TEACHING PRACTICE: AT THE NEXUS OF TEACHER IDENTITY AND SCHOOL CULTURE A

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1 TEACHING PRACTICE: AT THE NEXUS OF TEACHER IDENTITY AND SCHOOL CULTURE A critical ethnography of teaching practice in mathematics: How does practice make sense given the circumstances of teaching and the emotional-intellectual biographies of teachers as learners? Context A half-century of neuroscientific advancement has radically changed our appreciation of: (a) what goes on when a mind makes sense (Edelman, 2006; Panksepp & Biven, 2012; Thom, et al., 2015) and (b) how best to prompt a mind to do just that (Brown & Coles, 2011; D Amour, 2015; Marton, 2000; Thompson, 2007). Mathematics education has seen several decades efforts at shifting teaching practice in ways commensurate with new understandings in the construction of knowledge and of cognition as embodied (Davis, Drefs, & Francis, 2015) but to limited avail: Though we have made great strides in identifying the critical features of effective practice and in articulating the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) that mathematics teachers need to teach well and though educators are strongly motivated to do the best they can we continue to struggle with getting teachers to develop and enact that knowledge in practice (Davis & Renert, 2013; Hill, 2007; Shulman, 1986). Educational reform traces a troubled history of attempting to engineer sufficiently meaningful change that takes hold and cascades across educational systems (Coburn, 2004; Kennedy, 2005; Taubman, 2012). For the most part, professional development initiatives in schools continue to rely on activities designed to bring new knowledge to teachers (Kennedy, 2005). That is: Reform efforts have tended to a deficit view that sees the project as one of fixing teachers ensuring they have (and are held accountable to implement) more and better knowledge. These approaches repeatedly fall short (Coburn, 2005; Opfer & Pedder, 2011) and current research on the subject points to a failure to consider context notably, in the dynamic interplay between enacted practice, schooling environments (the circumstances of teaching), and teachers as agents of their own learning (Coburn, 2004; Kennedy, 2005; Opfer & Pedder, 2011). A handful of studies have looked at the dynamic interplay of environments, practices, and beliefs in classrooms and institutions (Coburn, 2004; Kennedy, 2005), but no one has considered the question of teachers learning identities specifically in relations to attachment security. Consider that beliefs and values have been found to be highly intractable governors of teachers PCK (Coburn, 2004; Friedrichsen, Van Driel, & Abell, 2010) and its expression in practice (Grossman, 1990). But beliefs and values serve identity and both arise out of life histories of learning about a world that first came to us through significant others. Attachment theory puts a person s most significant social relationships, past and present, at the heart of dispositions to securely engage growth through exploration (Feeney & Van Vleet, 2010). There is a connection to be interrogated between transgenerational, familial, and culturally embedded relational patterns conditioning early identity formation and attachment security and the subsequent beliefs and values that researchers (Coburn, 2004; Friedrichsen, Van Driel, & Abell, 2010) have found to underpin teaching practice. According to attachment theory, significant social relationships are those to afford a secure base from which to explore and learn provided those relationships are experienced as: encouraging and accepting, available as needed, and not interfering unnecessarily (i.e., neither controlling nor over-caring) (Feeney & Van Vleet, 2010). Attachment security sets the preconditions for self- and other-trust (Foley, 2007) that tilt a person to curiosity or anxiety under situations of possible risk in learning (D Amour, 2013; Feeney & Van Vleet, 2010). Insomuch as security has not been the gift of one s early life legacy, a system s perspective suggests the criticality of there being a secure base in one s present environment,

2 say in the school culture, if one is to mitigate (attachment) insecurities and engage perceived risk in learning. Research Questions: 1. What structures and processes do teachers perceive, within and across school bodies, as enabling and constraining their practice? 2. How does attachment security figure in teacher disposition toward, and development of, PCK in teaching practice? 3. How do teacher identity and perceptions of school culture work together to influence teaching practice and teacher learning in practice? Timeline & Scope: In late November 2014, I met with the principal and a lead teacher at Westmount Charter School for the gifted, to forge a plan of non-intrusive support for teachers as they deal with anxieties born of high expectations for mathematics achievement. I proposed a preliminary, ethnographic pilot where, in the participant-observer capacity of dedicated teacher s aide, I would support middle-school teachers while studying the influence of school culture and attachment security on PCK. The ethnographic piece would begin (began) in April and May of 2015 and shift to the interview phase of data gathering in June with data analysis to follow in July. Methodology/Methods Overview: In critical ethnography, theory affords the interpretive lens of analysis (Madden, 2010; Madison, 2012). This study leans on attachment theory in the context of schooling systems to frame an analysis of the relationship between teaching practice and exploration security, past and present. The above themes will guide open coding of qualitative data collected in the following ways: Ethnographic field notes (daily) on teaching practice and structures and processes affecting practice: - in-class observations of teacher s PCK in action and the local circumstances of teaching, - school culture vis-à-vis practice, especially as evidenced in communications to and from teachers - ad hoc conversations - participation in ad-hoc afterschool gatherings (once or twice) with participants able to attend. This is imagined as a casual space where teachers can relax, unwind, and talk with each other and me about the vicissitudes of teaching. It will also provide a forum where I might answer questions should they arise about teaching mathematics, working with particular students, and/or the theories informing the study. Interviews: - focus group interviews with representatives of the school body to gain a broader perspective on school culture - semi-structured interviews to follow up on participant teacher narratives of histories in practice Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR) Questionnaire results (participants to complete online survey and submit a screen capture of results). I expect the analysis to provide a look into the affective motivations driving learning systems and holding them together in particular modes of being and learning. In particular, I anticipate a positive relationship between degrees of affective security, curiosity in learning, and risk taking in teaching that is mitigated by fit with these same dispositions at the level of the school culture. I am hoping that this study will provide critical insight into difficulty and what we might do better to help translate what we know about learning (and anxiety) into meaningful improvements in educational practice.

3 Addendum: On Attachment Security and the Experience in Close Relationships Questionnaire: The ECR is the standard in the field for studying adult attachment, a key construct in this study. The literature on attachment theory is clear: In 1998, Brennan, Clark, and Shaver conducted a factor analysis of all existing English-language dimensional measures of attachment style created up to that point and discovered... that all of the measures could be reduced to two orthogonal dimensions, attachment anxiety (fear of separation and abandonment) and attachment avoidance (e.g., discomfort with intimacy and dependency). The resulting Experiences in Close Relationships scale (ECR) has been used in many studies since 1998 and has been found to be highly reliable and to have high construct and predictive validity. (Shaver & Mikulincer, 2004, p. 18) Characteristics of attachment security that have been amply documented in hundreds of studies (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007)... [include] optimistic beliefs about distress management, trust in others' good will, and a sense of self-efficacy about coping with threats... [and] genuinely constructive coping strategies: acknowledgment and display of distress, but without exaggeration or personal disorganization; effective support seeking; and successful problem solving. (Phillip R. Shaver & R. Chris Fraley, 2008, p. 56) All of these qualities are critical to identity and especially identity in terms of adapting well, given myriad challenges in teaching and learning. Mikulincer & Shaver (2010) describe attachment security as facilitating the development of other personal qualities that fall under the rubric of 'positive' psychological traits, such as resilience, optimism, hope, positive affectivity, curiosity and exploration, healthy autonomy, capacities for love and forgiveness, feelings of interconnectedness and belongingness, tolerance for human differences, and kindness. (p. 49) Attachment security is a transgenerational phenomenon. The securely attached child becomes the securely attached adult who parents a securely attached child. This transgenerational phenomenon of attachment has been widely documented. Attachment figures in romantic relations become proxies for early attachment figures, and for that reason scores on the ECR have been shown to be valid indicators of primary attachment securities. There is evidence that teachers relate both to learners and to their own learning according to their own attachment patterns. Riley (2013) has shown that a teacher's understanding of his or her attachment tendencies and appreciating how those come to play out in the classroom can temper relational triggers that occur in the classroom. Early attachment security engenders an internal working model that affords a secure base and safe haven to make possible risk-taking in exploration. Carol Dweck (2006) makes much of growth- and fixedmindedness as though shifting levels comfort and/or anxiety under threat can be addressed through force of intention. But there are strong indications that these expressions in learning and teaching moments, especially teacher-as-learner, have much to do with prior attachment security. In this preliminary and investigative study, I begin to explore these relationships. It is critical that the very people with whom I work know they are safe to be who they are. My entire research program is premised on the importance of giving audience and bearing witness to what I am inclined to describe as the plight of teachers. If teachers are to mitigate anxiety in learners, it behooves us to address the roots of anxieties in teachers and how we can better support them in their practice.

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