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Article Excerpt
What kinds of relationships exist between educational policy, research and the professional knowledge of the teachers that implement these policies in practice? This article reports research that examined the role of teachers working in an environment formed by links between research, policy and practice. By adopting a contextual focus upon the Victorian Early Years Literacy Program, its research and teachers who implement the program, the study analysed how early years reading is being constructed. Critical issues are identified about the impact of policy and research upon the teaching profession and the links that are present in the research-policy-praxis nexus.
Keywords
beginning reading
discourse analysis
teaching profession
early reading
policy analysis
educational research
teaching practice
Introduction
The research-policy-praxis nexus (RPPN), a term coined by Seddon (2000), describes the notion that a relationship exists between research, policy and practice. This nexus forms the environment in which institutionalised education is developed and exercised. In the government education sector, the RPPN plays a significant role in defining what should be taught and learned in schools, who should learn it, how it should be taught and why. It is therefore valuable to periodically subject aspects of the RPPN to 'critical review' and 'appraisal' as a means of increasing knowledge and understanding about the nature and effectiveness of its current operation. The nature of the RPPN should be of interest to all who are concerned with education from all sectors and from the research, policy and practical arenas.
This paper draws upon doctoral research that examined teachers' roles in the RPPN in relation to constructions of reading in the early years of schooling. It examines the way that reading and the teaching of beginning reading have been conceptualised and portrayed in the Victorian Early Years Literacy Program (EYLP), international research and by teachers in the primary school who implement it. The study identifies teachers' roles in the RPPN and highlights problematic issues that need to be dealt with to ensure the continuing improvement of teaching and learning in schools. Before proceeding with this focus it is important to review relevant literature on teacher research, policy research and discourse analysis to provide an understanding of the complex issues that framed and contextualised this study.
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Teacher research
There is widespread support for the argument that teachers have previously been silenced in research and the media (Goodson, 2003; Perkins & Davidson, 2001) and that there is a need for further research on teachers as they play a central role in educating students in schools. Ironically, 'the teachers' perspective has been missing from efforts at research, development, reform, curriculum implementation and change during the last twenty-five or more years' (Butt et al., 1992, p. 51).
Over the last decade quality research in the field has responded to this concern and chosen to listen to the voices of teachers (e.g., Clandinin & Connelly, 1995; Goodson & Hargraves, 1996).This growing body of teacher research explores the professional knowledge and practice of the teacher (Dinham & Scott, 2000) specifically highlighting and describing complexities and issues that teachers deal with within their professional lives as they work within the RPPN (Goodson & Hargraves 1996, Clandinin & Connelly 1995).This research strongly advocates the importance of the role of teachers arguing that 'after all, it is the teachers who ultimately hold the key to the success of the educational enterprise and it is surely time that we began to see the world of schooling from their view point' (Goodson & Hargraves, 1996, p. 24).
Teachers' stories, narratives and life accounts are recognised as important research forms by which teachers' voices are heard (Roberts, 2002). But, increasingly, emphasis is being laid upon the importance of including a focus on the contextual parameters that shape teachers' lives rather than just focusing upon teacher practice alone (Goodson, 2003; Shrofel, 1991). Shrofel (1991) strongly argues that analysing teaching practice within its political and economic context encourages teachers to theorise about their own position within the RPPN.
Focus on the personal and on practice does not appear to lead practitioners or researchers/writers to analyse practice as theory, as social structure, or as manifestation of political and economic systems. This limitation of vision implicit in the narrative approach serves as a constraint on curriculum reform. (p. 64)
The study reported here therefore included a contextual focus and was designed to provide an opportunity for teachers to reflect upon their practice. Furthermore the study was developed in recognition of the need for research to impact upon a range of audiences in education from both the macro-level and the micro-level (Ozga & Moore, 1990).To further contextualise the reported study, a brief discussion about the impact of devolution and accountability processes upon teaching and the role of teachers is provided. This identifies the general operation of the RPPN in the current Western educational context as identified by research.
The effects of devolution and accountability processes upon schools
It is argued that the accountability movement that has pervaded Western education systems has brought system and organisational changes that impact considerably upon the fundamental operation of government schools and even classroom teaching (Ingvarson & Kleinhenz, 2003).This movement brought with it its own distinctly business-like discourse and associated rhetoric, which have affected school culture, discourse and ideology and is often referred to as the marketisation of education (Angus & Brown 1997). The implementation of accountability measures has resulted in schools developing a culture of performance and data (Earl 2004). Consequently, children's learning is discussed in terms of centrally prescribed outcomes and standards translated into statistics, the attainment of which is often linked to funding. Principals have become entrepreneurs of small businesses with education as their commodity and parents as their prime consumers. In this manner the devolution and accountability movements have manifested critical changes to school and teaching culture via shifts in discourse and ideology (Locke, 2001). They have resulted in changes to school and curricular management and also in stark changes to teaching and learning caused by altered expectations of teachers and the repositioning of the teacher (Goodson, 2003; Locke, 2001).This leads us to ask the following questions: How...
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