Problemática asociada a reponer de día

To analyse participants’ stories I will use Delgado’s (1989) philosophy of counter-story because it refutes the majoritarian view of BME experiences as abnormalised, exposes hurt and degradations and promotes shared understandings between minority and majority spheres. Delgado’s (1989) perspective, discussed from page 80, invites us to understand how the nature of counter-story is not necessarily combative but opens up dialogue with the powerful majoritarian culture because it draws in the listener and looks for responses which can work towards dismantling closed views and stereotypes. CRT understands stories as nuanced and deep forms of data where the inequities of race and intersectionality are brought to the forefront as important signifiers of experience. They challenge objective-focused research and recognise the raced human lens as unique (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). The notion of counter storytelling, by its very name, is about providing an alternative narrative and to hold to account existing ways of being and knowing. Counter storytelling, as a key CRT principle, pursues the purpose of dismantling racism and creating more equitable and dialectical processes and structures (Delgado, 1989). In addition, by being focused on the participant, counter storytelling is also where neglected and ignored voices are brought alongside majoritarian perspectives to re-balance the focus (Solórzano & Yosso, 2016). Counter-stories can be read on several different levels. They can be a powerful individual testimony of resilience, ingenuity, and pain but can also bear witness to institutionalized and unequal social and racial relations that the dominant culture tends to minimize or deny (Bell, 1995). As a researcher, using CRT as the tool of analysis, I will listen to the stories of the student teachers, aiming to perceive issues of countering the majoritarian narrative in ITE in England. The research environment in which their stories were told, as outlined in Chapter Three, was sympathetic and empathetic, so that they could tell it as openly and candidly as

possible. Through listening to the participants’ stories, as suggested by Delgado (1989), the effect of ITE upon BME student teachers in this study can be understood more deeply.

4.2.1 Myself as researcher in the process

My racial position alongside the participants was both convergent and divergent in racial background and experiences. Knowledge of racism in our everyday lives and exercising a daily race-conscious analysis on everything we do and how we are perceived, were among the factors that I shared with participants. We knew about being judged on the colour of skin and texture of hair, on our gestures and mannerisms, the way we spoke and our clothing choices. We also knew that we dealt with these and more with silences, dismay and sometimes by trying to fit in or deliberately rebelling against them. In the individual interviews and focus groups I shared my own journey as a BME student teacher and the difficulties I experienced, alongside my hopes. I spoke of being a mature student, not having the privileged or sort of family background to have gone to university as a young woman, and when I did begin a course, of trying to juggle family and studies. Also by stating my differences to them such as being a lecturer in a steady and respected job, I tried to show that I was sensitive to and aware of insider-outsider tensions. I felt this to be an honest approach in order to create an environment in which they were comfortable to share their issues. I also had to consider how it would affect the data if their stories were told in response to my being an insider, like them, and/or being an outsider. As an insider they could tell of issues and incidents which affected their raced status as student teachers; as an outsider they might focus on generic teacher education issues, perhaps to impress me. They could also veer between the two as they sought to find suitable ways of expressing their feelings and attitudes towards

the ITE process. I refer to and question their responses as I present and comment on their stories later in this chapter, in relation to such insider-outsider tensions.

Fig. 4.1

Looking at BME student teachers’ stories

Constructing the stories

Participants’ stories are constructed from interviews and focus group transcripts, so that each

participant’s response is formed into a whole, uninterrupted piece. This allows focus to be on the

participant’s voice to reflect the role of counter story (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001; Solórzano & Yosso, 2016) (See section 4.2.2)

Early observations and annotations of the stories I observe and annotate each story, looking for Individuals’ points and responses, commonalities

and differences that recur across them. Insider-outsider tensions are seen as part of this process where I as the researcher considers how this affects what I hear and how I represent the stories (Johnson-Bailey, 1999; Serrant-Green, 2002)

(See section 4.2 below)

Representing participants’ stories Stories are grouped according to commonalities

that include how they see race and ethnicity as part of their teacher education, fears and worries

that impact on their performance during their course. (See section 4.4 below)

4.2.2 A note on presenting participants’ stories

I re-constructed the focus group and interviews into individual stories of the participants. This involved reading and re-reading interview and focus group transcripts, from which I constructed individual’s stories and annotated them with further and developing observations. A clear example of this is in Appendix F. The first stages of analysis involved close reading through of the focus group and individual interview transcripts to understand and grasp a sense of the participants’ outlook, understandings and values. Individual responses were then formed into or constructed as whole stories in order to focus on the participant and their intentions, thus privileging their humanity (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001; Duncan, 2005). To show the process of constructing the stories from transcripts Appendix F contains an example of two extracts from transcripts, from a focus group. These extracts show myself as the interviewer with all three of the participants and focuses on episodes which are then included in their individual stories, shown later in the Appendix. They show the transcript made into a story process that includes the elimination of grammatical issues, extended pauses and unfocused points. In Extract 1, Z (Shaina) talks about adapting to a church school placement as a Muslim. U (Jacquiline) makes one comment at the end: The transcript reads:

Z: I had to adapt to a church school, like to their prayers, like three times, they do morning, lunch and all that; so you get used to that. Then the children that didn’t want to do the prayers get used to… / Int: Did you have to say the prayers?

Z: Yeh, like I wanted to say the prayers, yeh. The [Muslim] children in Year Five, where I volunteer here at St. G…., they were shy, like…I said ‘come on then pray like…at the end of the day it’s a prayer; no matter how you hold your hands… / U:

When it becomes part of Shaina’s story it reads:

…when I was in a church school I had to adapt a lot, like to their prayers, three times a day. They do morning, lunch and all that; so you get used to that. I wanted to say the prayers, and I encouraged the [Muslim] children in Year Five too. I said ‘it’s a prayer; no matter how you hold your hands. You’re speaking to the same God.

In the second example in Appendix F, Extract 2, U (Jacquiline) talks about being of two cultures. Z (Shaina) adds some comments. The transcript reads:

U: I do. I feel that a big part of me that’s Pakistani, and then a really, really big part of that’s English, and then to a certain extent…not just British I mean English in itself. When you go to Pakistan, you’re an English person, you don’t feel Pakistani; but then when you’re in England you don’t feel completely English; you feel Pakistani. In both places they’re always reminding you of it. They’re always telling you ‘you’re like this’, then in Pakistan they say, ‘you’re English, or whatever. You’re in both.

Z: There’s nothing wrong with it [being of two cultures].

U: There isn’t anything wrong with it. /Z: It’s the best of both worlds actually. / Int: You’re quite comfortable? / U: Oh, Yeah. / Z: Best of both.

When it becomes part of Jacquiline’s story it reads:

You’re not just part of one culture are you…you’re never just part of just the one…you’re always two people. I feel there is a big part of me that’s Pakistani, and then a really, really big part that’s English, and then to a certain extent…not just British I mean English in itself. When you go to Pakistan, you’re an English person, you don’t feel Pakistani; but then when you’re in England you don’t feel completely English; you feel Pakistani. In both places they’re always reminding you of it. They’re always telling you ‘you’re like this’, then in Pakistan they say, ‘you’re English, or whatever. You’re in both. They have to take me as I am or that’s it.

Both of these transcript made into story examples (see fuller extract examples in Appendix F) shows that little is altered from the transcript so that the outlook, understandings and values of participants’ remain reasonably intact. This shows integrity in a study that is rooted in a CRT approach where listening to and letting issues emerge reflect counter story principles.

The 32 stories are of different lengths depending on how much was said and each one is reproduced later in this chapter. I re-visited the interview transcripts a number of times as I constructed the stories to ensure accurate incorporation of their points and as much fidelity to their voice and intentions as possible (Duncan, 2005; Phoenix, 2013). The flow of each story is mainly in the order of the questions they were asked in the focus groups or individual interviews (Appendix B). This order, which began with discussing their motivations for choosing teaching, moved through to experiences at university and on school placement and ended with their conceptual ideas about their BME heritage and its influence on their student teacher journey, allowed them to develop and build their thoughts, from factual remembrances towards abstract ideas. Each story has been edited to eliminate repetitions, irrelevant points and over-long descriptions and pauses but occasionally short pauses and use of colloquial terms and some descriptions have been left in, to capture realism in the participants’ voices and intentions. Minor grammar amendments have been made at times to create sentences and aid clarification. Out of the 32 stories, two participants in focus group interviews, Farzana and Nadia, did not say as much as their peers but I edited out as little as possible from what they said and constructed their story from almost everything they said. This was done to give them fair representation and can be seen in their stories presented later in the chapter.