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Open Access
Article
Publication date: 12 October 2022

Christina Löfving, Anna-Lena Godhe and Johan Lundin

The paper aims to investigate and describe the complex and dynamic dilemmas teachers are facing connected to students' net-based out-of-school activities.

Abstract

Purpose

The paper aims to investigate and describe the complex and dynamic dilemmas teachers are facing connected to students' net-based out-of-school activities.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors draw on the notion of dilemmatic spaces when thematically analyzing focus group interviews conducted with 41 teachers at three lower secondary schools in Sweden.

Findings

Two themes capture the teachers' dilemmas concerning their students´ net-based out-of-school activities: negotiations of content and negotiations of professional identity. When teachers take part in professional discussions where dilemmatic spaces are recognized, rather than focusing on either being for or against digitalization, they are enabled to express a multifaceted view of professional identity.

Research limitations/implications

This study is a starting point for further studies investigating how pedagogical and didactic decisions are made in a digital time.

Practical implications

The findings are expected to be helpful to policymakers in understanding teachers' work. Also, teachers can be empowered by taking the departure in the findings and discussing how to handle dilemmas fruitfully.

Originality/value

In a rapidly changing digital society, it is important to investigate what dilemmas teachers face in their work in order to learn from them. This study is a significant contribution.

Details

The International Journal of Information and Learning Technology, vol. 40 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2056-4880

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 17 December 2016

Dorthe Pedersen

This chapter takes its point of departure in the vision of educating public leaders and managers with the ability to create public value in a networked governance structure. The…

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter takes its point of departure in the vision of educating public leaders and managers with the ability to create public value in a networked governance structure. The purpose of the chapter is to revise this vision by unpacking the notion of public value in contemporary governance and discuss the implications for public leadership and for public leadership and management programs.

Design/methodology/approach

The chapter explores the notion of public value as a conceptual framework for emergent forms of networked governance. Drawing on insights from sociology of law and governmentality studies, a set of key tensions inherent in the public value discourse are identified as the diagnostic impetus to consider the somewhat excessive leadership figure put forward in the literature. The chapter shows that the discourse of networked governance and public value thinking is rather contested and imply a certain kind of hybridisation of public administration and public purpose into opposite identity spheres. Instead of forming a ‘whole system’ as suggested in the literature, the hybridisation implicates an ongoing suspension that allows the governance structure to become tense and unresolved. The hybridisation forms new dilemmatic spaces in contemporary governance, it is argued.

Practical implications

The author suggests that public leadership should be considered as hybrid practices, formed around an ongoing search of ‘publics’ and images of ‘wholeness’ by way of oscillating between varying values and identities. This form of hybrid leadership calls for new explorative learning formats in public leadership programs, it is argued.

Originality/value

The chapter undertakes a careful critical reading and conceptual examination of the current paradigm of public value management. By drawing on sociology of law and Foucault’s genealogy of rationalities of government the examination brings new insight into the doubled identities and dilemmatic spaces of contemporary governance and elaborates the concept of public leadership theorized as distributed and hybrid practices.

Details

Developing Public Managers for a Changing World
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-080-0

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 24 February 2012

Stephanie Freeman

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the often complex and contradictory argumentation of a spectrum of different Finnish public sector actors interviewed on the…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the often complex and contradictory argumentation of a spectrum of different Finnish public sector actors interviewed on the topical issue of Free/Libre Open Source (FLOSS) adoption.

Design/methodology/approach

The science and technology‐inspired critical discourse‐analytical approach combines insights from Billig et al. and Fairclough, with a special focus on dilemmatic aspects of socially embedded discourses. The vocabularies used to justify FLOSS implementation highlight power struggles on the level of speech.

Findings

The identified dilemmatic discourses express the continuing tension between the freedom to choose, use and develop one's desktop in the spirit of FLOSS on the one hand, and the striving for better desktop control and maintenance by it staff and user advocates on the other.

Research limitations/implications

The research acts as an opening for reframing common and axiomatic knowledge on FLOSS tools.

Practical implications

The asymmetry between the layperson (the ordinary user) and the expert (IT staff) manifests itself in discourse in a way that calls for critical re‐evaluation of the language used in information communication technology (ICT) implementation and support. It also questions the role of pilots in ICT implementation.

Originality/value

The paper critically examines the often taken‐for‐granted ideals of open source software and elaborates a methodological tool for spotting power struggles on the level of speech.

Book part
Publication date: 30 September 2021

Tara Ratnam

This chapter investigates the phenomenon of teachers' “entitled attitude” that manifested itself as resistance to change in the midst of a curricular reform in the Indian school…

Abstract

This chapter investigates the phenomenon of teachers' “entitled attitude” that manifested itself as resistance to change in the midst of a curricular reform in the Indian school context. For teachers long socialized into a teacher-centered culture, the change expected was nothing less than a paradigm shift in the Kuhnian sense. However, conclusions drawn from studies involving cursory surveys and teacher observation pinned the problem to teachers' “entitled attitude,” an unwillingness to exert themselves beyond the minimum level required by school policies. This view reflects a lack of acknowledgement of teachers as persons with values and the capacity to think and feel as potential agents of community practices such as schooling. My study investigates the wider sociocultural historical and political basis of teachers' putative “entitled attitude” informed by Lev Vygotsky's dialectical approach. It accesses the interrelated history of a teacher at a number of levels using the teacher's life history to create the narrative. This “genetic” analysis helps illuminate what the curricular change means to teachers inside out. The findings are used to unravel the nature of support that would help teachers realize their agency and sway them from using entitlement as a compensatory mechanism to deflect change.

Details

Understanding Excessive Teacher and Faculty Entitlement
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-940-5

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 25 April 2017

Gang Zhu

To explore how student teachers (re)construct their professional identities, this chapter contextualizes two student teachers’ practicum experiences in China. The overarching…

Abstract

To explore how student teachers (re)construct their professional identities, this chapter contextualizes two student teachers’ practicum experiences in China. The overarching question is how the student teachers (re)construct their professional identities in the practicums, especially where their teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge meet. By analyzing a flexible matrix of paired stories, the research highlights the collective influences of the multiple instructional contexts: nation-wide Free Teacher Education program policy, recent national curriculum reform in China, and the characteristics of the placement schools. The chapter finds that the student teachers’ professional identities are dynamic and evolving on the professional knowledge landscape. The (re)construction of professional identities involves developing practical knowledge and metaphors by negotiating the tensions the student teachers encountered in the practicums. Meanwhile, the student teachers experienced reflective turns (Schön, 1991) in the practicums, which caused the tension between teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge and contributed to the formation of their professional identities.

Details

Crossroads of the Classroom
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-796-0

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 August 2019

Tal Litvak Hirsch, Alon Lazar and Kamal Abu Hadubah

The purpose of this study is to learn how minority peace educators grapple with dilemmas related to their involvement in peace programs.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to learn how minority peace educators grapple with dilemmas related to their involvement in peace programs.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 15 male teachers, members of the minority Bedouin community in Israel, all peace educators, provided their reactions to three dilemmas, addressing various facets of the strained relations of their community with the Jewish-Israeli majority, as influenced by the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Findings

The responses to these dilemmas suggest that when it comes to questions of the identity of these teachers as members of a marginalized community, their responses considerably diverge. This is not the case when it comes to their identity as peace educators.

Originality/value

This suggests that if the aim is to bring peace educators, members of minority groups in conflict zones, to harness their potential to bring about positive change, their peace activist identities must be strengthened.

Details

Journal for Multicultural Education, vol. 13 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2053-535X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 March 2023

Camille Gaudy and Bertrand Malsch

This study aims to examine auditors’ search for meaningfulness in sustainability assurance (SA) work.

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine auditors’ search for meaningfulness in sustainability assurance (SA) work.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors collected ethnographic data over a nine-month period from two small firms offering SA services in France between 2018 and 2019.

Findings

Auditors’ experiences of meaningfulness are facilitated by shared sustainability values among colleagues, social acknowledgement of like-minded profiles and the feeling that working in a “small firm” provides a more fulfilling and committed-to-sustainability environment than conventional assurance work in large accounting firms. The search for meaningfulness collapses when auditors realize not only the limits of their agentic and transformative capacities but also their unintended complicity in certifying the reports of companies with poor sustainability performance. Because they struggle to reconcile the assessment of their professional practice with their value system, the participants are tempted to disengage from their work by giving up a sustainability career and/or by reframing SA work as an advisory rather than a control function.

Originality/value

The authors approach SA not as an organizational project of professional expansion, through which accounting firms attempt to expand their scope of practice, but as an individual and reflexive search of aligning assurance work to their value system. Auditors’ search for meaningfulness is a strong counterpoint to the financial auditing literature, which portrays auditors as professionals with a low sense of purpose at work, but also to the literature criticizing accounting firms’ discursive processes of “depoliticization” (Malsch, 2013) and “de-emotionalization” (Rodrigue et al., 2022) of socio-environmental issues.

Details

Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, vol. 20 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1176-6093

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 May 2022

Erin Nerlino

The pandemic has presented many new challenges tasking teachers with meeting the various social-emotional, academic and logistical needs of students in the midst of an…

Abstract

Purpose

The pandemic has presented many new challenges tasking teachers with meeting the various social-emotional, academic and logistical needs of students in the midst of an ever-changing landscape. The onset of COVID-19 has drastically impacted schools and inevitably raised questions about nearly all aspects of teaching including but not limited to: how to deliver instruction, grade students, engage students, deliver materials to students, create equitable access to curriculum and assess students' mental and social health in the context of remote, hybrid and in-person instructional models. As such, this paper examines the role that the pandemic plays in deeply complexifying the already intricate decision-making processes that teachers undergo on a daily basis.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses a participant research design (Wagner, 1993) to conduct a ground-level analysis of what two high school English Language arts teachers consider as they adapt curriculum and instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Findings

This study set out to fulfill two aims: (1) to examine teacher considerations during the process of adapting curriculum and instruction and (2) to document the challenges and opportunities teachers face during this process. Findings related to the first aim revolve around teacher considerations of dilemmas such as: individual conferences vs whole class curriculum progress, depth vs breadth in relation to academic progress, social emotional concerns for student well-being vs curricular progress, creating meaningful learning activities and assessments vs COVID-19 limitations, and flexibility and accountability. In addition to navigating these dilemmas, the extreme uncertainty of the situation also prompted findings related to the second aim: opportunities to experiment with new curricular ideas and the challenge of traversing a wide range of teacher emotions.

Originality/value

This paper's qualitative research design that draws on my identities of classroom teacher and doctoral student to provide an original perspective into what teachers experienced in terms of adapting curriculum and instruction during an unprecedented time. While much research, news and media, and policy has discussed the pandemic's impact on education, there is an urgent need for more teacher voices to inform understanding of what occurs on the ground level of classrooms.

Details

Qualitative Research Journal, vol. 22 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1443-9883

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 6 March 2017

Ola J. Lindberg, Anders D. Olofsson and Göran Fransson

The purpose of this paper is to examine Swedish upper secondary school teachers’ and students’ views and use of ICT in education.

7855

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine Swedish upper secondary school teachers’ and students’ views and use of ICT in education.

Design/methodology/approach

In total, 25 individual teachers and 39 students in small focus groups were interviewed. A qualitative content analysis was performed using NVivo11. The analysis was conducted in three steps: with each individual teacher, the student groups and the cohort of teachers and students. A comparative analysis was also conducted.

Findings

The teachers’ views and use of ICT are diverse. Teachers and students identify similar challenges when using ICT in education, e.g. time and subject, the shortcomings of a school’s learning management system (LMS) and teachers’ digital competence. Students report an extensive out-of-school use of smartphones and an extensive in-school use of laptops and LMS.

Research limitations/implications

The relatively small number of teachers and students in three schools make generalisations difficult. The examination of teachers’ and students’ views and use in the same context reveals new knowledge.

Practical implications

The study may influence teachers’ use of ICT in education, based on a better understanding of students’ use.

Social implications

The study may lead to a better understanding of teachers’ and students’ different perspectives and a more enhanced and sustainable in-school use of ICT.

Originality/value

The originality is that teachers’ and students’ views and use of ICT in education are examined at the same time. The paper contributes new knowledge about how teachers and students conceptualise and use ICT in upper secondary school practices.

Details

The International Journal of Information and Learning Technology, vol. 34 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2056-4880

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 April 2023

Ariel Sarid and Adi Binhas

This research explores the perceptions and practice of principals in schools integrating migrant and refugee children into the Israeli formal education system. The aim is to offer…

Abstract

Purpose

This research explores the perceptions and practice of principals in schools integrating migrant and refugee children into the Israeli formal education system. The aim is to offer theoretical and methodological insights to the discourse on educational leadership.

Design/methodology/approach

This qualitative (phenomenological) study used semi-structured interviews to attain a deeper understanding of the experiences of school principals as culturally relevant educational leaders.

Findings

The study corroborates previous findings regarding: the need for a holistic multidimensional approach; the focus on language and communication; and the complexities and dilemmas involved in the practice of educational leadership. The study analysis revealed three central dilemmas: applying equal-opportunity and cultural diversity policies; schools as protected spaces and serving the social reality beyond the school; and full assimilation and recognition of specific cultural identity.

Research limitations/implications

The research was conducted in a small number of schools and only with principals. A follow-up study could also include teachers, officials and representatives of the various organizations working with the migrants and refugees.

Practical implications

Beyond financial resources, school leaders need professional (culturally responsive) guidance to support the multifaceted and complex needs of students, in part by being adaptable and flexible, and aware of the aims and practice of education for an unknown future.

Originality/value

The originality-value of the present study is threefold: it explores school principals in a relatively unexplored context (the Israeli formal education system); it applies two models for organizing and analyzing research findings; and it contributes new insights on the dilemmatic nature of educational leadership.

Details

Journal of Educational Administration, vol. 61 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0957-8234

Keywords

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