A living theory of educational accountability : how can I create opportunities for student teachers and myself to learn?

Abstract

This thesis is an account of research that sets out to address the concerns which developed as a result of the transition I made from being a primary school teacher to being a teacher educator. It draws on my narrative to provide a context for the difficulties I experienced, which led me to ask 'How do I improve what I am doing?' (Whitehead 1989).These concerns were: I had stopped using the values, that are part of my understanding about what makes education of value, as criteria and standards of judgement to help me determine how to understand and improve what I do; I had become a compliant and non-engaged practitioner who considered herself to be effective because I was meeting the criteria and standards set by others regardless of whether they aligned with my values; I had allowed myself to become disconnected from myself as a learner; I had developed a learned helplessness about what was going on in the field of education therefore becoming part of a normative discourse that implies that teachers are unable to determine, articulate and validate their own standards of practice and that education is a commodity and an end product rather than a means in itself. I draw on my own experiences to show what can happen when a teacher becomes complacent, disengaged from the processes of change and removed from the locus of power through an over reliance on the standards set by others. This understanding, which has developed through reflection on my practice, is both the catalyst for the research and underpins why it is significant. As I show how the development of a form of accountability which I call educational, can contribute to my learning and the students' learning, I provide an antidote to the managerial, top-down models of accountability that teachers are subjected to in schools and universities. Throughout the thesis I document my emerging understanding of the need to re-connect with myself as a learner and to be able to account for what I do using my own values based standards of judgement. I explain how I do this through the use of a self study approach within an action research framework, which has enabled me to focus on my practice and my learning. As I have begun to take responsibility for my actions I re-conceptualise my ontological and epistemological values thereby transforming them into standards of judgement. I articulate the value I put on a form of emancipatory and democratic education that is grounded in relational, critically reflective and dialogical practices that can create spaces which enable myself and the teaching students I work alongside to value our own personal knowledge (Polanyi 1958) and understanding as we give an account of what we are doing. I make an original claim to knowledge that I have generated my living theory of educational accountability through research that contributes to new forms of practice and theory in the field of education. In doing so I claim to have influenced my learning, the learning of others and the learning of the social formations in which I work (McNiff and Whitehead 2006).