Peering Through Red Tape: A Collaborative Auto-Ethnography Examining Barriers Between Teachers and Educational Research(ers)

• In Event: 45.094 - Sheraton Roundtable Session Seven - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 45.094-5 - Critical Issues in the Narratives of Curriculum

Abstract

Using Foucault’s (1997) conception of power, this collaborative autoethnography highlights and challenges hegemonic power structures in school systems currently preventing interaction between teachers and educational research(ers). The authors assert that the prevention of educational research(ers) access to teachers may be indicative of larger issues including a silencing of teacher voice and denial of teacher agency. As the authors interrogate their past complicity with school system structures and explore their frustrations as educational researchers attempting to gain access to teacher participants, they recognize the misrepresentation of the ideal “ethical” teacher and the maintenance of the teacher role as cog enabling the school system as dominator. Perhaps, school system permission is unnecessary for teachers to interact with educational research(ers).

Authors

• Ellen R Watson, University of Alberta

• Kerry Rose, University of Alberta