Shawn Lennie, Ethical Complexities in the Virtual World: Teacher Perspectives of ICT Based Issues and Conflicts, Doctor of Philosophy, CTL, OISE, 2013. Using a qualitative research methodology, this study explores the perceptions that K-12 teachers have on the ethical issues they have experienced as a result of, or in relation to, ICT. Participants included 10 practicing teachers who had identified experience with ICT based issues in their teaching practice. Each participant engaged in two semi-structured interviews focused on the research topic. The first interview explored the perceptions and experiences that the participants had with ICT based issues in their practice, while the second involved an examination of eight vignettes involving ICT based issues that were ethical in nature. The use of this approach provides a descriptive account of the experiences and perceptions of the participants in the study. Results from the study highlight the impact that ethical issues involving technology have on the moral work of teachers and the challenges that emerge as teachers attempt to identify morally responsible ways to respond to the complex and dynamic challenges that they face. Participants demonstrate a heightened sensitivity to ethical issues involving technology that compromise the safety and well-being of children, such as cyber-bullying, as well as those that compromise professional and academic integrity, such as plagiarism. Results also reveal the predominant use of subjective moral judgment when evaluating the moral significance of ICT based issues and reluctance on the part of teachers to challenge the inappropriate use of technology by their colleagues. This contrasts with a strong belief that teachers play an important role as moral models for students who are developing an understanding of what constitutes responsible digital behaviour. These results are significant to scholarship on teacher professionalism, digital ethics and citizenship, and policy development relating to ICT based issues.

Shawn Lennie, Ethical Complexities in the Virtual World: Teacher Perspectives of ICT Based Issues and Conflicts, Doctor of Philosophy, CTL, OISE, 2013. Using a qualitative research methodology, this study explores the perceptions that K-12 teachers have on the ethical issues they have experienced as a result of, or in relation to, ICT. Participants included 10 practicing teachers who had identified experience with ICT based issues in their teaching practice. Each participant engaged in two semi-structured interviews focused on the research topic. The first interview explored the perceptions and experiences that the participants had with ICT based issues in their practice, while the second involved an examination of eight vignettes involving ICT based issues that were ethical in nature. The use of this approach provides a descriptive account of the experiences and perceptions of the participants in the study. Results from the study highlight the impact that ethical issues involving technology have on the moral work of teachers and the challenges that emerge as teachers attempt to identify morally responsible ways to respond to the complex and dynamic challenges that they face. Participants demonstrate a heightened sensitivity to ethical issues involving technology that compromise the safety and well-being of children, such as cyber-bullying, as well as those that compromise professional and academic integrity, such as plagiarism. Results also reveal the predominant use of subjective moral judgment when evaluating the moral significance of ICT based issues and reluctance on the part of teachers to challenge the inappropriate use of technology by their colleagues. This contrasts with a strong belief that teachers play an important role as moral models for students who are developing an understanding of what constitutes responsible digital behaviour. These results are significant to scholarship on teacher professionalism, digital ethics and citizenship, and policy development relating to ICT based issues.

What qualities, skills, and knowledge produce quality teachers? Many stake-holders in education argue that teacher quality should be measured by student achievement. This qualitative study shows that good teachers are multi-dimensional; their effectiveness cannot be represented by students’ test scores alone. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to gain a deeper understanding of quality in teaching by examining the lived experiences of 10 winners or finalists of the Teacher of the Year (ToY) Award. Phenomenology describes individuals’ daily experiences of phenomena, examines how these experiences are structured, and focuses analysis on the perspectives of the persons having the experience (Moustakas, 1994). This inquiry asked two questions: (a) How is teaching experienced by recognized as outstanding Teachers of the Year? and (b) How do ToYs feelings and perceptions about being good teachers provide insight, if any, about concepts such as pedagogical tact, teacher selfhood, and professional dispositions? Ten participants formed the purposive sample; the major data collection tool was semi-structured interviews (Patton, 1990; Seidman, 2006). Sixty to 90-minute interviews were conducted with each participant. Data also included the participants’ ToY application essays. Data analysis included a three-phase process: description, reduction, interpretation. Findings revealed that the ToYs are dedicated, hard-working individuals. They exhibit behaviors, such as working beyond the school day, engaging in lifelong learning, and assisting colleagues to improve their practice. Working as teachers is their life’s compass, guiding and wrapping them into meaningful and purposeful lives. Pedagogical tact, teacher selfhood, and professional dispositions were shown to be relevant, offering important insights into good teaching. Results indicate that for these ToYs, good teaching is experienced by getting through to students using effective and moral means; they are emotionally open, have a sense of the sacred, and they operate from a sense of intentionality. The essence of the ToYs teaching experience was their being properly engaged in their craft, embodying logical, psychological, and moral realms. Findings challenge current teacher effectiveness process-product orthodoxy which makes a causal connection between effective teaching and student test scores, and which assumes that effective teaching arises solely from and because of the actions of the teacher.

This thesis studies how sick leave legitimacy is managed in interaction and develops an empirically driven conceptualization of ‘legitimacy work’. The thesis applies an ethnomethodological framework that draws on conversation analysis, discursive psychology, and membership categorization analysis. Naturally occurring interaction is examined in two settings: (1) multi-party meetings at the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, in which participants assess and discuss the ‘status’ of the sick leave and plan for work rehabilitation; (2) peer-based online text-in-interaction in a Swedish forum thread that gathers people on sick leave. The thesis shows how mental states, activities and alternative categories function as resources for legitimacy work. However, such invocations are no straight-forward matter, but impose additional contingencies. It is thus crucial how they are invoked. By detailed analyses of the interaction, with attention to aspects such as lexicality and delivery, the thesis identifies a range of discursive features that manage sick leave legitimacy. Deployed resources are also subtle enough to be deniable as legitimacy work, that is, they also manage the risk of an utterance being seen as invested or biased. While legitimate sick leave is a core concern for Swedish policy-making, administration, and public debate on sick leave, previous research has for the most part been explanatory in orientation, minding legitimacy rather than studying it in its own right. By providing detailed knowledge about the legitimacy work that people on long-term sick leave do as part of both institutional and mundane encounters, the thesis contributes not only new empirical knowledge, but a new kind of empirical knowledge, shedding light on how the complexities of sick leave play out in real-life situations. Traditional sociological approaches have to a significant extent treated legitimacy as an entity with beginnings and ends that in more or less direct ways relate to external norms and cognitive states, or that focus on institutions, authority or government. By contrast, the herein emerging concept ‘legitimacy work’ understands legitimacy as a locally contingent practicality – a collaborative categorially oriented accomplishment that is integral to the interactional situation.