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S T A N D A R D FORSIDE
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EKSAMENSOPGAVER
Udfyldes af den/de studerende
Prøvens form (sæt kryds): Projekt Synopsis Portfolio Speciale
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Skriftlig
hjemmeopgave
Uddannelsens navn Læring og Forandringsprocesser
Semester 10. SEMESTER
Prøvens navn (i studieordningen) Kandidatspeciale (Master’s Thesis)
Navn(e) og CPR-nr. (10 cifre)
Navn(e) CPR-nr. (10 cifre)
CAMILLA FRIIS CHRISTENSEN 140589-1938
ANNA FILRUP 171189-1664
Afleveringsdato 17. november 2015
Projekttitel/Synopsistitel/Speciale-
titel
From High School Dropout to Urban Academy Drop-in
- an explorative case study on how to retain high school students at risk of dropping out
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Vejleder (projekt/synopsis/speciale) Jamshid Gholamian
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Dato og underskrift: 17. november 2015
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Preface
The present thesis has been produced as a part of the Master’s degree programme Learning and
Innovative Change at Aalborg University, Copenhagen.
The thesis is addressed to the relevant party, who find alternative practices within the high school
environment of interest with a special view on how to retain students at risk of dropping out.
The purpose of the thesis has been to understand and explain how the classroom practices and the
practices within the social organisation at the high school Urban Academy contribute to the
successful retention of their students. In addition it has been the aim to understand how the practices
can be perceived as engaging the students both academically and personally and how this can be
seen as a successful case of student retention to inspire interested parties.
A special thanks to the people at Urban Academy and H.C Ørsted Gymnasium, Ballerup for their
time and for allowing us to conduct our study. In addition, thanks to Oticon Fonden for granting us
a generous contribution to conduct our case study.
Lastly, we wish to express our great appreciation to our supervisor, Jamshid Gholamian, for very
knowledgeable supervision throughout the process.
Happy reading, we hope you enjoy it!
Anna Filrup
Camilla Friis Christensen
November 2015
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Abstract
According to several studies the dropout rate is an escalating issue in the high school educational
system in the USA. Through an explorative case study the present Master’s Thesis seeks to
understand how the New York based transfer high school, Urban Academy, create possibilities for
student retention. The main objective of the thesis is an investigation of the high school’s classroom
practices as well as the practices within the social organisation. Furthermore, the thesis is written in
the hope of understanding and explaining how these practices in the light of relevant learning
perspectives and the concept of engagement can contribute to successful retention of students.
Relevant research within the field of high school dropouts furthermore serves as valuable
background knowledge in regard to discussing the success of the practices within Urban Academy.
The methodological point of departure of the thesis is social constructivism. The investigation is
conducted through a qualitative approach and the empirical data is collected during a visit at the
high school. The data includes three focus group interviews with students and teachers respectively
as well as an interview with the principal. In addition, it comprises observations from the classes as
well as observations from the daily life in the school context. The observations and interviews were
supplemented by pictures, the school’s written understandings as well as the weekly schedule and
the school’s course catalogue. Through a profound processing of the empirical material the
classroom practices as well as the practices within the social organisation were found to be
substantial practices and were chosen as the comprising elements of the analysis.
The classroom practices and the practices within the social organisation are analysed using a
practice theoretical framework. In the analysis, inspired by theorists Andreas Reckwitz and
Theodore Schatzki, important concepts within the practice theoretical approach are applied. This
entails detailed accounts of the practices resulting in an outline of the two contexts. The findings of
the analysis show how both the practices within the classroom and the social organisation constitute
a school environment. This is characterised by a high level of participation, an engaging learning
environment, and a supportive system with very dedicated staff that appears to be an important link
to the close relationship between students and staff.
To be able to discuss how the analysed practices create possibilities of student retention the concept
of school engagement is included in the latter part of the thesis. The concept of engagement is
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applied as a multifaceted construct comprising a behavioural, emotional and cognitive component
and it is discussed whether the aforementioned practices contribute to enhancing engagement
among the student population. Furthermore, in connection with engagement, relevant theories of
learning help to shed light upon how the practices within the school could leads to enhance learning
and retention in the school environment.
The thesis concludes that the investigated practices within Urban Academy enable learning both
cognitively and socially as well as engaging the students’ behaviour in school related activities. In
addition, the enhancement of school engagement both behaviourally, emotionally and cognitively
are all consistent with findings within the field and highlighted as pivotal factors in retaining
students from dropping out of high school.
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Table of content Chart of content ............................................................................................................................. 8
Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 9
Problem field ................................................................................................................................. 11
Research Question ........................................................................................................................ 14
Sub-questions .............................................................................................................................. 14
State of the art............................................................................................................................... 15
Presentation of case .................................................................................................................... 17
The case study ............................................................................................................................... 17
Urban Academy ............................................................................................................................ 20
Curriculum and courses .............................................................................................................. 21
Proficiencies ............................................................................................................................... 22
School rules: respect, individuality and differences ................................................................... 22
Urban Academy against high-stake testing ................................................................................ 22
Inquiry-based learning................................................................................................................. 23
Methodology ................................................................................................................................. 25
Theory of science .......................................................................................................................... 25
Choice of theory ............................................................................................................................ 27
The focus group interview ........................................................................................................... 30
Social control .............................................................................................................................. 30
Location ...................................................................................................................................... 31
Participants ................................................................................................................................. 32
The moderator ............................................................................................................................. 33
Structuring the interview ............................................................................................................ 33
Completing the focus group interview ....................................................................................... 34
Media .......................................................................................................................................... 34
Interview guide ........................................................................................................................... 35
Questionnaire .............................................................................................................................. 35
Combination of focus group interview and participating observations .................................. 35
Observations ................................................................................................................................. 36
Conducting observations ............................................................................................................ 37
Researcher position ..................................................................................................................... 38
Observation guide ....................................................................................................................... 39
Observation notes ....................................................................................................................... 39
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Pilot study ...................................................................................................................................... 40
Ethical reflections ......................................................................................................................... 40
Ethical dilemmas ........................................................................................................................ 41
Rules of thumb ............................................................................................................................ 41
The ethical role of the researcher ................................................................................................ 42
Presentation of empirical data ............................................................................................... 44
Interviews ...................................................................................................................................... 44
The first focus group interview ................................................................................................... 44
Participants ................................................................................................................................. 44
Second focus group interview .................................................................................................... 45
Participants ................................................................................................................................. 45
Interview with teachers ............................................................................................................... 46
Interview with the principal ........................................................................................................ 47
Observations ................................................................................................................................. 47
Urban Academy material ............................................................................................................ 47
Pictures .......................................................................................................................................... 48
Processing empirical data ............................................................................................................ 48
Transcription ............................................................................................................................... 48
Processing observation notes ...................................................................................................... 49
Theory ............................................................................................................................................. 50
Overview........................................................................................................................................ 50
What are practices........................................................................................................................ 50
Where and what to analyse.......................................................................................................... 51
The elements of a practice – Reckwitz........................................................................................ 52
The elements of a practice – Schatzki ......................................................................................... 54
Types of practices ......................................................................................................................... 55
Summarising the tools for the analysis ....................................................................................... 56
Analysis ........................................................................................................................................... 57
Analysis strategy ........................................................................................................................... 57
Part 1 – The classroom ................................................................................................................. 59
Demarcation of the practice ........................................................................................................ 59
Description of practices .............................................................................................................. 60
Analysis of activities within the classroom ................................................................................ 61
Teaching practice ........................................................................................................................ 62
The teacher’s role in the classroom ............................................................................................ 65
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Collaborative practice ................................................................................................................. 69
Discursive practice ...................................................................................................................... 72
Summery ..................................................................................................................................... 76
Part 2 – The social organisation .................................................................................................. 77
Demarcation of the practices ...................................................................................................... 77
Description of practice ................................................................................................................ 78
Analysis of practices within the social organisation .................................................................. 78
Mentoring practice ...................................................................................................................... 79
The teacher’s role in the social organisation .............................................................................. 82
Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 90
Discussion ....................................................................................................................................... 91
Behavioural engagement .............................................................................................................. 92
Emotional engagement ................................................................................................................. 94
Cognitive engagement .................................................................................................................. 95
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 100
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 102
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Chart of content
INTRODUCTIONDROPOUTPROBLEMATICPROBLEMFIELD
STATEOFTHEART
HOWDOTHEPRACTICESWITHINTHECLASSROOMANDTHESOCIALORGANISATIONATURBANACADEMYCREATEPOSSIBILITIESFORSTUDENT
RETENTION?
METHODOLOGY
SOCIALCONSTRUCTIVISM
FOCUSGROUPINTERVIEWS
OBSERVATIONS
EMPIRICALDATA
INTERVIEWS OBSERVATIONS URBANACADEMYMATERIAL
PICTURES
RESEARCHQUESTION
PRACTICETHEORY
ANALYSISTHEPRACTICES
WITHINTHECLASSROOM
THEPRACTICESWITHINTHESOCIALORGANISATION
DISCUSSION
BEHAVIOURALENGAGEMENT
EMOTIONALENGAGEMENT
COGNITIVEENGAGEMENT
THEORIESOFLEARNING
CONCLUSION
CASESTUDY:URBANACADEMY
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Introduction In October 2015 we went to the USA to conduct a study at the New York based high school Urban
Academy. The school is an American transfer high school with approximately 150 students who
have a very high graduation rate amongst their students. This Master’s Thesis examines the
practices within the classroom and the social organisation at Urban Academy through observations
at the school and interviews with students and teachers respectively. The motivation for taking upon
an investigation derives from an interest in the school Urban Academy itself. We were first
introduced to this school in our 8th
semester course within the international specialisation of the
Master’s degree in Learning and Innovative Change at University of Aalborg, Copenhagen.
Professors from our Master’s programme including our thesis supervisor visited Urban Academy in
the spring of 2015. With his recommendations we got engaged with more material about Urban
Academy. Our interest was further awakened towards making an investigation of the school when
we learned about their successful retention of students. This interest is related to the understanding
that dropping out of high school has severe economic implications not only on an individual level,
but also nationally. The implications involve the loss of short- and long-term career options and
lower salary. Furthermore, the young adults who drop out of high school are at a four times greater
risk of unemployment than youth who graduates from high school (Lever et al. 2004, 515).
According to studies from the USA (Rumberger 2011; Azzam 2007; Bridgeland et al 2006) the
dropout rate is an escalating issue in the high school educational system. The rate has increased to
the extent that it has been termed ‘The Dropout Epidemic’ by a survey called The Silent Epidemic
(Bridgeland et al 2006, iii). In the book Why Students Drop Out by Russell W. Rumberger (2011),
the author states that the statistics from the school year 2008-2009 showed that 607,789 students in
public high schools in the USA dropped out. Furthermore, an even higher number of students fail to
graduate high school (Rumberger 2012, 1). In 2010 the number of students failing to graduate from
high school was estimated to 1,3 million students, a number corresponding to 7,000 students
dropping out of high school each school day (Ibid 2012, 2) and these numbers do not even include
the students who dropped out before they reach high school level in ninth grade.
Rumberger highlights the point that looking at graduation rates is an important perspective when
examining dropouts to reflect the proportion of students who actually graduate from high school.
According to Education Week 69 percent of the students who entered high school in 2003
graduated in 2007 (Rumberger 2012, 2). The number is based on the nation as a whole. The same
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number is highlighted in an article from 2007 based on The Silent Epidemic report. This shows that
approximately one-third of all high school students in the USA fail to graduate (Azzam 2007, 1).
According to both studies the population of students affected by dropouts are mostly
socioeconomically lower class and minority students. Rumberger highlights that only 54 percent of
blacks from the same class of 2003 graduated in 2007 compared to the 81 percent of Asians and
whites. The Silent Epidemic report states that the dropout rates affect: “young people who are low-
income, minority, urban, single-parent children attending large public schools in the inner city”
(Bridgeland et al 2006, 1). Related to a Danish context the graduation rates are higher, but it is a
governmental initiated goal that 95 % of all youth should have an upper secondary education
equivalent to high school by 2015. Linked to this goal a report from 2009 from the Danish Ministry
of Educations presents the results of an investigation conducted with the purpose of limiting student
dropouts from Danish upper secondary schools. The completion rate for students entering Danish
upper secondary schools was between 72 percent for HF and 83 percent for STX in 2007
(Undervisningsministeriet 2010, 4).
Many different studies point to the reasons for students dropping out. One investigation examines
why students drop out of high school and use concepts as to whether the students are pushed, pulled
or falling out. The study is a comparative analysis of seven nationally representative studies
regarding dropouts contrasting surveys from the 1950s to the 2000s. The studies are analysed
through a push, pull and falling out framework to explain the reasons behind students dropping out
of school and to determine which factors were most prominent (Doll et al 2013, 1). The push factors
include adverse situations within the school environment that eventually result in the students
dropping out. They represent reasons such as ‘was not doing well in my studies’ or ‘I failed or was
failing in my studies’. The pull factors, on the other hand, are related to factors within the students’
life that pull them away from school, examples being ‘got married’, ‘became pregnant’, or ‘poor
health’. The third factor, falling out, concerns lack of academic progress resulting in apathetic and
disillusioned students, which can also be a result from insufficient personal and educational support.
This factor includes reasons as for example ‘did not like school’ and ‘moved to another city’ (Doll
et al 2013, 3). The aforementioned report The Silent Epidemic examined youth aged 16-25 on their
views regarding why they had failed to complete high school (Azzam 2007, 1). The top five reasons
for leaving school from the students’ perspective were boredom, inability to catch up due to missed
days, influence of others who are not interested in school, more freedom than rules in their lives and
academic failure as the main reasons for students dropping out. In the report from the Danish
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Ministry of Educations it was deducted through interviews with leaders of 24 Danish upper
secondary schools that some of the reasons for dropouts were; personal problems among the
students, low academic levels, lack of support from parents and school size (Bech 2009, 53). The
same factors: lack of interest and lack of educational support were found in other studies (Azzam
2007; Bloomfield 2013; Doll et al. 2013; Lever et al. 2004). In an article by Lever et al the reason
for dropping out were presented as follows: grade failure, underachievement, low self-esteem,
frequent confrontation and non-acceptance by teachers and peers, poor school attendance, low level
of interest and involvement in school and extracurricular activities, unstable family life, pregnancy,
substance abuse, and history of disruptive behaviour (Lever et al. 2004, 515).
As presented in the above the high dropout rates in high school are an issue influenced by many
different factors according to several studies. In the following we wish to relate the presented
problematic with relevant efforts within the field and lastly introduce the focal point of the thesis:
Urban Academy.
Problem field The great number of dropouts and the reasons for students dropping out of high school is evident in
different studies. It is interesting to see what can be done to prevent dropout and enable retention
instead. According to one of the aforementioned reports actions to prevent dropouts comprise
following up on students who are absent in school or who miss due dates on school reports or
assignments. In the smaller schools it is perceived that the follow-up on these students is easier.
Some tools like ‘home work café’, personal mentors and close teacher-student contact are perceived
by the leaders as successful factors in preventing dropouts (Bech 2009, 54). Other studies present
prevention programs seeking to intervene quickly and effectively. The possible success of these
programs has been found to be characterised by three main components: positive school climate,
customized curriculum and instructional program, and promotion of personal, social and emotional
growth (Lever et al 2004, 515). Another strategy that can assist in the prevention of dropouts has a
focus on modifying the instructional environment, strengthening school membership, developing
school board policies and mentoring (Ibid). Solid partnerships between parents, teachers, school
counsellors and community members has also been emphasised as important for the success of a
prevention programs (Ibid). Lastly, it has been suggested that creating alternative high schools
could be a way to decrease the dropout rates as well (Ibid). In this connection, another article
emphasises that a majority of the participating students stated that they were not motivated to work,
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but that they could have worked harder, if the teachers had demanded more (Azzam, 2007, 2). It
furthermore highlights the students’ ideas for dropout interventions that could help the retention of
students. These included to engage the students more through real-world experiential learning as
well as improving the connections between school and work, additional support for struggling
learners, greater supervision at school and improved school climate, making sure that students have
an adult to rely on and improved communication between parents and schools (Ibid).
At Urban Academy the completion rate is approximately 70 percent with a majority of 90 percent of
the students previously having dropout of other high schools. Half of the students at the school are
part of a free lunch deal, indicating that these students come from low-income households (cf.
appendix 7). However, Urban Academy is able to send 95 percent of its students who graduate are
admitted to college (cf. appendix 7). In an article about Urban Academy (Raywid 1994) the school
is presented as a school that “builds intellectual capacity and confidence in its students” by helping
them to become “thoughtful, informed, open yet critical-minded young adult”. Raywid identifies
some of the features and qualities of Urban Academy to be an attractive school program, committed
and long term employed staff, their success in turning problematic students into intellectually able
students with no disciplinary needs, and the school ambient (Raywid 1994, 93). According to
aforementioned student retention strategies these are all important factors. Urban Academy is a
school with a different approach to teaching and social organisation. The instructional core inquiry-
based learning seems to engage the students in their education, prepare them for college, and most
importantly retain students who have previously dropped out of other high schools. Professor Ulla
Højmark Jensen has investigated the teaching at New York high schools one of which was Urban
Academy. Jensen’s focal point was how the educational environment and school structures can
prevent social inequality within education. The group of students the investigation focus on is
mainly Latino students and their inclusion in high schools. These students are also students at risk
of not completing high school education (Jensen 2014, 63). Jensen found that including students’
experiences and high interaction between students and teachers were successful as well as creating
an inclusive learning environment (Jensen 2014, 78, 80). She perceives the New York high schools
she studied as good examples and the schools as successful cases in including minority students
(Jensen 2014, 64).
Even though the majority of students at Urban Academy are dropouts from other high schools the
school is still capable of presenting a high completion rate in relation to their students’ background.
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This has made us wonder how and why Urban Academy’s approach to learning and the social
organisation at the school can be a story of success actually addressing the dropout problem.
Furthermore, could this example of ‘best practice’ be a solution to the problematic of retaining
students at risk of dropping out? It could be assumed that Urban Academy is able to address the
underlying conditions mentioned in the reports, surveys, studies and articles that enable student
retention. We find it interesting to further research this significant effect that reduces the dropout
rates. Moreover, how Urban Academy accommodates these elements in their teaching approach?
And how the social support system at Urban Academy could be enabling retention?
The focus of this Master’s thesis is limited to an analysis of Urban Academy as an institution and
the practices within the school context, more specifically, the practices within the classroom and the
social organisation1. This choice is based on attained knowledge about the school in conjunction
with factors of successful retention as presented in the above. The mean of getting access is through
observations of interactions between teachers and students in classroom situations and within the
school area as well as interviews with students and teachers. It is a case study and for this reason a
broader analysis looking for answers or reasons on a broader societal level will not be investigated.
The theoretical perspective is limited to Practice Theory and theories of engagement and learning.
The studies presented in the above, distinguished between factors such as male, female, ethnicity,
student and administrative perspective. This focus, especially on language groups and ethnicity
seems to be the foci of much research within the area (Jensen 2014; Doll et al 2015; Lever et al
2004). In this connection we find it relevant to underline that the focus of our study mainly concerns
marginalised youth in a broad sense, in other words students at-risk of dropping out, which we find
the student population at Urban Academy to be according to three factors: ethnicity, socio-
economical status and previous dropout history. However this study will not include more in-depth
descriptions of the more specific reasons behind the students marginalised status weather it is a
result of gender, ethnicity or economy.
We have chosen the approach of perceiving Urban Academy as a successful case or best practice
based on Jensen’s call for more research; studying successful practices to be able to contribute to
how high schools can improve the success of all students, reduce social inequality and consequently
ensure retention (Jensen 2014, 68). Furthermore, on the basis of findings from earlier studies it has
1 The social organisation covers the social structures in the school, e.g. support and mentoring of students. We have
chosen this concept to cover elements that go beyond the classroom.
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been suggested that a change of approach in research focussing on the reasons behind dropout
requires a change in how dropouts are perceived. Instead of viewing dropouts as problems that
should be solved, these students should be perceived as having potential to be fulfilled (Azzam
2007, 3; Jensen 2014).
Research Question This leads us to the following research question:
How do the practices within the classroom and the social organisation at Urban Academy create
possibilities for student retention?
Sub-questions What constitutes the practices within the classroom and the social organisation?
How are the elements that constitute the two practices creating retention in a learning and
engagement perspective?
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State of the art The aim of this section is to present a critical review placing the stated research question within the
context of related issues within the field. The focus of the following concerns surveys reporting
different reasons for student dropouts and what has and should been done within the field in order
to accommodate these challenges with the objective of retaining high school students.
We conducted a systematic literature search in order to find the current research within the field.
Using the AAU library database with access to many scientific databases and libraries we made a
search using the following keywords: “High school dropout prevention” and “Retaining high school
students”. The search was limited to the years 1990-2015, language only English and limitations
regarding the field of studies, among others, the natural sciences and other irrelevant factors were
deselected. Approximately 200 results turned up and were screened making use of fast reading in
the abstracts. Two scientific articles (Doll et al 2013; Lever et al 2004), two newspaper articles
(Azzam 2007; Bloomfield et al 2013) as well as one book (Rumberger 2011) were found useful.
They were all selected from their general focus on prevention and retention strategies as well as
their actuality and overall view on the field. Another literature search was conducted in order to find
material on Urban Academy. In the same database the following keywords were searched: “Dropout
prevention Urban Academy”, “Preventing dropout Urban Academy”, “Retaining students Urban
Academy”, “Student retention Urban Academy” with no filters, and without any results about
Urban Academy specifically. We also attempted a search for just Urban Academy, but it turned out
to be a too broad result with too many irrelevant hits. The search for “Urban Academy High School
New York” turned out to be denser but here we only found one scientific article among 187 results
(Raywid 1994) and one newspaper article that we unfortunately could not get access to.
Research regarding high school dropouts has been in focus since 1927, where the first monograph
named “school leaving” was presented comparing the dropout cause with possible mental inferiority
(Doll et al 2013, 1). Since then, several studies have been conducted as to investigate and explain
dropout causes (Ibid). The comparative study of Doll et al investigated different factors for student
dropouts through surveys and found that the pull factors ranked highest overall and elicited
prominence in four out of seven of the surveys. Future research is suggested to focus on each of the
surveys included to further clarify what leads to the dropout (Ibid, 13). The article A Dropout
prevention Program for High-Risk Inner-City Youth, presents a school-based dropout prevention
program seeking to meet the needs of the students at risk of dropping out in the inner cities through
smaller classes, character development, career preparation, case management/mentoring, positive
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incentives and access to mental health services (Lever et. al. 2004, 513). The book Why Students
Drop Out by Rumberger (2011) investigates in depth reasons for student dropout. The article by
Azzam (2007) investigated the results from The Silent Epidemic mentioned in the introduction. The
Bloomfield et al reviewed a dropout prevention tool. This has called for several studies reviewing
the reasons behind these dropouts in order for the educational institutions to reorganise and
potentially change their approach to the learning environment and their future practices to make
sure that less youth drop out of upper secondary school (Azzam 2007).
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Presentation of case In the above we have presented the field of research within high school dropout prevention,
retention as well as a short introduction to our case Urban Academy. In the following we wish to
firstly present the case study as a qualitative method in order to qualify our findings and knowledge
production. Secondly we will go more into depth with the specific case, Urban Academy, and lastly
present the teaching approach, Inquiry-based learning to give background knowledge about the
school.
The case study As mentioned, this thesis seeks to understand Urban Academy’s capacity to retain former dropout
students through an examination the practices within the classroom and the social organisation.
As we have chosen to work with a case study as the underlying basis of our thesis, we find it
relevant to elaborate upon our methodological reflections in relation to the scientific relevance of
the case study. This section is inspired by Bent Flyvbjerg (2010) who writes about the case study
and the five common misunderstandings regarding this as a research method. We join Flyvbjerg’s
understanding of the case study as a qualitative research type. Based on the five misunderstandings
we wish to present our approach.
Flyvbjerg underlines the relevance of the use of the case study and emphasises that “Much of what
we know about the empirical world has been produced by case study research, and many of the
most treasured classics in each discipline are case studies” (Flyvbjerg 2011, 302). He refers to this
as a contradiction because the case study a methodology does not hold a strong reputation among
academics (Ibid, 302). Consequently, the aim of identifying the five misunderstandings about the
case study has been to help the case study gain wider use and acceptance as well as to increase the
credibility and use of the method (Ibid, 302).
He describes the most conventional descriptions of the case study as highly problematic as they are
often oversimplified and misleading (Flyvbjerg 2010, 464). Instead, the case study is useful as it
comprises depth and detail about the case in the research (Flyvbjerg 2011, 301). By choosing the
case study as a point of departure for our investigation we are able to conduct a more detailed study
of our case.
Flyvbjerg is critical towards the scientific directions that seek universalities in the understanding of
human society and wishes to vary these perceptions in connection with the case study by presenting
the five misconceptions concerning theory, reliability and validity (Flyvbjerg 2010, 464-468):
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1) Theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge.
2) One cannot generalise on the basis of isolated cases, and therefore isolated cases cannot
contribute to scientific development.
3) The case study is most suitable for the development of hypotheses, while other methods are
well suited for theses-test and the creation of theories.
4) There is a tendency for the case study to seek verification.
5) It is often difficult to sum up specific case studies.
In the following we will relate to the five misconceptions based on our specific case and explain the
five misunderstandings as we go along.
Flyvbjerg argues against the first misconception regarding context sensitive knowledge by
emphasising that for scientists the case study’s close connection to real life situations is important
because a development of a nuanced perspective on reality is essential contemporary with the
perception that human action cannot be understood as meaningful solely based on rule-driven
actions from theories (Flyvbjerg 2011, 267). In our case we wish to investigate the practices
through the students and teachers experiences and perceptions as well as through observations,
which will generate context sensitive knowledge that according to Flyvbjerg is important to be able
to develop from regular beginners to experienced experts, since context sensitive knowledge and
experience is the core within expert activity (Flyvbjerg 2010, 466). In other words, we gather
context sensitive empirical data through our investigation, and our study within its limited field can
contribute to knowledge and learning within this area. One of the misconceptions that Flyvbjerg
emphasises in the article is the generalisability of cases, which he points out can be increased
through a strategic selection of cases. The strategic selection in choice of case is connected with the
purpose of the empirical data. In that connection, we believe that our selection of case can be
characterized as a mainly ‘extreme/atypical case’ given the fact that we have chosen to investigate a
successful case when it comes to retaining former dropout students. Hence, by selecting this case
we seek to obtain information regarding a particularly successful case that can be perceived to
contribute to generalisable knowledge within the field of retention of students. Flyvbjerg argues that
formal generalisation is only one of many ways to collect and accumulate knowledge and that
despite the fact that knowledge cannot be generalised formally does not mean that it cannot be part
of the collective knowledge accumulation within a given field or society. That is, perceiving formal
generalisation as the only acknowledged method in scientific investigations brings about limitations
19
(Flyvbjerg 2010, 471). The third misunderstanding concerns whether case studies are most suitable
for the development or testing of hypotheses in the introductory part of the research process (Ibid,
473). As this misconception, according to Flyvbjerg, emanates from the latter misunderstanding
regarding the generalisability, Flyvbjerg argues that case studies are suitable for testing and
development of hypotheses and that they are not limited to these research activities solely. In this
connection Flyvbjerg underlines his point by describing that the testing of hypotheses are directly
connected with the question regarding ‘generalisability’ which again is connected to the question
regarding the selection of case. Hence, case studies’ generalisability increases through a strategic
selection of cases. That is, we initially presume that new hypotheses and wonder can be developed
in the light of our investigation.
The fourth misconception is about how the research method has a tendency to verify the
preconceived views of the researcher. This is however not the case according to Flyvbjerg. He
describes how the case study forces the researcher to be aware of possible falsification and
describes that the purpose of the investigation can be understood as learning. When the researcher
works with the case study, more simple forms of understandings must give way for more complex
understandings. It is falsification and not verification that characterises the case study. Hence, the
researcher does not seek to verify his or her understandings in the case study, but on the contrary to
falsify in order to obtain new knowledge (Ibid, 480-481). Through our work with the empirical data,
we have strived to be aware of complex and different findings than expected. This was done
through a systematic processing where we attempted to have an open mind during the investigation
and by being explorative in our approach. The explorative approach allows us to follow up on
different statements from the participants during the interview. Practically the interview guide is
organised with open starting questions, and a possible follow up dealing with the new perspectives.
In connection with the fifth misconception about the challenge with summing up the case study and
developing theories on that basis Flyvbjerg describes how case stories should not be told briefly or
summarised in main results, because the case story is a result in itself. He also describes how
something significant could be lost through the summarisation and that not all can be reduced to
theoretical concepts. In that connection Flyvbjerg includes a quotation from Nietzsche regarding the
scientific praxis stating “Above all.. one should not wish to deprive existence of its rich ambiguity”
(Flyvbjerg 2010, 482). This could be understood as an emphasis on the importance of not trying to
conclude unambiguously on our empirical data. In our case, we tried to gather our case’s
complexity by going into depth with the practices that constitute the classroom and the social
20
organisation at Urban Academy. This was done through a qualitative study consisting of focus
group interviews and observations that are rich in detail, which is exactly one of the case study’s
strengths in that it can go into depth with a case and result in new perceptions.
With this introduction to the case study on the basis of Flyvbjerg and the five misconceptions we
will relate to our own research process. In the following sections we will go into depth with the
different parts of the process. Initially, with an argument for the selected case; Urban Academy and
their learning approach; Inquiry-based learning.
Urban Academy On the website of the New York City based high school Urban Academy, the school is presented as:
“[…] a small laboratory high school which believes that what students think and have to say are
important parts of their education”, their mission is to: “[…] challenge our diverse student
population and prepare them to successfully handle college level work” (Urban Academy, about,
urbanacademy.org). Urban Academy is located on Manhattan as a part of the Julia Richman
Education Complex since 1995. The complex houses six schools with 1900 students out of which
four are high schools. Each school is autonomous but share some common facilities: library, gym,
auditorium, cafeteria etc. The school facilities also include computer room, dark room, pottery
studio, and greenhouse (Urban Academy, facilities, urbanacademy.org). The high school presents
itself as an alternative high school from grade 9 through 12 and with a small group of
approximately 150 multicultural students where 34 percent are black, 32 percent Hispanic, 23
percent white, 5 percent Asian and 5 percent other (Yaffe, 2012).
According to the school’s website, it is a school of success according to different parameters such
as: 95 percent of its graduates enter 4-year universities, rare incidents of violence or theft, and the
attendance and dropout rates are better than other schools in New York City. The last point is
backed up in a New York Department of Education Quality Review report from the school year
2010-11 where the average attendance rate was found to be 99 percent (Ibid). Furthermore, the staff
average 10 years in the school and there is very little turnover. The staff is involved in all processes
from planning curriculum, administration and policy. In the school’s own presentation, the basis of
the school’s success is due to respect between students and teachers. They believe that everything
the students think and say is important in the learning process and the fact that the students can
always approach teachers with questions, which can breakdown what they call an ‘us versus them’
21
barrier (Urban Academy, diversity, urbanacademy.org). Other reasons are what they call a
comfortable school environment and lastly, but not least, the curriculum and courses.
Curriculum and courses The school curriculum is taught through Inquiry-based learning which focuses on critical thinking
and problem-solving (cf. the Inquiry-based learning section) (Urban Academy, Inquiry-based
learning, urbanacademy.org). The students have courses in the academic areas: Literature,
mathematics, social studies, science, creative arts and art criticism. The courses include algebra,
American history, art criticism, ceramics, computer programming, creative arts, economics, foreign
language, geometry, horticulture, jazz, literature, math, New York City history, science, social
studies, photography, physical education, physics, and research in microbiology, trumpet, and
Spanish (Urban Academy, course catalogue, urbanacademy.org).
Students earn diplomas when they show proficiency in these academic areas along with showing
progress in community service, contributing to Urban Academy community, participate in and pass
classes (Urban Academy, performance assessment, urbanacademy.org). Teachers support the
students in planning their courses in order to achieve progress and lead them to graduation. They
are expected to pass courses each semester. If the students do not pass, they have the option of
taking the failed classes in the senior year and if they still do not pass, there is a possibility to
prolong with an extra year. Special courses such as internships and college courses are also
available. Students are also required to do community service half a day per week (Urban Academy,
classes, urbanacademy.org). Furthermore, most of the students at Urban Academy have taken at
least one college class before they graduate and for these classes they receive credit that can be
transferred to any college (Urban Academy, college classes, urbanacademy.org).
Courses are taught across age groups and are ungraded. The classes are divided according to the
interests of the students and are not based on age. According to the school’s webpage, there is a
respect between the students and all contributions are valued in classroom discussions. This helps
new students learn from older students, simulate a college schedule and environment, and can
support the students reach the right level in each course (Urban Academy, multi-aged classes,
urbanacademy.org). In the beginning of each semester a school-wide project takes place. In the fall
it is focused on a broader inquiry question, where the students and staff meet to use different places
in the city to prepare group presentation. In the spring the projects are broader spread and usually
include musical, photography or sports (Urban Academy, classes, urbanacademy.org).
22
Proficiencies The proficiencies are bigger projects of different kinds such as: papers, presentations or exhibitions.
The students have the chance to display what they have learned through active participation in
several courses where they learn to meet proficiency standards. The proficiencies are the mean for
the school to measure if students achieved an appropriate academic level. To pass a course with a
good grade could be an indicator of improvement, but to pass proficiency requires more than just a
good grade in a course. They are the sum of all the courses taken to meet the standards of a specific
proficiency (Urban Academy, graduation, urbanacademy.org).
School rules: respect, individuality and differences In the school rules, the matter of respect is also emphasised. One of the rules is ‘respect everyone’
and another one has the same sound; ‘it is okay to be an oddball’. This respect of the individual also
applies to the rule of ‘fairness rather than uniformity’. The students with many different
backgrounds are seen as strength in the classroom discussion where differences of meaning are
perceived as mediators to teach the students to listen and understand different arguments. The
differences as a force together with respect are important according to the Inquiry-based learning
approach in the classroom where two important rules related to this are ‘it is okay to attack ideas but
not people’ and the classroom discussion ‘must end in the classroom’.
Urban Academy against high-stake testing Urban Academy has approached a stand against high-stake tests. Instead they suggest performance-
based assessments such as their proficiencies. Urban Academy is together with 28 small high
schools a part of the New York Performance Standards consortium since 1998, which is a coalition
of high schools in New York. The protest against high-stake tests is in coalition with these schools.
The high-stake tests are those that determine if for instance a student graduates or can be granted
college admission only based on a grade. On the webpage, the following points are presented as
reasons raise voice against these tests:
Because learning is complex, assessment should be too.
Multiple forms of assessment have more reliability and consequential validity predicting
future success than single instrument high-stake tests.
A performance-based assessment system requires students to demonstrate what they know,
not how well they take tests.
23
A performance-based assessment system tells schools, parents, colleges and employers how
well students do in real-life situations.
Urban Academy’s (and the Consortium’s) performance-based assessment system is aligned
to meets and exceeds the State Learning Standard.
Urban Academy uses a statement from Gary Orfield, Professor of Education and Social Policy,
Harvard University Graduate School of Education describing how high stake tests do not lead to
increased or better learning:
As states have rushed to adopt high stakes testing, there have been no
significant gains in academic achievement... The dropout rate has
increased for both blacks and whites, contrary to most reports... The basic
theory justifying such tests - that students rationally react to increasingly
demanding requirements by learning more in earlier grades - has little
support. If the basic premise upon which high stakes testing is founded is
false, and its costs are so severe, then why is it being so widely
championed as a panacea? (Urban Academy, Urban Academy’s stand
against high stake testing, urbanacademy.org).
The regent exams are high stake test too. If students fail one out of five tests they are denied a high
school diploma even if they passed all their courses and attended classes. The independent schools
like Urban Academy do not give regent exams. The director of the New York State Association of
Independent Schools (NYSAIS) Fred Calder states that the independent schools should be free of
these tests, because standardised tests do not lead to well-educated citizens. Instead, Urban
Academy believes in a performance-based assessment (Urban Academy, Urban Academy’s stand
against high-stake testing, urbanacademy.org).
Inquiry-based learning Inquiry-based learning has a prominent role in social studies education when it comes to promoting
critical thinking skills in students (Kane 2013, 155). The method is defined as using open-ended
questions that the students must investigate to draw conclusions (Ibid, 156). It is a process that
involves searching for answers to the issues and questions that are presented to the students - a
process that enables students to develop the skills for higher-order-thinking and problem-solving
(Ibid). One of the goals that are being emphasised when it comes to using the inquiry-based method
is for the students to become democratic citizens (Ibid, 158). From an inquiry-based approach
students ability to think critically is limited by strict teacher instructions. Instead, this approach to
learning involves more than teaching the students to complete a task – more focus is put on teaching
24
students to develop a critical thinking mindset – skills that are necessary for the students to become
democratic citizens who are able to take social action in their respective communities (Ibid).
Practically, the method is carried out in the classrooms by initially teaching the students to question
the validity and relevance of the materials that are handed out to them. Moreover, the students are
given materials to analyse for them to develop a deep understanding of the specific topic or issue
and to be able to make judgements. Finally, after having understood the material more profoundly,
the students seek to answer the issue or questions that are presented to them (Ibid, 157).
From a teacher perspective the Inquiry-based approach involves listening to the differences in what
the students are saying, and helping them talk to each other. Furthermore, to set the frame and
sharpen what the students are saying in order to make the others respond to the different point of
views and encourage different responses among the students. Moreover, it regards restating the
different point of views of the students to heighten disagreements and to sharpen the analysis by
reframing the debate in the classroom (Teaching Channel, Inquiry-based teaching: multiple
responses, teachingchannel.org).
In the case of Urban Academy they highlight that a goal of Inquiry-based learning is to develop the
students' skills of critical analysis, to become life-long learners able to confront any topic, research
it, and have confidence in their ability to defend what, in some cases, may be minority opinions.
Furthermore, Inquiry-based teaching requires the teacher to frame questions in a way which
challenges students to examine often conflicting evidence, draw conclusions and support these
conclusions in thoughtful discussions with others who, using the same evidence base, reach
divergent conclusions. And the ultimate goal is to produce independent, thinking and articulate
citizens (Urban Academy, Inquiry based approach, urbanacademy.org).
In the past chapters we have framed the case study, Urban Academy, and the Inquiry-based
approach to learning. In the following, we wish to present the methodological considerations related
to the choice of methods; the focus group interview and observations.
25
Methodology In the following chapter we wish to present our methodological reflections regarding our
investigation on Urban Academy. The first section accounts for the thesis’ basic presumptions
related to theory of science. The second part presents the choice of theory in and the limitations and
possibilities it brings about for the investigation. Thirdly we present the methodological reflections
and implications regarding the use of focus group interviews and the observations. Lastly we
present the ethical considerations regarding the conduct of the investigation.
Theory of science
In the following we wish to present the theory of science of this Master’s Thesis in order to shed
light on the ontological and epistemological approach respectively. Moreover, how it relates to our
choice of theory, methodological choices, conducting the investigation in the field, analysing the
empirical data, ultimately, to be able to discuss the results of the analysis in the light of other studies
or perspectives. The theory of science in the present thesis is social constructivism.
Historically the scientific roots of social constructivism cannot be traced uniquely to one theorist or
scientific discipline. In this connection, we have chosen the same focus as Esmark et al regarding
social constructivism. The authors point to a development within sociology as the foundation of
social constructivism, where the focus was to create a sort of sociology that could stand in
opposition to the behaviourist sociology. Esmark et al emphasise what they call a German-
American axis represented by different theorists who contributed to the American sociology debate
with German phenomenology and knowledge sociology. This debate is highlighted as the basis of
social constructivism and the outline for Thomas Luckmann and Peter Berger who can be perceived
as the fathers of social constructivism (Esmark et al 2009, 16). Since we have chosen Esmark et al
as the basis of the thesis’ social constructivist approach we wish to outline the perspective in their
text. They present an analytic perspective on social constructivism where the purpose is to show
what the implications of the scientific perspective of social constructivism have on empirical data
and the role of theory. Within social constructivism the choice of theory is the guide for the analysis
as it is the view a researcher takes upon an analysis and concepts from the theory are guiding the
analysis (Ibid, 8-9). The same theoretical concepts are concepts about social reality and can help
26
understand how it is constructed (Ibid, 11). Hence these implications will also be discussed related
to our investigation in the following section.
Social constructivism is based on the perception that there is no objective truth to be studied. Rather
the objects of study derive from the social relations and are products of human perception of reality
(Kjørup 2008). True knowledge is a social phenomenon or in other words the social is the
foundation of knowledge and realisation (Esmark et al 2009, 11). The role of social constructivism
opposite phenomenology in that the purpose is not to understand or explain, but rather to break with
essentialism and the idea that there is a truth to be found and instead explain knowledge as a
socially constructed truth (Ibid, 13).
With this understanding of social constructivism in mind, we wish to make clear that we perceive
the field of study, Urban Academy, as a social construction. The classroom observations, the
interviews, as well as the statements and experiences shared with the other interviewees in the focus
group interviews are all seen as social constructions in the social processes of the interview. In these
contexts meaning is constantly negotiated as well as the practices are perceived to be reproduced.
As researchers we are constructing the social situation in the focus group interview in order to
investigate it (Ibid, 12). The focus group and observation method are both appropriate to use for
understanding and interpreting social relations and constructions. According to Halkier the focus
group interview is useful when producing empirical data that has to do with meaning constructions
in groups (Halkier 2009, 9). Focus groups are in addition good at producing data about people's
different interpretations and actions in social interactions (Ibid, 14). The purpose of the focus group
interview is to make the participants talk freely about their experiences and perceptions of the
teaching practice and the qualities of Urban Academy. With the observations in the field we can
obtain knowledge about how social life is, the relations between people, the driving forces, how
social life occurs, and how truisms arises, are maintained or changed within a social field (Hastrup
2010, 55, 56). The social relations acquired in the field work are focused on the invisible social
relations, which are reflected in actions (Ibid, 70). In our analysis we perceive the interviewees’
statements as a result of their perceptions of reality and combined with observations in the field
focusing on their actions, we will perceive their statements and experiences, not as objective truths,
but as how they are constructed as a social reality.
Our choice of theory has roots in the social constructivist theory. In the practice theoretical
approach practices are meaning-making, identity forming and order-producing activities (Nicolini
2013, 7). Moreover, there is an interest in people and in their life world. In the practice theoretical
27
perspective society and structures in society are perceived as a social construction that is embedded
in practices and constituted in social relations. In Practice Theory, the analytic focus is on bodily
activity, tacit knowledge, norms and bodily-embedded rules. The same applies to some fields of
sociology (Esmark et al 2009, 24). The focus is to illustrate how apparent commonalities are
actually socially constructed; they seem like commonalities, because they are shared by the
members in the society or community where they appear (Ibid, 25). The same focus is in evidence
within the practice theoretical approach. In order to understand what comprises practices we need to
understand social structures. Following this in an analysis, within the social constructivist theory the
focus is to uncover and identify meaning between relations (Ibid, 19). The same goes for a practice
theoretical approach. Reality and knowledge is neither objective nor subjective, but instead social
(Ibid, 17). That means that objectivity and subjectivity cannot have meaning alone, but rather they
are all a part of relations. These relations give meaning to the objects or the subjects and that is the
basis of social reality (Ibid). The construction part of social constructivism is when the subjects
together or the subjects with objects connect and create meaning through relations.
It is important to note that we as researchers are included in the classroom, and in the interviews we
are active co-producers of the empirical data (Halkier 2009, 38). From a social constructivist
perception even the applied theory and concepts can be viewed as a social construction and this
have implications for the researcher's role; we are both constructing the research and results
(Esmark et al 2009, 26) (cf. section on ethics). Hence as researchers, we must be constantly aware
of the perspective and concepts we use in our investigation and how this affects the investigation,
analysis, discussion and conclusions.
Choice of theory In this section, we will briefly describe our reflections behind the choices as well as what have been
opted-out of the theoretical framework, which is applied in the thesis. The account of the practices
within Urban Academy is enabled by applying a practice theoretical perspective to our empirical
data collection. The applied theoretical framework of the present thesis is practice theory and will
be presented later in the thesis.
The theory chapter builds on an extract of our project Cultural Understandings in Persona
Development, written as a part of our 8th semester. We found it applicable in the present thesis, as it
gave us a possibility to further work with our practice theory knowledge to gain a deeper
understanding of the theoretical perspective. This has been achievable by including additional
28
literature from social theorists Andreas Reckwitz (2002), Theodore Schatzki (2000), Davide
Nicolini (2013), Iben Jensen (2012), and Alan Warde (2005). The understanding of practice theory
takes its point of departure in Andreas Reckwitz, professor in sociology, and his article Toward a
Theory of Social Practices – A Development in Culturalist Theorizing and Professor in Philosophy
Theodore Schatzki’s introduction in Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, which work out the
main characteristics of practice theory. Furthermore, this section is inspired by Davide Nicolini,
professor of Organisation Studies, and the introduction from his book Practice Theory, work, and
Organization, professor Iben Jensen’s Kommunikation og Praksisteori and Professor in Sociology
Alan Warde and his article Consumption and the Theory of Practice.
The advantage of applying a practice theoretical perspective in correlation with our knowledge
interests is that the theoretical assumptions regarding social practices are open and multi-relational.
Each aspect of a practice forms an equal and mutual part of other practices, and this promotes a
nuanced methodology to be able to analyse a complex social phenomenon such as the classroom
practices at Urban Academy as well as the practices within the social organisation. Applying the
practice theory as a framework in our case, allows us to investigate everyday-performances and at
the same time it permits us to work within a social constructivist perspective (Halkier 2009, 25).
The broad scope of the theory, however naturally also has some limitations such as profundity apart
from identifying and explaining the practices in question. Consequently, practice theory can be
viewed as an isolated dimension, which is why we have chosen to include a specific focus on the
concept of engagement as a focal point of the discussion to be able to discuss how Urban
Academy’s practices can be perceived as creating retention. Moreover, we will include a focus on
learning theories in the discussion chapter, more specifically Olga Dysthe (1993) inspired by
Mikhail Bakhtin (1981), John Dewey (2012), Jack Mezirow (2012), and Etienne Wenger (2012)2.
The inclusion of these learning theories together with the concept of engagement is helpful in
creating an understanding of the practices we are investigating in relation to retention.
Social theorists agree that there is no ‘unified’ practice theory (Nicolini 2010; Reckwitz 2002;
Schatzki 2000) therefore we have chosen to include several theorists to illustrate the most important
points of practice theory for this thesis. Reckwitz is applied because of his meta-view approach.
Reckwitz presents an ideal type of practice theory, based on the larger theoretical perspectives and
confronts this with other types of cultural theory. He presents practice theory as being a subtype of
2 Since these theorists are not the main focus of the analysis we have chosen to make extracts of their theories. These
are appended in the appendix (cf. appendix 36-39)
29
cultural theory and explains where it as a theory of social practices elementary differs from other
cultural theories, namely in where the social is located (Reckwitz 2002, 246). In the perspective of
Reckwitz practice theory is included in the field of cultural theories, as it counts as a social theory.
Its purpose is to explain or understand action and social order, but in an analysis situation practice
theorists seek to explain the social by investigating the single action or normative structures (Ibid).
In this connection this thesis pursues with the same perception of practice theory as a type of
cultural theory. Thus, we wish to demarcate from other understandings of the concept of culture as
part of the analysis. Nicolini is supplementing our understanding of practice theory and helps
understanding how practice theory can be applied. Schatzki is included as his approach to practice
theory serves more as a toolkit approach with certain ‘structures’ to work with when analysing
practices and to be able to define the focus of the type of practices that we wish to examine.
Furthermore, we find this toolkit advantageous in identifying the practices and the understandings,
rules and structures that comprises them, in our investigation of the social practices. Iben Jensen
and Alan Warde sum up these terms and help by giving a more profound understanding of practice
theory.
This selection does however not leave out the possibility to have involved other social theorists and
early practice theoreticians such as Pierre Bourdieu. A perspective that could have contributed with
a more power oriented focus and what this could imply for a relational perspective within the school
environment. This perspective could have given us a more specific analytic approach because of
Bourdieu’s terminology and theoretical conceptualisations (e.g. habitus, fields and social capital).
However, Bourdieu’s approach seems more focused on the relationship between habitus and capital
(Warde 2005, 136), which is one of the reasons for demarcating Bourdieu as the theoretical
framework.
Since we are interested in identifying the practices within the social organisation and the classroom
instructions we find the abovementioned composite of theorists to serve as an adequate base to
reach an understanding of these practices. Moreover, to be able to discuss which possible impacts
the practices have on the successful retention of the students at Urban Academy. In addition, the
practice theoretical perspective provides a focus on the performativity of social practices. These
performances presuppose practices, consisting of understandings of practical doings and sayings,
regulated through in- and explicit rules and principles and teleoaffective structures such as beliefs
and emotions that are attached to the practice (Schatzki 1996 in Warde 2005, 134). Hence, by
looking at performativity we are looking at social acts and how these are being performed and
30
implemented within our case. By applying the practice theoretical framework to our empirical data
we can come closer a comprehension of the shared understandings within the practices at Urban
Academy, which alongside with the involvement of a theoretical learning perspective allows us to
discuss the possible reasons for the successful retention of the students at the New York based high
school. The theoretical frame used in the analysis will be presented in the theory section later in the
thesis.
The focus group interview The following chapter is inspired by Bente Halkier’s book Fokusgrupper from 2009. We have
chosen to use this book as the basis of the methodological reflections considering the focus group
interview as it gives a good and descriptive overview of this approach and Halkier uses the focus
group interview in a practice theoretical context. In the focus group interviews with teachers and
students respectively, we wished to examine how the participants experience being a student at
Urban Academy. In this context, it was interesting for us to be open in the interviews and follow up
on new ideas or perspectives that arise, some of which we might not have considered in the
interview guide. That meant it was the participants’ experiences and their statements regarding the
classroom practices and the practices within the social organisation that are central in interview
situations.
In a focus group interview each individual informant can be perceived as a case or the group as a
whole can be perceived as a case (Halkier 2009, 27). In this investigation we have chosen the latter
option, given that according to our knowledge interest, we wished to examine the practices at Urban
Academy. The practices are created and maintained in groups and it is these interpretations in the
social interaction bodily as well as verbal we wished to analyse (Ibid, 29). According to the practice
theoretical perspective the social experiences of people are enacted and used like truisms and are
activated when people interpret or act in everyday social situations (Ibid, 10). The possibility is that
these tacit and taken for granted interpretations and actions can be expressed and made explicit
between the members in the focus group interviews. The data created in the interviews can tell us
how different social processes lead to certain interpretations, interactions and norms in the social
groups of some students and teachers (Ibid, 10, 13).
Social control A focus group consists of participants, among who different dominance-relations can already be
established. This together with social control can mean that some members’ opinions do not have
31
equal validity in the group. In addition, some of the individual participants could feel limited or
limit their explanations in the conversation. Because the group has a past and future together some
things might be left unsaid and there can be internal understandings that will not be expressed
(Halkier 2009, 30). We experienced some of this social control as the students in both interviews
were students from different grades and with different backgrounds. A few of the students were not
transfer students, but had entered Urban Academy from 8th grade at another school. In the
interview situations the older students, who had been at Urban Academy the longest, would also be
expressing the most, whereas the younger more inexperienced students would not participate as
much. We tried to create a safe space for these students to participate by asking if anyone would
like to add anything to what had just been said or sometimes asking the more silent students more
directly if they would like to share their experience of the subject.
On the other hand we also experienced it as an advantage that the participants knew each other. At
times they seemed to feel safe engaging in the conversation and they supplemented and elaborated
each other’s perspectives because they know each other and have common experiences (Ibid, 13,
30). To sum up, with the focus group interview we produced data, which was complex according to
the social interactions where the group could ask questions and unfold perspectives drawn on the
other group members’ experiences and knowledge. The weakness on the other hand was that the
interaction at times became polarising as an effect of group tendencies. Both in the interview
situation as moderator and in the analysis we were aware of these relations and had to take them
into consideration (Ibid, 14).
Location As Halkier notes the location of the interviews affect the data production. We did not choose the
location for the interviews because we were visitors at the school and wanted to take as little time
from the students and teachers as possible. The interviews took place in the classrooms. This
location had already been chosen by the principal. However, as a recognisable setting for the
participants it could be perceived as a good location. Halkier suggests that as an advantage in
choosing a location related to the theme of the investigation because the participants can recognise
the context and the social interactions in the context (Ibid, 37). A disadvantage of the location was
that the students might have recognised the classroom setting as a teaching context. This could give
sense to how they would discuss the interview questions, expressing their opinions, and not always
necessarily talking to each other about the subjects we were asking about.
32
Participants It is important to choose the participants in order to accommodate the problem field in the best
possible way (Ibid, 27). In our case it meant the representation of students a mix of students some of
which are former dropouts from other high schools. This is an important point in order to generalise
the results of the investigation analytically. Another factor to be aware of is diversity so different
voices can be heard. In relation to the teachers, it is not so important what they represent precisely,
but ideally it was an equal distribution of male, female, old, and new teachers. However, we were
dependent on the help of Urban Academy and their goodwill and, hence, the access to choose the
informants exactly how we wanted was not possible. The principal chose the interviewees and in
the interviews with students it was an appropriate mix of students according to grades, gender and
former dropouts. In the interview with teachers our requirements could not be met (cf. presentation
of empirical data).
It is important that the informants have shared experiences and perceptions that they can interact
about. In our investigation the focus groups are what Halkier calls ‘network groups’ (Ibid, 30). In
these network groups the participants know each other and share a common school/work life, which
at the same time is a network, related to the theme of the investigation (Ibid, 29). The network
groups are, furthermore, important in relation to the practice theoretical perspective where the
socially recognisable situations are important (Ibid, 31).
Halkier recommends choosing the size of the group according to different factors. She points out
that successful focus group interviews can be of 4 as well as 12 people depending on the research
interest. There are pros and cons of both small and big groups. Yet, Halkier suggests that for an
analysis on the content of the interactions and not the interactions themselves, like our knowledge
interest, it would be better with a bigger group of people. The challenge with bigger groups is that it
may be necessary with more involvement from the moderator (Ibid, 34). We tried to affect the size
of the groups by expressing a wish for as many participants as possible, but the principal made the
final decision. Hence, we were appointed with 5 and 7 students respectively and 3 teachers. In the
interviews with the students we found the number of participants to be appropriate as it allowed us
to maintain the overview and the social interaction was sufficient for the data production. In the
case of the teachers we were not appointed as many participants as we hope, which made it difficult
to conduct a focus group interview.
33
The moderator Our role in the focus group interview was to be the moderator. Based on Halkier’s
recommendations we chose to complement each other as moderators with one of us being the main
moderator (Ibid, 38). The role as moderator was to make the participants have a dialogue and, at the
same time, control the social dynamics among them. We also had to enable the social interaction in
the group, but without controlling it (Ibid, 49). The moderator is withdrawn and listening so the
social interaction between the participants can be unfolded. However, at the same time the
moderator needs to make sure the participants keep the conversation to subjects that are relevant for
our problem field. It is a balance between empathy and distance (Ibid, 48).
Halkier emphasise that it is important to ask the participants to elaborate on the ‘taking for granted’
and truisms especially related to practice theory (Ibid, 48). However, one of the limitations of the
focus group interviews was the fact that we were given 45 minutes of the lunch break to conduct the
interviews. Ideally, we had hoped to have 2 hours in order to make a proper introduction and outro
– the debriefing asking the participants the interview was, for their experience but also for the
validity of the interview (Ibid, 62). More time would also have given us better options to unfold the
students’ statements to delve deeper into what was being said, instead of having to go more slavish
through the questions in our guide, making sure that we would end up with answers to all of our
questions. This could also have affected our roles as moderators, as the time limit can have
influenced our reflections of improvising during the interviews as our focus to a certain extent have
been keeping up with the allotted time we were given. To avoid a ‘leader-role’ we chose to sit with
the participants so we do not sit in one end of the table (Ibid, 61). This worked successfully in the
interviews. However, the participants would still to a great extend respond to us as moderators
instead of talking together. Nevertheless, we were capable of facilitating the conversation to a
certain extend as they would also respond to each others’ statements and express their experiences
in regard to what was being said. Based on Halkier’s recommendations we were answering
participants’ statements with neutral confirmation and nod with head and not with for instance ‘yes’
(Ibid, 61).
Structuring the interview There are different ways to structure a focus group interview with different approaches where some
are more loose and some more tight. We chose a mix, which Halkier calls ‘the funnel model’ (Ibid,
40). This approach allowed us to explorative towards the participants’ experiences and perceptions.
In the beginning of the interview, the questions were more open to invite the participants to share
34
their own experiences from Urban Academy and have them engage in a loose social interaction
about the shared practices. Whereas the final questions were more specific to make sure we covered
our knowledge interests (Ibid, 41).
Completing the focus group interview As Halkier states we can prepare for the interviews by planning, practicing, reading etc., but we also
need to be ready to improvise and follow up on the perspectives of the group interactions (Ibid, 47).
Throughout the interview we had Halkier’s notion of the importance of creating a safe space for the
group in mind (Ibid, 51). The safe space is created through structure in the interview, and by giving
the participants an overview of the structure of the interview. Due to the short amount of time we
were given for the interviews we had to go over the introduction faster than planned. This could
have affected the creation of the safe space. Additionally, we gave an introduction to the process,
elaborated on what the interview would be used for as well as the results of the final thesis. We
informed the participants that the interview was recorded, but that only we, censor and examinator
would see the transcripts (Ibid, 51, 63). We chose to make it visible that we wish to investigate
Urban Academy as a good case to understand how to retain students. In the introduction of the
interview, we made our roles as moderators clear and told the participants that we were there to
learn from them (Ibid, 53). From the start we told the participants what a focus group interview is
and that we were interested in their experiences and interactions (Ibid, 52-53). Despite the fact that
we did the introduction the participants’ did not seem to completely understand of the structure of a
focus group interviews. The students were not familiar with this type of interview and they would
answer questions with long individual talks and at times only address their answer to the moderator.
Moreover, this could be due to the challenge of facilitating the conversation in another language.
Perhaps we have taken for granted that the words we used to describe the purpose and form of the
interview with were not ideal for the participants to understand as they have not been part of the
theoretical background knowledge concerning focus group interviews. However, the focus group
interviews supplemented with the observations gave us an appropriate and useful amount of
empirical data (cf. chapter on combination of focus group interview and observations).
Media We used a recorder in the focus group interviews. We asked the interviewees to present themselves
with name, age, and how many years they had been students/teachers at Urban Academy. This is
35
recommended by Halkier as an easy way to identify the participants later in the recordings (Ibid,
55).
Interview guide The aim of the interview guide is to start the social interaction broadly and let the participants talk
freely about the practices at Urban Academy and ending with more specific questions (Ibid, 41).
Especially the first question was intended to be open and ‘easy’ in order to get all participants to
contribute from the beginning (Ibid, 58). Halkier calls these questions ‘start-questions’ (Ibid, 57). A
good way to get the participants to interact is to ask contrasting questions based on differences and
oppositions (Ibid, 41) or to use scenarios or hypothetical situations, where the participants have to
contribute with their opinions on best practice or what they would do in the situations (Ibid, 44). It
was a challenge for us to ask questions about specific examples of their doings in practices because
in our case we were observing the school life as well as classes simultaneously with conducting the
interviews. However, we could have used scenarios to make them talk about doings to a higher
extend than they did. The presentation of the interview was inspired by Halkier (Ibid, 54) (cf.
appendix 1).
Questionnaire
To gain insights into the students socio-economic and past school backgrounds we chose to hand
out a small questionnaire in connection with the interview where we asked about what school they
went to before, why they chose Urban Academy, and questions regarding their parents; their
educational background and if they lived with both of them (appendix 3). In the presentation of the
interviewees (cf. presentation of empirical data) we have included the description of each of the
interviewees that participated.
Combination of focus group interview and
participating observations According to Halkier there is a movement in social constructivist methodology towards making the
division between interview data and observation data more blurry. This is in opposition to the
traditional perception where the latter kind of data are seen as events or actions and the first as
stories about events and actions. The nuanced constructivist understanding of the data is that both
types are expressions of social action or enactment (Halkier 2009, 26). In combination with our
practice theoretical approach, we understand our data as representations of enactments of the
36
practices at Urban Academy even from the focus group interview because the interviewees perform
together in a group of people from their social context. Furthermore, we combined observations
with focus group interviews in order to follow up on the findings of both. In the observations we
might interpret certain social phenomena and in combination with the informants’ understandings
from the interviews we aim to use a ‘double vision’ through which the statements of interviewees
are interpreted (Ibid, 19). It is important to note that all the statements made by individuals are
representations of their personal views and perspectives in a certain time and space and not
necessarily a representation of the general organisation of Urban Academy. Whereas more
statements from the interviews pointing to the same experiences in combination with our classroom
observations can be generalised into a bigger understanding of the practices as a whole combined
with the theoretical perspective of practice theory. When we combined the two methodologies, we
were also able to examine both what they say and do and thereby get closer an understanding of the
practices which consists of both doings and sayings. The knowledge and interpretations we attained
in the analysis will be related to these practices and with the observations, we wish to understand
what is between the words in the interviews, other than just spoken representations from the
interviewees (Hastrup 2010, 66, 67). The focus group interview enables easy access to people's’
interpretations in a focused way but the risk is to miss some interesting points that could only show
by being present in the social context (Halkier 2009, 15). For these reasons, we combined the focus
group interviews with classroom observations. It was necessary for us to use the two methods
equivalent because the data collection took place almost simultaneously within the same five days.
This is however a legitimate way to use the two methods. The empirical data from both have equal
importance in the analysis.
Observations In the method of field work the analytic focus is partly on the informal conversations in the field
(Tanggaard and Brinkmann 2010, 35). We decided to use the informal conversations with staff and
students at Urban Academy during our visit to generate data. Furthermore, the observations made in
the classroom situations and on the school will be used in the analysis. Hence, we wish to impose
some reflections concerning this method in the following.
Our methodological perspective on observation is based on Søren Kristiansen and Hanne Katrine
Krogstrup’s book Deltagende Observation and Kirsten Hastrup’s chapter: Feltarbejde in Kvalitative
metoder. The first book is applied as the foundation as it gives a good overview of the theoretical as
37
well as practical aspects of completing using observations as a method. Hastrup is quoted in this
book as well. Hastrup offers an anthropological, interactive and social constructivist perspective on
observations in the field and book uses a phenomenological focus. However the observation method
in this thesis is applied in a social constructivist perspective. With the combination of these texts we
gained a good understanding of the observation method and in the following chapter it is outlined
how we used this method in our empirical data production.
Observations are in a broader sense also referred to as fieldwork – as they are carried out in the
field. According to Hastrup there is no specific recipe for the method of fieldwork. The importance
is to engage in the field and be aware of the social systems wherever the fieldwork takes place
(Hastrup 2010, 59). Kristiansen and Krogstrup distinguish observations studies in two categories
on the basis of Bayleys 1994: laboratory experiments and observation in natural surroundings. In
addition, each of these can be either structured or unstructured (Kristiansen and Krogstrup 2015,
47). In our case, we used the observation in the natural surroundings meaning the observations took
place in normal classroom situations for students and teachers. The degree of structure was looser as
we were open and explorative to study the practices according to our knowledge interest.
Furthermore, Kristiansen and Krogstrup distinguish between observation with participation and
without. We conducted observations with participation related to the social constructivist theory of
science, which prescribes that the researcher interacts with the field. The authors further divide
participation into total and partial where we made use of the last, which meant that we only
participated in the field in a limited time and in a specific social context – the classroom situation
and at the school location (Ibid, 52, 54).
Conducting observations The unstructured observation entails participation in the field because we as researchers have to be
in the field in a specific period in order to gather the empirical data about the social context (Ibid,
54). We observed three days in the school of Urban Academy and were present and known as
researchers, but in the classroom observations we were more in the background and for that reason
the participation was more partial than total. We had some presumptions about the field and the
social practices in advance from the literature, the school’s webpage, videos and book material from
the school and hence we had an idea of what to look for in the observations. However, we were
open and explorative in our observation approach in order to see new perspectives. Kristiansen and
Krogstrup impose some steps in the observation study, but emphasise that the research is an
38
ongoing process and the steps are not necessarily linear as the reality is ongoing and complex and
so are the social relations in the field (Ibid, 125). Nevertheless, Kristiansen and Krogstrup
recommend some steps in the research of which we here reflect upon (Ibid, 126-130). The first step
concerned the selection of the participants. As mentioned the principal of the Urban Academy
already chose these participants. However, they were all actors in the field and interesting for our
knowledge interest. Our access to the field was also dependent on the principal of the school. He
was what Burgess (Ibid, 133, 135) characterises as a gatekeeper. It is noted how it is important to
stay on good terms with them as they are the main source for achieving access and block access and
furthermore are a source of important knowledge. He gave us the possibility to visit two days and
even though we would have wished for more observations or interviews this was the possibility we
were given and hence the data production we had to work with. However, during our visit the
principal gave us the possibility to visit the school an extra day. We tried to accommodate being
aware of appearance in the field and acting polite and appropriate according to the field in order to
keep the relations and work in the field sustainable (Ibid, 130, 135, 136). Even though we only had
three days in the field, it was not solely a disadvantage. Kristiansen and Krogstrup state that it is
possible to make scientific analyses even based on short observation as long as they are focussed,
sensible to events in the field and intense and involved (Ibid, 145). In our case study, the short
amount of time was the option we had to work with and, hence, we had to make a very focussed and
precise investigation.
Researcher position In the observation research, the emphasis is as in the focus group interview on the researcher’s
effect on the field. The critique is that the researcher can never stay completely distanced and
‘objective’ to the field and the persons in the field. According to social constructivism this is,
nevertheless, not an option. Additionally, the researcher must engage in the field in order to reach
an understanding of the social practices. Hence, the subjective position can be used in a constructive
manner and can be seen as important for the data collection as long as we are aware of our position
throughout the data production and in the analysis (Ibid, 89). Kristiansen and Krogstrup suggest an
approach as researcher like the one in the focus group interview with a combination of distance and
closeness to the field (Ibid, 110). It was our experience that we attained a good balance in the
relation to the participants. We engaged in conversations with them to an extent where they would
share sufficient information with us. Furthermore, the participant did not seem to be affected
negatively by our presence in the field. In the classroom they did not pay much attention to us and
39
when we addressed them they answered our questions willingly (cf. appendix 29). The observations
are usually done in a field where researchers, as us, do not have a relation or connection in advance.
However, some contextual, cultural or societal broad understandings can be established in advance
(Ibid, 69). In our case, we had existing knowledge both about the Urban Academy as a high school
and the practices before the visit. Yet, we had no relations or familiarity with the people in the field
beforehand and neither established perspectives concerning the specific practices at Urban
Academy.
Observation guide As with the interview guide for the focus group interviews, we were open to other perspectives than
the ones we are looking for more specifically. This means we had some points of focus when
making the observation notes. However, at the same time we were open to new perspectives and
experiences regarding the practices that could possibly create retention. Kristiansen and Krogstrup
recommend seeing everything in the field in the sense that not only language is of importance (Ibid,
145). As it appears from the observation guide our focus was on the physical environment who
were present in the classroom and which materials they were using. We also observed the
interaction between the agents in the classroom as well as in our observations of the more informal
relations during the school day. Our practice theoretical framework inspires the observation guide
(cf. appendix 2).
Observation notes According to Hanne Warming (Ibid, 55) the observations and notes are complex, confusing and at
times chaotic. In addition, as well as Hastrup she recommends not using step by step manuals, but
instead to use the complexity to be creative in the understandings and interpretations. Thus in the
field notes the focus has been on the physical as well as the verbal expressions of the practices at
Urban Academy. Hastrup emphasises that it is not a necessity to write all the experiences down. It
is rather more important to be present in the field (Hastrup 2010, 68). However, the field notes are
still important to write down after to remember the experiences in the field (Ibid, 69). As
recommended we wrote down the field notes on a computer as fast as possible after the events,
noted as many things as possible, and took the time in making the field notes in order to be
thorough in the resumes after (Kristiansen and Krogstrup 2015, 147). The field notes includes
personal interpretations and impressions from the field, and what happened, when, where and
between whom (cf. appendix 8-30).
40
Pilot study Based on Halkier's recommendations (Halkier 2009, 48) we conducted a pilot study on the Danish
HTX gymnasium H.C. Ørsted in Ballerup. We did this for two reasons. Firstly, we wanted to
rehearse the actual craft of the observations and interview to develop our own skills and behaviour
in the situations. Secondly, we wanted to test our specific interview guide and the questions in a
authentic high school setting. In advance, we had created an interview guide and a sketch of an
observation guide. In the pilot study we spent a full day at the school following one teacher in his
classes. The first class was a 3.g Biotechnology class in the laboratory and after the class we
interviewed five of the students. The second class was a 2.g class where we interviewed six students
first and then observed their chemistry class in the lab. The last class was a 1.g class where we
made observations in the classroom for a biology lesson, afterwards practical work in the lab, and at
last we interviewed five students from this class.
The pilot study was very helpful for us for two reasons. First of all to test what kind of questions
and which observation strategies worked with high school students, and secondly, based on that to
be able to modify our interview as well as observation guide. Also for us to get more experience
and be more confident in the interview and observation context, how to act appropriately in order to
create a safe space, and how to explain our investigation in terms of ensuring that the participants
understood the overall purpose of their contributions. We believe this pilot study helped qualify the
actual investigation at Urban Academy to a higher extend.
Ethical reflections We wish to impose some reflections on acquiring very personal knowledge from the participants as
we can get very close to the people in the field. Furthermore, it includes reflections considering the
line between friendship and science (Kristiansen and Krogstrup 2015, 114-116)
Qualitative research often concerns the personal lives of the participants as well as it places
personal utterances in the public arena, this makes it a value-laden activity, which requires taking
into account ethical dilemmas and being aware of the ethical perspective in the research process
(Brinkmann 2010, 429-430). In our case study, this means that we should have the ethical
guidelines in mind in the whole research process, and include these in the interview guide.
However, we also need to take into account that other ethical dilemmas can occur in the actual
interview situation as well as in the investigation of the field as a whole.
41
Ethical dilemmas According to Putnam (2002) it is not possible to be value impartial without already presupposing
certain values. This existence of diverse values gives rise to ethical dilemmas (Ibid, 434). These
dilemmas occur when two values or more cannot be actualised at the same time for example
complying with both the informant’s interests as well as our own commitments as researchers in an
interview situation. These dilemmas give rise to a complexity within qualitative research that makes
it a challenge to codify ethical practice into a number of general ethical rules. This means that no
matter how much agreement there can be concerning a determination of a certain ethical rule,
certain situations might result in the researcher having to break the ethical rule, because there is an
inevitable element of situated human judgement in the use of rules (Ibid, 435). This made it
important for us to continually keep track of the situation both in the interview as well as when
doing observations in the classroom and in our more informal relations seeking information in the
school’s everyday life. Brinkmann (2010) has summed up four important rules of thumb that should
work as ethical dimensions to take into account during a research process. These are not meant as
unequivocal solutions but merely to serve as guidelines. They include informed consent implying
that the research participants know what they participating in; confidentiality concerning the
anonymity of the participants; consequences in regard to the micro and macro ethical issues; and the
ethical role of the researcher (Ibid, 443-445).
Rules of thumb The concrete ethical issues within research can be divided into two types - the micro and the macro
issues. The micro ethical issues concern taking care of the people who are at first part of the
research. These concern the interviewees in the field work - in our case the students and teachers at
Urban Academy. These micro ethical issues can be complied with by obtaining the participants
informed consent, ensuring confidentiality and anonymity, and making sure that none of the
participants suffer from any harm by participating in the research project (Ibid, 439). In connection
with the interviews we have tried to accommodate these issues by informing the participants about
the contents of the interview as well as explaining our purpose with gathering their experiences.
Furthermore, we have chosen to refer to the participants by giving the participants synonyms to
ensure their anonymity in the thesis making sure that none of them will be recognised. We are
however aware that the process of selecting the interview participants was out of our hands, and
therefore it was not possible to deal with the initial contact with the informants ourselves explaining
the aim of our thesis. However, we made sure that the informants were fully aware of what their
42
utterances would be used for when we presented ourselves and our project in the interview
situation.
The macro ethical issue concerns the findings of the research project’s implications on a societal
level. Whose interest does the research project serve and who benefits and who does not if the
results of the project are published (Ibid, 439). According to Parker (2005) it is not enough to take
the micro ethical issues into account, as the findings of the project also have implications on bigger
socio-political power relations, a perspective that should also be taken ethically into account (Ibid,
439). According to Fog (2004), researchers always have an ethical responsibility in the direct
relation to the participants, meaning that in the case of a conflict the micro ethical issues should
outdo the macro ethical consideration (Ibid, 440). As clarified in the state of the art section, the
dropout problematic is an issue that has been investigated critically and thoroughly within the last
decades, which has resulted in many published findings. We are aware that the findings of this
project can influence the reputation of Urban Academy as well as other alternative high schools
dealing with dropout students. However, since we are investigating the school as a successful case it
is our perception that the findings should not have negative consequences for Urban Academy’s
name.
The ethical role of the researcher When gathering the data for the project it is important that we as researchers are aware if we
contribute to arrange changes in the self-understanding of the participants that they are not
interested in. Another perspective to be aware of is the relation between the researcher and the
participant and making sure that it does not become a therapeutic relation where the researcher is
helping the participant, but instead the participant actually helping the researcher (Ibid, 441). Given
that if the relation turns into a partnership it can be difficult for the participant to say no to
additional participation in a project or generally to express their disapproval if there is something
they do not want to talk about. On the other hand, we as researchers should be careful that the
participants do not feel like pure research objects feeling that they just have to provide inputs
without having anything in return. It is therefore a delicate balance to fill the role as researchers.
The challenge was complied with by presenting the interview guide and the research questions, as
this could help the participants decide for themselves how much they wanted to share (Ibid, 441).
As we have chosen to conduct focus group interviews it means that the focus will mainly be on the
group conversation, which minimises the participants’ relation to us as moderators as our main
43
purpose is to fill out the role of the facilitator. This could be a factor minimising the challenge with
avoiding the relation between the moderator and the participant not becoming therapeutic.
Furthermore, the issue with the interview turning into a more therapeutic relation is more
conceivable in interviews dealing with subjects of more delicate matters. This was not the case
since the main objective of our empirical collections was not to investigate in detail why the
students have dropped out from other high schools or go into depth with the possible personal
reasons.
44
Presentation of empirical data After having presented our methodological reflections in the above we wish to present the empirical
data that we generated in our investigation at Urban Academy. First the focus group interviews with
the students will be presented, then the focus group interview with the teachers and the interview
with principal. Afterwards the observations and Urban Academy material are presented.
Interviews
The first focus group interview The first focus group interview was conducted with five students named Zara, Jim, Kendra, Magnus
and Jerome. The purpose of the interview was to gain insights into their experiences of being
students at Urban Academy and their experiences of the learning and support in the environment.
The interview was conducted at Urban Academy during the students’ lunch break in a classroom on
our first day of the visit (cf. appendix 4).
Participants It should be noted that all participants’ names have been anonymised as this was a part of our
agreement as also shown in the interview guide and described in methodological reflections.
Zara: 15 years old and in 10th
grade, did not attend other high schools before. She chose Urban
Academy from recommendations to her and her family, and she visited and liked it very much. Her
father is an investment banker/neuroscientist and her mother is a teacher/fashion designer. Zara
lives in midtown with her father during the week and in the village with her mother on weekends.
Jim: 18 years old and in 12th
grade. Jim went to a public high school in 9th
grade, was then home
schooled and at last came to Urban Academy. He chose Urban Academy based on
recommendations from a friend who went there, and Jim decided to take a tour. His parents both
graduated from college, and he lives with both of them in Manhattan.
Kendra: 16 years old and in 12th
grade. Went to Murry Bergholm high school, but was not learning
well in her old school and wanted to graduate, so she chose Urban Academy. Her mom’s
educational background is a high school graduate. Kendra lives in Brooklyn with her mother and
sister.
Magnus: 17 years old and in 12th
grade. Previously he went to high school in North Carolina. He
moved to NYC from North Carolina and chose Urban Academy because he, in his own words:
45
“needed to go to a smaller school”. His parents’ educational background is Art school. Magnus
lives in Manhattan, lower East side with his grandparents.
Jerome: 14 years old and in 10th grade. He did not go to another high school before, but was
accepted at another high school called Food and Finance. However, due to being accepted at Urban
Academy he decided not to go. As an answer to why he chose Urban Academy he says: “I don’t
know it was a hard decision, but I chose Urban because of how it’s a small school and I could get
more help here”. His mom went to school in Peru then moved to the US for elementary school,
middle school, high school and two years of college. Jerome lives in the Bronx with his mother,
grandmother and sister.
Second focus group interview The second focus group interview was conducted with seven students named Brian, Ivory, Susi,
Kate, Nataly, Rosa and Nadia. The aim was the same as in the first focus group interview. The
interview was conducted at Urban Academy in a classroom during the participants’ lunch break the
last day of our visit.
Participants Brian: 16 years old and in grade 11. He was in New Jersey Teaneck High School before. He chose
to study at Urban Academy because when he came to visit it was a very good experience and he felt
very welcomed. His mother’s educational background is a Master’s in nursing. Brian lives with his
brother in the Bronx.
Ivory: Is a former student at Urban Academy who was visiting on one of the days we were there.
She is 19 years old and a college sophomore (second year out of four). Before Urban she went to
FDA high school. She ended up on Urban Academy because in her own words; her mother forced
her: “but it was the best pressure ever”. Her father has a bachelor in business and her mother has an
associate in early childhood education. Ivory lives on campus in Cobleskill, NY with a roommate.
Susi: 17 years old and in 12th grade. She went to another high school in the Bronx before Urban
Academy. She chose UA because she found her classes to be better and because she could chose her
classes. Her parents did not go to college. Susi lives in the Bronx with her father and sometimes she
stays with her mother.
Kate: 15 years old and in 10th grade. Before Urban Academy she went to A. Phillip Randolph. She
chose Urban Academy based on recommendations from her aunt who went there. Her mother’s
46
educational background is a GED equivalent to a high school diploma. She lives on the upper west
side of Manhattan with her mother and little brother.
Nataly: 16 years old and in 12th grade. She did not go to another high school before Urban
Academy. She chose Urban Academy because she went to middle school in the same building and
she liked the feeling of home. She does not know her parents educational background and lives with
both parents.
Rosa: 16 years old and in 11th grade. Before Urban Academy she was in the NYC school for 9th
grade. She chose Urban Academy because the classes in her words “are much more enjoying and
meaningful than the classes in her old school”. Both of her parents went to college. Rosa lives in
Park Slope, Brooklyn with her parents and brother.
Nadia: 16 years old and in 11th grade. Before Urban Academy she went to North Country School
(Boarding school in Lake Placid). In her own words Nadia had “never done well at ‘normal’ high
schools, but wanted to live at home again. Urban is the closest school to my home that isn’t
‘normal’”. Her parents are both teachers. Her mother is a kindergarten teacher and her father is a
college professor. She lives in Brooklyn with her parents.
The participants in both focus group interviews were an adequate representation of the student
population at Urban Academy in regard to ethnicity, previous high school experiences, and socio-
economic background.
Interview with teachers Our intention with the interview with the teachers was to conduct it as a focus group interview,
which unfortunately did not turn out as originally planned, as the teachers were very busy during
our time there. Therefore, it was only possible to speak with three of the teachers and their
participation almost overlapped each other, as they all had to leave after a certain time. For this
reason, it was too difficult to carry out a focus group interview, and in addition, the teachers were
very keen on giving individual speeches through the interview (cf. appendix 6). The purpose of the
interview was to obtain information about the teachers’ experiences of working at Urban Academy
as well as the teachers’ practices. The interview was conducted in three different classrooms, as we
had to move our interview because other teachers needed the room for work with students. It took
place in the lunch break the second day of our visit. The participants were all male, one was a
relatively new teacher the two other had been teachers at Urban in a considerable amount of years.
47
Interview with the principal The interview with the principal was conducted in the photography room at Urban Academy the
second day of our visit. We had not prepared a specific interview guide for this interview as it was
not planned, but offered by the principal during the visit. We did, however, have some questioned
connected to the materials we had already worked with regarding Urban Academy. The purpose of
the interview was for us to obtain more knowledge about Urban Academy such as the history, the
application process, graduation and to explore what the principal wished to highlight about the
school.
Observations One of the main purposes of our visit at Urban Academy was to observe the classes as well as the
environment. We visited the school Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday we were given the possibility
to sit in on classes during all of these days. The first day of our visit we sat down with the principal,
and he gave us a copy of the week’s schedule, where we could choose which classes we wished to
observe. However, the principal suggested, which classes that would be interesting for us to observe
in his perspective, which we in part, took into consideration, but in the end we decided on which
classes we would prefer to observe according to our knowledge interest. Yet, we only observed one
of the academic workshops and no tutorials, taking in mind his advice. Nevertheless, the content of
the workshops and tutorials could have given us more insight into the practices within in the social
organisation. Moreover, the way the schedule was structured conflicted with other classes that we
found important to observe.
To observe as much as possible we went to different classes (cf. appendix 10-30) and two together,
which were Looking for an Argument and Current Issues – classes that have received a lot of press,
as they are very characteristic classes within the school. We also observed the weekly Full Group
session, where the whole school is assembled and an important theme or person is presented to give
the students new perspectives and for them to ask questions. Furthermore, we also observed the
school environment in general, when we were there – talking to the students, the teachers and
observing the daily life at the school.
Urban Academy material During our visit we received several documents with information about Urban Academy, some of
which, we had already gained insight into through the school’s website, and other new information.
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These included schedule, Urban Academy Understandings and Rules, Urban Academy Handbook
Requirements and Graduation (cf. appendix 31-34).
Pictures While we visited Urban Academy, we also documented it by taking pictures of the physical school
environment including the staff room, classrooms, the hallway and the documents and photographs
on the walls (cf. appendix 35).
Processing empirical data
Transcription As all recommendations from the literature prescribe, the transcriptions are where the analysis
begins. Both of us have experience with this tool from previous projects and both of us worked on
transcribing the interviews. We have chosen to write down all the things being said in interviews.
This is the strategy in order to systematically create an overview over the data when we start the
analysis. However, it be noted that the transcription in only the written representation of the focus
group (Halkier 2009, 70). The observations from all situations will be systematically written down
as well and used together with the transcriptions. The strategy is to be thorough with the
transcriptions meaning that the analysis starts at this point. In that way we are able to recall the
atmosphere, body language, etc. and incorporate this in the overall analysis of the practices. We
follow Halkier’s recommendations in relation to the technical details of the transcriptions (Ibid, 71).
That is, as far as possible:
Identification of who is speaking
Laughter and other sounds such as ‘mmm’, neglecting or approving sounds
ALL the spoken even when the participants speak at the same time
Unfinished sentences and short statements such as ‘yeah’
When it is unclear what is being said a qualified guess is made and otherwise marked as
(unclear).
Write as if it is spoken language, not changing position of the words and not leaving out
‘ehm’ or other spoken terms.
Breaks
Furthermore, we use the following as signs in the transcription with inspiration from Tanggaard and
Brinkmann 2010, 45; Halkier 2009, 72) combined with our own points:
The person speaking is marked with initials. E.g. Anna: AF, Camilla: CC. The interviewees
have been given aliases and these are marked with initials as well.
Line break every time a new person speaks except when they speak at the same and there is
an overlap
49
In that case and in the case of either neglecting or approving sounds such as ‘mmm’ or
‘yeah’ we use: []
Laugh, long pause or something that disturbs the interview is marked with ()
Shorter breaks ...
For loud outbursts CAPSLOCK
If the person emphasise something it is underlined
The time is noted around every five minutes if it fits with a new person talking or a new
paragraph (in some cases more often).
Processing observation notes The notes for observations in the classrooms were written in the observation guide (cf. appendix 2)
in order to have some structure when observing and when organising the notes afterwards. The
notes themselves are written in hand on the guide in the classroom. According to Krogstrup and
Kristiansen there are three kinds of styles in terms of narrating the observations (based on Van
Maanen):
A realistic narrative: distanced third person teller who conceptualise the action and
statements in the field. The observations have the sense of a systematic and thorough story
from the field and are told without reflections and interpretations in the field (Kristiansen
and Krogstrup 20015, 160).
A professing narrative: the teller involves the reader in all reflections and the perspective of
the researcher is more specific. The narrative is present in the story and the reader can
follow the development of the change of perspective on the field as the observations develop
(Ibid, 161).
An impressionist storyteller: this style is more unstructured with spread stories from the
field without systematic. The style is like writing an essay with stories that made an
impression on the researcher. At the same time absorbing the reader in the universe of the
field (Ibid, 162)
As Kristiansen and Krogstrup explain the reporting of the observations are often a mix (Ibid, 161),
which we also found aligned with our observation style. We primarily used the first realistic
narrative to report our observations, but at the same time we used our own reflections and
interpretations in the moment as well as reporting what made impressions. Our observation notes
were processed shortly after they were written down in hand and systematically written into the
guide on the computer. In this process more reflections and impressions were added that came back
when thinking about the situations again. This was, as the transcriptions, all a part of the analytic
process.
50
Theory We have presented the empirical data and processing of empirical data in the previous chapter. The
purpose of this section is to introduce a theoretical perspective in order to examine the practices
within the classroom and social organisation, which will be framing the analysis section through a
practice theoretical view.
Overview Practice theory is perceived as a type of social theory that embraces diverse authors with common
philosophical points of reference as well as having its roots in the work of social and cultural
theorists (Reckwitz 2002, 243-244). These theorists include, among others, Pierre Bourdieu,
Anthony Giddens and Michel Foucault. They are all central theorists linked to the practice
theoretical field as they all have elements of a theory of social practices in their work even though
they are of a diverse theoretical origin. Andreas Reckwitz and Theodore Schatzki are theorists who
have elaborated on the practice theoretical foundations and built new extensions to the theoretical
practice approach (Postill 2010). Where the central theorists within the practice theoretical approach
believed that social phenomena should be explained on the basis of individual actions, the more
contemporary theorists have a different approach explaining social phenomena by means of
structures or social wholes (Postill 2010).
What are practices According to Schatzki the reason for the growing interest in practice in social theory is that
important concepts in this field can be perceived as parts of practices: “phenomena such as
knowledge, meaning, human activity, science, power, language, social institutions and human
transformation occur within and are aspects or components of the field of practices” (Schatzki
2000, 11). In the perspective of practice theorists, these concepts can only be analysed through the
field of practices since human activity or actions are embedded within practices, just as the
individuals performing these actions all form part of the practices.
Reckwitz and Nicolini state that this turn to practices can be explained with an interest in the
‘everyday’ and ‘life-world’ (Reckwitz 2002, 244). Nicolini elaborates upon the interest and
describes that the appeal of the practice-based approach can be ascribed to its capacity to describe
the important features in our world as something that is habitually made and remade in practice
51
using tools, discourse, and our bodies (Nicolini 2013, 2). In other words, practices consist of actions
that individuals habitually perform. The multitudes of actions that are performed reproduce the
practice, which mean that it is the agents within a practice that sustain the practice through the use
of things, discourses, and embodied know-how. According to Schatzki a practice can be demarcated
by looking at what comprises it. In other words, in order to talk about a practice it has to contain
understandings of the specific practice, a set of rules, norms and emotions linked to the practice.
Another important characteristic of a practice is that it has to be recognisable and form part of
normative negotiations concerning appropriate and improper performance of it (Warde 2005, 135).
Where and what to analyse In an analytical perspective, this means that the practice theoretical perspective enables an
investigation of the actions that constitute practices and an explanation and understanding of the
actions as well as a clarification of social structures. An important factor in this connection is that in
order to change existing practices, or learning from successful practices we must understand the
underlying factor of what is sustaining them.
The importance of the elements constituting a practice will be elaborated upon later on.
Reckwitz presents an ideal type of practice theory and states:
[...] Practice theory situates the social in a different realm from those
of other cultural theories. The ‘place’ of the social here is different.
Simultaneously, this means that the ‘smallest unit’ of social theory
and social analysis in practice theory is conceptualised differently
(Reckwitz 2002, 246)
Thus, Reckwitz places the social within practices and refers to the smallest unit of social analysis
being single actions or normative structures (Reckwitz 2002, 246). Nicolini also emphasises that the
basic units of analysis for understanding social and organizational phenomena are practices. He
adds that with a practice-based approach it is possible to do more than describe what people do
because practices, in fact, are meaning-making, identity-forming, and order-producing activities
(Nicolini 2013, 7). In the perspective of Schatzki, the practice approach can be demarcated to all
analyses that concern the development of accounts of practices or treating the field of practices as
the place to study nature and transformation of practices (Schatzki 2000, 11).
Schatzki states “[...]Practice theorists conceive practices as embodied, materially mediated arrays
of human activity centrally organised around shared practical understanding” (Schatzki 2000, 11)
and continues clarifying that most practice theorists, who emphasise embodiment also typically
52
consider both bodies and activities as “constituted” within practices (Schatzki 2000, 11). All
practice theorists acknowledge the dependence of activity on shared skills or understandings and
these shared skills or understandings are typically perceived as embodied. There is a disagreement
on what else is needed besides shared understandings to explain practices. Nevertheless, the
importance of practical understanding validates that “the maintenance of practices and thus the
persistence and transformation of social life, rests centrally on the successful inculcation of shared
embodied know-how” (Schatzki 2000, 12).
Practice is organised through the total nexus of interconnected human actions (Schatzki 2000, 11).
Hence practices are subject to observations, as they hold collections of rules for practitioners to
investigate (Schatzki 2000, 59-60). Reckwitz also explains how these actions, or in Schatzki’s
terms, doings and sayings, are observable to agents who are not carrying out the practices
(Reckwitz 2002, 250). In connection with the above Warde highlights the importance of
investigating both what the people concerned do and say in an analysis situation. This is important
because doings and sayings are components which form part of a ‘nexus’ - through which these
hang together and can be said to be coordinated (Warde 2005, 134).
The elements of a practice – Reckwitz In the following, we have highlighted two definitions of a practice from Reckwitz and Schatzki
respectively, as we find the elements of the definitions in a combination very useful as the point of
departure in our analysis. Therefore, the key terms are being described to further comprehend how
the practice approach and the elements that constitute it are understood in the present thesis.
Reckwitz defines a practice as
[…] a routinized way in which bodies are moved, objects are handled,
subjects are treated, things are described and the world is understood. To
say that practices are ‘social practices’ then is indeed a tautology: A practice
is social, as it is a ‘type’ of behaving and understanding that appears at
different locales and at different points of time and is carried out by
different body/minds (Reckwitz 2002, 252)
In this connection, he makes explicit the danger of trivializing practice theory in that the vocabulary
within practice theory seems relatively close to everyday-talk. Furthermore, “practice” (as verb) and
“practices” (noun, plural) sound similar, but are very different, which can lead to confusion and
makes it important for us to draw some clear distinctions (Reckwitz 2002, 249). Practice as a verb
describes human action in contrast to thinking or theory. While the noun is what Reckwitz describes
as routinised behaviour, which consists of several interconnected elements. These elements involve
53
forms of bodily activity, mental activities, things and their use, a background knowledge in the form
of understanding, know-how, states of emotions and motivational knowledge (Ibid, 249).
Bodies have a particular place in practice theory. “A practice can be understood as the regular,
skilful “performance” of (human) bodies” as Reckwitz states (Ibid, 251). Practices are bodily
movements and include acts like reading and talking. Even routinised mental and emotional
activities are to some degree bodily. Reckwitz explains that a social practice is a product of training
the body in a certain way. Given that, when people are learning a new practice, they learn how to be
bodies in a certain way - not only ‘to use’ the bodies, but learn how to perform ‘properly’ within the
specific practice (Ibid, 251). If practices are characterised as the site of the social, then routinised
bodily performances can be said to be the site of the social and of ‘social order’, meaning that
practices contribute to giving the world “its visible orderliness” (Ibid, 251).
Apart from bodily action practices also include sets of mental activities. These activities include
knowledge, how to do things, how to understand, how to feel and react, desiring something and
ways of interpreting. These mental patterns are routinised in a practice. When someone carries out a
practice, s/he must undertake both the bodily and mental patterns that constitute the specific
practice. Thus the mental patterns do not as such ‘belong’ to an individual, but are parts of the
social practice, as these are (together with the bodily activities) part of carrying out the specific
practice such as for example playing basketball (Ibid, 252).
Things or objects have influence on practices. They are necessary components in the case of many
practices as carrying out a practice often implies using specific things in certain ways. They are able
to influence, which bodily and mental activities, knowledge and understanding are elements of
practice. Therefore, they can enable or limit certain bodily and mental activities, knowledge, and
understanding within a practice. Things are primarily objects of knowledge and meaning and they
reproduce social order and practices (Ibid, 252).
Knowledge is, as described above, more than just ‘knowing that’. It includes emotions, aims,
wishes and ways of understanding the world all linked to each other within a practice. This
knowledge gives sense to behaviour. The most interesting part is that knowledge is collective, it is
shared, and it does not reside ‘inside’ a single individual. Knowledge is social, it is a stable
reproduction that goes beyond time and space and as Reckwitz puts it: “Wants and emotions thus
do not belong to individuals but - in the form of knowledge - to practices” (Ibid, 254).
Discourse is, in practice theory, much less important than in other cultural theories. Among many
practices, discursive practice is just one type of practice. Discursive practice has, just as every other
54
practice, routinised bodily and mental activities, knowledge, objects, and aims that are all linked to
each other. It is emphasised that ‘language’ only exists in its routinised use, meaning that within
discursive practices, agents attribute certain meanings to certain objects in a routinised way – to be
able to understand other objects and in order for the agents to act upon it (Ibid, 255).
Social structure consists in the practice theoretical approach of routinised actions. Institutions,
family and social fields are, thus, all seen solely to exist through repeated social practices. This also
implies that structures are inherently impermanent and cease to exist the moment the associated
practices are not engaged in any longer. Changing of structure does therefore “take place in
everyday crises of routines, in constellations of interpretative indeterminacy” (Ibid, 255).
The agent is from a practice theoretical approach seen as the carrier of practices. Agents are seen as
not completely autonomous nor completely driven by norms and roles: “They understand the world
and themselves, and use know-how and motivational knowledge, according to the particular
practice” (Reckwitz 2002, 256). Agents are carriers of many different practices that do not need to
be coordinated among the individuals within the practice. The carriage also includes pattern of
bodily behaviour, certain routinised ways of understanding, knowing how and desiring - which are
all necessary elements and qualities within the practice. However, these elements and qualities
‘belong’ or rest within a practice and are, thus, not qualities of the single individual. These doings
and sayings within the practice are not only understandable for the agents that carry them out, but
are also comprehensible to potential observers (Ibid, 250). As agents carry out many different social
practices, the individual is the intersection point of practices (Ibid, 256).
The elements of a practice – Schatzki Schatzki on the other hand defines a practice as “[…] a set of doings and sayings organised by a
pool of understandings, a set of rules and a teleoaffective structure” (Schatzki 2001 in Jensen 2012,
38). These doings and sayings should be understood as what we do and say concretely when we
conduct a practice, such as communicating or participating in a meeting. In more general terms, a
practice consists of actions, which are both bodily doings and sayings or actions that these doings
and sayings constitute. The pool of understandings in Schatzki’s definition is concrete and abstract
perceptions of the specific practice and the abilities that pertain to the actions that compose the
practice. More in detail Schatzki describes the abilities to be “the actions that compose a given
practice, consequently, are linked by the cross-referencing and interdependent know-hows that they
express concerning their performance, identification, instigation and response” (Schatzki 2000,
55
59). The rules that he describes are written and unwritten rules, which can be explicit linguistic
utterances and unspoken principles, definitions, and instructions. The unwritten rules are difficult to
identify when examining rules in an organisation, as they are often not defined, but developed
through the practice. Schatzki emphasises statute law, ‘rules of thumb’, and explicit normative
enjoining as examples of what is meant by rules. Oftentimes, people’s understandings of specific
rules are reflected through what makes sense for them to do. He explains that “...the actions
composing a practice are linked, second, through the collection of rules that they observe; more
precisely, through understandings of these rules that they express” (Schatzki 2000, 60).
The last part of the definition the teleoaffective structures are normative feelings that are linked to
different practices. Teleology means orientations toward ends and affectivity means how things
matter together. To exemplify, what makes sense for a person to do largely depends on how that
person ascribes matter and to what extent the person is prepared to act on it to achieve or possess
those matters. Hence, how that person will carry out the specific tasks to reach the ends, taking into
account this person’s beliefs, hopes, expectations, emotions and moods. That is, the practical
intelligibility is teleological and affectivity dictated (Ibid, 60). To sum up the teleoaffective
structures, or the normative feelings, are conceptions about what feelings are appropriate to display
in correlation to the tasks or objectives one has (Jensen 2012, 38-39).
Types of practices When analysing practices, drawing a distinction as to which type of practices that is the principal
focus in the analysis is useful, this is why we have chosen to include Schatzki’s distinction of two
types of practices. Schatzki distinguishes between two types of practices. 1.’Dispersed practices’
and ’integrative practices’, which are respectively isolated practices as for example ’to describe’, ’to
follow orders’ or ’to examine’, forming part of many other practices. 2. ’Integrative practices’ are
more complex and consist of several dispersed practices. The dispersed practices as for example
explaining and imagining are performances, which mainly require understanding (Ibid, 40).
The integrative practices, on the other hand, including for instance, cooking and business practices,
sometimes include, in specialised forms, dispersed practices. These are part of the saying and doing
component, enabling understanding of an integrative practice and the ability to follow the rules and
teleoaffective structures within the practice (Jensen 2012, 39). In this thesis we will focus on and
analyse the integrative practices being the classroom and social organisation, as we find them to be
of most interest and usefulness in the study concerned.
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Summarising the tools for the analysis As we have now explained the elements of a practice from the perspective of both Reckwitz and
Schatzki we wish to briefly sum up which tools or elements that will be applied in the analysis
section. We perceive the elements in Schatzki’s terminology, as elaborated on in the above, to work
more as the overall concepts from which we will account for elements that constitutes the practice.
These are; shared understandings, a set of rules and teleoaffective structure. Reckwitz’ contribution
of elements; body, mind, things, knowledge, discourse, social structure and agent will be used as
underlying comprehension of the practice. That means Reckwitz’ concepts are included in our
comprehension of the practices at Urban Academy though not used explicitly as concepts in the
analysis. Combining the two enable us to get around the elements of a practice in-depth and we
perceive these two perspectives to supplement each other in a way that allows us to explain the
practices at Urban Academy in rich detail in the analysis.
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Analysis In the previous section, the practice theoretical view has been described in order to specify the
understanding as well as the concepts that underlie the focus of our investigation. These will be
applied in our empirical assessment and in the following analysis chapter. Firstly we will present
the analysis strategy to give an overview of how we processed the empirical data in order to reach
the understandings and interpretations of the empirical data in the analysis.
Analysis strategy This section is based on Halkier’s book Fokusgrupper and Kristiansen and Krogstrup’s book
Deltagende Observation (cf. appendix 1, 2). The analysis will be guided by our existing knowledge
regarding Urban Academy as a whole and the practices investigated.
In the analysis we have chosen to have focus on both the content of the participants’ statements as
well as their interaction with each other (Halkier 2009, 69). This does not mean a classical discourse
analysis because the focus of practice theory is on more than just statements. In line with the
practice theoretical perspective both statements and interactions are understood as actions that are
more than just verbalised interchange. The goal of the analysis is, in broad terms, to make
generalisation related to our field of interest based on examples from the data. Kristiansen and
Krogstrup point out that the whole analysis is a long process working with the material and
following ideas and new realisations along the way (Kristiansen and Krogstrup 2015, 159). In the
following, we have tried to outline the process from raw data material to our analysis.
With inspiration from all of our prior knowledge about Urban Academy and retention of dropout
students, we found it interesting in the investigation to look for observations and ask the students
and teachers questions regarding the instructional approach, the teacher and staffs’ support of
students, the school environment, and more generally how Urban Academy prevents drop out.
However, as written in the chapter on the methodology we were at the same time having an open
and explorative approach to the experiences the participants want to share with us. Together with
our previous knowledge and knowledge interest, the mentioned areas of questions and observations
worked as guiding material on themes for the participants to discuss. We chose the following three
overall themes, which were guiding our investigation in the sense that they were the areas we were
investigating closer and the areas of Urban Academy we wished to understand. This was done be
able to discuss the practices an engagement and learning perspective. The three overall themes are:
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1. Instructional approach (IBL)
Typical/regular classes
Student/teacher relationship
Community service
Start of semester project (three week project)
The schedules
Tests, final exam etc.
2. Support
Mentoring/counselling
Student/teacher relationship
Small school
Academic guidance (curriculum, homework help)
3. School environment/ambient/climate
Respect
Student/teacher relationship (lack of disciplinary problems)
The first step of the analysis was to code all the data material. That meant organising the overall
text parts in themes. For example, we took a long piece of data, understood the overall theme, and
gave that part a headline. In that way the content was deduced to smaller parts to give a better
overview (Halkier 2009, 73). The next step was to categorise the codings based on the practices we
wished to investigate which where the classroom practices as well as the practices within the social
organisation. This meant that the processing of the data material was theory driven as it was based
on our practice theoretical perspective. In the categorisation the codes were viewed in relation to
each other. This entailed to see if some of them were compatible or contradictory in order to at last
create a common and abstract terminology for consistency in the analysis (Kristiansen and
Krogstrup 2015, 156, 174). In our categorising we chose to bring in our knowledge from the
practice theory on what a practice consists of in order to determine which practices were significant.
That meant that we tried to be both theoretically and empirically driven in this process (Halkier
2009, 75; Kristiansen and Krogstrup 2015, 156). At last we found out that the aforementioned three
themes were not practice theoretically compatible to use as guiding themes in the analysis. Instead,
by combining practice theory, empirical data, codes and categories we found two overall practices
to be presenting most patterns and at the same time contradictions to analyse with the concepts of
practice theory; the classroom practices and the practices within the social organisation. These will
be the practices we will use the empirical data to understand more in depth in the following
analysis.
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Part 1 – The classroom Two fields within Urban Academy will be analysed in depth in regards to the practices comprising
them. These are the classroom and the social organisation. They can be perceived as integrative
practices with smaller practices constituting them. To be able to account for the practices it is
necessary to look at what comprises it (Jensen 2012, 39). Hence, the following analysis in both
sections will, firstly, be a demarcation of the practices and then a short description of the elements
within them. Ultimately, smaller practices within both the classroom and the social organisation
will be analysed. The following section is the first part of the analysis and the focus is practices
within the classroom.
Demarcation of the practice A classroom practice is a recognisable practice within different context such as in universities and,
most commonly, in a school setting. However, a classroom context is something different in
different schools. Nevertheless, there are some elements of a classroom situation that everyone can
agree on. First, there is a schedule with the classes written, which frames the classroom. Secondly,
there is a common understanding on how to perform in the classroom, which includes some kind of
facilitator giving instructions. Thirdly, there are students receiving the instructions or in other words
being taught. In the classroom everyone in the practice can agree that the teacher is supposed to act
in a certain way in order for the students to learn something in very broad terms. Furthermore, there
should be tables and chairs and maybe other facilities available for the students and teachers to use.
We will leave further descriptions of a classroom practice in the following analysis. Let us try to get
a little closer to a demarcation of the specific classroom practice at Urban Academy that we wish to
analyse. With the terminology of Schatzki there are dispersed and integrative practices. The
classroom is an integrative practice in the sense that, as mentioned before, everyone can agree on
some elements that are recognisable and perceived as appropriate ways to perform the teaching. In
the case of Urban Academy some elements may only be performable by students and teachers from
the school but they are nevertheless recognised as practices within the classroom in that context.
Within the classroom there are smaller practices some of which are dispersed practices. These could
involve students raising their hand on questions from the teacher, or in the case of Urban Academy
just marking if you want to say something and the teacher writing down on a list whose turn it is to
speak (cf. appendix 10 and 11). Another example of a dispersed practice that could take place in
both a general classroom context and specifically at Urban Academy is ‘to write’. When for
60
instance the students take notes during classes. These are all very specific and small practices. Some
of the dispersed practices will be touched upon in the analysis but the primary focus is to analyse
integrative practices within the classroom, some of which go beyond the classroom.
Description of practices As mentioned before the classroom context at Urban Academy is a part of a more general
understanding of what classroom means. This include how to perform as a teacher and a student,
what homework is expected of the students to do, to be in classes during school hours when it is not
break time, not to speak all at once etc. At Urban Academy some of the understandings of ‘doing’
classroom might be different from a Danish gymnasium or from another US high school. Firstly we
will describe the classroom practice itself by explaining some of the important elements the practice
consists of using Reckwitz’ concepts. As already mentioned the agents in the practice are the
teacher(s) and the student(s). They are carriers of practice and these practices constitute the social in
the classroom. The shared understandings of a practice are embedded in the agents and passed on to
new members. Most of the teachers at Urban Academy have been at the school for many years. We
have seen videos regarding the inquiry approach that Urban Academy has published (Cook et al
2004), and it is our experience that many of the same understandings were still present at the time
we conducted the investigation, even though the videos are more than 10 years old. This could
indicate that the teachers are transferring knowledge about how to perform the classroom practice to
other teachers as well as the students. This also applied for older students passing it on to younger
students. In each class we usually experienced 12 students per teacher. When the classes were
bigger, there would mostly be two teachers (cf. appendix 10-30). This gave a close connection
between students and teachers in the classroom. In relation to things the students were mostly
placed at tables and chairs either set up in a circle, in groups of three, or a big squared table (cf.
appendix 35). The bodily activity of the agents depended on the setup of the tables. When the tables
were placed in circles or at the squared table, the teacher would sit in with the students. When the
tables were placed in groups of three the teacher would be by the board or walking around helping
in the groups. Additionally the setup depended on the types of classes. We will come back to that in
the following analysis. The students would use pens, paper, notebooks and sometimes computers,
folders, cell phones etc. (cf. appendix 10-30). The rule was no use of cell phones but usually this
was not enforced (cf. appendix 14 and 27) and this disciplinary issues seemed to be dealt with
loosely. When classes started the vice-principal plays music throughout the school (cf. appendix 8
and 9). This can be perceived as an unwritten rule. It is an embedded part of their actions to react to
61
the music and enter the classrooms. In the interview with the teachers one of the teachers used the
music as a reference to the classes starting: “The music is gonna play in about 7 minutes [AF:
okay]. He (Damian) is gonna need to go[...]” (Royce, appendix 6, min. 01.36). The teacher uses the
music as an explicit definition of the start of classes without even mentioning start of class as the
reason for the other teacher leaving. The classes would always start right away by the teacher giving
out tasks or asking questions, but again depending on the type of class (cf. appendix 22 etc.).
During the class the students were free to go to the bathroom (or leave the classroom for other
purposes of which we do not know) and food and drinks were not reprimanded (cf. appendix 9, 18,
27 and 29). At each morning class oftentimes more than two students were late mostly without
comments from the teachers (cf. appendix 12, 13 23 etc.). This indicates as mentioned that
discipline was not strictly enforced. The general understanding of Urban Academy by the students
was that the classroom context was different. They compared this perception with experiences from
previous schools and what they had heard from others. The classes we observed were all taught
differently from one another. However, it was significant that we did not experience the teachers
standing throughout a class at the board lecturing on a topic one single time (cf. appendix 10-30).
Furthermore, we never saw the students using textbooks in any course (cf. appendix 9). In this sense
the classroom practices at Urban Academy are probably not performed like what is normally known
as a classical classroom context, however all the elements; agents, tools, bodily activity and
discourses and what they consisted of, were still recognised by the agents and by us as a classroom
in a school setting. In the following we wish to elaborate further on the doings and sayings within
the classroom practice with regards to shared understandings, written and unwritten rules and
teleoaffective structure.
Analysis of activities within the classroom As already mentioned one of the shared understandings at Urban Academy concerns the way the
practices within the classroom are carried out. It is significant how classes are taught and what kind
of contributions that are legitimate in the classroom both from students, guests, teachers, and
material. In the following, we will analyse the teaching practice, the teacher’s role, the collaboration
practice and the discursive practice using the terminology of Schatzki.
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Teaching practice
Discussion-based
The teaching practice at Urban Academy was mainly organised after the Inquiry-based learning
approach with for instance discussion-based classes. An important part of the discussion-based
classes was how the background information was mainly focussed on the students’ opinions or
articles. We are going to the point on opinion later in the analysis under discursive practice. In the
Looking for an Argument class, that we observed, the students were presented with an argument,
sounding: “should you be able to change your racial identity?”, and simultaneously the students
were presented with two pictures of the same woman who was white in one picture and afro-
American in the other. It was an argument that had not been discussed previously, and the students
did not have prior knowledge about the case. The students discussed and expressed their point of
views on the argument, but were also asking for more information about the case. The answer from
the teacher was; “we’re gonna find out”. She was referring to an article they were going to read as
homework for next class (cf. appendix 11). The use of more perspectives in the teaching could be
seen as a common part of the practice that both the student Ivory and Magnus emphasise as
important: “I feel like it’s a more open school. They’ have.. they show you different sides of the
story.” (Ivory, appendix 5, min. 09.50) and:
Ma: Ehm the discussions, ehm I think really help those (Za: laughs)
you, like, from normally learning from a textbook you only get one
point of view, so you (unclear) the teachers try to bring multiple points
of view that you can understand everything from a, a different point of
view like ehm [...] (Magnus, appendix 4, min. 06.00)
The teaching practice consists of the understanding that the students should be presented with more
perspectives. As one of the teachers stated: “[...]We never sit here.. and say to kids ‘these are the
ideas that you shouldn’t read’ (unclear), we don’t do that.. we do expose kids to a wide range of
ideas and perspectives that you wouldn’t normally get in high school [....]” (Aaron, appendix 6,
min. 27.35). The shared understanding of the teaching is based on the perception that the students
need to be exposed to different perspectives in order to accumulate their own argument to use in the
practice. This understanding is prevalent amongst the students as well as amongst the teachers.
Adam the principal also backs this up: “[...]so we expose them to different point of views and
different arguments and kids make their own arguments and decide what they agree with and
disagree with and use evidence to support it and that’s the essence of what we’re trying to do”
(Adam, appendix 7, min. 02.00). Almost all the interviewees state the same perspectives and are
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using the same terminology about the discussion-based classes. In the teaching practice there are
multiple perspectives and the lack of textbooks. We can either see this as the pool of understandings
about the practice being so embedded in the agents. However, it could also be perceived as
automatised answers because they have heard the same explanations about the teaching over and
over again. However, by combining the statements about the teaching practice related to the
aforementioned observations we did experience correlation between the sayings and doings and we
therefore interpret it as a shared understanding of the teaching practice.
Real-life learning
Another important part of the teaching practice at Urban Academy is that the teachers take the
students on field trips in New York City. The week we visited there were two trips planned. One in
the class Plays and Playwriting where the students were going to see a play (cf. appendix 14) and
one in the class Current Issues where the class was going to a neighbourhood in Brooklyn on the
following Saturday to interview the people living there (cf. appendix 12, 13). As one of the
teachers say:
Obviously that’s stuff we want them to learn about, but we want them,
we want them to spend time out in neighbourhoods talking to people,
and being connected to communities [...] you want students to interact
beyond just the school community in the learning process, so because
that’s also a world to be a part of, so that’s an important thing in terms of
dealing with their alienation. (Aaron, appendix 6, min. 29.25)
This can be seen as another way to present more point of views and impose what they call real-life
knowledge. The multiple perspectives from both different sources of information, from guests in the
classroom (appendix 12 and 13), from the students in the classroom and from real-life experiences
can all be understood as unwritten rules. It is the norm to present the students to multiple
perspectives. The pool of understanding about the specific kind of knowledge and skills Urban
Academy perceives as valuable for the students in the teaching practice are not necessarily related
to for example textbook knowledge. Hence, the teachers perform the teaching practice as described
with these underlying understandings. We are going to come back to the teacher’s role in the
classroom in the following section of the analysis.
Proficiencies
All the courses at Urban Academy lead to proficiencies. The students graduate with proficiencies
and not with tests. The students perceive the teaching practice as not aiming at an exam. Rosa sees
the proficiencies as a better way to learn:
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I feel like I have the options to get into somewhere where I wanna be. To
graduate feeling like I’ve learned something that I’ve done something, I
think that’s one reason I like proficiencies, because when you graduate
you feel like you’ve done something, earned it, more than I think I would
if I graduated because I passed some tests (Rosa, appendix 5, min. 23.15)
As Rosa describes she feels like the proficiencies show that she learned something instead of just
passing a test. We are not going to describe the proficiencies in detail because they are already
mentioned in the section about Urban Academy. Yet, we will emphasise some of the written rules
for graduation from the Urban Academy Requirements for Graduation. Here it is stated: “Urban
Academy believes an educated person is one who is able to reach informed judgement in wide
range of subjects. We also believe that a spread of courses will deepen the student’s understanding
of topics which already interest them as well as expose them to new ideas, issues and information”
and “the skills developed in courses are cumulative, leading to successful completion of
proficiencies” (appendix 33). As already described the proficiencies are not exams or tests, or as a
specific kind is called in the US high school system; regents. Rosa seems to share the understanding
of the written rule from the Requirements for Graduation of how graduating with proficiencies is a
‘more deep understanding of the course material’. Students and teachers express how the fact that
they do not take regents at Urban Academy has an effect on the teaching practice. Related to this
Rosa states:
I agree I think the classes are a big part of it.. in the school I went to
before I mean it’s the regents.. they tried really hard to not be a test-prep
school, but it’s.. really hard to do when you are preparing for tests in the
end of the year and so I felt like most of my classes that was all I was
doing and I didn’t feel like I was getting anything out of the classes and I
didn’t really wanna be taking classes future years were preparing for
regents that I wasn’t going to take.. You’ll have to take 5 and a lot more
ehm.. so I wanted to go somewhere where I thought I would learn more..
and I think the classes here are just much more interesting and you’re
learning to learn not to pass a test.. (Rosa, appendix 5, min. 08.37)
To Rosa the regents in the high school turned out to be more the aim of the teaching so that they
were learning to pass tests instead of learning content. Zara has the same perception; that it is easier
to focus on one topic instead of running through a curriculum aimed at regents in the end (Zara,
appendix 4, min. 10.20). It is hard to say if it is a pool of understandings shared by all students and
teachers. However, in our classroom observations we never experienced any teacher teaching
towards or mentioning of tests. One teacher did talk about using a math method if they ever were to
take a test (cf. appendix 19), but not referring to a test on Urban Academy. Thus, the underlying
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understandings and written rules of the proficiencies lead to performing the teaching practice
without focus on tests and with more focus on some of the earlier mentioned principles.
There are some rituals related to the proficiencies at Urban Academy. One of them is that the
students get to hang up an elephant somewhere on the school and another is to wear a big sign
stating, which proficiency they passed (cf. appendix 35). They then walk down the hallway with a
teacher who is ringing a bell (cf. appendix 8 and 35). This ritual can be perceived as an unwritten
rule which is a big part of the students’ pool of understandings about passing proficiencies. They
know what happens when earning proficiencies. As Nadia express it: “They be ringing like with the
bell. And people are like clapping for you, I like that” (Nadia, appendix 5, min. 23.56). The students
express emotions of being proud and desiring to be a part of these traditions. Susy express how she
likes how everyone honour you and clap: “And I like the fact that they honour you, when you go to
prerack (?) and full group and they give you a pen and they clap and the other people clap for you,
or when you get a proficiency like they..” (Susy, appendix 5, min. 23.46). The students point to how
everyone engage in the ritual in a way, which is expected and appropriate in the situation of getting
a proficiency; everyone claps and the teleoaffective structure to achieving the proficiency is that
you should feel proud and it is something to strive for. Nataly further describes how it is one of her
goals to put up the elephants: “Yeah. One of my goals is [B: you feel appreciated] to have like
these elephants.. They give you these elephants, these stickers every time you complete like.. we
have 6 proficiencies, you guys have seen? [AF: Yes CC: Mm]” (Nataly, appendix 5, min. 23.56).
Again, it is the hope and expectations of the students to get the proficiencies and they are all
positively prepared and looking forward to go through the process of the unwritten rules when
receiving them. Although the proficiency rituals can be seen as an integrative practice alone we
have chosen to interpret it related to the teaching practice. They are the end goal of the courses and
can, therefore, be seen as a part of this practice.
The teacher’s role in the classroom At first glance the role of the teacher in the classroom could be recognised as in any classroom
setting in the sense that the person was managing or controlling the progress of events in overall
terms. This was visible in both discourse (cf. appendix 19, 18, 29) and bodily activity; teacher
standing at the board or sitting in the circle guiding whose turn it is to speak. However in most
classes the teacher highly engaged the students in the teaching practice. Both students and teachers
agree that there is no textbook learning. As mentioned earlier we did not see any textbooks in use at
Urban Academy during our visit. Instead the materials in classes are provided by the teachers as
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articles for homework or different assignments printed on paper and handed out at the classes (cf.
appendix 9). Many of the students emphasise what they perceive as a different kind of teaching:
[...]so it’s really a discussion based.. ehm a lot of classes.. so you get to
find out things like first hand and not like reading through a text books,
so people’s experiences about, about topics. (Susi, appendix 5, min.
05.00)
We also observed the kind of teaching the student Susi is referring to in the classroom in the courses
Looking for an Argument and Current Issues. Both courses are part of the social science field. In
these classes the teacher would pose a broad topic or question and then the students should discuss
this in the classroom, mainly on the basis of articles read as homework or previous classroom
discussions (cf. appendix 10-13). There seem to be a shared understanding in the classroom on how
to perform this type of classes: the teachers are facilitating the discussion writing down on a list,
which students want to contribute to the discussion. If the teachers have a contribution they have to
be on the list too. In one of the classes, one of the teachers is timing each input from student to one
minute per person to make an argument (cf. appendix 10-13). If the discussion went out of hand, the
teachers would request that the students kept the structure and this was always respected (cf.
appendix 10, 11). This can be understood as an unwritten rule. It is norms known by all participants
in the classroom, to run the discussion with this structure in opposition to for example the teacher
speaking the majority of time or everyone talking all at once. The amount of actual teaching or
lecturing given by only the teacher was also of importance for the students. It was something that
the students found to be an unfavourable way of teaching and learning:
I think like.. oh you wanted to say something [K: it’s fine] when the
teachers just sitting in front of you just spitting information down, you
write it down, you like study for the test, you like forget it, like
eventually, like here like, most of the stuff I like still remember from like
last year in the beginning of the year because like we talked about it and
it wasn’t like ‘write it down!!!’ and then it’s over. Like we talk about this
like.. implanted in our minds a little bit longer (Brian, appendix 5, min.
26.04)
In the quote the student Brian expresses how he can process information much better when they
discuss material in class. This way of learning is emphasized by most students as very effective. It
is also the understanding shared by teachers who teaches in this manner in most classes (Aaron,
appendix 6, min. 07.37). Although in some classes the students are asked to write notes, such as the
math classes, where one of the teachers almost demanded the students to write something in their
notes, whereupon she went around checking if they had done it (cf. appendix 18, 19). Yet the notes
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were mostly accompanying the students talking and working in groups or notes from the classroom
discussion to use in their homework, most often essays. In this sense there is a shared understanding
of how the students should be given information and learn namely through discussions and critical
thinking. The shared understanding is also linked to the source of where the information is coming
from and that is not primarily from neither textbooks nor the teachers.
The teacher does not have the answers
A part of the use of Inquiry-based teaching method at Urban Academy is not to look for specific
answers from the students. We experienced this part of the practice primarily expressed by the
teachers of how to conduct the teaching with these principles. This can be perceived as an
expression of the teachers knowing how to perform according to the underlying rules both written
and unwritten. One of the teachers, Royce, explains how his role as a teacher is to be the person
who facilitate a conversation; to ask questions to the students, challenge them, and enable them to
have a conversation and participate in that way:
[...] how do you get information from somebody, they may talk to you
for a few moments, but then it’s your responsibility to get more
information from them and our classes are set up so that a lot of them are
discussion-based so maybe there’s a conversation that’s going on and
part of that responsibility is to participate in that conversation and to
state things and the responsibility to the person next to you is then to
maybe ask a question, challenge it.. eh.. and the teacher is within that
group but off the conversation in the sense that they are not saying
‘you’re wrong’, ‘you’re right’, ‘you’re wrong’, ‘you’re right’[...] (Royce,
appendix 6, min. 13.20)
We observed this type of teacher participation in several classes. The teachers would direct the
discussion or talk in class, sum up on some points given by the students, and ask questions or
challenge the students with provoking statements (cf. appendix 10, 11, 12, 13, 29). Although, in one
class we observed, Africa Now, the teacher spent a lot of the class time to lecture about an African
country. However she kept emphasising to the students that the classes were not usually going to be
like that and, furthermore, she kept stressing that she knew it was so boring for them (cf. appendix
30). An example of the teachers not giving facts was seen in the class Evolutionary Simulations,
where the teacher was asking the students about a definition of evolution. All the students could
contribute with what they believed it was. Along the way the teacher would write the answers from
the students on the board and modify the definition with the contributions of the students. At last
the teacher put a ring around the final definition they came up with. After the class she told us that
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all the contributions from the students came from previous knowledge, and she stated: “it’s not the
best definition, I don’t like it, but we’re gonna go with it” (cf. appendix 22). This indicates that the
teacher’s role is not to give answers but rather have the students engage in finding the answers.
Other examples from different classes indicate this as well. In a geometry class one of the teachers
was walking around the tables helping the students when one of them asked for an answer. The
teacher’s reply was: “I’m not gonna help you - keep looking” (cf. appendix 20). However, on
another occasion the same teacher in a math class stated: “that’s definitely not correct”, indicating
there was a certain correct answer (cf. appendix 19), while pointing to a student’s notes. It should,
however, be noted that the teacher used a humorous tone of voice. Furthermore, the class was math
and in this type of class no matter how the teaching method is used it is hard to deny that there are
right answers in calculus. This point can be backed up by an example from a Probability and
Statistics class where the teacher was going through a problem on the board with contributions from
a student, but another student exclaimed, that it was not right. To this the teacher replied: “how do
you evaluate that’s not right?” (appendix 17). The teacher’s role in the classroom practice is not to
reject students’ contributions as incorrect but rather have the students reflect on the way they found
the answer. In addition, the teacher is guiding this process, but the aim is that the students find their
own methods (cf. appendix 20).
One of the students, Jim, expressed some frustration regarding the ‘no right or wrong answers’
approach from the teachers:
I would say one thing that I found kind of annoying about the discussion
in classes is how we’re all like whole two hours out in class we are all
like discussing one topic and we like never come to any facts or like
maybe any agreements about the set of topic and then we do homework
on it. I guess that’s like in a way kind of good cause we’re all getting
people’s perspective but sometimes I just wanna know like what’s the
facts about what we’re talking about, if the stuff we’re discussing and the
point we’re making are true or not. (Jim, appendix 4, min. 08.00)
The student is expressing how sometimes it is annoying that there are no answers and that he just
wants to know the facts. The teleoaffective structure about the teacher’s role in the practice is that it
is annoying and he is missing the facts, the actual doing of the practice annoys him. These feelings
about the practice are only backed up partly by one of the other students. Although, he takes on an
opposite opinion about the practice and tries to reflect upon why the practice is done with that
structure:
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I feel like it depends like in which class you’re in. I feel like ehm
cause sometimes it’s.. sometimes you get, like I don’t know, I’ve
gotten to the point where it’s like some of the classes I’ve taken, like
there’s been like who was like… I agree with like there’s usually
never a definitive right or definitive wrong of what people are saying
because it’s like the teachers want you to continue to think about what
like what that person said because if gets like the (mold?) rolling, uhm
it gets like people to think a bit more rather than shutting everybody
done having to say look this is the fact just deal with it kind of.
(Magnus, appendix 4, min. 08.40)
In the quote it is clear that the other student finds it legitimate to have a negative view on the
teaching method, but the student also tries to explain the benefits of this method. In other words he
tries to give a reason as to why the classes are performed like that, and he agrees with the principles
behind which further indicates that this is a shared understanding of the teacher’s role.
Collaborative practice Aside from discussion-based classes, group work was also often used in the classroom practice.
Mostly related to natural science subjects but also in some social science classes (cf. appendix 16,
17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23 and 26). In the classes with group work the teachers would give short
instructions about the tasks at the board and then let the students work in groups of three students.
The action of doing the group work was never questioned and there was never an instruction from
the teacher that now it was time to do group work. All classes started fast and the students were
accustomed to working under those terms. One of the students expressed positive emotions about
this style of work: “[...]most of the math classes you work in small groups, and I found that really
nice, because if I don’t understand some of it there’s probably someone in the room that does and
can explain it out without having to stop the class and get the teacher’s attention[...]” (Rosa,
appendix 5, min. 05.27). The help can come from other students and not just the teachers. This type
of work is also related to the shared understandings about where information is coming from as
mentioned earlier. Nataly additionally explains how the teachers are not the source of information
in the classroom. She perceives it as if the students learn from each other:
Yeah, I learned from like a regular school like you usually learn from the
teachers, cause they give you the information, but here we like we have
discussion based classes, like looking for an argument, and other social
studies classes and we just learn from each other. (Nataly, appendix 5,
min. 05.17)
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This understanding seems to be shared by other students: “I learn best from like other people, like I
learn more from other people” (Susy, appendix, min. 25.42). The shared understanding about the
collaborative practice is that fellow students can also be a source of help, information, and in
collaboration they can solve the assignments. We observed a teacher using this understanding in a
math class where she encouraged a student who could not figure out the task to ask one of the other
students at her table how she solved it. To the other student she said: “she has no idea so tell her
how you’re doing” (appendix 19). Here it is clearly a shared understanding between both students
and teacher that the students should work together to solve tasks through group work.
Urban Academy additionally has mixed grades in the classroom, which means they mix all ages and
grades in every class. Related to the group work as written above one of the teachers states; the
older students are supposed to teach the younger students how to do in the classes: “[....]And the
other students, especially older students, their responsibility is to let the younger ones know by
demonstrating this work that we do in the classroom that you’re not stupid, the idea may have been
wrong or there’s holes in it [....]” (Royce, appendix 6, min. 16.29). The specific object that the
older students are supposed to demonstrate for the younger is the rule of no personal attacks. We
will get back to this rule later in the analysis. The learning from other students is not just about
learning actual content but also learning the form. This suggests that it is a shared understanding
between the agents, because the know-how of how to do the practice is passed from existing
members to new members through a collaborative practice. Possibly, this is only the perception of
one teacher that it is the responsibility of the older students. However the way of mixing the classes
could signify this understanding.
Zara who is on her first year at Urban Academy describes how the mixed classes were really
strange to her at first:
[...] it was weird because when I came I didn’t know that so all I saw was
really tall people and older people. That’s like; ‘okaaaay’ (laughs). And I
didn’t, I didn’t know that it was like this but it didn’t..once I figured it out,
since all the classes, like you don’t have to be a certain grade to be in
certain classes. It’s like college classes or something, since all the grades
here spread across the years, there’ll be like 18 year olds and I was 14 and
stuff, so I was like, I didn’t really talk much, but... (laughter). It’s okay
now. (Zara, appendix 4, min. 31.10)
It was in her first visit to Urban Academy that she found the mix of younger and older students odd.
However, after her first month or two, at the point of the interview, she found the mixed classes
more ‘okay’. This could suggest that she was starting to share the underlying understandings of the
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collaborative practice. She also states that at first she did not talk much in the classes, but now it is
better. Maybe, she embodied how to engage in the practice based on older students, who
demonstrated how to do. Another interpretation could be that she was shy at first with the older
students and she now felt more comfortable in the classroom.
Kendra was very negative about the mixed classes because she was a senior and she did not want to
be with younger students (Kendra, appendix 4, min. 24.56). To this Magnus replies:
[...] But with like classes like all being mixed it’s like okay, but
definitely understand like the point of like the older kids wanting to have
other older people with them because it’s kind of annoying having
like[...] But I feel like that, you understand like the point of Urban so I
don’t think like, like I feel like some of these problems are like just
aren’t really problems and just like things that are kind of like there
(Magnus, appendix 4, min. 27.07)
Magnus meets Kendra’s complaint about the younger students with understanding in the sense that
he acknowledges her opinion. These emotions are legitimate. However, he also states that the mixed
classes are a part of Urban Academy’s classroom practice. He could be referring to the multiple
perspectives in the classroom. This can be understood in the way that it is legitimate to express
dissatisfaction about the mixed classes but it is implied that Kendra has not understood the
underlying understandings of why the classes are mixed. Or in other words, she has not understood
how or acquired the skills to perform the collaborative practice.
Group work enables social interaction
Through the mixed grades in classes, the group work, the classroom discussions, and also combined
with the fact that Urban Academy is a small school, several students find themselves to be more
socially engaged with each other even outside the classroom setting (Kendra, appendix 4, min.
37.27; Magnus, appendix 4, min. 33.00; Zara, appendix 4, min. 34.04): “So they’ll put us in groups
with people you don’t talk to normally, so you will be finding out that someone who sits in that
couch selection actually have, stuff in common with you that you thought” (Ivory, appendix 5, min.
15.08). This can be perceived as if the students share understandings about the collaborative
practice; Ivory explains that maybe you find out you have stuff in common with someone you did
not expect to have something in common with. Kate also describes the mixed classes as a part of
this social interaction based on interest: “it’s just like what you’re interested in and I think like you
could be 20 or you can be 14 and you guys are interested in the same thing, so we are gonna put
you a class and see how it works, and it works really great” (Kate, appendix 5, min. 15.38). The
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social interaction goes beyond, but is nurtured in the collaborative practice. There is agreement
between the students that the social interaction is good and more scattered between students of
different age and it stems from the classroom. With Schatzki’s terminology, the social interactions
are an important part of the classroom practice because the shared understandings and knowledge
about performing it are mediated through interaction between the agents within the practice. With
this in mind, the enhancement of social interaction through collaborative practice at Urban
Academy should also enhance the shared understandings of the classroom practice.
Discursive practice In the following different perspectives will be presented as an expression of the discursive practice
in the classroom. In the interviews and our observations in the classroom, we experienced a
common discourse. We found the students to be very aware of giving space to each other and, more
importantly, speaking in turns (cf. Brian, appendix 5, min. 26.04), even when there was neither a
list of people waiting to speak nor a show of hands in some classes (cf. appendix 22). We
sometimes had the impression that the students in our focus group interviews maintained this
discourse in the interviews. They would mostly speak on turns and propose long arguments.
Furthermore, they would use the same discourse as in the classroom discussion: “I agree with...”
(cf. appendix 4 and 5). This can be seen both as an expression of unwritten rules from the structure
in the classroom and as a pool of understanding known from the classroom, but brought into
another context. The students could have found the interview setting similar to a class since we
were sitting in a classroom at the same tables and in a kind of circle that they recognised from their
classes.
Respect
The discussion-based classes, the group work, and mixed classes also had an effect on the discourse
regarding respect for diversity. The students express how they get to know and learn from a lot of
different people and that creates important skills according to one of the teachers:
[...] but the kids are not just going to school with each other.. they’re
listening to each other, you know.. and they’re talking about things that
if you have a different background in this city or adults have a very hard
time talking about [...] they have an ability to talk to people across
cultural boundaries and class boundaries that a lot of other kids don’t
have.. which is a very important skill [...] (Aaron, appendix 6, min.
40.12)
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In our observations we came across different signs of spaciousness most pronounced in relation to
the respect for the person speaking in the classroom (cf. appendix 10-13), and underpinned by the
fact that the school is constituted by a diverse student population (cf. Adam, appendix 6, min.
11.20). The same content of diversity is emphasised by one of the students: “I like the diversity
within the school community, we get to like learn how to work with different people like who have
different personalities. That’s like the big part of Urban[mmm]” (Kate, appendix 5, min. 04.35).
The same student states:“[...] the diversity is amazing cause you just learn different things about
different people [...]” (Kate, appendix 5, min. 18.39). The students’ understandings of diversity
seem lead to a shared understanding about respect.
The essence of some of the school rules also seems to concern respect. In these rules, it is first of all
stated that Urban Academy is a community and that all members ought to be treated with respect as
well as any atmosphere that encourages thoughtfulness. Furthermore, the inclusion of everyone is
important and the right to be different and individual is protected in the school rules where it is
everyone’s responsibility to make others feel like they belong. The aim is fairness rather than
uniformity and students from different backgrounds can contribute with different perspectives in
discussions. Additionally, the school rules include more formal regulations such as; no fights,
attendance at classes, it is your responsibility to be on time, no alcohol or drugs, smoking takes
place a specific area, use of school facilities etc. (appendix 32). In the discursive practice there is an
emphasis on respect for differences and the differences are seen as an advantage. Another rule,
which is the first rule stated in the Urban Academy in the Urban Academy Understandings
pamphlet, is ‘No Personal Attacks’. The rule reads: “Personal attacks are not tolerated. You may
attack ideas, but may not attack the person with whom you disagree. Personal attacks kill
discussion. The free and safe exchange of conflicting ideas is the centerpiece of an Urban Academy
education” (appendix 32). It is also the rule that seems most outspoken amongst the interviewees:
“when you’re in class, you can’t personally attack a person, you can’t call them stupid or you can’t
like say something else, like you could think that their idea is stupid or something, but you can’t
think they are stupid”. (Susy, appendix 5, min. 17.59) (cf. Zara, appendix, min. 07.20; Kate,
appendix 5, min. 25.49). One of the teachers explains how that is performed in his photography
classes:
[...]well, you can criticise that photograph, you can criticise the idea that
somebody made or a statement they made about that photograph, but you
cant say that that person is stupid, you cant say ‘you’re dumb, because
you said this’, what you may have said is dumb, but my job is to say
‘you can’t personally attack somebody’, so that everybody in the room
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feel that they can say anything as long as it’s focused on the idea, the
work or the physical object that has been made, so that everybody in this
room will feel comfortable talking about it or sharing their experiences
and get their ideas out, but it’s not the person who feels like ‘well I’m
not gonna talk, because this person just called me stupid’ [...] (Royce,
appendix, min. 15.01)
Royce explains how this rule enables the students to express their opinions in class without being
afraid of other people commenting on them. It could in some sense be understood as a way to avoid
bullying. In the classroom observations, in particular in the discussion-based classes Looking for an
Argument and Current Issues we experienced that the discursive practice consisted of this respect.
The student speaking would always start with “I agree with” or “I disagree with” followed by
“because” or the use of “both sides” (appendix 12, 13) and then they would follow up with an
argument related to what the person has said. It was never personal. In one argument a student
explicitly said that something was ignorant and followed up with: “not you, but the comment is
ignorant” (appendix 11). This indicates that the rules are a big part of the discursive practice in the
classroom when it comes to respecting each other in the discussions.
Individuality
The diversity and some of the rules amongst many other elements described above also creates a
space for the students to be themselves. In the students’ statements it can be understood like this
kind of shared understanding is a part of the discursive practice. The teleoaffective structure
reflected can be seen as an effect of the school rules and the ways of doing and performing in the
classroom. It is a broad shared understanding that it is appropriate to be yourself: “and it’s like.. the
school environment is like, you become an individual like when you come here, you know..
through… through like the way you dress, how you speak, how you did your work.. You know, you
just become like more independent” (Nataly, appendix 5, min. 13.53). Nataly explains how the
students are expected to be individuals. The same understanding from the classes are shared by
Brian who states that Urban makes room for the students to be themselves and get to know their
place (Brian, appendix 5, min. 14.15) and Kate who says: “Yeah, you can express yourself” (Kate,
appendix, 5, min. 13.40). As already mentioned in the chapter about Urban Academy it is stated on
the website as part of the school rules that it is okay to be an oddball and this point is also
mentioned in one of the interviews: “Herb, the old principal he used to say that this school is a
school of oddballs” (Susi, appendix 5, min. 11.27). Urban Academy both makes room for but also
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reinforces the shared understanding of individuality and the teleoaffective structure related to
positivity when students in their discursive practice express their own opinions in the classroom.
Choices and voice
Related to the individuality, diversity, and respect another very important element of the discursive
practice is the students’ ‘choice and voice’ as expressed by one of the teachers:
You have to make them, they have to feel that the work they’re doing
here, that their ideas matter, that they help drive the curriculum, that their
questions, what they say [...] And that ownership is not just in terms of
how the classroom and the inquiry method works, it’s very important,
but also you wanna give them some ownership in terms of choices they
can make in school [...] (Aaron, appendix 6, min. 21.14)
In the quote Aaron both talks about letting the students steer the curriculum with their contributions
and letting them feel like they have choices and ownership. The choices are present in the discourse
in the classroom setting. In our observation we experienced in more than one occasion that the
students were faced with the opportunity to decide for themselves how they wanted to conduct
something in the class (cf.. appendix 12 and 13). However, the choices also entailed choosing their
own courses. This was emphasised by several students as a feeling of having a choice: “Yeah, I
agree.. I think it is.. you have a lot of choices in what classes you take and I think that’s really good,
cause then you’re taking classes that you’re interested in for the most part and.. and it helps the
discussions and it makes everything more interesting..” (Rosa, appendix 5, min. 03.15) (cf. Susi,
appendix 5, min. 03.10; Adam, appendix 6, min. 04.02). It can be argued though that they are small
choices compared to the whole course which is planned by the teacher. However, since the classes
are inquiry-based it is oftentimes the contributions from the students that directed what would come
up in the classes as Aaron also mentions in the quote. The understanding in the classroom was that
the students own experiences were also valid to use as knowledge. In the discussion-based classes
the students could contribute with their own experiences and would often start the sentence with “I
think” or the teacher would ask: “in your opinion...”(appendix 10-13). A further example is a
student who said: “I haven’t researched this, I’m speaking from personal experience” (appendix
13), and this discourse is perfectly valid. In that sense there is a shared understanding that the
students’ voices are important. The students also have the understanding of having a voice. The
student Kate relates having a voice to being able to pose an opinion without being attacked
personally (also related to the rule ‘no personal attacks’): “The fact that this is a discussion-based
high school like puts it in it’s own category than other high schools, cause this.. like you get to, I
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think someone said it like you have a voice where you can state your own opinion, and like no one
is gonna push through or attack you for it” (Kate, appendix 5, min. 25.49). In the classroom context
it is important to Kate that she can state her opinion. To another student it is important that her
opinion is taken serious by being valued: “[...]here you can really say what your opinion is and
people really care about, people value your opinion[...]” (Zara, appendix 4, min. 38.43) (see also
Ivory, appendix 5, min. 03.01).
To have the voice and choice is a very important shared understanding both in the form of an
unwritten rule; the students should be given choices in their school life and their opinion should be
heard and partly written; the students can choose their own courses from the course catalogue.
Additionally with the teleoaffective structure that the students should have and feel that they have a
voice and a choice and they can express their opinion. This understanding leads to a significant
discourse related to the classroom because it is pronounced in this context.
Summery In the above, the different practices comprising the classroom practice at Urban Academy have
been analysed by means of the theoretical concepts: shared understandings, written and unwritten
rules and the teleoaffective structure. These included a teaching practice, the teacher’s role, the
collaborative practice and the discursive practice. We found a teaching practice not aiming for tests,
but instead focusing on students’ contributions and real-life learning and a discussion-based
approach, where the teacher’s role was to facilitate the class without distributing an answer whether
they had one or not. In Urban Academy there are different classes within all fields including
literature, natural science, social science, and arts (cf. appendix 34). The social science and
literature classes have what Urban Academy call a discussion-based structure and the natural
science classes are more often organised as group work, but common to all classes is the
performance of the teacher, who seeks to ask open-ended questions and facilitate an Inquiry-based
approach. The group work was characterised by a collaborative attitude among the students, which
together with mixed grades in the classes could be perceived to enhance the social interaction
among the students. Additionally, the classroom was characterised by an open discourse with focus
on respectful statements and room for the students’ voice, opinions, diversity and individuality. All
of the analysed practices seem to engage the students in the classroom. Both in terms of their
learning process, focusing on the students’ own experiences, but also in terms of students being
socially engaged with each other. Moreover, the students would be active in the discussions, as the
teachers’ focus was to facilitate their voices in the classes. These findings will be discussed in the
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analysis in a learning and engagement perspective related to how this engagement is connected to
retention.
Part 2 – The social organisation In the previous section the first part of the analysis was presented. In the following section the
second part concerning the practices within the social organisation at Urban Academy is introduced.
Demarcation of the practices Schatzki highlights that it is relevant to demarcate what type of practice one is analysing (Jensen
2012, 39) to determine the specific focus of the examination. In this case the focus will be the
integrative practices that constitute the practices within social organisation. These are characterised
as more complex practices consisting of single practices and we wish to investigate the interplay of
the practices that together constitute the practices within the social organisation as a whole. These
are investigated through the sayings and doings in the observations of the teachers and the students
and the interviews we conducted within the school context.
In general, the practices within the social organisation within any given school context are
oftentimes linked to an understanding of students seeking support from teachers or guidance
counsellors, who are assigned a role of answering students’ questions in relation to academic
challenges or to consult the counsellor in relation to future educational objectives. Ordinarily,
teachers and guidance counsellors are not perceived to be managing personal issues. In the case of
Urban Academy, these practices seem to engage the students beyond “regular” counselling, which
we will analyse closer. Primarily, what makes the practices within the social organisation
recognisable offhand are the tutorials and the different labs that are part of the weekly schedule,
which is making room for teachers mentoring students both personally and academically.
Furthermore the support is facilitated through the teachers’ performances in the everyday life at the
school. In this connection our empirical data showed that there are certain shared understandings,
written and unwritten rules as well as teleoaffective structures linked to these practices at Urban
Academy. In this we wish to demarcate from a specific focus on the dispersed practices in the
practices within the social organisation, such as writing college applications or the communication
practice that takes place in the math lab. Instead, we wish to delve into the complexity of what is
being said and done and focus on these interplays that constitute the practices within the social
organisation as an integrative practice.
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Description of practice A big part of Urban Academy is the support the students receive in their school life. This support or
mentoring, both personally and academically is facilitated through more formal periods during the
week that form part of the schedule. These could be characterised as the structure of the practices
within the social organisation based on Reckwitz’ terminology. They include tutorials, where the
students can receive individual support from their tutorial teacher, a math workshop where the
students can get additional support on math, a college application workshop where they get support
to work on their application and the proficiency lab, where students can work with their proficiency
assignments and work with specific goals related to their semester (see appendix, 34). Additionally,
the students are mentored and helped in their planning of their school life in general, involving for
example course choices or de-selection, and personal problems that arise and are taken care of in
the emerging. This is part of the more informal help and support that students receive at the school
constituting the underlying knowledge within the practices of the social organisation. This help is
perceived as a really good relationship with teachers from the students’ perspectives, because of
their available, attentive and dedicated teachers. Teachers offered help during classes, where
teachers often stated that if anyone needed help they could find the teachers during the lunch break
(appendix 18, 26, 28), which could be an expression of the discourse within the practices of the
social organisation. Teachers were always very visible at school, they had one on one talks with the
students in the hallways, and teachers seemed to care about the students’ well-being ensuring the
best possible study environment for the students (cf. appendix 14). Furthermore, the normative
feelings connected to the practices on the basis of the empirical data appeared to be that it was
acceptable to express yourself and how you felt as well as asking for help, personally or
academically, seemed to be acceptable feelings to display during classes or whenever it was needed.
Analysis of practices within the social
organisation As explained in the description above the practices within the social organisation consist of both
formally facilitated periods, where the teachers facilitate a space for the students to go and ask for
help as well as more the more informal support within the daily school life. In the following we will
analyse the formally facilitated periods consisting of the tutorials, academic workshop and college
help. These comprise the formal mentoring practice. Furthermore the section includes an analysis of
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how the teachers perform their supportive role within the school environment. The analysis is
conducted based on Schatzki’s terminology.
Mentoring practice
Tutorials and academic work labs
As it appears from the schedule (appendix 31) two periods a week are reserved for tutorials, where
the students’ teachers are present. Each teacher has 8-10 students, who are their primary
responsibility, and who receive one on one tutoring (Adam, appendix 7, min. 23.50). These
scheduled mentoring periods could be characterised as the rules forming part of the allotted support
time establishing the formal framework of the mentoring practice within the social organisation.
These periods are reserved for the students to ask the teachers for personal and/or academic help.
Teachers organise these periods differently, some teachers take the students out and talk one on one
whereas other teachers make room for a more informal talk with the students (Adam, appendix 7,
min. 27.55). One of the students also explain how they have tutorial classes two times a week,
where it is possible for the students to ask their tutorial teacher questions getting help from the
them, and she explains how she feels that the teachers help them out (Susi, appendix 5, min. 10.08).
Another student explains how tutorial teachers are also helpful if you are not doing well in one of
your classes: “Uhm, in this school, the support system is really good, uhm so if you’re like messing
up in a class and the teachers tell you in order to work, they’ll tell like your tutorial teacher, tell
your tutorial teacher to do work so you like start doing better in class. That goes for every single
class…” (Jerome, appendix 4, min. 21.18). As it appears from the statement the tutorial teachers are
perceived to be an important part of the school’s support system helping and mentoring students if
they are having academic difficulties or personal issues in classes as well. The underlying
understanding within the practice is embodied and shows through the teachers’ doings and sayings
giving sense to how the teachers perform in case a student is not doing well. Another student from
the first group also highlights how she feels supported by her tutorial teacher:
“[...] support wise… my tutorial teacher is really supportive of me, they’re
basically like the people who... should be helping you get on the point to
graduating and uhm should be.. you should be, that should be the person
you should be conversing [..] other teachers are supportive like.. I think
it’s whoever you’re most close to.. (Kendra, appendix 4, min. 17.05)
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The included quotation shows how Kendra feels supported by her tutorial teacher and her
understanding of the tutorial teachers as someone who should help the students towards graduation,
and that this support should not necessarily come from the tutorial teacher; which is a perspective
that is also emphasised by one of the teachers from our interview and the principal Adam as well
(Adam, appendix 6, min. 24.08; Royce appendix 7, min. 18.44).
Another written rule constituting the mentoring practice within the social organisation concerns the
academic labs that are formalised through the weekly-allotted periods within the schedule. The
devoted time enables a period for the students to receive help with different courses and the labs are
included in the periods every day in the schedule (cf. appendix 31). In our interview with Adam, the
principal, he explained how these labs are carried out:
[...] either it’s called a drop in, work lap, or proficiency support
period, where usually there are three to five or six students who are
working on projects and really need time to do it, and, and a teacher
will support them through it, and they will take on those. And the
math teacher will do a math workshop, yeah either for kids who are
taking a different math but needs constant help keeping up with it, or
for kids who, sometime, I mean sometime we would have kids who
age out of or scale out of our math program[...] (Adam, appendix 7,
min. 22.40)
The teachers also encourage the students to participate in the labs in their classes, an example being
the Advanced Algebra class, which was a reviewing class covering the different themes the students
were going through during the semester. This type of class could also be characterised as a
supportive dimension to the classroom practices, where the students get an extra chance of catching
up on subjects they did not fully understand. In addition, in this class the math teacher,
recommended the students to go to math lab, if there was something they felt they needed to go
over again or if they had questions regarding homework or other math work (appendix 18). This
could be an expression of a shared understanding within the practice that in order for the students to
pass their courses the supportive academic workshops are important parts of the support pushing the
students towards graduating from Urban Academy.
College support
As described, the college application workshop is also performed on a weekly basis; a period
offered the student seniors who need support on their college application. Support that could be
characterised as a rule within the mentoring practice as well since this period is also formalised
through the weekly schedule. This workshop is facilitated by three teachers, who are present as well
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as an external tutor who is volunteering. During a conversation with the present day’s volunteer, it
was stated how this workshop was very important since the college application was very extensive,
and most of the students could not get this support for applying from their families, as many of the
kids come from marginalised backgrounds (cf. appendix 25, Aaron; appendix 7, min. 09.02).
Among the interviewed students there seems to be a shared understanding of this workshop being
an important part of pushing the students towards graduation and good at preparing the students for
college;“Urban is also like really good at like getting you ready to go to college. Like they help you
with your college application and once every semester we go visit a college.. college day..”
(Jerome, appendix 4, min 05.11) and Magnus also shares this understanding emphasising the
college help being part of the supportive system at Urban:
Uhm... the support system at school, I think is great, [...] the relationship
with your teachers like they kind of just single you out if there’s like stuff
going on or like if you like come up to your teacher, usually your teacher
will make time to like help you, and uhm.. like with uhm like with college
application it’s pretty supportive.. (Magnus, appendix 4, min. 18.34)
This is also supported by the statement from Adam, the principal, who expresses “We get every kid
into college [AF: ok] if they wanna apply to college” (Adam, appendix 7, min. 15.55), which could
indicate that the teachers are prepared to do everything they can to support the students and helping
them to graduate and enter college.
The college support is furthermore facilitated through one of the courses for senior students called
Essay Writing. In this class the students are supposed to acquire the skills necessary to be able to
write a good essay, as a personal essay is part of the college application (appendix 25). Through our
observation of the Essay Writing class with Caitlin it was also in evidence how the college support
was incorporated in the class “I know you’re all seniors, so I’ll work in an extra time in classes for
you to work on your [college] essays” (appendix 27).
Even though the students, especially seniors, in regard to going to college, are offered a lot of help
and support in order for the them to graduate it is expressed by one of the students how this support
towards graduation and general discourse within the environment about how it is almost expected
that the students enter college (appendix 10, 11) is not perceived as pressure:
That’s also good about Urban. They don’t push you to go to college, like
they push but they know that there’s other options. Like if you wanna take a
year of like they support you. Actually last year Herb was telling students
like; ‘if you feel like you need a break, like you should take the year of and
travel and stuff’. And I feel like other schools are like; ‘if you don’t go to
school you’re gonna be a failure’. This school like they push you, they push
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you at other options if you don’t wanna go to college. (Ivory, appendix 5,
min. 24.35)
This remark emphasises how the mentoring and help from the teachers is not regarded as pressure
in a negative sense, even though the teachers are “pushing” the students as Ivory explains, it is not
considered wrong not going to college, but instead it could be an indication of a teleoaffective
structure within the school practice. It regards making it okay to make individual choices in order to
do things that work best for each student, something that could also be connected to the one on one
attention and support that teachers perform giving room for individuality amongst the students.
The teacher’s role in the social organisation
Teacher/student relationship
Through the interviews with the students it quickly became evident how the students perceived their
relation with the teachers at Urban Academy to be special and something that stood out. In
connection with asking how the students felt supported in their life at Urban Academy, a student
emphasises how the supportive role of the teachers produces a close relation between the student
and staff:
We have tutorial teachers, so like three times a week we go into a
classroom with one of the teachers and we ask them questions and
they like help us, they’re like… they’re like our second families or
something in the school, we ask them questions and we’re like close
to them. And they help us out (Susi, appendix 5, min. 10.08).
This quote makes explicit how the student perceives the relation to her tutorial teacher; a relation
that is similar to family and described as close. In Schatzki's terms this statement could be
characterised as an expression of the shared understanding among the students that the support
system at Urban Academy was very good, a perception that is underpinned by several of the
students (Ivory, appendix 5, min. 11. 59; Nadia, appendix 5, min. 10.17) and which could be seen as
creating a closer relation between the students and the teachers.
Adam, the principal, also underlines the connection of the student teacher relation:
So teachers connect to different students depending on who they... And a
lot of students just find the favourite teacher and often that will be the
tutorial teacher. They’re not, there are some times where I will, we will
push a kid who really gets along well with a teacher but that teacher is not
necessarily able to kind of crack the whip when they need to because they
have this other relationship, and so then you’ll have a different tutorial
teacher. Uhm but teachers do a lot of emotional support with the kids her.
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We know them very well and it’s sort of hard not to (Adam, appendix 7,
min. 24.06)
This statement shows how teachers sometimes have what Adam calls “this other relation”, which
could be understood as a more familiar connection compared to what is ‘normally’ expected from a
student/teacher relationship. As Adam underlines, this relation can make it difficult for the teacher
to adopt the role as the one setting the agenda and constantly pushing the student forward and for
that reason students are then assigned another tutorial teacher, who is better in helping to push the
student forward in their schoolwork. As is also appears from the remark, teachers know the students
very well, which may also contribute to the close relation to a great extent, and the fact that students
open up to teachers with very personal issues could also be part of the reason for the special
teacher/student relation and an expression of trust between them. Thus, the shared understanding of
the uncontroversial relations between students and teachers are also shared among staff members,
which also show in their interactions with the students. From an observer's perspective this could be
understood as an amicable relation. Ivory certainly also affirms this shared understanding by
voicing the following statement:
But then like again they’re also like more than that, I feel like some of
us have a close connection. So I don’t know if we should name drop?
Like when we do this.. But Avram like he’s has been [two people
laughs a little] everything I know, I really love him, like he has helped
me with like other things than school.. like even after I graduated there
still like a lot of people that’s still like seeing their teachers. (Ivory,
appendix 5, min. 10.28)
According to the quote it seems that Ivory, even though she has graduated from Urban Academy,
continues to have a close relation to her old teacher, who has been very supportive of her during her
time at the school. It appears that the close connection between staff and students also goes beyond
the school context expressing a high level of dedication on the teachers’ behalf, which shows in
their performance, which goes beyond what is ordinarily expected from the role of a teacher.
Kendra also expresses how she feels a connection to one of the teachers who has been helping her
through hard times:
I agree with what she says, about the whole like they help you with
personal problems too uhm.. either if I’m like going through some things
or just sometimes it’s just like… it’s since you’re in school most of the
time and they is like, uhm.. there are sometimes where you just can’t take
anymore or like you know so over it, or you feel emotional or whatever. I
usually talk to Becky but like cause I feel like I’m more open to her and
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uhm... she’s definitely been helpful to me (Kendra, appendix 4, min. 21.
25)
This statement also affirms how Kendra is sharing the understanding of being able to get help from
the teachers with personal problems, something that contributes to a closer connection to the
teachers or to some extent to creating a sense of belonging. Another student explains how the
personal knowledge that teachers have about him makes them able to support him in the right
direction personalising their advice or teaching. The student also underlines how the teachers never
give up on the students:
[...]like the people, the teachers that I’m working with pretty much
know how I am, like how I learn and, like attention span, and they
pretty much know me really well, so having like, they are able to like,
adjust or tell me what I’m doing wrong and what I’m doing right and
it’s like, they don’t really like, no teachers like give up on you.
(Magnus, appendix 4, min. 18.34)
The remark really underpins how Magnus experiences that the teachers really know him and his
abilities within the school environment and how this helps them in supporting him. The close
relation between students and teachers could be partly reinforced by the fact that Urban Academy is
a small school, something that is also highlighted as an important factor by the students (Magnus,
appendix 4, min. 24.04; Kendra, appendix 4, min. 32.03; Brian, appendix 5, min. 04.10), and which
enable the teachers to attain more in-depth knowledge about the students.
This could be contributing to the students’ perception of how the teachers act, where they keep up
the prolonged support of the students and never giving up. Thus, the teleoaffective structure seems
to involve an experience of the student/teacher relationship as extraordinary. This is something that
is highlighted by almost all the student participants in our interviews.
Dedicated staff
The understanding of a dedicated staff was explained through many of the students’ earlier
experiences at other high schools (Magnus, appendix 4, min. 03.46; Jim appendix 4, min. 04.35),
where they did not experience teachers that would take care of them to the same extent if they were
falling behind, or making sure that they were doing okay:
[...]whereas like here like sometimes if the whole class is behind the
teacher will like take like one class period and try and help everybody get
back on track, uhm… it’s a lot different, because it’s like, it’s primarily
like your.. my relationship with my teachers that I think is.. I think that
almost applies to everybody is that the relationship with your teachers is
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really what stands apart from like ...barely making it with… because like,
it’s harder to fall behind because teachers realize if you’re falling behind.
(Magnus, appendix 4, min. 13.56)
One of the students explains the teachers’ behaviour as being of a ‘genuine nature’ and as being one
of the things that ‘makes Urban different’ (Jim, appendix 4, min. 36.58), something that many of
the students also emphasised during the interviews (Jerome, appendix 4 min. 39.44). One of the
other respondents, Nadia, also highlighted this difference about being able to talk to your teacher
about private issues and says:
They don’t just help you out with school stuff, they also help you out
with like personal stuff, so.. like if you need a class change they’ll help
you with that [car horn from the street] or if you’re having like a problem
with a friend or a problem at home you can also talk to them about it, so
it’s really nice to have a teacher that you trust to go when you have any
kind of problem.” (Nadia, appendix 5, min. 10.17)
The understanding is underpinned by the perception of the teachers being available for support,
where you can go and ask for help with personal problems or academic questions. This also seems
to be part of the shared understanding within the group of students, who we spoke to in our focus
group interviews (Susi, appendix 5, min. 10.08; Kendra, appendix 4, min. 21.25; Zara, appendix 4,
min. 20.51). It is underlined how the students experience support to this personal extent to be
something unique compared to earlier experiences at their former high schools (Jim, appendix 4,
min. 04.35; Magnus appendix 4, min. 14.48). What really seems to stand out in Nadia’s statement is
how the relation with the teachers is characterised by trust, which is something that is obviously
important to be able to have a close relationship and which also highlights the level of dedication
the teachers at Urban Academy perform.
An understanding that is clearly also shared by Zara:
I agree with Magnus and even outside of like the whole educational thing,
cause the whole educational thing like the teachers are supportive like I’m
going through some serious drama right now and my tutorial teacher is
like helping me with the whole thing. She’s trying to solve the problems
and stuff like that, so they help you for more.. like with own life kind of..
More than outside of classroom.. That’s my experience. (Zara, appendix 4,
min. 20.51)
Another student from the same interview, Magnus, indicates how he agrees and expresses how his
experience of the support system in Urban Academy is great (Magnus, appendix 4, min. 18.34).
Another perspective that also appears to be shared by the majority of the students is how they
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experience that the teachers really wish for the students to succeed (Zara, appendix 4, min. 05.27;
Jim, appendix 4, min. 36.58). Magnus also underpins this shared understanding of the teachers as
very dedicated towards the students with the following remark “[...] and there’s just no, I don’t
think there’s any point of a teacher just completely ignoring a student or that.. there’s never that
like a teacher doesn’t really care.” (Magnus, appendix 4, min. 20.20).
The pronounced attentiveness of the teachers is emphasised by Magnus in the following quotation
when comparing Urban Academy with his earlier high school experience:
[...]whereas like here like sometimes if the whole class is behind the
teacher will like take like one class period and try and help everybody get
back on track, uhm… it’s a lot different, because it’s like, it’s primarily
like your.. my relationship with my teachers that I think is.. I think that
almost applies to everybody is that the relationship with your teachers is
really what stands apart from like ...barely making it with… because like,
it’s harder to fall behind because teachers realize if you’re falling behind.
(Magnus, appendix 4, min. 13.56)
This attentiveness also showed in the sayings of the teachers in class, where they would always note
who was not participating in class (cf. appendix 18, 19, 22, 30).
Through students’ statements in the interviews it could be assumed that the way they relate their
experiences at Urban with the experiences they have had previously at former high schools indicate
a shared understanding of how the teachers at Urban perform an extraordinary help, as teachers are
often only expected to help students academically and not to the same extend that teachers at Urban
support the students personally. An example is Zara, who talks about the support as well: “I agree
with Magnus and even outside of like the whole educational thing, cause the whole educational
thing like the teachers are supportive [...]” (Zara, appendix 4, min. 20.51). This also shows in the
teachers’ communication with the parents of the students and one of the teachers even supported
students that dropped out of Urban, because of personal issues:
[...]they should be able to find me if they have questions about something
that’s just not only academic, if there’s problems in the home, ehm,
problems in their neighbourhoods, a lot of times the tutorial teacher is the
first person in that line. Ehm.. a lot of times I will be supporting that student
outside of the classroom, I have had in my tutorial that they came they had a
child while they were still here, and I have keep in contact with them and
supported them after they’ve dropped out, to help guide them through the
city services whatever is available for them, or even when they’ve had the
child (Royce, appendix 6, min. 17.44)
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Thus, this remark makes clear how the teachers helping the students personally even to the extent
where the help goes beyond the school context. Royce also explains how he is in contact with the
parent or parents of the students, when the students have had a baby to try and work together with
the purpose of keeping the student in school (Royce, appendix 6, min. 17.50). This underpins the
support the teachers carry out trying to retain the students from dropping out of school. The fact that
teachers at Urban Academy are dedicated to helping the students beyond the school context could
furthermore be an expression of an unwritten rule of how to support the students even though this
involves extraordinary commitment from the teachers, the important factor appears to be to help
student to succeed on a higher level than just passing courses.
These shared understandings of the teachers being very supportive of the students were also
observable during the days of our visit to the school. It was not only observable through the
formally instituted periods, but also showed in the daily environment in the teachers’ performances.
We noticed how the teachers were attentive towards the students’ well-beings and how the students
appeared to always be able to get the needed support from the teachers (appendix 9 and 10). In one
of breaks between morning classes a student goes asking his teacher for help, because he is unsure
of the homework they had to do for that day and how to give feedback during the class to the other
students. The teacher tells him how he has to try to give the homework a shot and asks him how he
is going to finish his homework to hand it in (appendix 14). This is a statement that could be
interpreted as the teacher coaching the student instead of telling the student how to finish his
homework; an expression of the underlying shared understanding of the teachers supporting the
students and giving them a voice and a saying in the matter becoming visible through the doings
and sayings of the teacher. During the class she also helps him by teaching him how to give
feedback by asking him to prepare an answer some time before it is his time to speak. In the same
class it is not commented on when students arrive late, but instead the teacher asks if one of the
students is okay as well as touching her shoulder indicating affection, and to one of the other
students that’s late she expresses her understanding, because she has spoken to her mother
(appendix 14). All are examples that could indicate a high level of dedication and support a
perspective that has been expressed by all the students.
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One on one attention
Another perspective the students highlighted during our interviews was how the teachers were
capable of giving the students one on one attention in their life at Urban Academy and how this also
assisted the students close relationship with the teachers. This understanding is partly explained by
the fact that Urban academy is a small school compared to the former high schools the students
have been in, which is making it possible for the teachers to know all the students at school (Brian,
appendix 5, min. 03.45; Kate, appendix 5, min. 18.38). This is a fact that also enables the teachers
to constantly be aware of what is going on at school also during breaks. This is highlighted by Ivory
who says: “Let’s say me and her have a drama (laughs), a teacher will come in and talk to both of
us and try to work it out, so it’s” (Ivory, appendix 5, min. 17.50). Many of the students point out
how the size of the school contributes to the closer relation between the teachers and the students,
because it makes it easier for the teachers to stay in a close relation to the students as well as
knowing who they are to be able to help:
ehm since we only have, we have a 100-200 kids in this school, so your
relationship with your teacher is a lot stronger and it’s… a lot easier to work
with it. Like your teachers like, begin to like, after only like, after almost
next, your second semester, your teachers begin to know kind of like who
you are, and they’re able to work with you and they know like, they can
understand your like strengths and weaknesses. And you can work with
them to become a better student. (Ma, appendix 4, min. 03.42)
Adam, the principal also emphasises how the size of the school enables teachers to get to know the
students and give individual focus making it possible to adapt the support according to each student:
Because the school is so small, we’re able to really focus on individual kids
and tailor the educational experience to them, uhm in a way that I think…
just makes it a lot more accessible, and if a kid is really doing tremendous
work in one class but failing other classes we’ll sometimes pull them out of
the other classes and give them work periods to do the work that they’re
really pushing forward on. And our philosophy is you should find
something you’re really passionate about. (Adam, appendix 7, min. 09.38)
This underpins the shared understanding that is also present among the students expressing an
underlying perception of the teachers really wishing the students to succeed pushing them forward
and supporting them by giving them individually adjusted support.
In the second focus group interview Nataly also emphasises this one on one attention comparing it
to the relation she assumes the students have with their professors at college. She characterises it as
more impersonal and unsupportive than the one at Urban Academy:
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Yeah, I think it’s like college, but I don’t think like it’s exactly like college,
cause I think that we definitely get more of that one on one attention with
teachers as like I guess in college there’ll just be a professor talking and
like.. if you miss, if you’re not up to part with your work, you just have to
coming and say, you know, we have to work it out or like something,[...]
(Nataly, appendix 5, min. 03.30)
In the first sentence of the statement she expresses how she perceives Urban Academy to be similar
to college, but in terms of the way classes are taught. This is a point, we have been told by the
teachers. That is, that the inquiry method is compatible with the way students have to study at
college, which would give sense to the understanding Nataly expresses in the remark. That said, her
utterance could both be an expression of the shared understanding within the practices at Urban of
how the students are supported by the teachers, something that is in evidence in their doings and
sayings as explained earlier in the analysis. Simultaneously the statement could be an expression of
a teleoaffective structure within the practice making it legitimate to go to your teacher explaining
how you are falling behind and asking for help. That is, if the teacher, in the concerned class, has
not already informed the student’s tutorial teacher about the student’s situation, a supportive
arrangement ensuring that every student gets the mentoring and support that they need.
The informal support also showed in other teachers’ actions during our visit. The availability of the
teachers was apparent, as the teachers walked around the hallway during breaks or were to be found
in the staff room, where the door was always open (cf. appendix 8, 9). Students also express how
the teachers are available for help during our interviews, which was also observable in the daily
activities of the teachers (cf. appendix 8, 9). The fact that the teachers were available and accessible
could be an indication of an underlying teleoaffective structure within socially organised practices
on Urban Academy regarding what kind of behaviour to perform for students to receive the needed
support during their everyday life at school. This seemingly teleoaffective structure could be
observed in the activities during the day, weather this was in a class connection or part of the more
informal mentoring going on different places such as in the staff room, where the students stay
talking to the teachers or through conversation between teachers and students along the halls
(appendix 8, 9). Apparently, it made sense for the teachers to be present and accessible filling out a
supportive role both during classes and workshops as well as more informally during the school
day. There seemed to be an expression of a normative feeling connected to the practice, meaning
that if the students are to be supported in their everyday at Urban it is important the teachers are
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oriented towards how this support can be carried out, which is done by being available and
accessible for the students. Thus by being available the teachers are performing on the basis of a
normative feeling within the socially organised practices meaning that for the teachers to be able to
support and mentor the students it makes sense for them to give the students a lot of attention and
be present for problems that might occur.
Summary In our assessment of the doings and sayings within the practices of the social organisation, we
found a formalised mentoring practice and a support practice. The mentoring consisted of the
formally instituted periods of academic labs, college help and scheduled tutorial periods, which
enabled specific periods where the students could ask teachers for assistance both in terms of
personal and academic help. These periods could be perceived as engaging the students in their
school life. The more informal support practice included teachers always being available for
support, as students could always find them on the hallways and during breaks. The availability of
the teachers gave an impression of dedicated staff and teachers, who would go beyond the school
context making sure that the students felt supported in their lives. The students perceived teachers to
wish for their success and care about them, a perception that appeared to stem from a genuine
caring amongst the staff members. The practices also concerned a special teacher/student
relationship, which was something that seemed to be standing out as extraordinary, especially
compared to the students’ former high school experiences. In this connection, the students
expressed their experience of the staff at Urban Academy as exceptionally dedicated, and students
would always address the teachers if they needed their help. The one on one attention was also
highlighted as an understanding of the supportive attention the students received at the school; again
standing out compared to former school experiences.
The analysed practices within the social organisation seem to engage the students in their school
life. Both in terms doing their schoolwork with help from teachers and being socially and personally
connected to teachers.
In the following section, based on the comprehension of the practices within the classroom and the
social organisation, we wish to discuss these in relation to how they could be perceived as engaging
the students in the school environment, and in terms of Bakhtin’s concepts of dialogue and the
other. The findings will also be related to current research within the field of retention strategies, to
discuss the practices in relation to preventing students from dropping.
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Discussion The findings of the analysis pointed towards practices within the classroom and social organisation
at Urban Academy that could be characterised as expressions of a special approach to learning and
school engagement within the environment. Within educational research the concept of engagement
has been emphasised as enhancing the declination of academic motivation, achievement and, most
importantly for the present thesis, improving high school dropout rates (Fredricks et al. 2004, 59).
The interest of the concept of school engagement is furthermore emphasised by earlier studies’
focus on engagement as behaviour, emotions and cognition as a way to understand how engagement
is connected to retention of students (Finn 1993; Finn and Rock 1997; Connell 1990; Newmann
1992; Wehlage et al 1989). Fredricks et al, on the other hand, has suggested a more holistic
approach to the concept of engagement, applying it as a multifaceted construct as the nature of the
term encompasses descriptions of behavioural, emotional and cognitive engagement (Fredricks et
al. 2004, 60). This suggestion furthermore gives sense to the fact that the concept has been exerted
synonymously with commitment as well as motivation within the field underlining its equivocality
(Ibid, 60, 63). An argument advocating for the use of the concept of engagement is that the three
components behaviour, emotions and cognition are dynamically interrelated within the individual
and should consequently not be investigated as isolated processes (Ibid, 61). Merging the three
perspectives within the term of engagement also enables a deeper understanding of children’s
school experiences as well as the presumably malleable character of the term is perceived to enable
investigations of routes to students’ engagement. These routes are described as possibly social,
academic, or originating from the given opportunities for participation within a classroom or school
environment as well as being interpersonal relationships and intellectual efforts (Fredericks et al.
2004, 61). In connection with Urban Academy these factors could be perceived as emerging within
the classroom practices as well as within the social organisation. Moreover, the concept of
engagement has been emphasised as a route to increased learning or decreased dropping out as part
of school climate interventions (Fredricks et al. 2004, 61).
The point of the departure of the present thesis has been to investigate how Urban Academy’s
practices create possibilities in relation to retention of students at risk of dropping out. This field of
interest has been investigated through a practice theoretical perspective to be able to account for the
practices, i.e. the sayings and doings performed by staff and students within the school context. The
focus of the investigation has been on practices within the classroom and the social organisation. As
it appears from the analysis these practices constitute a school environment that is characterised by
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a high level of participation, an involving learning environment, and a supportive system with very
dedicated staff that appears to be an important link to the close relationship between students and
staff.
Hence, in the following we wish to discuss how the investigated practices within Urban Academy
can be understood through the concept of engagement as well as from a learning perspective to
reach an understanding of how the practices create possibilities of retaining students. The
theoretical point of departure of the following chapter is based on Fredrick et al’s article School
Engagement: Potential of the Concept, State of the Evidence. Furthermore, it is based on the
learning theory of Dysthe and her concept of socio-cultural learning3, which she bases on Bakhtin’s
philosophy. Moreover, the discussion is inspired by Mezirow, Dewey, and Wenger (appendix 36-
39).
Behavioural engagement According to research within the field of school engagement and student dropout a correlation
between low behavioural engagement in school and the decision to drop out has been demonstrated
(Fredricks et al 2004, 71). It has been shown how behavioural engagement such as complying with
rules, the completion of homework, frequency of absences and tardiness, fighting and interfering
with others have an influence on students’ positive academic outcomes and how they are considered
pivotal in preventing students from dropping out (Fredricks et al 2004, 60). There are however
different levels of behavioural engagement. It varies from simply participating, doing the work and
following the rules to participating in student councils (Fredricks et al 2004, 61). As clarified
through our analysis, the students at Urban Academy could be perceived to demonstrate a high level
of participation in school in terms of complying with the rules such as attending classes and the
academic workshop that are offered, even though it was observed that many students arrived late
the important factor is that they were showing up. Students also complied with the rules of not
attacking each other personally in neither classroom discussions or in social interactions in general
and the students stated how fights were never a problem either. Attending extracurricular activities
such as the different academic labs has shown to decrease the probability of students dropping out
of school (Ibid, 71). The unwritten rules such as going to class when the music starts, that they are
given a voice to make choices, the teachers supporting the students with their personal problems, as
3 We perceive learning through Dysthe’s socio-cultural perspective, where the student constructs his/her own learning
and at the same time learning is seen as a process constructed through social interaction in specific contexts.
Furthermore dialogue is perceived as the center of the learning process (Dysthe 1997)
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well as teachers always being available for help were among the performances within the practices
at Urban Academy. This was observable and analysed through how the students would ask for help,
or state how they would like to carry out specific tasks when teachers would ask them, and the fact
that students would pull teachers aside in the hallway asking for their help too. Analyses of the
classroom in relation to the teaching practice also showed that many students participated in the
discussions in class or would participate by taking notes of what was being said. Both of these
actions could be understood according to Dysthe, who bases her understanding of the polyphonic
classroom on Bakhtin and his theory of dialog. Bakhtin perceives life to be fundamentally dialogic,
meaning that the self only exists through its relation to others, since our awareness of ourselves
takes place through processes of communication with ‘the other’ (Dysthe 1997, 66). In this
connection, Dysthe states that it is possible to form part of a dialog with others as well as with
materials such as text or notes, or in more broad terms, the world (Bakhtin 1984, 1981). In this
perception, the students at Urban Academy could also be perceived to be forming part of a dialogue
in classes, even though they are not participating in the discussions orally, but instead be
characterised as forming part of a dialogue with the present materials such as articles and or the
notes they are taking in class. As it appears in the analysis the discursive practice enables student
engagement in relation to giving the students a choice and voice in the classes. Furthermore,
students’ participation in the student council could also be an expression of how the school structure
enables student participation and a factor giving rise to a high level of behavioural engagement in
the school context. In this connection, it is also interesting to discuss how the students’ participation
could be perceived as participation in social communities, an expression from Etienne Wenger who
perceives learning as social participation. Within his social theory of learning, learning is perceived
as a social phenomenon that occurs in communities of practice (appendix 37). As emphasised in the
analysis, the social interaction is enhanced by the collaborative practice. This together with the
small size of the school enables more social interaction between staff and students as well as among
students. The opportunity for greater social interaction could be seen both in terms of classes with
fewer students, as also highlighted in the analysis, which could be enabling more interaction
between the participants in the classes as well. On the other hand, the enhanced social interaction
was also emphasised as part of the students’ social relations outside the classroom, where the
students knew each other and interacted more with everybody. In this connection it could be
discussed whether the enabling of more social interaction between everyone in Urban Academy
both in as well as outside the classroom could be contributing to a greater learning outcome, which
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could ultimately be leading to better opportunities of retaining the students. This question will be
elaborated upon in the final section of the discussion.
Based on the above it can, thus, be speculated whether the practices within the school are
expressions of a high level of behavioural engagement and the learning approach in the school
context contributing to the successful retention of former dropout students.
Emotional engagement As written initially the concept of engagement could be perceived as a concept consisting of three
components: the behavioural, emotional and cognitive. In this section we wish to investigate if the
practices within the social organisation could be an expression of emotional engagement
contributing to the retention of the students.
The emotional engagement component is described as students’ positive and negative relations and
reactions to teachers, classmates, academics, and school is perceived to be the link creating ties to
an institution, and creating willingness to do the work. It furthermore contributes to students’
feelings of belonging and value; an appreciation of success in school related to outcomes (Fredricks
et al 2004, 60). These feelings of belonging could furthermore be ascribed to the students’
identification with school (Fredricks et al 2004, 63).
In the analysis it was highlighted that the practices within the social organisation entailed that
teachers were always available for help, which was an expression of their level of dedication.
Furthermore, the support system was emphasised as an important and valued part of being a student
at Urban Academy. The high level of support was also demonstrated in the analysis. An example
was when teachers would encourage students to participate in the academic workshops, or refer to
their availability during breaks, where students could come and ask for help with academic or
personal questions. It was furthermore clarified how staff’s level of dedication towards helping the
students by always being available for help either in class or during breaks could be part of what is
causing the close relation between staff and students – a relation that is emphasised as being
comprised of students’ trust to teachers. The practices within the social organisation can be seen as
a way of engaging the students emotionally, as these practices contributed to the trustful relation
between the teacher and the student. The students also expressed how they perceived teachers to
really believe in and wish for their success, an important factor that could be said to have a positive
influence on the relation as well. Generally, the students were very positive in their perceptions of
Urban Academy, describing the school as being very different compared to their earlier high school
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experiences. Especially the mentoring practices at Urban Academy were demonstrated to be
important factors in that respect. Their positive attitudes towards school and teachers could be
understood as the students positive emotions associated with school. Students’ positive emotions
towards school as well as staff could be perceived as their emotional engagement within the
context, which has been highlighted as important in correlation to decisions regarding dropping out.
Feelings such as alienation, estrangement or feeling socially isolated can be contributing to students
deciding to drop out (Fredricks et al 2004, 72). As also pointed out in the former section the small
size of the school was a positive aspect that could be characterised as a feeling of belonging, as both
teachers and students know everyone at school. The collaborative practice where teachers incite
students to work in groups during classes was seen to contribute to greater interaction among the
students, so that they learn from each other through their interactions. This is another factor that
could also be contributing to the students’ sense of belonging and hence to the emotional
engagement.
Cognitive engagement Learning related to Urban Academy’s classroom practices and how they create possibilities for
retention among the students will be the focal point in the following section. Fredricks et al (2004)
posits cognitive engagement as an important factor of retention. In the following the classroom
practices will be discussed in the light of different theories of learning to further discuss how the
learning or cognitive engagement at Urban Academy contributes to creating retention.
According to Fredricks et al (2004) cognitive engagement includes literature of learning. In relation
to this, we have chosen to perceive the concept as learning, well aware that learning is more than
just cognition. Hence, we have included theories of learning, which perceives the learning process
to be a social phenomenon in order to discuss learning in a social constructivist perspective. In
Fredricks et al’s definition cognitive engagement draws on an idea of investment and incorporate
thoughtfulness and willingness to exert the effort to comprehend complex ideas and master difficult
skills. At Urban Academy the students know how to be active in classroom discussions as well as in
other teaching practices (group work, real life teaching, interviewing guests, creative projects etc.).
They have developed the necessary skills to participate. As already mentioned in the analysis the
teaching practice draws on the students’ own experiences in classes enabling active participation.
The student Magnus expressed his understanding of the learning at Urban Academy, while he was
explaining how it was to be a student in the school. As demonstrated in the analysis one of the
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extraordinary things about Urban Academy was the teaching without textbooks. Magnus
emphasises that instead of just memorising material from a book he has to be active and involved in
classes. The reason for presenting this quote from Magnus is that it embraces many of the practices
we found at Urban Academy and he states a point that many other participants highlighted:
[...] cause we’re involved more, helps like me personally being involved
more in classes like having discussions, it’s better than me just listening to
my teachers read out from a book and having to like memorize things,
whereas it’s like I have to like I have to be through, because I have to back
up what I’m saying, what I’m arguing with my teachers. So it’s a lot more
interactive rather than just absorbing information. You kind of have to put
out information as well (Magnus, appendix 4, min. 07.25).
Magnus expresses how he has to be interactive in classes instead of just absorbing information he
has to express information again. This is not just meant as reproducing information. In other words,
the teaching practice at Urban Academy could be seen as enabling the students to be engaged in the
classes by actively participating as well as contributing to the renewal of previous understandings
and learning as opposed to reproduction of knowledge. This goes much further than just the
classroom and the students can be seen as engaged in their whole school life.
Bakhtin perceives dialogue as a human condition, meaning that life in its very nature is perceived as
dialogical. This means that if we perceive the aforementioned aspect in the light of Bakhtin it could
be argued that the students’ active participation is an expression of Urban Academy making use of
the transformative potential of dialogue. The school’s utilisation of this potential could be seen as
creating a basis for the students to make use of their voices, meaning that the practices that enable
more interaction contribute to a democratisation of the students’ voices as opposed to schools that
practice a more monological approach to learning (Bakhtin 1984).
Teaching and classroom discussions draw on experience and real life experiences are incorporated
in the specific teaching situations. Understanding how this gives the students a sense of having a
voice and using their own experiences can be discussed by understanding learning through
experience and transformative learning and reflexive thinking with the concepts of Jack Mezirow
and John Dewey. We have found these theories of learning to be the most comparable with the
cognitive engagement concept. With this concept, the students can be seen to exert cognition and
what Fredricks et al call thoughtfulness in order to reach cognitive engagement. Dewey presents
important points in this relation. He believes that all students have inherent resources that can
enforce thinking. These inherent resources can be developed through different elements, and when
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they are activated, they can lead to reflexive thinking, which is what he perceives as learning.
However, the teacher must guide the students in the right direction to start this reflexive thinking.
First of all, the teachers must awaken the students’ curiosity, secondly, he or she must help the
students use spontaneous thought in a constructive way with a clear path and with a clear aim, and
lastly help create order in the past two. At Urban Academy the teachers use the students’
experiences as the guide in the teaching practice. They follow the students where they go and the
topic can change or be different than anyone could have imagined. Related to this is also the role of
the teacher not serving right or wrong answers. Seen in the light of the past section concerning
emotional engagement it cannot be neglected that the teachers see a great amount of potential in the
students. They are dedicated to helping them graduate and they believe they can. With Dewey’
terms the students have resources, which can be activated in order for them to reach a level of
reflexive thinking and thereby learning in order to graduate and move on to college. Thus, the
teachers at Urban Academy enable reflexive learning through the teaching practice by guiding and
teaching the students through curiosity, thought and order to use their inherent potential. With the
concept of transformative learning from Mezirow, which is related to the concept of reflexive
thinking, it can further be discussed if it is the same kind of learning process that occurs cognitively
within the students. As already stated the classes draw on experience. In Mezirow’s theory the
transformative learning occurs when schematas and perspectives of meaning are re-evaluated
through experience. In the classroom setting of Urban Academy it is the experience of the students
that drives the curriculum. The reflexion alone can thus be enabling transformative learning and that
takes place both cognitively and developmentally according to the theory. Hence, the classroom
practices and learning within Urban Academy exceed the cognitive aspects and leads to a broader
development of the students. It seems evident that the teaching practice allows the students to draw
on their experience and use this knowledge. In this perception learning goes beyond cognitive
processes and creates personal development as well, which can be seen as a very important factor of
creating retention. The discursive practice in the classroom; exemplified through the discussion-
based classes, draw on what can be understood as a dialogical approach to learning. In the concepts
of Bakhtin understood through Olga Dysthe, the dialogical learning, a social part of learning, and
the students feeling that they are being heard will be discussed. At Urban Academy the students
meet multiple points of view. According to Bakhtin it is in the ever-existing meeting with ‘the
other’ and in the dialogue learning arises. The students at Urban Academy are constantly meeting
‘others’ in their school life. They learn to actively take that in as a part of their learning process.
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This should be seen in relation to Bakhtin’s perception of active and passive understanding. The
active understanding occurs when people exchange opinions; renew their discourse or previous
understandings. On the other hand, passive understanding is characterised by reproduction of the
speaker’s discourse, as for example when students express what their teachers wish to hear (Bakhtin
1986, 1984). The basis of this perception is that there is always reciprocity in the communication
process between people, even between material and people, or between people and the world in
broad terms. Operating with this passive understanding in a school context would therefore leave
the students in their own personal context, meaning that nothing new can be introduced to their
discourses and that the passive understanding is only an abstract aspect of meaning (Bakhtin, 1981,
281). Related to the quote in the beginning from Magnus the processing of other peoples’
information seems to be happening for him. He uses the input from others and makes it his own,
which is what can be characterised as an active understanding according to Bakhtin. The student is
assimilating other students’ words and integrating them into his own conceptual system. According
to Bakhtin we are nothing without the other and it can be discussed if the meeting and
understanding of ‘the other’ through hearing their experience create a strong social development
and through that engagement in the classroom for the students. Both in the sense that they become
more active students, but also that they are engaged with each other. Another important point is that
the response is perceived to be the activating principle according to Bakhtin (Bakhtin 1984, 282),
making the discussion-based approach and the practices at Urban Academy particularly important
in relation to learning as well as engagement as a way to retain students.
Related to the above the learning at Urban Academy can be understood as a dialogical social
process. Additionally, Urban Academy can be understood as what it calls itself; a community. The
group work is seen as an important mean for teaching as well as learning from older students in the
mixed grades in classes. With concepts of Wenger, this will be discussed in relation to social
learning. As mentioned, the students have a strong sense of belonging to the school. They share the
understandings of school practices as a community. In relation to this, it is interesting to look at the
social theory of learning from Wenger. An important point in this is that learning happens through
social contexts; it is through participating in social communities of practices that action and a sense
of belonging is activated. The students at Urban Academy do, as just mentioned, learn from each
other. Furthermore, they learn to participate in the teaching practice and collaborative practice
through learning from older students. Moreover, this participation creates a sense of belonging. It
can be discussed if this sense of belonging is one of the important elements of creating retention, as
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it appears to be important in order for Urban Academy to create engagement in the students.
It has been discussed how the behavioural, emotional and cognitive processes related to theories of
learning at Urban Academy can create engagement. This was discussed in the light of four theorists
as well as Fredricks et al and their views on learning and engagement related to retention. The
engagement concepts have furthermore been unfolded through Bakhtin’s theory of dialog. Urban
Academy appears to be enabling learning both cognitively and socially through the teaching
practice especially with the focus on experiences, which creates good effects for the students related
to engagement in the classroom. This reaches beyond to their entire school life and even to personal
development and social belonging, so that they have better chance at completing high school and
not dropping out.
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Conclusion Research question:
How do the practices within the classroom and the social organisation at Urban Academy create
possibilities for student retention?
In this Master’s Thesis we investigated practices at Urban Academy – a New York based transfer
high school. The case was chosen on the basis of their successful retention of minority, socio-
economically lower class, and former dropout students. The purpose has been to investigate the
practices at Urban Academy through a practice theoretical perspective in order to understand how
they create possibilities for retention. The findings are presented in the following.
T studies presented in the introduction show that one third of all high school students in the US fail
to graduate and state that something must be done to prevent it. In the studies it was found that
some of the reasons for students dropping out were related to: academic failure, insufficient support
– both academically and personally, and low involvement in school. Prevention strategies include:
close student-teacher contact, personal mentoring, strengthening school membership, a customised
curriculum, and real-world experiential learning.
In the analysis the practices at Urban Academy were found to consist of many different elements.
Within the classroom practices we found students who participated in classroom discussions based
on their own experiences. The aim of the teaching was not for the students to pass tests, but instead
to engage them in critical thinking based on multiple perspectives. Furthermore, the teacher’s role
was notable for not looking for right or wrong answers, but instead to facilitate students’
contributions. The classroom was characterised by a collaborative practice, where the students
would engage in social interaction based on group work and mixed grades in the classes.
Additionally, the discursive practice allowed students to express their opinions through respect for
every individual and their choices and voice.
The social organisation included a mentoring practice comprised by formally instituted periods
being tutorials, academic workshops and college help. The more informal support practice included
teachers, who were always available to help the students. The social organisation was furthermore
characterised by highly dedicated staff, who would go beyond the school context making sure that
the students felt supported in their lives. The support from teachers was seen as an important factor
101
contributing to the close relationship with the students. In addition, the close relationship was
perceived as creating a safe environment of trust between the students and their teachers.
The analysed practices were discussed in a learning as well as an engagement perspective to be able
to answer the research question regarding how the aforementioned practices create possibilities of
retaining students. Through the discussion it was demonstrated how the analysed practices at Urban
Academy could be perceived as engaging the students’ behaviour in school related activities. This
included students, who complied with the school rules, participated actively in the classes as well as
extracurricular activities. The student participation was discussed as an expression of a dialogical
engagement in the terms of Bakhtin. In addition, the social interaction among the students was
discussed in the light of Wenger. The students’ participation in school activities were perceived as
participation in social contexts, which according to Wenger lead to learning through social
communities. All of the above-mentioned performances are important expressions of behavioural
engagement. The discussion also demonstrated students, who were emotionally engaged within the
school. This was seen in relation to the supportive social organisation enabling a close relationship
between the students and teachers, contributing to the students’ feelings of belonging, which was
seen as a key factor in the emotional engagement. Ultimately, the students’ cognitive engagement
was discussed as an expression of learning. In the light of Dysthe and Bakhtin, the practices
enabling interaction between the students, were perceived as students engaging in dialogical
processes. In these processes of dialogue active learning occurred. Furthermore, the cognitive
engagement was discussed in the light of Dewey and his concept of reflexive thinking. Students
contributing with answers based on their own experiences were demonstrated as important factors
leading to students’ reflexive thinking, which, based on Dewey enhance the students learning and
cognitive engagement in Urban Academy. The discussion also showed how the same learning
process could be leading to critical thinking with students’ re-evaluating former knowledge through
critical thinking ultimately leading to transformative learning.
Ultimately, it is concluded that Urban Academy through their practices within the classroom and
social organisation are enabling dialogical learning actively both in terms of cognitive and social
processes as well as social, behavioural, emotional, and cognitive engagement, which creates
possibilities for student retention.
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Jensen, U. H. (2004). Reduction of Social Inequality in High School - exploring structures in the
learning environment that contribute to learning opportunitues for all students. In A. Bilfeldt, I.
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Universitetsforlag.
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om læring (pp. 156-173). Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur.
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Schatzki, T. R. (2000). Introduction - Practice Theory. In T. R. Schatzki, K.-C. K., & E. Savigny,
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Projects
Filrup, A., Christensen, C. F., & Schmidt, J. H. (2014). Cultural Understanding in Persona
Development. Semester project. Aalborg University, Copenhagen.
Articles
Azzam, A. M. (2007). Why Students Drop Out. Educational Leadership , 64 (7), 91-93.
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Websites
Bech, Hanne (2009). Frafald på de gymnasiale uddannelser. Retrieved on July 16, 2015 from
http://uvm.dk/~/media/UVM/Filer/Udd/Gym/Laaste%20mapper/PDF09/Nyheder/091023_Frafald_
paa_de_gymnasiale_uddannelser_del_1.pdf
Bridgeland, J. M., DiIulio, J. J., & Morison, K. B. (2006). Gates Foundation. Retrieved August 19,
2015, from https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/Documents/TheSilentEpidemic3-06Final.pdf
Postill, John (2010). What is practice theory. Retrieved on August 2, 2015 from
http://johnpostill.com/2008/10/30/what-is-practice-theory/
Teaching Channel (n.d.) Inquiry-Based Teaching: Multiple Responses. Retrieved on July 15, 2015
from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/inquiry-based-teaching-facilitation
Undervisningsministeriet. (2010, June). Undervisningsministeriets tilsynsberetning for 2009.
Retrieved November 13, 2015, from
http://www.uvm.dk/~/media/UVM/Filer/Adm/PDF10/Tilsyn_regnskab/100624_tilsynsrapport_ende
lig_samlet_udgave.pdf
NB: Urban Academy launched a new website in October. The following links are from the old
website.
Urban Academy (n.d.) About. Retrieved on July 14, 2015 from http://www.urbanacademy.org.htlm
Urban Academy (n.d.) Facilities. Retrieved on July 14, 2015 from
http://www.urbanacademy.org/learn/facilities.html
Urban Academy (n.d.) Diversity. Retrieved on July 14, 2015 from
http://www.urbanacademy.org/diverse/diverse.html
Urban Academy (n.d.) Inquiry based approach. Retrieved on July 14, 2015 from
(http://www.urbanacademy.org/alternative/alternative.html).
Urban Academy (n.d.) Course Catalogue. Retrieved on July 14, 2015 from
http://www.urbanacademy.org/learn/catalog.html
Urban Academy (n.d.) Performance Assessment. Retrieved on July 14, 2015 from
http://www.urbanacademy.org/alternative/performance.html
Urban Academy (n.d.) Classes. Retrieved on July 14, 2015 from
http://www.urbanacademy.org/alternative/cityas.html
Urban Academy (n.d.) College classes. Retrieved on July 14, 2015 from
http://www.urbanacademy.org/learn/collegeclasses.html)
Urban Academy (n.d.) Multi-aged classes. Retrieved on July 14, 2015 from
http://www.urbanacademy.org/diverse/multiagedclasses.html)
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Urban Academy (n.d.) Graduation. Retrieved on July 14, 2015 from
http://www.urbanacademy.org/learn/graduation.html)
Urban Academy (n.d.) Urban Academy Stands Against High-stake Testing. Retrieved on July 14,
2015 from http://www.urbanacademy.org/learn/urbanstand.html)
Yaffe, Carolyn (2012). Quality Review Report. Retrieved on July 14, 2015 from
http://schools.nyc.gov/OA/SchoolReports/2011-12/Quality_Review_2012_M565.pdf
Video
Cook, A., & Tashlik, P. (Directors). (2004). Talk, Talk, Talk: Discussion-Based Classrooms
[Motion Picture].
Appendices
NB: All of the appendices have been appended to the CD-ROM
Appendix 1
Interview Guide
Appendix 2
Observation Guide
Appendix 3
Questionnaire
Appendix 4
First Focus Group Interview
Appendix 5
Second Focus Group interview
Appendix 6
Focus Group Interview with Teachers
Appendix 7
Interview with Adam
Appendix 8
General Observations 1
Appendix 9
General Observations 2
Appendix 10
Looking for an Argument 1
Appendix 11
Looking for an Argument 2
Appendix 12
Current Issues 2
Appendix 13
Current Issues 2
Appendix 14
Plays and Playwriting
Appendix 15
Painting workshop
Appendix 16
Probabilities and statistics 1
Appendix 17
Probabilities and statistics 2
Appendix 18
Advanced algebra
Appendix 19
Algebra 2
Appendix 20
Hands on geometrics
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Appendix 21
Full group
Appendix 22
Evolutionary Simulations
Appendix 23
Proofs and Games
Appendix 24
Physics
Appendix 25
College Lab
Appendix 26
Student Committee
Appendix 27
Essay Writing
Appendix 28
Shakespeare Goes to the Movies
Appendix 29
What the Dickens
Appendix 30
Africa Now
Appendix 31
Schedule
Appendix 32
Urban Academy Understandings and Rules
Appendix 33
Urban Academy Handbook, Requirements
and Graduation
Appendix 34
Course Catalogue
Appendix 35
Pictures from Urban Academy
Appendix 36
Olga Dysthe “The Polyphonic Classroom”
Appendix 37
Wenger “A Social Theory on Learning”
Appendix 38
Jack Mezirow “How Critical Reflection Leads
to Transformative Learning”
Appendix 39
John Dewey “Inherent Resources”
107
From High School Dropout to an Urban
Academy Drop-in
- an explorative case study on how to retain high school students at
risk of dropping out
an article based on a Master’s Thesis
Anna Filrup and Camilla Friis Christensen
Learning and Innovative Change 10th semester
Institute of Learning and Philosophy
Aalborg University, Copenhagen
Abstract
The article takes its point of departure in a thesis written as a part of the final work within the Master of
Learning and Innovative Change at Aalborg University in Copenhagen. The aim of the thesis has been to
examine how the New York based high school, Urban Academy, is capable of creating retention focusing on
their classroom practices as well as the practices within the school’s social organisation through interviews
with students and teachers and fieldwork observations. The findings of the thesis suggested that the
aforementioned practices meet many of the prevention and retention strategies within the field. These
include a classroom practice with a focus on dialogical teaching, engaging the students actively, a dedicated
staff, a close teacher/student relationship as well as a social organisation with a very high level of support
both academically as well as personally. The findings were discussed in a learning and engagement
perspective demonstrating how the practices could be an expression of enhancement of different kinds of
engagement within the students as well as enhancing learning leading to the possibility for retention.
Keywords: Dropout, retention, prevention, support, learning, engagement, practice theory
Introduction
Several studies have shown how students dropping out of high school have become an escalating issue
within the US educational system (Rumberger 2011; Azzam 2007; Bridgeland 2006). A rate that has
increased to the extent that it has been termed the dropout epidemic (Bridgeland 2006, 1). Statistics show
how students failing to graduate were estimated to 1.3 millions in 2010 (Rumberger 2012, 1-2). Additional
research shows that approximately one-third of all high school students in the USA fail to graduate (Azzam
2007, 1). The studies, furthermore, show that socio-economically lower class and minority students are the
student population most affected by dropouts. With these drastic numbers of dropout in the US the studies
have investigated how to prevent dropouts and retain students. Some of the key factors regard closer
108
contact between teachers and students, mentoring programs, alternative high schools, customised
curriculum, positive school environment, helping the students grow emotionally and personally. Furthermore,
the studies suggest a different research approach where investigating successful cases was regarded as
rewarding. The New York based high school, Urban Academy, is an interesting case in this relation. The
high school has an ethnic diverse student population with approximately 50 percent of the students on a free
lunch arrangement. This indicates that the socio-economic status of the students is lower than the average.
Urban Academy is a transfer high school, which means they receive students who have previously dropped
out from another high school. Nevertheless the school is still able to present a completion rate of
approximately 70 percent of the students of whom ca. 90 % continue to college. They present themselves as
an alternative high school with a different approach to teaching based on the Inquiry-based method. All of
these factors made Urban Academy an interesting case to investigate related to the ‘dropout epidemic’ to
understand how they are capable of retaining their students against the odds.
Investigation Method
The investigation was based on a methodological framework of observations and focus group interviews with
a practice theoretical point of departure. The investigation was conducted at Urban Academy, three days of
classroom observations and other school related, but non-class activities were followed. During the same
three days other observations were conducted on the hallway of the school, in the staff room, and during
other school related activities. Additionally, the investigation consists of three focus group interviews: one
with teachers and two with different groups of five and seven students respectively as well as one interview
with the principal. The observations and interviews were supplemented with pictures from the visit to Urban
Academy and the school understandings as well as the weekly schedule and the course catalogue. These
elements together with transcriptions of the interviews and the written observations constituted the empirical
basis of the investigation. The approach to the investigation had a social constructivist point of departure
where the interactions in the classroom, in the general school area, and in the interviews were perceived as
social constructions dependent on the time and place. The role of the researchers was additionally perceived
to affect the results in the sense that the researchers in a social constructivist perspective are co-producers
of knowledge in the mentioned social contexts. Additionally, the analysis, discussions, and conclusions in the
thesis should be seen as a social construction within a specific research context.
Theoretical perspective
The empirical data gathered at Urban Academy was analysed using a practice theoretical framework.
Important theorists included: Theodore Schatzki and Andreas Reckwitz. The focus of the theoretical
perspective regards the perception that practices constitute the social through doings and sayings, or in
other words – the performance of people. To understand a practice one must investigate the performance of
the members of a practice, to ultimately get an insight into the shared understandings within the practice.
Important concepts used in the investigation included: bodily activity, tools, things, agents, unwritten and
written rules, and teleoaffective structure (emotions related to the performance of the practice). In the
investigation at Urban Academy these concepts were used as a point of departure guiding the observations
109
and interviews as well as being the driving elements of the analysis in order to understand the practices
within the classroom and the social organisation at Urban Academy. The choice of the focus was based on
the research interest regarding the retention of students. Compared to other studies these practices were
found to consist of elements, which were significant in relation to preventing students dropping out of high
school.
Findings and discussion
The classroom practices were found to comprise the teaching practice, the teacher’ role, a collaborative
practice, and a discursive practice. Within the social organisation the mentoring practice and the teacher’s
role outside the classroom in the social organisation was analysed. Within all the practices there seemed to
be a shared understanding related to how to perform the practice properly according to bodily activity,
unwritten and written rules and teleoaffective structure. The elements that constituted the practices within the
classroom and social organisation were discussed in the light of engagement and learning theories. It was
discussed how the investigated practices could be perceived to enhance behavioural, emotional, and
cognitive engagement, which all are important factors according to research regarding student retention.
Additionally, Urban Academy’s approach to learning enabled the students to use their abilities and they were
taken into account in the classroom in a constructive way, which also appeared to be engaging and
developing the students.
Conclusion
On the basis of the investigation of practices within the social organisation and the classroom at Urban
Academy it was found that these practices were important factors in the successful retention of students at
the school. Based on the included perspectives the students’ engagement in their school life is dependent on
three types: cognitive, emotional and behavioural. The investigated practices at Urban Academy seem to
engage the students according to these types in regard to different factors. First of all, the students
participate in classes and are active in the classroom. The students are engaged in planning of activities at
the school and there was a high degree of social interaction, which led to a positive relationship between
students as well as students and teachers. The students trusted the teachers and the teachers showed a
high level of dedication. Furthermore, the students were reflexive and active in their learning process.
All the findings above, together with studies within the field indicate that Urban Academy through their
practices create possibilities for retention of their students.
References
For references cf. the bibliography of the thesis