Stylianou, A;
(2016)
The phenomenon of teachers’ dis/empowerment within the context of inclusive intercultural education: Using tools from the philosophy of critical realism.
Doctoral thesis , UCL (University College London).
Abstract
This thesis explores the phenomenon of teachers’ dis/empowerment in teaching poor ethnic minority students, shifting the emphasis towards reasons rooted in the learning ‘context’ and head teachers’ actions towards teachers. Data were collected through two in-depth qualitative case studies and two set of interviews with teachers working in two distinct school units. Concepts and tools from the Bhaskarian philosophy were deployed in order to provide a more holistic picture of the phenomenon under study. The analysis of the data uncovered that teachers’ dis/empowerment resides in the existence of contextual factors rooted in different levels of reality: at the individual level this refers to students’ ethnic origin and socio-economic situation, at the micro-level to the existence of self-expanding virtuous or vicious cycles of low motivation, expectation and academic achievement on both the part of teachers and students, and at the meso-level to policy characteristics. Compatibility or incompatibility of the aforementioned mechanisms with the wider socio-cultural issues results in empowering or dis-empowering contexts for teachers accordingly. Moreover, this study revealed a number of empowering and disempowering head teachers’ actions concerning the personal and professional levels respectively. The teachers’ empowerment can only be achieved through a combination of empowering actions emerging from the head teachers 'spiritual' and professional characteristics. Insights from this study suggest that both contextual and inter-relational aspects should be identified and addressed in order to empower teachers to teach poor ethnic minority students; moreover, approaching teachers’ disempowerment as something 'real' the study brings to the fore the necessity to understand the causes of their dis-empowerment as a necessary condition for addressing those causes and replacing them with more satisfactory structures or conditions. Overall, this thesis aspires to play a role in the re-empowerment of teachers.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Title: | The phenomenon of teachers’ dis/empowerment within the context of inclusive intercultural education: Using tools from the philosophy of critical realism |
| Event: | UCL (University College London) |
| Language: | English |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1474796 |
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