Enacted realities in teachers’ experiences: bringing materialism into pragmatism

Abstract

In this article we explore factors that constitute ‘the social’ for the teacher Susan, which at the same time highlights ethical aspects of the exercise of her profession. We meet her in a situation where she is setting grades, and our interest focuses on the relations that become of concern for her in her professional task to give the students their grades. In this exploration, we recognize the renewal of interest in realism and examine the possible links that can be drawn between transactional realism, as a pragmatic view, and the new materialism, here represented by actor–network theory. Building on a narrative from an interview with a named teacher in a daily newspaper, the empirical study focuses on actors constituting Susan’s reality when grading. Our argument is that in order to understand the complex levels of aspects that influence teachers’ actions, it is necessary to start from the local and from there trace the human and material factors that may affect teachers’ room for action. Bringing material aspects into the consideration of Susan’s situation helps us see that technology itself changes time and spaces and moves the action of grading into spaces outside her professional sphere.

Keywords:

• Transactional realism
• actor–network theory
• assessment
• teacher agency

Notes

1. Regarding the term ‘post-postmodernism’, see Hickman, 2007.

2. It is important to note that ANT cannot be treated as one unified and concordant theory but rather as a disparate set of tools, sensibilities, and methods of analysis (Fenwick & Edwards, 2010; Law, 2007). However, we will refer to this disparity as ANT.

3. Svenska Dagbladet 25 April 2014.