Exploring Meaningfulness and Teacher Agency Development in a Research-Practice Partnership

• In Event: Partnering With Teachers: Changing Practice and Promoting Agency

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the multi-dimensional levels of RPP partner discourse that contribute to meaningful and agentic professional conversations amongst teachers, school leaders and researchers in a Research-Practice Partnership (RPP). A discourse analysis approach is used to analyze the emergence of teacher agency and its relationship with contexts/concerns that are meaningful to teachers. Findings reveal that teachers’ experiences in their own classrooms are the most meaningful and that critical reflections on teaching practice are often tacitly related to RPP events. Agentic statements emerged alongside of speaker turns that focused on teaching-and-learning and that were characterized by exploratory talk. In contrast, disputational talk, cumulative talk, and resource management concerns foreclosed RPP members’ critical reflections on professional practice.

Authors

• Stephanie Beck, McGill University

• nilou baradaran, McGill University

• Chao Zhang, McGill University

• Alain Breuleux, McGill University