Bush Tracks: The Opportunities and Challenges of Rural Teaching and Leadership

165 Pages·2015·5.649 MB·English

by  Lorraine Graham, Judith Miller (eds.)

Bush Tracks

Bush Tracks
The Opportunities and Challenges of Rural Teaching and Leadership
Edited by
Lorraine Graham
University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
and
Judith Miller
University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-94-6300-095-6 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-94-6300-096-3 (hardback)
ISBN: 978-94-6300-097-0 (e-book)
Published by: Sense Publishers,
P.O. Box 21858,
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The Netherlands
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TaBLe of ConTenTs
1. A Model for Collaborative Research 1
Lorraine Graham and Judith Miller
2. History and Context of Our Research 11
Linley Cornish
3. Methodologies: Exploring the Intimate 25
Genevieve Noone and Judith Miller
4. Listening to Teachers in the ‘Bush’ 41
Kathy Jenkins, Neil Taylor and Paul Reitano
5. Imagining a Teacher-Place Assemblage 57
Genevieve Noone
6. Affectual Language in Teachers’ Talk 79
Joy Hardy
7. Accelerated Leadership in Rural Schools 91
Lorraine Graham, Judith Miller and David Paterson
8. Late-Career Women Leaders in Rural Schools 105
Judith Miller, Lorraine Graham and Azhar Al-Awiwe
9. Teaching Principals’ Stories 119
Kathy Jenkins and Paul Reitano
10. Teaching Principals: The ‘I’s Have It! 135
Linley Cornish and Kathy Jenkins
11. Taking the Bush Track Home 157
Judith Miller and Lorraine Graham
v

LORRAINE GRAHAM ANd JudITH MILLER
1. a ModeL for CoLLaBoraTive researCh
INTROduCTION
This chapter describes the formation and trajectory of the Bush Tracks (BT) Research
Group. The contemporary educational background and principles that guided the
group are outlined, followed by the identification of values shared by members
that underpinned the group’s productive research process and dissemination of
outcomes. Supportive leadership is identified as an important factor underpinning
the success of Bush Tracks. In addition, mentoring and collaborative opportunities
over more than a decade of research activity contributed to the success of the group,
with continuing research relationships between members proving to be an enduring
legacy. In recent years, the positive collegial values practised as part of Bush Tracks
have seeded a faculty-wide approach to enhancing research culture within a regional
university. In this instance, the ways of working together developed by the Bush
Tracks Research Group were taken as a blueprint for encouraging innovative and
collegial research practice.
BACkGROuNd
The Bush Tracks Research Group formed in late 2002 within the then Faculty of
Education, Health and Professional Studies at the university of New England in
Armidale, New South Wales, Australia. Two academics from within the School of
Education began this group as a way of bringing together colleagues who were not
already involved in funded research projects and whose work was informed by diverse
epistemological stances. In total, nine early-career lecturers or senior lecturers who
shared a strong interest in and commitment to rural education became the inaugural
members of this research group. These scholars came from a variety of discipline
and teaching backgrounds, including teaching and learning, science education,
Indigenous education, special education, health and physical education, philosophy
of education, and social science education. In addition to the range of disciplines
represented, the scholars also held various positions along the epistemological
continuum, spanning positivist to interpretivist orientations. This diversity across
paradigms brought a range of strengths, both methodologically and philosophically,
to the research projects undertaken by the Bush Tracks Research Group.
At the time of the conception of this research group, there were no formal structures
within the School of Education to frame, lead and inform collaborative research
L. Graham & J. Miller (Eds.), Bush Tracks, 1–9.
© 2015 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
L. GRAHAM & J. MILLER
practices. All senior research active scholars at the time were working on projects
in their respective areas of specialisation with little opportunity for collaborative
activity with more junior academics. As such, the two lead investigators, Cathryn
McConaghy and Lorraine Graham, who were senior lecturers at the time, identified
a unique opportunity to initiate a collaborative and multidisciplinary research
collective centred on issues related to rural and remote education.
The university of New England is located in a rural and regional setting and,
therefore, both the student cohort and many of the faculty had been, or were, involved
in living, teaching and working in rural settings. This background in rural education,
either as a recipient, facilitator or observer, created shared interest in this research
area from personal and professional perspectives. Additionally, immediately prior to
the formation of the Bush Tracks Research Group, one of the founders had finalised
a relevant cross-institutional research project – the Rural Teacher Education Project
(R(T)EP) – and the time was ideal to progress a research agenda focused on rural
education issues, particularly notions related to place and transitions.
Some of the key processes and factors identified as foundational to the success of
this research group will be outlined in the following sections. These include shared
values, productive research processes, strategies for the dissemination of findings,
supportive leadership, and opportunities for mentoring and collaboration.
SHAREd VALuES
In part, the success of the Bush Tracks Research Group can be attributed to a
set of values shared by all members. Participants in this group desired a greater
understanding of the lived experiences of teachers working in rural settings. Of
central interest were aspects related to transitions – from university study to teaching
in rural settings, and from teaching in metropolitan settings to rural settings – and the
development of understandings about the personal and professional factors important
in navigating such movements from place to place. In addition to an interest in
transitions, there was also a shared interest in exploring teachers’ experiences within
rural communities and the myriad of factors that may be at play in decisions to ‘go
bush’, ‘stay bush’ and or ‘pull up stumps’.
In addition to a shared research focus, members of the Bush Tracks Group also
respected the variety of perspectives that they as a group of academics brought to
the research process. This became a strength that compounded in value as the group
drew from diverse methodological approaches to carry out their initial research
agenda and broadened their collective research expertise in the process.
Although across the timespan of the project there was movement of staff in
and out of the university, overall there was a strong and continuous valuing of
collegiality, which was respectful of competing workload responsibilities and based
on good will. The Bush Tracks Group has retained a central core membership for
the last thirteen years, with most of the continuing members included as authors of
2
A MOdEL FOR COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH
chapters in this book. Of the nine founding members, five have taken up positions
in other universities, with two of these colleagues still involved, connected to, and
collaborating on Bush Tracks projects.
Over the life of the Bush Tracks research, members have worked together
as part of a large group and smaller clusters. This large scale to smaller scale
organisation arose in response to a variety of factors. Two of those identified were
(i) the synergistic alignment of colleagues around methodological expertise, and (ii)
variation in commitment that occurred over different stages of academic careers in
response to workloads and each individual’s capacity to contribute to the design,
data collection, analysis and writing phases of research. The Bush Tracks Research
Group was founded on a strong spirit of collegiality that endures to this day. All
members share a deep respect for each other, with the experience of researching
together as academics mirroring that of some teachers who become central figures
in rural educational communities by forming strong enduring bonds of friendship
across time and place.
PROduCTIVE RESEARCH PROCESSES
The majority of the first phase of the Bush Tracks research agenda, specifically,
Bush Tracks 1 (BT1; see Chapter 3) was conducted during 2003, 2004 and 2005.
Well-organised, regular meetings helped frame the specific research agenda and
delineate the work of subgroups of academics. Eventually, internal grant income
was secured to provide research assistance, which facilitated the selection of
references to contribute to the literature review and assisted in organising large
sets of data into accessible form. This was critical to the success of the Bush
Tracks research, as it allowed ‘time poor’ but ‘ideas rich’ academics to work
strategically towards ensuring research outcomes. All data were collected and
analysed by members of the research group team, while, in some cases, research
assistants transcribed the interview protocols. The writing phase of the research
was completed either individually or in small teams comprising members who had
compatible scholarship styles.
Writing retreats were part of how the Bush Tracks group worked together.
Planning to collaborate as a large group for one or two days per year was an
important mechanism that freed up periods of time needed to focus on progressing
a shared research agenda, analysing data, coordinating whole project writing plans,
and/or conceptualising new projects. The motivation accompanying conference
and presentation deadlines also worked well to motivate Bush Tracks researchers
to put aside focused time. For example, a subgroup of members met with a number
of principals of small schools to facilitate a focus group that was charged with
prioritising topics for further research (see Chapter 3). Occasional social gatherings
also served a positive role in sustaining collegiality and were an important part of
Bush Tracks writing and planning days.
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