From the parlour to the kitchen: a study of the transformative potential for further education teachers of continuing professional development

A pervasive audit culture within English Further Education (FE) Colleges from 1992 has meant that the content of continuous professional development (CPD) for further education (FE) teachers has been largely determined by the themes and concerns of inspection. Viewed through the lens of Jürgen Haber...

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Main Author: Scott, Alison Elizabeth
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47070/
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author Scott, Alison Elizabeth
author_facet Scott, Alison Elizabeth
author_sort Scott, Alison Elizabeth
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description A pervasive audit culture within English Further Education (FE) Colleges from 1992 has meant that the content of continuous professional development (CPD) for further education (FE) teachers has been largely determined by the themes and concerns of inspection. Viewed through the lens of Jürgen Habermas’s theory of ‘communicative action’, it is argued that FE teachers’ practice has been dominated by external and internal structural constraints, exacerbated by the workings of hegemony by which teachers have been made complicit. It is shown that audit-driven management practices have focussed on an instrumental approach to CPD, developing teachers’ performative skills and neglecting more embedded improvements to practice. My starting premise was that this trend could be understood using the Habermasian term, ‘colonisation of the lifeworld’; this premise is reflected in FE literature where the compromised agency of teachers is the dominant discourse. The fieldwork identified the key constraints and enablers in maintaining teachers’ lifeworld and the possibilities for developing empowering forms of CPD to overcome victimhood and re-invigorate professionalism. Qualitative data was generated by interviews with seventeen teachers and one focus group within one large FE College. The key finding is that CPD could be used as a site for what Habermas terms ‘ideal speech conditions’: Habermas’s theory of communicative action is used to support the argument that CPD’s transformative impact is realised if teachers engage in authentic discussions about practice and are empowered to determine their own practice change.
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spelling nottingham-470702025-02-28T13:52:49Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47070/ From the parlour to the kitchen: a study of the transformative potential for further education teachers of continuing professional development Scott, Alison Elizabeth A pervasive audit culture within English Further Education (FE) Colleges from 1992 has meant that the content of continuous professional development (CPD) for further education (FE) teachers has been largely determined by the themes and concerns of inspection. Viewed through the lens of Jürgen Habermas’s theory of ‘communicative action’, it is argued that FE teachers’ practice has been dominated by external and internal structural constraints, exacerbated by the workings of hegemony by which teachers have been made complicit. It is shown that audit-driven management practices have focussed on an instrumental approach to CPD, developing teachers’ performative skills and neglecting more embedded improvements to practice. My starting premise was that this trend could be understood using the Habermasian term, ‘colonisation of the lifeworld’; this premise is reflected in FE literature where the compromised agency of teachers is the dominant discourse. The fieldwork identified the key constraints and enablers in maintaining teachers’ lifeworld and the possibilities for developing empowering forms of CPD to overcome victimhood and re-invigorate professionalism. Qualitative data was generated by interviews with seventeen teachers and one focus group within one large FE College. The key finding is that CPD could be used as a site for what Habermas terms ‘ideal speech conditions’: Habermas’s theory of communicative action is used to support the argument that CPD’s transformative impact is realised if teachers engage in authentic discussions about practice and are empowered to determine their own practice change. 2017-12-13 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47070/1/Alison%20Scott%20-%20Student%20No%204121938%20-%20EdD%20Thesis%20-%20corrected%20version%2014%20August.pdf Scott, Alison Elizabeth (2017) From the parlour to the kitchen: a study of the transformative potential for further education teachers of continuing professional development. EdD thesis, University of Nottingham. further education professional development lifeworld colonisation and transformation
spellingShingle further education
professional development
lifeworld colonisation and transformation
Scott, Alison Elizabeth
From the parlour to the kitchen: a study of the transformative potential for further education teachers of continuing professional development
title From the parlour to the kitchen: a study of the transformative potential for further education teachers of continuing professional development
title_full From the parlour to the kitchen: a study of the transformative potential for further education teachers of continuing professional development
title_fullStr From the parlour to the kitchen: a study of the transformative potential for further education teachers of continuing professional development
title_full_unstemmed From the parlour to the kitchen: a study of the transformative potential for further education teachers of continuing professional development
title_short From the parlour to the kitchen: a study of the transformative potential for further education teachers of continuing professional development
title_sort from the parlour to the kitchen: a study of the transformative potential for further education teachers of continuing professional development
topic further education
professional development
lifeworld colonisation and transformation
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47070/