"What about teachers"? A duoethnographic exploration of ADHD in ELT

Abstract

The prevalence of ADHD in the general population is estimated at approximately 7.1% (Thomas et al., 2019). In spite of this, in the language education literature attention is given only to learners with the condition, whereas teachers are overlooked. The authors explore their teacher identities and experiences of teaching and training as well as living with ADHD. The interplay between teaching and ADHD is explored, and the authors hope that more attention is given to the condition.

Exploring Duoethnography in ELT Research Ecosystems: Accessibility, Misuse, and Further Horizons

“…Conversely, for practitioners considering duoethnography as an easy way to get something published, I would say that it can be much more time-consuming to produce a piece of work in this way, from planning to publishing, than it can be for other methods, mainly because you have to consider your co-author’s working style and schedule. The fastest duoethnography I have had published took under a year (Jones & Bruzzano, 2023), and the slowest is coming up to two years (Jones & Noble, 2023). I found it much easier to collect interview data from six participants and write it up alone (Jones, 2020)! Rob: Yes, I think you’ve highlighted very effectively the possibility that duoethnography could retain a veneer of methodological radicalism while actually causing potential action to regress into talk.…”

“…The resulting paper (Lowe & Kiczkowiak, 2016) was well received, and this encouraged me to engage more with the method, eventually leading to a co-edited book on the topic (Lowe & Lawrence, 2020). In Japan, I consider myself part of a small, informal group of duoethnographers who have produced studies on a variety of subjects using the method (e.g., see Hooper & Iijima, 2019;Jones & Noble, 2023;Lawrence & Nagashima, 2020;Nagashima & Lawrence, 2022). In my early work I conducted my research from a poststructural perspective, but in recent years I have begun to move in a direction influenced by the post-Marxist critical theory of the early Frankfurt School.…”

“…The straightforward communication was what initially attracted me, and for a full-time teacher it seemed like a realistic way to convey findings grounded in professional experience. This was a difficult but rewarding experience and since then I have published two further duoethnographies, (Jones & Bruzzano, 2023;Jones & Noble, 2023) but I continue to work in both quantitative and qualitative methods.…”