Conference Publication Details
Mandatory Fields
Geraldine Mooney Simmie and Manfred Lang
American Educational Research Association AERA TEXAS 2017
Developing a Framework for Inter-Professional Deliberation on Gender Awareness and Inclusion
2017
April
Published
1
()
Optional Fields
teacher education; teacher learning; theoretical framework; deliberative democracy; gender and inclusion
AERA Annual Meeting Apr 27 - May 1, 2017 San Antonio, Texas, Page 52
           

In this study we examine one framework of boundary crossing in activity theory (Engeström, 2001) as a normative way of opening a deliberative discourse about gender as a construct in Teacher Education. The framework was part of a European project for eliciting pedagogical innovation with teachers with an outcome of gender awareness (Mooney Simmie and Lang, 2012, 2017). Seven case studies were conducted analysing data from a convenience sample of seven teacher educators who alongside the authors acted as national coordinators for the project. Data sources included questionnaires of initial ratings, case study reports and interviews. A cluster analysis of ratings was guided in a step-wise manner by Xing & Marcinkowski (2015) and yielded two distinctive cluster groups where one group of case studies had high ratings of gender-specific settings. This finding was then used in a qualitative interpretation of data sources for a deeper contextual understanding of teacher educators’ perspectives. Gender-specific settings had a reported context of aspects in an activity system which three case studies grasped as school-based planning, pedagogical innovation and mentoring-supports.  The framework for analysis of higher order gender aspects showed success in separating out case studies with isolated views of gender. Some teacher educators were deeply challenged by this expansive view of gender awareness and findings showed limitations in the partially restricted framing of gender as an activity system at the outset of the project. The study underscores the promising explanatory power of the framework adopted and opens up hypotheses for further study and consideration.

               
Grant Details