Scaling and Scalar Analysis as a Framework for Research on Teacher Learning

ABSTRACT

This paper argues for scalar analysis as a framework for understanding negotiations of competing ideological demands and power relationships in teacher learning. Two illustrative examples are presented, including video data of a student teacher (Camille) attempting to integrate multimodal and digital literacy practices into their instruction, and a research interview between Lara and Camille. Drawing on research in both literacy studies and applied linguistics, the illustrative scalar analyses move beyond linguistic understandings of discourse to also include embodied discourse and materiality as central to understanding complexities of teaching and teacher learning. Implications are presented for research and practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Sociolinguistic scales
• scaling practices
• teacher learning
• teacher identity
• positioning
• student teaching

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/1547688X.2023.2269250.

Notes

¹ Double-voicing: using “someone else’s discourse for his own purposes, by inserting a new semantic intention into a discourse which already has, and which retains, an intention of its own” (Bakhtin, 1984, p. 189).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spencer Foundation [200600146].