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A critical investigation of the role of teacher research and its relationship to teacher professionalism, knowledge and identity

The thesis examines the related concepts of teacher knowledge, professionalism and identity through the lens of teacher research, and in the context of a teacher-research network. The mechanism for exploration was through teacher voice. As the research unfolded, what was revealed was that accessing teacher voice presented a major obstacle as teachers struggled to articulate their own views on knowledge, professionalism and identity, in part because there seemed to be no language to discuss such concepts. The question of discourse thus became a key theme. The research methods developed to address this issue include a card sort as a way of addressing the teacher silences: this approach revealed that teachers were able to engage with ideas around knowledge, professionalism, identity and research when given a language in this way. However, what emerged was far from a cohesive narrative but rather diverse and at times contradictory accounts of associated teacher beliefs and values. Faced with inconsistency and paradox, a new theoretical lens of post-modernism was used to explore the fragmented and splintered narratives which had emerged, and a different account of knowledge, professionalism, identity and research is offered.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:646156
Date January 2015
CreatorsBrindley, Sue
PublisherUniversity College London (University of London)
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10021762/

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