(Giving Ourselves) Permission to Teach: Permission-Seeking, Teacher Collaboration, and Teacher Agency

• In Event: Pushing Back as a Means of Moving Forward: Disrupting Neoliberal Pedagogical Approaches

Abstract

This study examined the ways in which teachers used permission-seeking moves within their school community to develop and sustain trangressive teaching practices. The notion of asking permission is typically considered disempowering. However, our study demonstrated that teachers used permission-seeking as a generative tool for fostering collaboration and teacher agency. Also, teachers sought permission from a range of community members, beyond administrators. We used ethnographic methodology and a conceptual framework informed by literature on teacher agency and collaboration. The study occurred within a context of a test-driven teaching environment with shifts in student racial and economic demographics. Our study offers a reconceptualization of permission, and new possibilities for practitioners to engage in transgressive teaching with diverse learners in hyper-standardized teaching contexts.

Authors

• Kira J. Baker-Doyle, Arcadia University

• Leif C. Gustavson, Arcadia University