AVAILABLE FROM Walker, Melanie Jane Learning, and Action Research. Action Research Series ...

260 Pages·2012·2.23 MB·English

DOCUMENT RESUME
ED 401 231
SP 036 945
AUTHOR
Walker, Melanie Jane
TITLE
Images of Professional Development: Teaching,
Learning, and Action Research. Action Research Series
No. 2.
ISBN-0-7969-1695-0
REPORT NO
PUB DATE
96
NOTE
259p.
AVAILABLE FROM
HSRC Publishers, Private Bag X41, Pretoria 0001,
South Africa.
PUB TYPE
Reports
Research/Technical (143)
EDRS PRICE
MFO1 /PC11 Plus Postage.
DESCRIPTORS
*Action Research; *Curriculum Development;
Educational Change; Elementary Education; *Faculty
Development; Foreign Countries; Higher Education;
*Racial Factors; *Research Methodology; Teacher
Educators; *Teacher Improvement
IDENTIFIERS
Reflection Process; *South Africa
ABSTRACT
The field work for this study was conducted in South
Africa in 1987-1989, before the end of apartheid, but much of the
critical reflection and engagement postdates the empirical research.
The project examined the role of the facilitator in the process of
educational change. The research involved 34 teachers from primary
schools. Chapter one explores action research as a method, attending
to questions of epistemology and research methods, especially the
interview process, reflexivity and self understandings, and validity.
Chapter two sketches the historical tarrain and sets the scene for
the project action and, together with chapter three, maps conditions
shaping the possibilities and the limits for teacher development.
Chapter four examines the relationships established by the researcher
with teachers and how these were shaped by relations of power which
produced subjectivities within discursive practices. Chapters five
and six consider teacher development through curriculum development,
in particular exploring how the curriculum structures what pupils and.
teachers may say or do. Chapter six also revisits the limits and
possibilities of professional development and action research, both
as a contribution to developing a critical tradition of action
research in South Africa and as a strategy for reconstructing
inservice teacher education grounded in teacher development through
reflective curriculum development. (Contains 185 references.)
(ND)
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To me (action research] is essentially an activity for pragmatists
and sceptics, really. Not for evangelists and not for idealists.
Because it's about the art of the possible. But we must never be
arrogant about what is possible and what is not possible. So
there is a sense in which we never quite know how wise we are
is always
because the boundaries of what we can change
...
problematic. And that is why we must always keep reflecting
about the problem. We will always wonder whether we are
being too radical or too conservative. That is the dilemma that
action reseachers must confront within their experience (Elliot,
1991, p. 44).
pi),./te44,.4
fil%Ase4,
Dctidefole.14
Teaching, Learning
and Action
Research
Melanie Jane Walker
HSRC Publishers
Pretoria
1996
C) Human Sciences Research Council, 1996
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN 0 7969 1695 0
Cover design: Glen Basson
Layout and design: Man Nel
Published by:
HSRC Publishers
Private Bag X41
Pretoria 0001
Printed by: HSRC Printers
5
To Ian Phimister and Noreen Buttons
Acknowledgements
The study, on which this book is based, originated as a Ph.D. thesis
documenting my work as a research officer in the Primary Education
Project at the University of Cape Town. I should like to express my
gratitude to a number of people for the part they have played in
bringing this book to fruition.
I am above all deeply appreciative of the principals, teachers and
pupils who allowed me accesss to the four schools in which I
worked from 1987-1989. The thesis was supervised by David
Cooper who provided valuable advice and support. Janet Stuart
generously responded to draft thesis chapters as a 'critical friend',
while subsequent discussion with her has enriched my own
understanding of action research in African settings. Colleagues
from the School of Education at UCT and the Primary Education
different ways,
Project contributed to my understanding in
especially Alan Kenyon, Rob Sieborger, Tozi Mgobozi, Lufuno
Nevathalu and Karen Morrison, while Doug Young provided
support and advice as head of the School of Education at that time.
There are others to whom I owe a considerable intellectual debt.
John Elliott and Bridget Somekh have been generous and perceptive
critics over the years, while Pam Christie, Sam Holllingsworth,
Donald McIntyre and Susan Noffke have all helped me in different
ways to refine my arguments. Paula Ensor has been a special source
of intellectual renewal and challenge for me through her intellectual
vitality, insight, and her refusal to accept 'what is'. Colleagues at the
University of the Western Cape, especially Nasima Badsha,
Vivienne Bozalek, Sue Davidoff and Terry Volbrecht have all
stimulated my thinking and supported me in different ways, while
a
discussion with Beth Silbert finally convinced me that the original
thesis deserved a wider audience. My thanks to Johann Mouton and
the HSRC for making this possible. Colleen Knipe-Solomons helped
me remain sane while I worked on the book part -time and dealt with
the demands of my job at UWC. My indebtedness is equally great
to my good friend Stella Clark whose personal support and creative
approach to educational practice has inspired me since the days we
first worked together as teachers on the Cape Flats. My thanks also
to my mother Noreen for her confidence in me over the years.
Most of all, however, I want to express my deep appreciation to my
partner Ian Phimister for his patient listening and endurance as I
talked through the project, and his unflagging encouragement and
support to complete first the thesis and then the book.
Melanie Walker
Contents
1
Introduction
19
Action research as method
1
51
Setting the scene
2
75
Teachers' working lives
3
109
Reflections on power
4
161
'Spaces of freedom'
5
207
Pushing at the edges
6
235
References
249
Index
Introduction
The fieldwork for this study was conducted during the period of the
'old' South Africa, 1987-1989. Yet what is remarkable some six
years later in 1995, is not how much has changed for teachers and
pupils in township primary schools in the intervening years, but
how little.
Notwithstanding remarkable political shifts in recent years and
radical commitments to school feeding, primary health care, and
integrated compulsory education for all, teachers' and pupils' lives
are still scarred by the effects of past policies in generating and
sustaining an endemic crisis in South African education. It bears
repeating that Bantu education' and apartheid society failed
dismally to meet the aspirations of African students and their
parents. Especially since 1976, prolonged opposition was char-
acterised by protracted school boycotts, savage clashes between
school students and the police and army, and the widespread arrest
and detention of students. The effects have been to crush a 'culture
of learning' and repeatedly batter the morale of township teachers.
Equally outrageous has been the wider social context
(still
unchanged) where malnutrition, poverty-related diseases such as
tuberculosis, inadequate health care, rampant crime, and massive
housing backlogs have shaped access to and success in education for
the poor.
The challenge of reconstruction in the 'new' South Africa is how we
might address this appalling educational and social legacy of four
decades of a system designed deliberately to stifle the intellectual
development of generations of students, many of whom have gone
on to train as teachers. In this respect the process and lessons of my
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