“Looking for sparks”: A phenomenological study of educational practice and the imaginative lifeworld in primary schools

Abstract

Despite an apparent renaissance of interest in the creative and emotional in English education there remains a paucity of research in the province of teacher interpretations of pupils’ creative, “affective”, and imaginative activity. Based on the findings of an Ed D study conducted in six primary schools in central England, the genesis of the enquiry sought to establish how primary teachers interpret this realm of pupil experience. Conducted over a period of two years and drawing on the traditions of eidetic and hermeneutic phenomenology, the research reveals the attributes of emerging educational practices amongst primary school teachers and their orientation to the imaginative lifeworld of pupils. Through these orientations it becomes possible to observe the ways in which the creative, imaginative, and affective life have become subject to marginalisation, appropriation, or redemption in the educational practices of primary school teachers. These orientations to professional practice, I will argue, have important consequences for an educational pedagogy that enables authentic engagement with the imaginative lifeworld of primary school pupils within the often inimical policy contexts of English state education.

Notes

* Education and Professional Studies Department, Newman College of Higher Education, Birmingham, England. Email: [email protected]

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dave Trotman *

* Education and Professional Studies Department, Newman College of Higher Education, Birmingham, England. Email: [email protected]