MODELO FIANZA DE CUMPLIMIENTO DE CONTRATO

Still No Theory

I feel that it is important at this juncture to recognise the paucity of theory in relation to school configurations and cross-phase engagement. Creating a theoretical framework in relation to all-through schools has been challenging, because there is not a corpus of literature to draw on about all-through schools specifically. It is likely to be because all-through schools are a relatively new phenomenon, that mentions of all-through schools seem to have been consigned to fairly brief comments about their potential in the more recent transition and transfer literature (e.g. Sutherland, Ching Yee, McNess and Harris, 2010; Howe, 2011). Also, as detailed in chapter two, I contend that the current English status quo is inherited from the post-war structures and has evolved at key points in time in response to the policy paradigms of governments of the day, rather than as the result of informed debate or through engagement with educational theory.

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In his article ‘Still no pedagogy?’ Alexander (2004) writes a searing critique of the National Primary Strategy (DfES, 2003a) and of the arrogance of politicians who dismiss and denegrate what has gone immediately before in educational policy. Alexander (2004) contends that what the DfES had called ‘an informed professional judgement’ in the strategy, actually amounts to a call to ‘know and acquiesce to what is provided, expected and/or required by government and its agencies..no less, and especially, no more’ (Alexander, 2004, p17). It is clear that what frustrates Alexander is that a wealth of educational research is simply ignored, if it does not suit the educational agenda of the administration of the day. Alexander‘s (2004) article builds on the work of Simon (1981) who compared practitioners in England to their continental teaching counterparts, who he felt engaged in a professional dialogue about the ‘science of teaching’ or what we might term pedagogy. In contrast, Alexander paraphrases the thrust of Simon’s (1981) argument, that in planning their teaching English teachers are ‘combining pragmatism with ideology, but not much else’ (Alexander, 2004, p80).

I am contending that just as the notion of pedagogy has not flourished in England, there has been a similar failure to conceptualise school organisation or frame it in the context of educational theories. The reason for focusing on ‘How did we get here?’ in chapter two, is because the evolution of English state education has been historic and ideological (Benn, 2011; Chitty, 2014; Jones, 1989; Jones, 2014) rather than theoretical or grounded in pedagogical considerations (Alexander, 2004). As school organisation has not been sufficiently theorised, neither too has the interaction between the actors in the two phases of compulsory education. Therefore, the development of a theoretical framework must also take account and acknowledge what is not there. Evans and Fisher (2012) do exactly this when constructing the theoretical basis of their paper relating to cross-phase MFL teaching and acknowledge the lack of an obvious theory to draw upon: ‘in the absence of an existing overarching theory of cross-phase educational interaction’ (Evans and Fisher, 2012, p159). In the development of the theoretical components of my research, I am, similarly, acknowledging the theoretical paucity in the immediate area and am casting the net a little wider, to establish frameworks which might illuminate the area of study.

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Boundary practice

Some of the literature hints at a fundamental schism between primary and secondary teachers, which ultimately does children a disservice (Sutton 2001, Sutherland et al 2010). Sutherland et al (2010) suggest that primary and secondary teachers have evolved over time into ‘two tribes’, where there is ‘very little understanding or valuing of the diversity of experience and expertise’ between the two groups (p61). Sutton (2001) goes further suggesting that there is a percieved hierarchy and even an intellectual snobbery between the two groups, in that secondary school teachers tend to be subject graduates, which society appears to value above the generalist educational background of some primary teachers. This links to wider perceptions of inequities between educational phases, which Coldron, Crawford, Jones and Simkins (2015) describe as a ‘case of durable inequality’. They also see the legacy of generalist and specialist teaching at different educational phases as playing a part in the ‘relative prestige’ of primary and secondary practitioners (Coldron et al, 2015, p678). Sutton suggests we should ‘try to moderate our traditional deference towards specialist subject qualfications.’ (Sutton, 2001, p131). Sutherland et al (2010) advocate both groups learning to think beyond their tribal mindset, if they are to work together to do their best for learners going through the primary to secondary school transfer. They also suggest that all-through settings could provide a break-through in terms of establishing effective dialogue and a platform for sharing practice across the primary-secondary divide. Coldron et al (2015) advocate research into all- through schools to see if they are helping to recalibrate the status and prestige differentials between primary and secondary teachers and school leaders.

The notion of primary and secondary practitioners as separate professional communities, with limited interaction, and between whom there is sometimes even an element of mutual tension (Coldron et al, 2015), has been a key concept in building the theoretical framework for my research. Evans and Fisher (2012) draw on Wenger (1998) to create a theoretical framework for their own research which looked at the professional links between primary and secondary schools in the teaching of MFL. Considering Wenger’s work further, I am expanding this premise, to examine how educational practice in all-through schools might be theorised in terms of ‘boundary practice’ (Wenger,1998, p114).

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Primary and secondary teachers can be seen as being two distinct ‘communities of practice’ (CoP) (Wenger, 1998). In 1998 Wenger defined a CoP as sharing a ‘joint enterprise’ and ‘mutual engagement.’ By 2016 he had refined this to be a ‘domain…in which a community claims to have legitimacy to define competence’ (Farnsworth, Kleanthous and Wenger-Trayner, 2016, p6). Whilst primary and secondary teachers have the commonality of being teachers, there are a number of professional boundaries which separate them and arguably they are functioning within different domains, related to their status as generalists and specialists and to the age range of the pupils they teach. These professional boundaries can be partly institutional, as we know that in the wider school system the vast majority of primary and secondary schools operate as separate institutions.

However, tribal identities can go beyond the institutional. Primary and secondary teachers are likely to have been trained specifically for their phase of education and, therefore, their professional identity and affinity to their own ‘tribe’ (Sutherland et al, 2010) can be set very early in their professional life. Wenger sees identity as a powerful force in the dynamics of a CoP: membership can be a type of recognition of practitioners’ competence in their field and may start to constitute part of their identity in their wider life (Farnsworth, Kleanthous and Wenger-Trayner, 2016). Wenger states that a CoP can have boundaries that are denoted and experienced in ‘subtle and not so subtle ways’ (Wenger, 1998, p104). So whilst teachers from all phases may be a member of the same professional association or union, for example, or even employed by the same all-through school, there may still be ‘markers of membership’ (Wenger, 1998, p104) of their specific CoP which denote a boundary. For example, different educational phases have a phase specific vocabulary to discuss areas of their professional practice. Wenger states that ‘the nuances and the jargon of a professional group distinguish the inside from the outside as much as do certificates’ (Wenger, 1998, p104). That primary and secondary teachers are perceived to have their own, separate ‘language’ emerged in my own research findings and is considered later in this thesis.

Evans and Fisher (2012) theorised the links between secondary MFL teachers and their primary colleagues, in terms of what Wenger (1998) calls ‘boundary encounters’. Boundary encounters often take the form of conversations, meetings

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and visits between members of one CoP and another. In taking a wider view, looking at the primary and secondary teachers’ interactions across the piece, and then extrapolating what that might mean for all-through schools, leads me to consider the detail of ‘boundary encounters’ and the deeper professional interaction between separate CoPs, which Wenger terms as ‘boundary practices.’ Boundary encounters can be ‘one-on-one’, ‘immersion’ or in the form of ‘delegation’ (Wenger, 1998, p133). In the case of cross-phase MFL liaison, for example, the typical types of interaction between primary and secondary practitioners would fall into the categories of ‘one- on-one’ or ‘delegation’ working, with either single practitioners linking together or a small group of practitioners meeting. ‘Immersion’ is when the member of one community is hosted by another, allowing a more prolonged exposure to the host community, with the aim of advancing the boundary relation. However, Wenger is clear that ‘immersion’ has the limit of being a one-sided enterprise and that ‘the host practice is unlikely to witness in any significant way how visitors function in their home practice’ (Wenger,1998, p112).

‘Boundary practice’ goes beyond the more superficial nature of ‘boundary encounters’, in that it is a ‘sustained mutual engagement’ where ‘maintaining connections becomes part of the enterprise’ (Wenger, 1998, p114). An interesting facet of all-through schools is that they are single institutions, which employ practitioners from the two distinct teaching CoPs. In chapter nine I reflect upon whether the all-through schools in this research are establishing meaningful ‘boundary practice’ by facilitating and maintaining professional connections between primary and secondary teachers. I also consider the extent to which this emerging practice is evident and can be defined. Wenger (1998) is clear that there can be boundaries even within institutions, so it is possible that the traditional tribal mindsets could be just as evident in all-through schools, as they are in the wider school system. I reflect upon the extent to which tribal mindsets persist in the case study schools in chapters seven and nine.

Wenger (1998) also describes a danger of boundary working, which could simultaneously be viewed as an opportunity. There is a risk that those spending a great deal of time developing ‘boundary practice’ actually form an entirely new CoP and that ‘they become insulated from the practices they are supposed to connect’

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(Wenger, 1998, p115). This is a danger, because instead of engaging and communicating with their original CoP, the new work of the group becomes an end in itself. This danger may be very real in all-through schools, where the practitioners’ shared insitutional loyalities might result in the evolution of practices which work well for that institution, but do not impact upon educational practice beyond it. However, the potential to develop into something new, is an exciting prospect in itself, particularly in a professional world which has been dominated by the binary system of primary and secondary education. Wenger (1998) uses the example of scientific development, where colleagues collaborating from different disciplines have forged an entirely new branch of science (e.g. biochemistry). It is difficult during the evolution of a new CoP to judge how valuable its work might be, because ‘ the burgeoning of promising new practices is not always easy to recognise because they do not fit well within existing regimes of accountabilty’ (Wenger, 1998, p115).

I am certainly not alone in using Wenger’s communities of practice as a theoretical lens for my research. Farnsworth, Kleanthous and Wenger-Trayner (2016) reveal that a JSTOR search produces over 3,500 journal articles linked to CoP in social science fields. In my own reading I found Wenger drawn upon in the field of medicine, particularly practitioner education (Andrew, Tolson and Ferguson, 2008; Morley, 2016), in education and teacher professional learning (Buysee, Sparkman and Wesley, 2003; Cuddapah and Clayton, 2011) in research related to public service workplaces (Gau, 2011) and in the consideration of students of architecture at university (Morton, 2012). The Farnsworth, Kleanthous and Wenger-Trayner (2016) article included a transcript of a conversation with Wenger (now known as Wenger-Trayner) about his theory of CoP, its applications since 1998 and the critiques of the theory. In this interview Wenger responds to the suggestion by Jewson (2007) that developments in network analysis could provide a more sophisticated and detailed view of group interactions than CoP. Wenger’s view is that whilst network analysis is a useful tool, the intention of CoP is different: its aim is to provide a framework and language for reseachers to use to consider the human experience of (professional) learning. This stance resonates with my own phenomenological standpoint (considered in chapter four) and underlines the appropriateness of the ‘fit’ in applying CoP to my own research.

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In using Wenger’s theory of CoP I am aware that I am firstly theorising at a system- wide level: that primary and secondary teachers are separate professional groups and typically in separate CoPs. At a system level, this may actually be akin to what Bourdieu (1980) terms a ‘field’. Wenger sees his theory as ‘occupying a mid level between moments of individual experience and broad social structure’ (Farnsworth, Kleanthous and Wenger-Trayner, 2016, p11). However, I think that in my research the value of this lens is at its most useful at an institutional level. Indeed, Wenger’s examples are also often at a specific institutional level (Wenger,1998, Wenger, McDermott and Synder, 2002) where he looks at how CoPs function within the context of professional or business organisations (e.g. an individual insurance company). Indeed, it is important to remember that the theory of CoPs grew from Wenger’s earlier work wth Jean Lave, where learning was theorised as a social and situated activity (Lave and Wenger, 1991). I think this is particularly helpful in this research, where I consider specific case study all-through schools and have the opportunity to interview and observe leaders and teachers from both primary and secondary phases of the schools. Whilst at the end of my research I consider generalised implications for the education system, the findings of the case studies are specific and situated within a particular all-through school.