researchers to see how it “all fitstogether” (Fern, 2001).

From the outset the research team and the school involved inthe SIT programme negotiated and reached agreements overpermission to access, manage and analyse the data gathered, andpermission to publish the process and its results. All ethical issueswere thus thoroughly taken into account.

3. Reviewing the process, analysing the findings

In this section we describe the content, procedures andsequencing of the SIT programme sessions during each of the actionresearch phases. We note the teachers’ reflections, as reported inthe documentation, that illustrate their perspective as teachers andthe actions and evaluations taken in response to these during eachphase, and that provided us with evidence of changes in the schoolculture.

Table 1Activities carried out in the four-phase SIT programme.

Phase Research team activity Teaching staff activity Documents prepared

Raising awarenessfor change Sessions 1e6(SeptembereNovember 2007)

*Debate on the intercultural inclusive education model and changein the school*Negotiation and agreements to involve the teaching staff andcommunity in the changes

*PowerPoint presentation of basic concepts*Minutes of sessions 1e6*Commitment Document*PowerPoint presentation for the assembly*DVD recording of the first assembly*Guidance on community

participation strategies*Preparation of the communityassembly

Self-evaluation Sessions 7e9(NovembereMarch 2008)

*Interviews conducted inthe community*Interview summary reportprepared

*Interviews with the research team*Selection of pupils and familiesinvited for interviews*Constitution and developmentof the APRO Committee*Preparation of the self-evaluationreport, supervision of family andpupil participation

*“Guide to building the intercultural inclusiveschool”: interview items*Summary report of school communityinterviews*Minutes of sessions 7e9*Minutes of the APRO Committee meeting

*Debate and guidance on the preparation of the self-evaluationreport: creation of joint committees.*Discussion on the assessment of the Self-evaluation Report.

Decision making andimplementation Sessions10e11 (MarcheJune 2008)

*APRO Committee meetings held*Community assembly prepared andheld (together with families and pupils)*Constitution of new joint committeeto implement changes

*Minutes of sessions 10 and 11*Minutes of the APRO Committee meetings*PowerPoint presentation for second assembly* DVD recording of second assembly*Minutes of the constitution of the jointcommittee to implement the first changes*Debate on the workings of committees and assemblies as strategies

for community participationReflection and future proposals

Sessions 12e14 (June 2008)*One-day seminar with professionals from other schools, heldin the university*Focus group to evaluate the SIT programme with teaching staff*Session to prepare the new SIT proposal(academic year 2008e2009)

*Conclusions from the one-day seminar(Minutes of session 12)*Minutes of sessions 13 and 14

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3.1. Raising awareness for change

The SIT programme began with five 3-h sessions. The method-ology of these sessions was to discuss the teaching staff’s pre-existing ideas and implicit pedagogical theories, and debate theintercultural, inclusive school model and its implications. The firstsession focused on the transition of the school from the industrialsociety to the information society, the role of the teacher and themeaning of education. A PowerPoint presentation was used tointroduce the intercultural, inclusive education model in the secondsession. The presentation stimulated discussion on the concepts ofinclusion, interculturality, diversity and equality. The compensatorymodel was challenged and school practices involving both modelswere discussed. The third session focused on school changeprocesses, illustrated through experiences such as learningcommunities or the inclusive school network. Teaching staff wereencouraged to imagine their ideal school and share their ‘dreams’with the group. Action research was introduced as a process ofenquiry and transformation of the school context itself, and discus-sion led to a consensus about the phases of the process and thepersonal and material resources that would be needed. This sessionended with the negotiation and acceptance of a CommitmentDocument, in which all the teaching staff actively committed to thetraining process, which would be opened up to the whole schoolcommunity. The fourth session consisted of guidance on informationgathering strategies and community participation; it raised the needto explore the situation in the school by listening to all the voices inthe school community. To this end we presented the tool “Guide tobuilding the intercultural inclusive school” (Sales, Moliner & Traver,2010) based on the dimensions and indicators taken from the Indexfor Inclusion (Booth & Ainscow, 2000) and the observation scaleitems devised by Aguado, Ballesteros, and Malik (2003). The guideenabled us to focus reflection on relevant aspects from an intercul-tural and inclusive perspective. It provided a set of questions forreflection structured in the following three dimensions:

A. What are we like? How do we see ourselves?: What values do weshare?What is our conception of diversity?What dowe expectto achieve?

B. Howdowe organise ourselves?:What are our educational goals?What do we understand by leadership? How can a culture ofcollaboration be developed? What times and spaces are avail-able for reflection and innovation? How can interculturalcommunication and community participation be encouraged?

C. How do we learn and teach?: How do we organise students intogroups, curricular content, methodology and activities, evalu-ation, classroom management, teachers’ intercultural commu-nication competences?

The teaching staff agreed that the research team would use thequestions from this guide to find out the opinions of the wholecommunity on the current situation in the school (self-evaluationprocess).

In the fifth session, we debated and agreed on how to informand involve the rest of the community in the action research. Otherschools’ experiences of community assemblies as a democraticparticipation strategy provided a useful reference for the teachingstaff (www.comunidadesdeaprendizaje.net). Small working groupsprepared an assembly to explain the change process and involvethe community. The assembly was analysed and evaluated in thesixth session.

In our analysis of this initial phase, we see how the teachersdescribed the pedagogical premises on which they based theirwork and outlined their expectations of the training programmeand its possible effects on the staff and the school as a whole. Theauthoritarian role of the head teacher was immediately detected;she took all the decisions, her attitude to the staff was paternalisticand her communication style, direct and managerial. The teachers’professional expectations were low, and they were pessimisticabout any likelihood of change. However changes were clearlynecessary, as staff acknowledged their lack of training and a certain

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professional impotence that permeated their working lives. Theirlow professional expectations were closely linked to those of theirpupils: “There is very little we can do with pupils like these”, and toexpectations within the social and family environment: “We can’trely on the families; they don’t believe in anything we are doing here”(Minutes of the 1st session).

When the discussion focused on perception of cultural diversity,a series of explanations e chiefly based on deficit and compensa-tion theory e were put forward: “These pupils aren’t up to it, andthere’s no culture of family support”. “The parents aren’t very inter-ested in their education; they prefer to get them into work and marrythe girls off as soon as they can”. “How you get through the coursedepends on the pupils you have that year; with some of them youjust can’t do anything” (Minutes of the 2nd session).

The teachers were not conscious of the influence they had overtheir pupils. As Gay (2001) points out, many in-service and pre-service teachers may not consider themselves as cultural beings,and often have no understanding of discrimination.

When concepts of interculturality and inclusionwere introducedinto the discussion, they proved to be of little use, as they were notan integral part of their professional vocabulary. Theywere nomorethan empty words that had become fashionable in pedagogicalcircles. The intercultural, inclusive school was understood as a finalstatus, an accreditation, in a dichotomy between all and nothing:“The idea of the inclusive school is all well and good, but it’s one thing totalk about the theory and quite another to put it into practice.” Thechasm between theory and practice, between academic experts andschool practitioners, became clear from their comments. Theteachers’ initial vision was closer to the compensatory approacheson which they grounded their professional role and expectations.However, when we introduced the subject of how to improve thesituation in the school andhowto create a school for all, the teachersregarded this more as a process of change and perceived it morepositively (Pather, 2007). Visualising a ‘dream’ was a powerfulexperience and encouraged the staff to commit to an action researchprocess that would have to open up to thewhole school communityif it truly aimed to be plural and collective: “I dream of a school full ofhappy girls and boys”. “I’d like to improve the personal relationshipsbetween everybody in the school community”. “I wish we weren’tfrightened to say what we think”. “A school where all the teacherscollaborate respectfully” (Minutes of the 3rd session).

These ‘dreams’ demonstrated the lack of teacher autonomy andleadership at that point, expressed by the desire to transform thehierarchical, managerial relationship that had prevented them fromworking together as equals (Minutes of the 4th session).

The first assembly gained the direct support of the families withmost authority in the community, who in turn appealed to the rest ofthe neighbourhood to participate in the project for change. The effortsof the teachers and the management team were publicly recognisedand the assembly’s confidence in themwas expressed (DVD recordingof the first assembly). In the sixth training session the teachers posi-tively acknowledged this support and were more confident about theprospects for school change. Community support from the assemblychallenged the teachers’ assumptions about diversity as a deficit andthe function of the school to ‘compensate deficits’.

3.2. Self-evaluation process

In the seventh session the teaching staff agreed to focus theirattention on two dimensions from the Guide: What are we like?,and How do we organise ourselves? and to postpone How do welearn and teach? to the following academic year. The research teamconducted semi-structured interviews with the 19 teachers (threeof whom were members of the management team), 12 pupils, 10families and six local organisation representatives.

The summary report of these interviews, written up by theresearch team, provided some insight into the teachers’ percep-tions of their role in the school culture:

A What we are like. How we see ourselves.

Shared values: The absence of consensus and shared values wasdetrimental to coexistence in the school and conflicts were notresolved peacefully. There was no pedagogical space in the schoolwhere the guiding values underlying the teaching task could beclarified, and consequently there was no cohesive shared frame-work that would lend meaning to the teachers’ work.

“Everybody has their own different ideas. We have never sat downto talk about what our ideas of learning are so we can all go in thesame direction” (Primary Form Teacher)

Evaluation of diversity: Diversity was perceived as positive andenriching in general, although for some it was the cause of day-to-day problems. The widespread pedagogical response in the schoolwas to group the children according to levels in order e accordingto the teaching staff e to act efficiently, although they acknowl-edged that it was a way of categorising learners.

“The thing is, we are all so diverse here. A challenge, okay, but itcreates problems, really that’s the true picture” (English teacher).“We don’t categorise here, because we all need each other, but wedo try to work effectively, and that’s why we use flexible groupsbecause we think wemakemore progress that way. So in somewaywe are categorising them.” (Infant support teacher)

Expectations: The teachers believed that the families were notparticularly interested in their children’s education. The teacherswanted to see a higher intellectual and cultural level among thefamilies and pupils, and greater ambition for themselves asprofessionals.

B How we organise ourselves.

Educational goals: The main problem for the teachers was thelack of internal organisation and systems for the innovations thathad been set in motion. “We don’t all sit down and work together onschool documents. The management team draws them up and they arenever revised. If we start to review something, we get sidetracked anda few days later it gets dropped because other things are more urgentand then we don’t take it up again. And so it goes on; I think theproblem in this school is lack of organisation .” (Management teamsecretary).

Leadership: the teachers complained about the lack of trust andrecognition of their work by the school’s head teacher. There wereno strategies in place for debate and consensus, and the atmo-sphere among the staff was very tense. They found this situationdiscouraging and it led to conflicts over work among the staff. Theschool’s management team complained about their lack of initia-tive and interest, and considered they should be reproached fortheir mistakes.

“Nobody tells you you’re doing a good job. I think we’ve introduceda lot of innovations in the Infants, and we do it all ourselves, it’sa lot of work. But here nobody says anything when you do some-thing well; it doesn’t really matter, but it would be nice”. (InfantTeacher)

School culture: collaboration only existed between teachersworking within the same group of pupils (two-year cycle). Othertasks were carried out on an individual basis and there was nopedagogical coordination, which implied poor management ofthe plentiful human resources in the school. Time management in

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meetings and for decision taking was inadequate; relevant issueswere not dealt with and this led to a loss of respect for others. “Wehave ideas in small groups, within the cycles, but then when theseideas are brought to staff meetings we are told they are impossible andwe become disillusioned, I think.” (Psychologist).

Time and space for reflection and innovation: numerous bureau-cratic, welfare and disciplinary tasks left no time for reflection andinnovation on pedagogical issues. Learning and teaching qualityhad been relegated to second place, below other priorities, and toavoid exacerbating the conflict between the various teachingapproaches that were perceived to exist among the staff.

“We spend a lot of time on other things and we don’t spend time onpedagogical issues” (Infant Teacher)

Intercultural communication and mediation: there was no goodreception plan in place for pupils, families and teachers. Nobodyseemed to be aware of the rules and there were no effectiveinformation and communication channels between families andteachers. Gender issues were one of the educational aspects thatcaused most cultural and authority conflicts.

Community participation: the teachers perceived that the localcommunity associations and population rejected them because ofthe type of pupil that attended the school. The education Admin-istration’s only concern was that regulations were complied with,even though some of these regulations were meaningless in thisparticular school. “We do try to build links with the communitythrough sports activities, exhibitions, but people keep their distance.The neighbourhood is rundown and divided, and people are a bit fedup” (Primary Teacher).

The eighth session was devoted to discussing who shouldanalyse and debate the information gathered in the summaryreport, and how this should be done to make it democratic,representative, plural and effective. The experience of the Index forInclusion (Booth & Ainscow, 2000) was proposed, in which schoolself-evaluation was undertaken in small committees, as a strategyfor sharing and debating this information with the pupils and theirfamilies. The aim of the session was to encourage constructivereflection and self-criticism in an attempt to value the positiveaspects of the information and learn from the difficulties andobstacles detected. The teaching staff agreed that an Analysis andProposal (APRO) Committee should be created e includingteachers, students and parents e, with the purpose of working onthe summary report and concluding with a self-evaluation reportwritten by a group of volunteer teachers. This report explained thepotential, the difficulties and the ‘dreams’ or proposals from eachstakeholder group.

The self-evaluation report was analysed in the ninth session. Theenthusiastic and meticulous participation of the APRO Committeehad a very positive effect on the confidence and involvement of theteachers, who saw that their efforts were recognised by both pupilsand their families. In turn, this indicated that the teachers hadbecome more autonomous in their leadership role at school andwere less dependent on guidance from the research team. The self-evaluation report included not only the teachers’ ‘dreams’ but alsothose of the rest of the community. The teaching staff highlightedtheir pleasant surprise on analysing the comments and ideas fromthe other stakeholder groups and confirmed that the procedure hadbeen fruitful and had provided a wealth of useful contributions(Minutes of the 9th session).

3.3. Decision making and implementation

Debate in the tenth session focused on the functions of the APROCommittee. The teachers reflected on collaborative and democraticdecision-making procedures, and on learning to trust, delegate,

negotiate and reach consensus (Ainscow, 1999). The APROCommittee would use the self-evaluation report as a basis for itsown criteria to propose and prioritise the long and short-termchanges it considered necessary. The teaching staff on the one handexpressed their concerns that the families and pupils would tire ofthe process, and on the other, they indirectly admitted that theywere apprehensive that the school management might respond inan authoritarian way. “In the end, we don’t know whether they’ll letus put all our proposals into practice” (Primary teacher, Minutes ofthe 10th session). However, the families continued to participate inthe meetings and the head teacher was supportive and expressedconfidence in the committee’s work, although she was nota member of it.

The APRO Committee drew up a set of proposals to present toa second community assembly in which the short and long-termchanges the community wished to adopt were discussed andagreed upon: to begin a ‘living together’ programme to improve theatmosphere in the school; to employ a intercultural mediator; tocontract personnel from the Roma community; and to improve thephysical state of the building and its surroundings. The assemblyasked for volunteers to form a joint committee to implement theagreed short-term changes (DVD recording of the secondassembly). Members of the school management team were co-opted onto the joint committee to manage the financial resourcesrequired by the changes. Community involvement was higher inthis second assembly and the teaching staff demonstrated a greaterwillingness to delegate responsibilities: the changes that every-body had put forward, prioritised and debatedwere starting to takeshape (Minutes of the 11th session).

Our analysis of this phase showed that the teachers’ participa-tion in committees and assemblies e horizontal and egalitarianstructures and procedures e highlighted the contradiction that theprocess was taking place in a context that everyone recognised asvery hierarchical, where power relations were not generally equal.Nonetheless, this learning experience and reflections on it werecrucial to challenging many ideas about the teachers’ status vis-à-vis the rest of the community; about dialogue as a source oflearning; and about the capacity and ethical legitimacy of theschool community to take decisions in the school.

3.4. Reflection and future proposals

The end of the academic year marked a point of reflection andevaluation of the processes and the changes perceived to date.Withthis inmind, the research team organised a one-day seminar for theschool’s teaching staff and professionals from other schools thathad expressed an interest in education innovation based on anintercultural and inclusive model (12th session). This event allowedthe teaching staff to talk about their experience, share the problemsthey had faced with other professionals and draw their initialconclusions. The 13th session took the form of a focus group toassess the most relevant aspects and changes of the process, andthe 14th session was used to plan the training process for thefollowing academic year. The teachers’ final reflections andproposals are taken from these last three sessions:

Raising awareness for change: The teachers found the dynamicsof the SIT programme particularly interesting and motivating, sincethey had gradually been able to incorporate the project into theirown experience. One of the most notable changes was their real-isation that they were capable of in-depth reflection on the schoolas a community. Learning to listen to what everyone has to say wasseen as vital and helped to improve relationships. This type oftraining process was considered to be useful because “it bringsabout real changes, instigated by the teachers themselves andnot imposed from outside” (Primary teacher, Minutes of the 13th

A. Sales et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 27 (2011) 911e919 917

session). It was based on the need for survival and improvement,which the management teammust believe in and foster. It involvedanalysing the concept of democracy and power in the school, and assuch the power structure was a key factor. “It’s a question of‘infecting’ the rest of the community little by little, being creative,breaking moulds and innovating” (Infant Teacher, Minutes of the12th session).

Self-evaluation process: The teachers admitted to their initialmistrust of the exhaustive information gathering process. Theywere also concerned that the period between the interviews andthe writing up of the summary document was too long, which ledto moments of uncertainty and misinformation. However, theyrecognised that the interviews and the APRO Committee meetingsprovided excellent opportunities for ‘therapy’ and reflection; theyhelped the staff to know what direction to take; and they encour-aged trust building and the capacity to listen. The participation ofthe families and the pupils was excellent and it was recognised thatthey must be given a voice and encouraged to participate in schooldecisions. “It’s a process in which you have to accept that not every-body thinks like you do” (Head teacher, Minutes of the 12th session).“Making the school democratic is a difficult process that demandsa huge change in attitudes” (Psychologist, Minutes of the 13thsession).

Decision making and implementation: The teachers continued torecognise their low expectations of certain families, although theyhad become aware of their own prejudices and their professionalandmoral responsibility to change them. They felt that the distancebetween families and teachers was still too great, and that theyshould take steps to redress this situation. They suggested settingup a training programme involving families and teachers to explorethe ideas behind the intercultural and inclusive school. They rec-ognised that preparing the assemblies and organising thecommittee work provided valuable learning experiences: they hadestablished spaces for community participation that must not beallowed to disappear, and the staff acknowledged that the familiesappreciated them much more than they had realised and that theywere more willing to collaborate than they previously imagined.More authentic, horizontal and egalitarian interpersonal relation-ships had been established, a wider range of voices could now beheard, and each individual’s capabilities were better utilised. Theeffectiveness of the changes could be seen, and the wholecommunity could be involved in reworking and restructuringactions. They expressed the hope that the strategies and structuresthey had put in place would be sustainable and supported by theinstitutions. “This type of process needs a minimum commitment, andif it’s not there it’s hard to bring about real change” (Deputy Head,Minutes of the 13th session).

With regard to the relationship with the research team, theresearchers operated as a catalyst for change from the outset,putting mechanisms into place and galvanising the staff to beginthe process. The teachers felt supported throughout the experience,and had full confidence in the team. However, they did admit toa certain relationship of dependency, since the process was closelyguided by the research team. Our own internal research teamdiscussions and the reflection sessions with the teachers made usaware of this situation. The teachers had to face the challenge ofworking more autonomously to manage the strategies andprocesses by themselves, with continued support from externalobservers, as critical friends, but “at a greater distance” (Elliott,2004).

The challenge facing the staff in the next academic year, withregard to SIT programme content, was to analyse classroom prac-tices and generally question the teaching strategies, timetables andthe didactic resources they used, all with the involvementand collaboration of the families and pupils. These targets were

established in the SIT programme proposal for the 2008e2009academic year (Minutes of the 14th session).

4. Discussion and conclusions

The case study offers some insights into how action research inthis school provided the catalyst for a reflective process for schooltransformation based on an intercultural and inclusive approach. Inthis section we present the responses to our three research ques-tions. The discussion that emerges from our findings is in line withthe literature and the most significant experiences in other schools(Aubert, Flecha, García, Flecha, & Racionero, 2008; Echeita, 2006;Elboj et al., 2002). The final conclusions highlight the contribu-tions of this case study to SIT programmes through community-based action research.

4.1. The teachers’ perspective

The teachers’ reflections throughout the process illustrate howthey challenged the premises of deficit theory, and questioned theway they categorised pupils and their families and their own role asteachers. Critical action research offers a powerful tool for gener-ating ideas and fresh theoretical perspectives (Armstrong & Moore,2004). The teachers debated the function of their school, the powerrelations within it, and the ways of communicating and delegatingresponsibilities. These reflections raised the management team’sand teaching staff’s awareness of the implicit theories they held andof the need to monitor and question their practices. In-serviceteachers become more aware of their personal responsibility tochallenge the status quo and create intercultural, inclusive educa-tional environments.

The actions taken by these teachers involved negotiating situ-ations of resistance and working with parents and pupils to bringabout school change (Gill & Chalmes, 2007). The first consequenceof the teachers’ participation alongside other community agents inthe action research was the incipient empowering of teachers asagents for change, since they were more aware of their role inbuilding cultural identities, of expectations of success and asfacilitators to empower pupils and their families. The secondconsequence of the action research process was the improvementin teachers’ expectations: they felt more confident and appreciated,more capable of leading, more aware of their ethical and socialresponsibilities, and more sensitive to diversity.

In addition, the action research strategy offers a new way ofproviding in-service programmes and of examining the nature ofuniversity-school partnerships in professional and school devel-opment (Hink, 2005). By assuming a leadership role in the workingcommittees, the teachers clearly showed that they were ready forgreater autonomy from the research team and this enabled a shiftin the dichotomy from theory to practice as a knowledge sourcethat the teachers had perceived in other transmissive trainingprocesses.

4.2. Changes in the school culture

The organisational problems in the school were exploredthrough collaboration and dialogue. A plurality of voices was heardand acknowledged, and the idea of the school as a community aroseout of that experience. Diversity was recognised as a valuable driverfor transformation and intercultural dialogue became a tool forlearning and the social construction of knowledge (Armstrong &Moore, 2004). This increased the teachers’ autonomy to managethe change towards the idea of an effective school for all. As theirskills in taking complex pedagogical decisions improved, they

A. Sales et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 27 (2011) 911e919918

became valuable contributors to the decision-making processes inschool (Gale & Densmore, 2003).

The development of committees and assemblies as proceduresfor democratic participation represented a significant changetowards an intercultural and inclusive school culture. The firstconsequence of this development was that the teaching staffassumed the leadership of the school structure and moved towardsa situation of shared leadership (Muijs & Harris, 2006). The headteacher’s commitment to the process of change and her gradualdelegation of authority and responsibilities coincides with theresearch literature on teacher leadership, which concludes that thehead teacher’s support is central to the success of shared ordistributed leadership (Harris & Muijs, 2005). The use of dialogue,collaboration and negotiation strategies for managing conflictsduring the process was reported by both teachers and families.

The second consequence, derived from putting into practice theprocedures for horizontal participation in the school community,was the challenge to the vertical structure of the school and itsdirective management style. SIT sessions, assemblies and commit-tees provided spaces for collective reflection and dialogicallearning, in which decision making became more democratic andegalitarian, based on a socio-community approach to the school asan organisation (Jiménez & Pozuelos, 2001).

The challenge facing the school in the future is to ensuresustainability of the incipient changes through the institutionali-sation and consolidation of the critical and community-basedaction research process as a self-managed process for professionaldevelopment and school improvement (Hargreaves & Fink, 2006).

4.3. Key factors of the case study as a contribution to professionallearning

The above discussion enables us to highlight the keys to thesuccess of this action research process in building an intercultural,inclusive school:

The need for change must be recognised by the schoolcommunity (management team, teaching staff and families). Thiscannot be a top-down imposed process, but must be called for andmanaged by the teachers themselves. Awareness raising shouldinvolve the whole community, so everyone can reflect on the pluralvisions of the school and seek out intercultural and inclusivealternatives to school failure and social exclusion.

Spaces and times for collective reflection: in staff meetings, inthe classroom, in community assemblies. Places and schedulesmustallow for debate, analysis, exploration of problems and finally,conflict management solutions through consensus (Cox &Robinson-Pant, 2008).

The action research process must emphasise the importance ofdeveloping tools and strategies to facilitate collaborative self-evaluation and democratic and dialogical decision making. Theseshould become key elements for facilitating critical reflection andthe collective pursuit of questioning practices of exclusion andracism (Benjamin, 2002).

The role of the teacher educators as critical friends whoencourage and accompany the teachers in their reflection andaction must be based on the autonomy and responsibility of theteaching staff to manage their own learning processes. The trainingprocess must provide resources for teacher and communityempowerment.

The participation of the community in the action researchprocess fosters shared or distributed leadership, which is a keyelement in guaranteeing the sustainability of the change. This canrepresent a shift from an individualist, technical training culture toone of cooperative and dialogical learning, and from an expert,profession-based culture to one based in the community. In this

way support networks among professionals, schools and commu-nities are fostered (Aubert et al., 2008; Cooper, 2007).

Acknowledgements

This research project was funded by the Education Departmentof the Valencian Regional Government. The authors are grateful tothe entire school community for their goodwill and commitment.Our thanks are also due to Anna Robinson-Pant for her suggestions,to the reviewers for their comments and feedback on earlierversions of this paper and to Mary Savage for her translation.

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