Policy, Belief and Practice in the Secondary English Classroom

Abstract

Studies of comparative classroom practice in the teaching of secondary English are limited, especially when it comes to exploration of the day-to-day practice of English teachers in the secondary classroom. This book presents a case study analysis of secondary classroom practice in three countries: Canada, England and Scotland. Each country has had different degrees of state involvement within the secondary English curriculum over the last twenty years. England has had the highest degree of state involvement in that it has had several statutory national curricula and a variety of assessment regimes. Scotland has had a non- statutory curriculum and no national tests and Canada has had no national curriculum at all, with education being determined at province level, and each province varying its policies. The research adopts a case study approach involving both classroom observation and interviews with teachers. Through this, the authors explore the impact of state involvement on the reality of what happens in secondary English classrooms. The book invites readers to consider the applicability of the findings to their own contexts, to examine their own practice in the light of this and to consider the nature of the relationships between policy, personal belief and practice in the teaching of English.

How are Heads of English responding to policy changes in the English school system?

“…Within the English teaching community however, the subject continues to be 'quicksilver' (Dixon, 1967, p. 1), 'not quite a subject in the usual sense' (Medway, 1990, p. 1), and remains a contested discipline (Andrews, 2020). English teachers are allegedly more committed to the personal growth model than the NC implies (Goodwyn, 2016), and the relationship between English, education policy and concepts of knowledge is the subject of ongoing debate (Doecke and Mead, 2017, Goodwyn et al, 2019, Marshall et al, 2019.…”