A Foucauldian analysis of literary text selection practices and educational policies in Ontario, Canada

Greig, Christopher; Holloway, Susan M.

doi:10.1080/01596306.2015.1043239

Cited by 6 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 14 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Knowing that they may or may not receive support from their administration, teachers gambled a great deal when they chose to engage in teaching practices that contravened the dominant discourse that essentially sanctioned limiting the rights of others to read certain literary texts. (Grieg and Holloway 2016:407)…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“I Wouldn’t Bring in Anything that Could Be Challenged”: Educators as Moral Educators

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Rooted in protectionist discourses, would-be censors regularly frame censorship and book challenges as defenses against portrayals of deviance and social ills. Such concerns often feed into social control of community values and moral panics around the degradation of children’s presumed innate innocence. In this study, we investigated perceptions of public K-12 educators regarding the inclusion or exclusion of controversial materials in schools. We found that the “parent phone call” both served to define what constituted controversial materials and constrain educators’ professional decision making. Although the rare teacher used parent phone calls as opportunities to educate parents about curriculum, the majority of educators avoided instructional practices that might elicit such a phone call, thus engaging in self-censorship and moral entrepreneurship as rule enforcers.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“I Wouldn’t Bring in Anything that Could Be Challenged”: Educators as Moral Educators

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Secondly, why focus on English? It is the case that there is a small body of extant literature on the selection of texts in English (see for example Stallworth, Gibbons & Fauber, 2006;Watkins & Ostenson, 2015;Grieg & Holloway, 2016). However, almost all of this is focused on teachers in countries which have retained fairly prescriptive curricula and/or assessment systems, meaning that it does not adequately investigate how English teachers might operate in a high-autonomy environment.…”

Section: Justification Of Research Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The extant empirical work on teacher text selection takes up similar concerns to the theoretical work in the sense that it largely explores the pressures that result in teachers selecting from a relatively conservative range of canonical texts, and attempts to understand what might allow teachers to select a more diverse or immediately 'engaging' range of texts. The most common factor many researchers found driving teacher text choice was any given text's ability to meet the needs of national/state/local curriculum or assessment, either because certain texts were on a prescribed list or because they would meet specific requirements of curriculum or assessment (Grieg & Holloway, 2016;Holloway & Grieg, 2011;Stallworth, Gibbons & Fauber, 2006;Watkins & Ostenson, 2015). Other factors were also identified, including the influence of a teacher's department (Darragh & Boyd, 2019) (which may in turn be influenced by national/state/local priorities), a lack of resourcing and professional development to learn about different texts (Darragh & Boyd, 2019;Grieg & Holloway, 2016;Holloway & Grieg, 2011;Stallworth, Gibbons & Fauber, 2006;Watkins & Ostenson, 2015) and the readability of texts (Watkins & Ostenson, 2015).…”

Section: Empirical Work On Text Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The most common factor many researchers found driving teacher text choice was any given text's ability to meet the needs of national/state/local curriculum or assessment, either because certain texts were on a prescribed list or because they would meet specific requirements of curriculum or assessment (Grieg & Holloway, 2016;Holloway & Grieg, 2011;Stallworth, Gibbons & Fauber, 2006;Watkins & Ostenson, 2015). Other factors were also identified, including the influence of a teacher's department (Darragh & Boyd, 2019) (which may in turn be influenced by national/state/local priorities), a lack of resourcing and professional development to learn about different texts (Darragh & Boyd, 2019;Grieg & Holloway, 2016;Holloway & Grieg, 2011;Stallworth, Gibbons & Fauber, 2006;Watkins & Ostenson, 2015) and the readability of texts (Watkins & Ostenson, 2015). As a result of these factors, these studies conclude that literature studied in high schools appears largely unchanged in these studies since the 1950s, with the most common texts selected by teachers across the various studies consistently being 'classics' by white male authors such as Lord of the Flies (1954), Animal Farm (1945 and The Catcher in the Rye (1951).…”

Section: Empirical Work On Text Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Option Two: A return to a heavily prescribed curriculum. One possibility to deal with the potentially fragmented or limited range of texts students are exposed to in subject English in New Zealand at present is to remove the ability for teachers to act as "independent curriculum makers" (Ormond, 2017, p. 599) and return to a heavily prescribed text list, as is currently seen in many other countries (Grieg & Holloway, 2016;Holloway & Grieg, 2011;Stallworth, Gibbons & Fauber, 2006;Watkins & Ostenson, 2015). There would be some clear benefits to such an approach.…”

Section: Potential Paths Forwardmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Preference, Passing and Fresh Perspectives: Text Selection by Secondary School English Teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand

Hughson¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

<p>The New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) and the national secondary school qualification, the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA), afford teachers an enormous degree of autonomy over what they teach in their classrooms. This is in line with international trends in curriculum design which shape curricula around generic, open-ended learning outcomes rather than specific content. However, as of yet there is very little research either in New Zealand or internationally into the ways teachers make decisions about what to teach within an environment of great curricular freedom. Accordingly, this thesis investigates how high school English teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand make decisions about which written texts to teach within the context of current curriculum and assessment frameworks. It conducts this investigation from what will be called a modified social realist perspective. This theoretical perspective adapts the classic social realism promoted in the work of Michael Young and others, in order to develop a version of social realism which has explanatory power for humanities subjects, and subject English in particular. The thesis moves through three main sections: context, theory and findings. The first section details the context in which this study is located, with a focus on how the New Zealand Curriculum and NCEA are clear examples of what will be called the New Curriculum: a movement in curricular reform which advocates for the removal prescribed content and positions the teacher as a curriculum maker, rather than a curriculum implementer. This section also includes a literature review. The second section outlines the theoretical position of this thesis. It shows how classic social realism struggles to account for both the non-abstract and subjective nature of literary experience, and moves from this to advance a ‘modified social realism’ which incorporates these features of literary experience into its model. The methodology of the study is also included here. Finally, the third section outlines the study’s findings. It is shown that given the freedom to choose their own texts, teachers make decisions based on, in order of importance, students’ interests, the likelihood of a text succeeding in NCEA assessments, and whether the text will expose students to important perspectives and ideas. This thesis argues that such priorities are problematic, as, from a modified social realist perspective, focusing on student interests and assessment success can limit opportunities for students to be exposed to truly transformative literature. This thesis therefore ends by suggesting three potential reforms which would allow students to encounter such literature more frequently, including enhanced professional development, and a curriculum document with clearer guidelines around the types of texts that students should encounter.</p>

show abstract

Does autonomy exist? Comparing the autonomy of teachers and senior leaders in England and Turkey

Hammersley‐Fletcher

Kılıçoğlu

2020

Oxford Review of Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Countries regarded as holding high levels of educational autonomy face a different set of constraints to that of countries with low levels of autonomy, these constraints being linked to the marketisation of schools. As schools become decentralised and given greater autonomy, school leaders are steered by a responsibilising framework that includes bureaucratic regulation, the discourses and practices of competitive enterprise, and external public accountability measures (Gobby, Keddie, & Blackmore, 2018;Wermke & Forsberg, 2017). This paper contrasts data gathered from school teachers and senior leaders from one high autonomy, high accountability context, England, with one low autonomy, low accountability context, Turkey. Through a process of semi-structured interviews with teachers and senior leaders, we investigated approaches to managing change. Responses revealed differences between countries with very different systems of accountability and the degree of autonomy available to staff. We also found that there were significant similarities in terms of the attitudes and pressures experienced by teachers and senior leaders that raise questions for our understandings and application of notions of teacher autonomy and accountability.

show abstract

A Foucauldian analysis of literary text selection practices and educational policies in Ontario, Canada

Cited by 6 publications

References 14 publications

“I Wouldn’t Bring in Anything that Could Be Challenged”: Educators as Moral Educators

“I Wouldn’t Bring in Anything that Could Be Challenged”: Educators as Moral Educators

Preference, Passing and Fresh Perspectives: Text Selection by Secondary School English Teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand

Does autonomy exist? Comparing the autonomy of teachers and senior leaders in England and Turkey

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About