‘Struggles as engagement’ in teacher change: a longitudinal case study of a reading teacher’s changing practices

ABSTRACT

Teacher change involves the transformation of beliefs, knowledge and practices. While research has highlighted significant facilitative conditions as well as barriers to these changes, insufficient attention has been devoted to examining influences derived from existing practices perpetuated by institutional factors and teachers’ personal histories and experiences. This paper reports on an Australian teacher’s struggles while engaging in the adoption of an innovative reading practice using a student-led and collaborative design for promoting reading engagement among economically disadvantaged students in an Australian primary school. A within-method triangulation approach for data analysis was adopted using a longitudinal data set containing teacher interviews, classroom observations, videotaped intervention lessons, student interviews, and field notes accumulated over an academic year. Based on an activity theoretic perspective, the teacher’s struggles were derived from conflicting ideas and dilemmas associated with the roles of participants (teacher, student and researcher), beliefs held regarding the purposes of reading education and contradictions between existing and new practices. This qualitative case study is significant because it draws research attention away from the teacher’s professional attributes to incompatibilities between old and new practices and the ensuing struggles throughout the change process. Addressing these potential struggles facilitates not just a change in teacher knowledge but also the abandonment of old practices and adoption of new approaches.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher change
• cultural historical activity theory
• disadvantaged students
• reading education
• dilemmas

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [DP180102982]; Department of Education, Queensland, Australia [Education Horizon Grant].

Notes on contributors

Clarence Ng

Clarence Ng is associate professor and director of the 'Learning and Learners' research concentration at  the Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education, Australian Catholic University, Brisbane.  His current research interests include teacher learning, literacy learning and engagement,   academic aspiration, motivation and pedagogy.

Alysse Leicht

Alysse Leicht is a research assistant at the Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education, Australian Catholic University, Brisbane.  Alysse works alongside Clarence Ng on a number of research projects associated with the 'Learning and Learners' research concentration.