From this review of the literature we can see that while BME student teachers represent a good proportion of the numbers in ITE and HEI in general, cracks and discrepancies reveal deeper issues that are not sufficiently addressed at national level. The issue of retention on ITE courses has been shown in qualitative studies to be affected by racism, stereotyping and a dominant culture which renders them invisible and silences their values and beliefs. National ITE policy emphasises a homogeneous approach (DfE, 2010; DfE, 2012) alongside legal requirements for teachers to embrace and teach British Values (DfE, 2013) which questions and even pathologises BME people as suspect and lacking in values (Elton-Chalcraft et al, 2017). These impact on their levels of confidence, influencing them to fit in or leave the course. In addition conversion rates into qualified teachers is lower than their white peers (Lander & Zaheerali, 2016).
To examine what appears to be difficult and silenced experiences of BME student teachers, this study will use Critical Race Theory to listen to the stories of BME student teachers as they journey through ITE. Delgado and Stefancic (2001) defend the role of story in critical race research to challenge established, institutional racism thus:
Society constructs the social world through a series of tacit agreements, mediated by images, pictures, tales, and scripts... Attacking embedded preconceptions that marginalize others or conceal their humanity is a legitimate function of stories. (p.42)
CRT’s understanding of counter-story has been chosen because it is capable of yielding deeper understandings of these participants’ experiences due to its particular racial emphasis. The next chapter will expound CRT within a wider discussion on my own ontological and epistemological position, the chosen research methods and ethical considerations.
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY, METHODS AND ETHICS
This chapter will examine my research position and views, present the methodological lens through which I will examine and challenge dominant ideology in English ITE in relation to its effects on BME student teachers. My methodological stance will be presented through my ontological, and epistemological understandings and followed by discussion on Critical Theory (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2003) and Critical Race Theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001; Ladson-Billings, 2016; Solórzano & Yosso, 2016). I will argue that a critical approach with a sharp and defining focus on race and racism, is necessary to frame and understand issues that BME student teachers face. As the previous chapter demonstrated, there are issues of marginalization, unspoken fears and hidden, pervasive racism that surround their journey in ITE. This chapter will continue with a discussion of the chosen data-collection methods of focus groups and individual interviews and consideration of a range of ethical considerations including reflection on the power differentials between researcher and participants and the tensions and implications as an insider-outsider race researcher.
3.1 Ontological and epistemological perspectives underpinning this
study
Qualitative research is complex because it involves examining obscure and slippery forms, such as human emotion, voice and experience, which at best can only be teased out (Savin-Baden & Major, 2013). This idea of ‘teasing out’ is useful in race research because the development of knowledge, concerning social realities such as racism and racialised difficulties, aims to avoid stereotyping and essentialism and is therefore not
straightforward (Constantine-Simms, 1995; Hall, 1996b). Research about race concerns the “analytic attention given to the specific relations of power that research is located in and can deploy” (Gunaratnam, 2003, p.13). In ITE, knowledge- generation about BME student teachers needs to be seen and theorised as nuanced, both exposing their compromised and side-lined position, but also allowing them to be seen valuable contributors in education (Bhopal, 2015).
Qualitative research also demands that researchers are reflexive and understand how their world view positions them to see and analyse in particular ways, noting how their research is socially contextualised (Delanty & Strydom, 2003). How we see the world is determined by who we are because we are complex beings, characterized by thought, action and experience (Somekh & Lewin, 2011). As a qualitative and critical researcher I need to ask questions such as, ‘what is?’ and ‘what are the variations of reality?’ and to challenge my own philosophical assumptions (Somekh & Lewin, 2011). In addition, as a critical race researcher, I examine insider-outsider tensions that will impact analyses of the data (Johnson-Bailey, 1999). This is discussed later in this chapter. As my study is concerned with people, my view of reality arises out of what can be known about a topic by observing, listening to the research participants, making links between the data and understanding the way anomalies in data can enable deeper analysis (Andrews, Squire & Tamboukou, 2013; Savin-Baden and Major, 2013). This study is based on my understanding that pursuing knowledge involves moral and purposeful dimensions and outcomes (Gray, 2009). The meaning of that knowledge, the extent to which it represents ‘reality’ and its inter-subjectivity with other theories of knowledge, are also important considerations because they are dependent on the context of the research and the experiences shared by the participants (Savin-Baden & Major, 2013; Somekh & Lewin, 2011). This means that
I take the position of the BME student teacher participants seriously, by using my research to uphold and project their contributions as valid and important.
The choice of research approach can free boundaries of knowing (Delanty & Strydom, 2003; Somekh & Lewin, 2011) while still providing contextual, cultural and social ‘rules and resources’ to create ‘frames of knowing’ and help deeper analysis of issues (Strydom, 2009, p.4). These ‘frames’ may act as a tool of achieving depth but still enable a good level of transparency and questioning of assumptions by the researcher. In this study I use Critical Race Theory to give prominence to social forces affecting the research participants, that is race and racism in ITE in England. First however I will discuss Critical Theory to provide a framework of social and critical understandings.