A Microethnographic Approach to Exploring Trust in Literacy Coaching Interactions

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: Instructional Coaching as Theory-Driven Professional Development

Abstract

Many current conceptualizations of literacy coaching emphasize the importance of trust within collaborative professional learning (Bean, Swan, & Knaub, 2003; Ferguson, 2011; Gardiner, 2012; Gibson, 2006; Rainville & Jones, 2009). Researchers have shown that trust between literacy coaches and teachers is intertwined with issues of identity, power, and positioning (Author 2013a, 2013b; Rainville & Jones, 2009). Positioning the coach as an expert or as a colleague has important implications for developing trusting coaching relationships (Author 2013b; Gardiner, 2012; Mangin & Stoelinga, 2001). Yet, there is little understanding within the field of how trust is developed between coaches and teachers within the day-to-day context of professional learning relationships. I ask: How do literacy coaches and teachers discursively co-construct trust within real-time coaching interactions? I draw on a variety of theoretical and methodological frames, including microethnography (Bloome et al., 2005, Erickson, 2004), critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2001l Gee, 1999), and positioning theory (Bamberg & & Georgakopoulou, 2008; Harre & Davies, 1990) to consider how coaches and teachers negotiate meaning, significance, and identities within everyday literacy coaching interactions.

The data is taken from a year-long qualitative study conducted in a midsize K-8 school district in the U.S. Midwest. Two literacy coaches and ten teachers participated in the study. Data generation included weekly participant observations, 2-3 semi-structured interviews with each participant, video recordings of coaching interactions, and artifacts. I used an eclectic coding procedure (Saldaña, 2015) to develop themes related to trust, including expertise, dialogue, openness, and comfort. Next, I selected excerpts of video data that were simultaneously representative of multiple themes for close micro-analysis. The interactions were transcribed by marking changes in features of utterances to break the narrative into message units (the smallest chunks of meaningful speech) and interaction units (larger shifts in topic or participation structures) (Green & Wallat, 1981). Finally, I utilized a microethnographic approach to discourse analysis to explore how trust was enacted within the video-recorded coaching interactions, focusing on how coaches and teachers positioned themselves and each other and how dominant discourses of teaching and learning were taken up and/or resisted within the interaction.

Findings illustrate the complexities of enacting meaningful trust within professional learning relationships. Within the video-recorded coaching interactions, fixed notions of what it means to be a new or veteran teacher influenced enactments of trust. Teachers positioned themselves as less knowledgeable than coaches, and engaging in coaching required teachers to enact a novice identity. Within this vulnerable position, the teachers trusted the coaches not to judge them. Coaches focused on providing information and resources rather than on supporting deeper professional learning that might require discomfort and ambiguity. I argue for a vision of literacy coaching that recognizes the multifaceted dimensions of teacher experience and allows for new and veteran teachers to simultaneously enact expert and learner identities. Such opportunities for enacting fluid identities are more likely to develop the sort of trust that allows for risk taking, innovation, and transformative professional learning.

Author

• Carolyn Hunt, Illinois State University