Richmond, Keith John;
(2005)
Professional misrecognition among teachers : the dark side of the moon?
Doctoral thesis , Institute of Education, University of London.
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Abstract
Are teachers really conscious of the extent to which their professional thinking is directed? Through this small-scale study I looked for an answer to this question. My motivation was to understand more about my own active location within a professional context. This research contributes to wider debates about what can be metaphorically understood as the dark side of the moon of the collective, occupational thinking of teachers. It provides an exploration of what lies behind their consciously held views: what informs teachers' classroom practices and their stated pedagogical beliefs. I build upon a theory that I have explained as provisional compliance among teachers, a phenomenon identified with the help of colleagues in earlier I.F.S. pilot work. This focused on teachers' experiences of Ofsted inspections and their professional responses to being inspected. Here, my colleagues are portrayed as workers for whom the scope for deep thinking about their roles as primary school teachers is restricted to a limited and ideological set of possibilities. It is argued that this phenomenon is creating a subtle and real professional reorientation in teachers' minds. A clearer understanding of such professional misrecognition at the level of the individual can provide teachers more widely with an opportunity to counteract the de-professional ising effect of politically derived, mass thinking in our schools. The research method is adopted from institutional ethnography for a study located within my own workplace. Data for the empirical investigation were collected in a loosely structured, oblique interview format. The recorded conversations between colleagues revealed a pattern of professional misrecognition. Such misrecognition may be understood if teachers are explained as being psychologically defended workers who are undergoing a fundamental professional re-alignment to prevailing educational ideologies. Crucially, this research suggests a new means for teachers to exercise greater intellectual freedom by reconciling their professional identities with ideological imperatives and thinking.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Title: | Professional misrecognition among teachers : the dark side of the moon? |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Publisher version: | http://ethos.bl.uk/ProcessSearch.do?query=535753 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Thesis: (EdD) University of London Institute of Education, 2005. |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10020492 |
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