Presenters: A/Professor Maxine Cooper

A/Professor Simone WhiteTeam : Professor Joanne Reid

Professor Bill Green Dr Graeme Lock Dr Wendy Hastings

 

Researching teacher education

and rural schools in Australia

Overview This presentation focuses on issues that

have arisen in the design and implementation of a 3 year Australian Research Council (ARC) Grant project - TERRAnova

How is sustainable inquiry developed in a research site that is by definition unstable and difficult to manage over both time and space, both ethically and practically?

TERRAnovaRenewing Teacher Education for Rural and Regional Australia

ContextIn both Australian and international research

literature it is accepted that rural schools are essential for the sustainability of rural communities

schools in rural communities experience more difficulty in recruiting and retaining qualified staff than schools in metropolitan, coastal and large regional inland cities

‘Children in rural and remote Australia are less likely to complete their education than children in regional and urban centres’ (HREOC 1999, p. 10).

In the Australian context, rural teacher education is neither high-profile nor well resourced (White et al.,2008), nor is it well-understood (Green, 2008).

The methodology of the projectMixed method approach

TERRAnova has sought information in three ways: An annual national online survey for pre-service teachers

who have taken up university and state incentive schemes for rural teaching experience.

A longitudinal follow-up study of teachers who have taken up positions in rural and remote schools, with follow-up focus-group interviews each year.

Compilation of a set of case-studies of rural schools identified by communities and systems as successful in retaining good teaching staff.

Key issues Ethical issues of anonymity and

pseudonymity in place-related inquiry Obtaining access to research sites in

remote locations including politically sensitive information

Dealing with conflicting points of view in case study reportage.

1.Ethical issues of anonymity Techniques of obscuring identities are

commonly employed in qualitative accounts but rarely discussed in texts on methodology or representation; their methodological, political, and theoretical implications go largely unexamined […] Even pseudonyms, the most common anonymizing tools, are usually considered only as devices for protecting participants, not as strategic tools that play important roles in constituting objects of inquiry (Nespor 2000. p. 546.)

Ethical issues of anonymity and pseudonymity in place-related inquiry Institutional ethics committees required us to

keep anonymity Is this possible in the ‘small worlds’ of education

systems? Is this desirable with our emphasis on place?

People identified because of their place relationships Issues of scale – identifiable locations less an issue at

national level

Pseudonyms and place Knoll Drystone Ochre Cathedral Vineyard Granite River Wheat Capetown P Cordoba

Capetown H Apple Lakeside Two Mile Treechange Muster Darling Capricorn Skye Forrest

The tree? A tree? Identifying place

2. Obtaining access to remote locations

Radio broadcasts to get nominations Our process of triangulating nominations means

that we have only visited schools deemed- successful by systems

Delay in getting approval in NSW because of proposed changes to staffing protocols

Physical challenges: broken backs, lost luggage, mobile phones, road train attack, kangaroos, bedbugs, shiny cars, loneliness, exposure

3.Dealing with difficult points of view in case study reportage Who do we get to talk to? Outsiders do not know the history and politics of the places we

visit But some times we do… Research constrained by lack of capacity to return, to stay

longer …

How do we work with/in these constraints when gathering data

Historians often forget that data have been left behind by people who had an interest in letting them trail behind them. They forget that the people who constructed these givens invested them with their categories of unconscious construction. [...] Additionally, lots of things have been systematically destroyed, lots of things are secret (Bourdieu, 1992: 44).

Dealing with difficult points of view in case study reportage

Un–nominated people sneaking in to interviews

Contradicting/complicating the official school story Indigenous communities

Interview as therapy Confidentiality

Some strategies Individually named case studies to all

case study schools Larger anonymised report across all case

studies Used different voices from many

stakeholders within all the reports Examined the issues of researching in

rural and remote locations to highlight further the issues for other researchers

References APPA (2008)

http://www.appa.asn.au/index.php/articles/leadership-a-principalship/436-principal-leadership-school-climate-critical-to-retaining-beginning-teachers , Accessed Nov 17 2009

Bourdieu. P. (1992) “Social Space and the Genesis of “Classes”’, in Language and Symbolic Power, Oxford: Polity Press, pp. 229-251.

Bourdieu. P. (1999) Site Effects, in P. Bourdieu et al., The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society, Cambridge, Polity Press, pp. 123-129.

Critchley, S. (1999). Post-deconstructive subjectivity. In Ethics-politics-subjectivity: Essays on Derrida, Levinas and contemporary French thought, London: Verso, pp. 51-82.

Green, B. (2007). ‘Schooling in a Cruel Climate?’ Presentation to ‘Landscapes and Learning: A Place Research Symposium’, Monash University, Gippsland, Victoria, August.

Green, B. & Letts, W. (2007) “Space, Equity and Rural Education: A ‘Trialectical’ Account”, in K. N. Gulson & C. Symes (eds), Spatial Theories of Education: Policy and Geography Matters, New York & London: Routledge, pp 57-76.

Hardy, J. (2002). Levinas and environmental education, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 34(4), 459-476. Canberra: National Museum of Australia.

Ladwig, J. G. (1994) Science, Rhetoric and the Construction of Socially Recognisable Evidence in Educational Research, Australian Educational Researcher, Vol 21 No 3, pp. 77-96

McConaghy, C. (2005) Transience and Teaching: Place and the New PsychoanalyticSociologies of Teaching, Paper presented at AARE Annual conference, Parramatta. aare.edu.au

Nespor, J. (2000) Anonymity and Place in Qualitative Inquiry, Qualitiative Inquiry, 8 6; 546-569

Reid, J. (2007) A pedagogy of Responsibility, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, Special Issue

Any issues, comments, questions, comparisons?