“This Group of Difficult Kids”: The Discourse Preservice English Teachers Use to Label Students

Salerno, April S.; Kibler, Amanda K.

doi:10.1080/10824669.2016.1205496

Cited by 4 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Although it should be taken into account that PSTs were teaching different students when they conducted the various projects, the way PSTs describe their concerns about students does not appear to vary among projects. Although PSTs in early inquiry work were less likely to give specific information about relationships with students (see Salerno and Kibler 2015a), challenges they described among students did not reveal variation across projects (see Salerno and Kibler 2015b). Given the difference in data, however, further research would be necessary to confirm a mismatch between questions asked to and about students.…”

Section: Supplemental Datamentioning

confidence: 81%

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Questions they ask: considering teacher-inquiry questions posed by pre-service English teachers

Salerno

Kibler

2015

Educational Action Research

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Our study of pre-service teachers' (PSTs) inquiry projects includes two levels of practitioner-research: on one level, we examine the research questions PSTs pose about their classrooms; and on the second, the study is an action-research investigation of our own practice in teaching PSTs both pedagogical and inquiry practices. We study PSTs' inquiry questions specifically in an attempt to understand their concerns about teaching and to improve the ways we instruct PSTs. The project considers three research questions: how do English PSTs pose their concerns about students in inquiry questions addressed to students during fieldplacement experiences; how do they express these concerns in questions posed about students; and what can we learn from the ways PSTs embed conceptualizations of students in questions? Findings reveal a possible mismatch, with PSTs asking students directly about personal interests but often formulating research questions about academic challenges. Such disparity suggests PSTs might be reluctant to broach difficult subjects with students -a reluctance that might deter PSTs from openly discussing challenges with students or from enlisting students as collaborators in inquiry. Additionally, PSTs expressed that their prior knowledge of students constituted 'researcher bias.' These findings indicate to us as action-researchers and teacher educators that we need to make changes in how we help PSTs involve students as collaborators in inquiry and that we need to help them understand that teacher-inquiry does not require an unrealistic ideal of researcher neutrality but instead requires teachers to examine their knowledge and to investigate questions systematically. IntroductionWhile teacher-inquiry is increasingly viewed as a promising means of training beginning and pre-service teachers (PSTs) to become practitioners who constantly improve their classrooms, little research has been conducted on the inquiry questions PSTs ask. Yet gaining understanding of how PSTs choose and structure questions is instrumental in helping teacher educators support practitioner-research and teacher action research. With additional knowledge, teacher educators can better understand concerns new teachers have about teaching and how PSTs do or do not regard teacher-inquiry and practitioner-research as ongoing instructional practices for promoting positive changes in their future classrooms. Our project contains two layers of

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Section: Supplemental Datamentioning

confidence: 81%

“…While learning about students' interests outside school is a step toward knowing them as individuals, finding out only about hobbies and not about other issues in students' lives might give PSTs a surface-level understanding of students (Salerno and Kibler 2015b).…”

Section: Question Onementioning

confidence: 99%

Questions they ask: considering teacher-inquiry questions posed by pre-service English teachers

Salerno

Kibler

2015

Educational Action Research

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“…She transcribed oral presentations and excerpts from course discussions cited in this paper. Across the two years of data collection, we saw many questions emerge, but a focus of our interest and observations throughout included understanding how PSTs described and related to students (see Salerno & kibler, 2016, for more on student descriptions). Through coursework, PSTs analyzed field-placement classrooms in three teacher-inquiry assignments-projects in which PSTs self-examined their teaching and students with goals of improving their practice (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009).…”

Section: Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relational Challenges and Breakthroughs: How Pre-Service English Teachers’ Figured Worlds Impact Their Relationships with Students

Salerno

Kibler

2018

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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Background/Context Figured worlds have been conceptualized as spaces, or “realms,” where individuals assign meaning and significance to actors and characters or come to understand what they take as “typical or normal.” This study applies a lens of figured worlds to descriptions that pre-service teachers (PSTs) give of themselves and their relationships with students they said were challenging to teach. Purpose/Objective Research focused on two questions: (1) How do PSTs describe their own figured worlds in relation to those of their students? (2) What challenges and breakthroughs do PSTs describe in their efforts to understand students’ figured worlds through relationship building? Setting Data are from a cohort of secondary English education PSTs during teacher preparation at a large public university in a South Atlantic state. Population/Participants/Subjects At graduation, the cohort consisted of 15 members, all of whom participated in our study. All of the participants were women of typical university student age. Participants described their race/ethnicity as White (11), Korean (1), Filipino-American (1), Chinese-American (1), and Hispanic (1). Research Design This qualitative study uses open-coding analysis to consider ways PSTs talked about their figured worlds and their student relationships across their two-year English education teacher preparation. Data include field notes of course discussions and practice-teaching observations, interviews, course presentations, lesson plans, and course assignments, especially from three teaching inquiry projects that PSTs completed during their program. The researchers take a practitioner-inquirer stance, as they were both involved in helping prepare the cohort. Findings/Results Among Question 1 findings, PSTs reveal various individual figured worlds in addition to several group-defined figured worlds, including group identities such as: women; students who had themselves excelled in school; new, young, and inexperienced teachers; people identifying strongly with English content; and people of privilege. Among Question 2 findings, PSTs overwhelmingly viewed relationships with students as important; however, they experienced many challenges and breakthroughs in building those relationships. Conclusions/Recommendations PSTs entered their preparation and their student-teaching classrooms with their own figured worlds about themselves and what teacher–student relationships should look like. In practice teaching, however, they experienced many challenges to building the types of relationships they expected. And they also experienced breakthroughs in improving these relationships. For teacher educators, it is important to understand the figured worlds that PSTs bring to teacher–student relationships and to help them in understanding that students’ figured worlds might not align with their own.

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“…Instead, research suggests that the referral process is often incomplete (Liu et al, 2008) and ineffective for determining special education eligibility . In addition, the language practices employed by educators during the referral process reveal a tendency to place the locus of blame on the student for their failures Knotek, 2003), to use deficitbased labels (Carey, 2014;Pica-Smith & Veloria, 2012;Salerno & Kibler, 2016), and to avoid the topic of race altogether (McDermott et al, 2009;Salerno & Kibler, 2016;Skiba et al, 2006;Watson, 2011). Clearly, these efforts to disrupt disproportionality continue to miss the mark.…”

Section: Ineffective Measures and A New Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a window into the cultural core, or the "deep structure" (Bess & Dee, 2008, p. 62), discourse can be a particularly powerful tool. Indeed, there exists already some compelling research to suggest that discourse analysis can serve as an effective methodology for unearthing the values, beliefs, and assumptions regarding certain demographics of students (Carey, 2014;Pica-Smith & Veloria, 2012;Salerno & Kibler, 2016).…”

Section: Ineffective Measures and A New Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Tricky” and “Intense:” Examining Educators’ Perception of the “Ability Line” in a High-Performing, Independent School

Douglass¹

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“This Group of Difficult Kids”: The Discourse Preservice English Teachers Use to Label Students

Cited by 4 publications

References 23 publications

Questions they ask: considering teacher-inquiry questions posed by pre-service English teachers

Questions they ask: considering teacher-inquiry questions posed by pre-service English teachers

Relational Challenges and Breakthroughs: How Pre-Service English Teachers’ Figured Worlds Impact Their Relationships with Students

“Tricky” and “Intense:” Examining Educators’ Perception of the “Ability Line” in a High-Performing, Independent School

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