Fidelity in Teaching Young Children: Two Stories of Professional Integrity

Fidelity to participants when researching multilingual language teachers: A systematic review

“…In these studies, the research design could just as easily have involved the researchers engaging more deeply with their MLT participants by asking them about their own language learning experiences and multilingualism and encouraging them (or collaborating with them) to formulate approaches to multilingual pedagogy where they had more ownership. Such an approach would have enhanced ethics in that there would be less of a sense that the participants were seen as ‘irrelevant except for the instructional strategies they employ’ (Noddings, 1986, p. 506) or their purpose being to merely adhere to instructions and guidelines handed down to them by experts (Castner, 2021), whoever these may be. A greater focus on the participants as persons could also lead to more insightful findings.…”

“…Such macro ethical practices are procedural and help researchers monitor the research process, which is perceived as a transactional and legalistic scientific enterprise (Hopner & Liu, 2021). However, these practices do not emphasise deeper relational engagement between researchers and participants (Castner, 2021), one that prioritises a mutually beneficial exchange of ideas and, more importantly, a greater awareness of, and faithfulness towards, the participants as complex individuals in their own right. In many ways, macro ethical guidelines reflect the approach to teachers and their profession that experts and decision makers have frequently adopted when formulating education policy, where the purpose of teachers is simply to adhere to the specific guidelines or protocols that others create for them.…”

“…In many ways, macro ethical guidelines reflect the approach to teachers and their profession that experts and decision makers have frequently adopted when formulating education policy, where the purpose of teachers is simply to adhere to the specific guidelines or protocols that others create for them. Describing this approach, Castner (2021, p. 3) notes:

Experts with external authority design and develop educational experiences, which can be named ‘treatments’ or ‘curriculum’. Teachers and school leaders do not participate in the processes of conceptualizing and planning the normative aims and experiences.

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“…The presence of multilingualism adds several additional layers of complexity to these responsibilities that affect not only language learner experiences but also teacher experiences (and behaviour) (Ziegler, 2013), something that researchers might overlook or forego engaging with sufficiently. This article delves into how researchers can provide more insightful findings and implement more ethical coverage of their MLT participants by adopting relational ethics (Hopner & Liu, 2021), specifically, fidelity to participants (Castner, 2021; Noddings, 1986), alongside macro ethical guidelines. The findings from the review provide support for such adoption, which would allow researchers (and those who read their works) to see how research projects can be more than a transactional, bureaucratic process, and lead to insightful discoveries built on deeper collaboration, engagement, and understanding between researchers and participants (Costley & Gibbs, 2006).…”

What Is ›Acting Upon Educational Goals?‹

“…We cannot see the option that reachable objectives can be prescribed (once for all) from outside of practice and related to political issues as this will easily fall into the gap that students will be examined upon goals that they will never reach. Deprived from addressing the responsibilities that define their acting upon reachable goals, teachers' employment of creativity and care will be rendered clandestine, or may even become subversive practices (Castner 2022;Lash/Castner 2018).…”