eprintid: 10019841
rev_number: 7
eprint_status: archive
userid: 587
dir: disk0/00/01/98/41
datestamp: 2014-10-29 10:55:57
lastmod: 2017-12-07 21:35:32
status_changed: 2014-10-29 10:55:57
type: thesis
metadata_visibility: show
creators_name: Whitburn, Robin.
title: Action pedagogy :an action research study in successful pedagogy for African-Caribbean male students in a U.K. secondary school
ispublished: unpub
divisions: B14
note: Thesis: (EdD) University of London Institute of Education, 2006.
abstract: The achievement of African-Caribbean boys in UK schools has been a
cause for concern for decades, and there is still considerable evidence that
they are not achieving as well as their contemporaries. This study seeks to
listen to the voices of students themselves in order to fathom pedagogical
approaches that engender educational success for Black male students. The
study has been inspired by American literature that focused on successful
pedagogy with African-American students. Recent trends within the UK have
moved schools closer towards proscribed practices within classrooms, and the
'behavioural objectives' approach has assumed hegemonic authority. This
study uses a philosophical typology from Hannah Arendt to critically examine
the nature of pedagogy in secondary schools, and suggests an approach in
`action' pedagogy that would bring greater success to Black male students.
My students' discussions produced three key factors for such success:
caring teacher-student relationships, going beyond the curriculum; feedback
and 'push': and teacher expectations; they also produced characteristics of a
prototype of a successful teacher for such young men. These ideas were
combined with Arendt's to produce two types of pedagogy: labour and
action. The latter is suggested as most helpful to Black male students, with
its emphasis on agency for students and teachers; dialogue and coconstruction
of knowledge; and creativity and diversity in the curriculum that
values students' cultures, by both ethnicity and age. The conformity and
accommodation demanded by a labour pedagogy, typified by the current
technicist agenda, is unlikely to see many Black male students thrive.
The importance placed on student-teacher relationships, at the heart
of action pedagogy, will need teachers to pay as much attention to the values
and attitudes that they convey towards young Black males as they might to
the competences of their lesson plans and behaviour management strategies.
Professional dialogue will be needed to help teachers handle the ambiguities
of 'cool' adolescent behaviour and the call for care and encouragement in
learning, but teachers and young Black male students can find creative paths
to academic success and personal development through action pedagogy in UK
secondary schools, where they have so often stumbled and failed along the
way.
date: 2007
date_type: completed
official_url: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.630794
oa_status: green
thesis_class: doctoral_open
language: eng
primo: open
primo_central: open_green
full_text_status: public
pages: 120
institution: Institute of Education, University of London
thesis_type: Doctoral
citation:        Whitburn, Robin.;      (2007)    Action pedagogy :an action research study in successful pedagogy for African-Caribbean male students in a U.K. secondary school.                   Doctoral thesis , Institute of Education, University of London.     Green open access   
 
document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10019841/1/Whitburn%20Robin%20E.pdf