Theory, knowledge and the future of research in geography education – exploring our anxieties about the place of theory.

Graham Butt

GTE ConferenceOxford University1 February 2015

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Three ‘anxieties’ relating to theory:

1. A ‘sector anxiety’2. A ‘geography education anxiety’3. An ‘aging researcher population

anxiety’

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1. A ‘sector anxiety’:RESEARCH AND TEACHER EDUCATION: THE BERA-RSA INQUIRY

POLICY AND PRACTICE WITHIN THE UNITED KINGDOM

Gary Beauchamp, Linda Clarke, Moira Hulme and Jean Murray.

December 2013

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Remit and scope of BERA-RSA enquiry:Explored ITE across the four jurisdictions of UK:

Reviewed policies and practices through two major foci:

•1. The relationships between the declared teacher Standards (competencies/competences) and research-informed teacher education provision; and

•2. The ‘turn or (re)turn to the practical’ in teacher education (Furlong & Lawn, 2011: 6),

Looked at ITE policy declarations, change in practice, and emphases and effects of the ‘discourse(s) of relevance’.

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• English Standards and current Government policy now indicate a decisive shift away from the idea of teaching as a research-based profession and towards the construction of teaching as a craft.

• discourse of relevance is a powerful part of the (re)turn to the practical (‘classroom ready’).

‘In England the (re)turn to the practical has beenintensified by specific structural and political factors and by a

dominating culture of compliance and regulation’ (p.2).

‘England is creating a model of ITE which privileges performativity - and ‘practical’ and experiential knowledge - over theoretical, pedagogical and subject knowledge’ (p.2).

‘England is emerging as the exception or outlier’ (p.2).

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TEACHERS’ STANDARDS/COMPETENCES AND RESEARCH IN NATIONAL CONTEXTS

•Divergence in ITE in England ‘has particular implications for the future contribution of research-based knowledge in teacher preparation in England’ (p.3).

• ‘The position and value of research in teacher education – or training, as it more usually termed - in England is contested’ (p.4).

• ‘The importance of research-informed provision has, arguably, diminished over time, and the knowledge base for teaching is often defined as practical, relevant and focused around contemporary, experiential knowledge of schooling’ (p.4).

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•But ‘most university-led provision has maintained a commitment to combine perspectives from educational research with meeting the official imperatives of making programmes ‘demanding, relevant, and practical’ (Furlong et al, 2000:144)’ (p.5).

•draws explicitly on practitioner enquiry, or action research modes of learning and assessment

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2. A ‘geography education’ anxiety•A determinant of (research) work at Masters and

doctoral level is engagement with theory.•Employment of theory as an analytical, structuring or

interpretative framework from which to consider research questions, methods, ideas, analysis, etc.

•Opens possibilities for (deeper) analysis of one’s research data/findings

•Possibilities of theory building, or theory ‘testing’ (to support, reject or change theory)

• (But theory adopted can act to restrict parameters of analysis)

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Critics of educational theory (and research)

‘Outside’ the sector: some ‘historical’ criticisms – Hillage et al 1998, Tooley and Darby 1998, etc.‘Inside’ the sector: Carr (2006) refers to educational theory as:‘the various futile attempts that we have made over the last hundred years to stand outside our educational practices in order to explain and justify them … we should now bring the whole educational theory enterprise to a dignified end’ (p.137).

Thomas (2007) criticises our narrow conception of theory (v. practice); cf a drug ‘offering delusions about practical intervention’ (p.7); questions whether practice should always be based on theory; theory often a conflation of ‘critical thinking’, ‘critical reflection’, or simply ‘thinking’.

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Cohen, et al (2007) describe educational theory as:‘only at the early stages of formulation and (are) thus characterized by great unevenness’ (p.13)

Thomas (2012) notes increasing demand for educational theory to employ ‘scientific’ principles ( > ‘what works’)•But educational questions and contexts don’t easily yield to scientific/positivistic/quantitative method… and do not produce (reliable) generalisable results•Social science v. natural science research

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Uses to which theory is put….

‘We come back to the issue of whether research is truly open, being primarily driven by theory building and a desire to explore, or whether it is tightly restricted to testing the effectiveness of an initiative, project or policy. The difference is important: for the former is often emancipatory and encourages knowledge creation, whereas the latter takes theory as a set framework within which research is simply applied’

(Butt 2015, p.83)

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• Debate about contribution of theory to research in geography education is limited

• Status of theory in geography education is ‘rather tenuous’ (Morgan and Firth 2010).

•Origins of much research in geography education is from HEIs, by tutors engaged in ITT

• Location for much of this research is the classroom (which affects the types of theory adopted/applied)

• By the end of the 1980s the emerging field of research in geography education is described as ‘a gradual flowering of a variety of substantive themes underpinned by a number of theoretical perspectives’ (Morgan and Firth 2010, p.89)

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Firth and Morgan(2010)• ‘since the early 1990s, geography education as a

research field has been challenged by pressures that seek to downplay the importance of theory’ (p.98).

• (Gov’t conception of ITE, dominance of practice over theory, focus on (atheoretical) classroom-based problems, ‘what works’, research ‘impact’)

•But ‘without theory our data on the experience of schooling do not get us very far and are unlikely to tell us much that is not already obvious’ (p.111).

•Ours is a research community ‘that seems to have overlooked theoretical traditions in ways of researching and analysing geography education’ (p.112)

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3. An ‘aging researcher population anxiety’:

- age profile of active researchers is getting older- anxiety about who becomes the ‘next generation’ of researchers (in geography education)- previous ‘alliances’ between researchers and ITT fragmenting (fewer PGCE Geography courses/tutors)- where does this leave (development of) theory in geography education?

Conclusions (1)• ‘Historically, across the UK there have been close

relationships between educational research and the nature of teacher education provision, particularly ITE, (Furlong, 2013), but it is clear that those relationships are currently in flux. This situation is of particular concern in England, where the introduction of the School Direct route threatens the maintenance of current models of research-informed teacher education in many universities. It is feared that School Direct will threaten the financial stability of Schools of Education and their institutional abilities to plan strategically, leading to the increased casualisation of the teacher education workforce and the loss of research-informed knowledge and skills for high quality teaching and teacher education’ (McNamara and Murray, 2013) p.8.

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Conclusions (2)• ‘a decisive shift away from the idea of teaching as a

research-based profession and intellectual activity towards teaching as a craft-based occupation’ p.7

•……. So, what are the ways forward from here?•…... Are there positives to be drawn from all this?•……. What might a sensible response to this situation

look like?

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References• Beauchamp, G, Clarke, L, Hulme, M and Murray, J (2013) Policy and Practice within the United Kingdom. Research and Teacher

Education: The BERA- RSA Inquiry. London. • Butt, G (2015) What is the Role of Theory? in Butt, G (ed) MasterClass in Geography Education. London: Bloomsbury. pp.81-93.• Beck, J. (2009) Appropriating professionalism: restructuring the official knowledge base of England’s ‘modernised’ teaching profession,

British Journal of Sociology of Education, 30(1), 3–14.• Carr, W (2007)• Cohen,L, Manion, L and Morrison, K (2007) Research Methods in Education: 6th Edition. Abingdon: Routledge.• Connell, R., Campbell, C., Welch, A., Bagnall, N., Hayes, D., Vickers, M. & Foley, D. (2010) Education, Change and Society. (2nd ed.),

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development and the changes proposed in the 2010 White Paper. British Educational• Research Journal, 37(5), 851-870• Firth, R and Morgan, J (2010) What is the place of radical/critical research in geography education? IRGEE 19 (2) pp.109-113.• Furlong, J., Barton, L., Miles, S., Whiting, C., & Whitty, G. (2000) Teacher Education in Transition. Buckingham: OUP.• Furlong, J. (2005) New Labour and teacher education: the end of an era. Oxford Education Review, 33(1), 119-34.• Furlong, J. & Lawn, M. (eds) (2011) Disciplines of Education: their role in the future of education research. London:• Routledge.• Furlong, J. (2013) Education: an anatomy of the discipline. London: Routledge.• Mahony, P. & Hextall, I. (2000) Reconstructing Teaching: Standards, Performance and Accountability. London: Routledge Falmer.• McNamara, O. & Murray, J. (2013, in press) The School Direct programme and its implications for research-informed teacher education

and teacher educators. York: Higher Education Academy• Morgan, J and Firth, R (2010) ‘By our theories shall you know us’: the role of theory in geographical education, IRGEE, 19 (2) pp.87-90• Smithers, A. & Robinson, J. (2012) The Good Teacher Training Guide 2012. Centre for Education and Employment Research: University

of Buckingham.• Thomas, G (2007) Education and Theory: Strangers in Paradigms. Maidenhead: Open University Press.• Thomas, G (2012) Changing our landscape of enquiry for a new science of education. Harvard Educational Review . 82 (1) pp.26-51.• Tooley, J and Darby, D (1998) Educational Research – A Critique. London: OfSTED.• Wilson, E. (2012) Building social capital in teacher education through university–school partnership. In M. Evans, (Ed)• Wilson E (2012) Teacher Education and Pedagogy: theory, policy and practice. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

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