Research Proposal Colloquium - 769

Week 3:

Topic: Ethical Review Process (ERP)

While each university has a different format, the Ethical Review Process is a critical component of any research undertaken by any graduate student or faculty member. During this week, you will familiarize yourself with fundamentals of the Review Process and then begin to accustom yourselves to the specific process required by your university.

WHAT IS THE ETHICAL REVIEW PROCESS?

The ERP is the application by a researcher and the approval by a sanctioned university committee for the researcher to collect data from animal or human subjects. Any research carried out under the auspices of a university requires ethical review.

All researchers, whether student, staff or faculty, are required to apply for ethical review if the research involves the study of humans or animals through the university committee.

Any research that is undertaken needs to be guided by ethical standards that respect the rights, privacy, safety and dignity of the researched, regardless of whether the subjects are animal or human.

The Ethical Review Process is established by the university and each faculty is expected to adhere and conform to the university's expectations. The ERP will vary from institution to institution.

Data cannot be gathered until the ERP is submitted and approved. It is legally and morally unacceptable to use any research data that may have been collected outside the bounds of the individual ERP.

There is an ERP committee1 is established at each university that evaluates the ethical protocol of the proposal. The committee does not attempt to assess the legal validity of any portion of the application.

Generally the ERP is a fairly straightforward process as long as all forms are submitted and explanations are clear. It is supervised by the graduate student's thesis advisor.

The process does allow researchers, especially graduate students, the opportunity to have another set of eyes review such items as timelines, confidentiality issues, questionnaires, consent forms, and so on.

COMPONENTS OF THE ERP2

1.	Name of investigator, personal data: address, phone number, email address

Project title

Labelled as thesis, project, or IRR

Supervisor

2.	Summary of proposed research: This is not the full proposal, rather a clear and concise factual summary of the research to be undertaken. The committee will look to see if:

the purpose of the study is clearly stated

the research procedures are clearly summarized

the sample population is described in respect to

Numbers required

Their recruitment

Their demography or special characteristics

The person named who will be contacting subjects

Method of obtaining participation

Provisions to avoid any real/perceived coercion

Location of where the investigation will occur

Compensation for subjects (if any)

Proposed timeline for research

3.	Risks and benefits

Are there risks or benefits?

Are they described?

Have they been made known to subjects?

Have they been made known to researchers or others?

4.	Research instruments used

What instruments will be used/ (e.g., questionnaires, surveys, interviews, videotapes, etc.)

Frequency of use

Have they been piloted first?

Exact copies must be attached

Indication of whether deception is being used

Description of procedures being used to ensure confidentiality

5.	Subject information and informed consent

Describe information given to subjects (include copies)

Must include:

Purpose and nature of study

Indications of what feedback subjects will get at the end of the study

Indications whether subjects are competent to consent ( e.g., In a school setting, researchers will need to gain consent of participating school district, then the school administration and anyone under the age of 18 will require consent from a parent or guardian.)

6. Letter of information and consent form

clear statement of purpose in language comprehensible to subjects (consider their age and ability)

realistic estimate of time commitment by subjects to study

description of risks or statement that there are no known risks

clear statement that a person can withdraw at any time or decline participation without penalty

description of how confidentiality will be protected

offer to answer inquiries with your name, telephone number, email address, address

request for subject's signature indicating understanding of what is involved and agreement to participate

any advertisements used to recruit subjects

7.	Signatures

investigator

supervisor

graduate chair

WHEN DOES THE ERP OCCUR?

For graduate students, the process usually occur simultaneously when the dissertation proposal is submitted for official approval. The student's supervisor should review all of the forms prior to submission.

Once the proposal has been successfully defended, the graduate office will submit the ER to the appropriate committee. The committee meets on a regular basis (usually about once every 6 weeks at most universities) to review all proposals that have been submitted in that time period.

Since recruitment of subjects or data collection MUST NOT begin until approval is formally received, and that approval can take anywhere from 2 - 6 weeks, graduate students should be cognizant of timelines and deadlines when preparing the proposal.

Although the proposal may have been successfully defended, the proposal stage is not complete until ethical standards have been approved.

Graduate students should be aware that often ER committees will seek additional information or require changes to the ER.

BENEFITS OF THE ETHICAL REVIEW PROCESS

The process ensures that the people who provide data for your study are fairly and ethically treated

The process requires you to provide a summary of your research which actually provides opportunity for you to think about your work using a different lense

Another committee (4 or 5 faculty members) reads your application which is a summary of your research proposal and often provides valuable feedback

The committee's comments may open up other ideas that you had not considered previously

EXAMPLES OF FORMS

SAMPLE LETTER OF INFORMATION

Title of Project

Dear (**)

My name is (**) and I am a student in the Joint PhD Program at the University of (**), Faculty of Education. I am currently conducting research for my dissertation on (topic–make sure the title of your topic is self-explanatory) and I would like to invite you to participate in this research.

The aims of the research are (give a brief summary but DO NOT make any claims about the potential value of the research).

Information for this research will be collected by means of (give a brief description of the procedures to be used and an estimate of the time required of the subjects).

The information collected will be used for research purposes only and neither your name nor information which could identify you will be used. (Explain how subject confidentiality will be ensured and what you will do with the data when you have finished the study.)

Should you consent to participate in this research, please be aware that you have the right to withdraw at any time without penalty, should you wish to do so, ot to decline to answer any specific questions that you prefer not to answer.

If you have any questions about this research, or any comments at a later date, please contact me at (**you should give your own information and that of your supervisor).

Sincerely

SAMPLE CONSENT FORM

TITLE OF PROJECT

I have read the Letter of Information relating to the research project named above. I understand the proposed research and my questions have been answered to my satisfaction.

I understand that I have the right to withdraw form the study at any point without incurring a penalty of any kind, that I may decline to answer specific questions, and that the information collected will be kept confidential and used for research purposes only.

I consent to participate in this study.

Name: (please print) __________________________________

Signature: ___________________________	Date: _________________

Note: You will need to make a number of copies of each of these documents so that each participant keeps a copy for his/her records and you have a copy on file for future examination if required.

WHERE TO FIND THE ETHICAL REVIEW PROCESS AND FORMS FOR YOUR UNIVERSITY:

At Western, go to the website at http://www.edu.uwo.ca/graduate/ where you will find information about the process, the forms and examples of consent letters, acceptance forms.

I am working on finding the sources at the other universities and hope to have this online before we get here in the course. However, you could also check with your faculty advisor.

ANOTHER SAMPLE FORMAT USED LATER IN THE PROCESS

This is a letter that I sent out to the participants in one of my research studies with some information changed to protect confidentiality.

April 6, 2000

Dear

Finally I have the transcriptions of the interviews that we did a few months ago. The interviews for our part of this large joint project are being transcribed at the University of *** so it has taken longer than I though it would. At any rate they are now here and I promised that before I began to work with any of them, I would send you a printed copy to read, to edit in any way you wish, including deletions or additions. Please disregard spelling and grammar in your copy as I will correct that when I am working with them. Please feel free to edit this transcript in any way you see fit since this is to represent your experience as a teacher. Information from your interview is confidential between you and me, and all identifying marks will be expunged when I begin my process of analysis. In fact, you will be known by number after that point.

I have also included the initial draft of the case study(ies) that I have written to describe your experience. You will see that I have altered all identifying material. In an effort to keep the case study relatively brief for teaching purposes, I may have inadvertantly left out significant information. If I have done so, please feel free to add (or delete) any aspects and I will attend to them in the next draft.

I have enclosed an envelope for you to return the corrected transcript and case study to me. It would be most helpful useful if I could have the information back by Friday, April 29, 2000.

Many thanks for your participation in this project. Your assistance and support represent a significant contribution to the research on the process of "learning to teach." Thank you for sharing your important knowledge with me and for allowing me access. Please do not hesitate to give me a call at (519) 661-203 or email me at <beynon@uwo.ca> if you have any questions or I can be of assistance.

Sincerely

Carol Beynon

Final FYI - The following pages represent one chapter out of a book that I co-authored as a result of the data gathered from this study which was funded by SSHRC. I thought it might be helpful to see the parts of the process from beginning to end. These pages are the final galleys that I sent to Prentice Hall. Chapter 8 from:

Beynon, C. A. , Geddis, A. N., & Onslow, B. A. (2001). Learning to teach: Concepts and cases for novice teachers and teacher educators. Toronto: Prentice Hall.

CHAPTER 8

ISSUES OF GENDER, RACE & CLASS IN LEARNING-TO-TEACH

Novice teachers and teacher educators must become cognizant and proactive about the varied and diffuse issues as they relate to gender, race, and class, in order to further awareness and action in social justice and equity in the educational system. The process of learning-to-teach has been complicated, yet greatly enhanced, by our increasingly diverse society and it is incumbent upon teacher educators and novice teachers to actively consider what we must do and teach, and how we must act in order to facilitate social justice and equity in our classrooms.

Gender, race, and class have been grouped purposely in this chapter; the issues have been developed simultaneously to help denote and emphasize their interrelationship. In fact, as we learn more about and value our diverse North American culture, most informed researchers now base their writing on the intersection of gender, race and class because issues and implications for one area cannot be discussed realistically without awareness of the others. It is not serendipitous that, in North American society, those from cultures other than the dominant group find themselves living in poverty, and most are women. For example, most current feminist writers realize that the issues that affect the women of whom they write are also imprinted and complicated by cultural background and socioeconomic status. Frequently, discussions of any one of these three in isolation (i.e., gender, race or class) exclude or minimize the connections required to come to a comprehensive awareness of the effects and results of these social issues on teaching and learning. Ongoing and informed reading, experience, discussion and reflection on a consistent basis are necessary for educators to become competent teachers of all pupils, and novice teachers, whether in school or university classrooms. In fact, this may prove to be one area in which experienced teacher educators find themselves learning-to-teach alongside their novice colleagues.

The topic of this chapter, Gender, Race and Class in Learning-to-Teach, is complex and multifaceted, even contentious. (In fact, it is important to point out that the deliberation of gender, race and class--like most of the other issues we have tackled in this section of the book--is far more complex than can be dealt with in this one chapter.) The discussion contained herein is meant to establish a framework that is designed to further awareness, to promote action on the part of those studying teaching and learning, and to provide a set of lenses with which to view the case studies that follow. In this chapter we begin by asking our readers and ourselves to reflect on and reconsider who we are in order to come to this topic with as open and informed an understanding as possible, to come to an awareness of what we believe, and how we act based on our own cultured, gendered, and socioeconomic background. Then we discuss some of the issues about class, gender and race in the context of learning-to-teach, considering how gender, race and class influence each person in the community of learners. We conclude by examining how the student teaching community might take action by working together to enlighten and enrich practices in schools that advantage all learners.

Examining Who We Are

We are who we are! And it is critically important that we examine just what that means individually and personally in order for us to understand who we are as teachers and how we interact with colleagues, pupils, and community. We may be naive enough to actually believe that we have succeeded in coming to this point in our lives as novice teacher or teacher educator because we have worked hard and broken through barriers to achieve our goals. But the height of the barriers and the breadth of the obstacles that we have faced and overcome have been influenced by broader agendas of race, class, and gender within our society. For some the barriers and obstacles have been inconvenient, for others almost impossible, and for those who would be here but are not, insurmountable. We are who we are and it is imperative that we consider our values, beliefs and ideologies if we are to become effective teachers of all pupils in the twenty-first century

Our own ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic status involuntarily define who we are--how we see ourselves as well as how others see us. It is impossible for any one of us to consider issues about learning as they relate to others in an unbiased or uninformed way. No matter how aware of sociopolitical issues we are, involuntarily, we are informed and shaped by where we have come from, by the circumstances of our birth, our childhood, our gender, our neighbourhoods, our own schooling and how we unconsciously or otherwise consider others in relation to ourselves. Our frames of viewing situations are ingrained within each of us and even though we may try to reframe a situation, to see it through another's eyes, we should realize that our values, beliefs and ideologies are subconsciously entrenched into our thoughts and actions and limit our possibilities.

Awareness to action in issues of social justice and equity in education is complicated by the fact that the majority of teachers and student teachers in North America continue to be a homogeneous group of white, middle-class adults (McIntyre & Byrd, 1996). For the most part, we are products of and have succeeded in accepting, confirming and propagating the values and ideologies of the dominant society. Therefore, as we consider the issues in this chapter, it is important to remember who we really are, and to wrestle with that character. The following exercise will help in this regard.

Before reading further, it is essential that we consider the following questions. Since the questions require all of us to look back on our past lives, it is crucial that we are as thorough and thoughtful as possible in considering our responses to these questions. Write down your responses in point form.

1.	Who are you (i.e., ethnicity, gender and social class)?

2.	What was your childhood like? What privileges did you experience as a child? What disadvantages? Why?

3.	What advantages and disadvantages do you experience now? Why?

4.	How has your background affected your pre- and post-secondary education? Your career choices?

5.	How do you view learners who are different from you in cultural, social, and/or gendered ways?

Use the information you have gathered here as you read the following information; it will assist you to frame your own situation from a personal and informed viewpoint while helping you interpret the concepts as presented in this chapter.

Gender, Race and Class: Examining the Issues

It is important to realize that our educational system, like our communities, exists in an increasingly diverse environment--diverse in terms of pupils, parents, and (too few) teachers with different cultural roots, socio-economic background, political ideals, views of gender, sexualities, ideological values, and beliefs about valued knowledge. In fact, such diversity has long existed within our schools but educators have only recently begun to give it the attention required to begin to educate all pupils fairly and adequately, and to recognize the value that minority beliefs have brought to our society. We all live in a state of tension as we value yet critique our single, dominant culture while perceiving a new richness and possibility in our society at large. Whereas at one point educators believed that our dominant society's values were the only ones to be inculcated into its learners, we are slowly coming to realize the resonance and value of alternative cultures' ideologies and to recognize the positive impact they have in our educational system and on our society. Even with this new-found awareness, the process of transforming the system to accommodate, respect and value difference will be arduous.

One helpful way to consider this topic is to look at the work of Pierre Bourdieu (1977) who introduced the concept of habitus to help us understand how diversity is treated in society. Habitus represents the way in which culture becomes embedded in the individual, becoming a disposition to act one way or another. It includes the cultural, academic, and linguistic capital which are at the core of a person's behaviour; the habitus is shaped by the ideologies and norms of the person's culture, gender, and social class. Cultural capital involves ideologies and beliefs, including religious, political, familial, and so on, that are inculcated into the individual through the home, community, and sometimes schools. In North America, traditional values have been centred around the Judaeo-Christian principles of the dominant eurocentric, white society. Those who have been brought up to believe in and live by different principles are disadvantaged in many ways. Complicating this problem is the fact that members of minority groups may not even be cognizant of the values of the dominant class and thus, may not even be aware that their own values, which are frequently unconscious or tacit, conflict with beliefs of the other. Academic capital refers to the value that a community places on education. For example, the dominant class in North American society values a public or private formalized education for all of its citizens and places even higher worth on a university education. Other communities resident in North America place higher priority on the education that occurs within the community and may even devalue public education since it seems to work against the values of their culture, confusing their children. While members of the dominant class endeavour to save the children of alternative communities by forcing them to conform to the dominant educational framework, members of alternative communities frequently rebel against those norms as they undermine the basic tenets of their community. Linguistic capital refers specifically to the use of the first or dominant language within our society. A person's operative use of language specifically denotes his/her level of education as well as his/her place in our stratified society. Members of the informed or privileged dominant class enter schooling tacitly aware that there are formal and informal uses of language and they know implicitly or learn very quickly when to use the appropriate conventions in language, both verbal and written. Those who enter schooling with another first language or with limited background in the use of language are disadvantaged and they may not even be aware of that disadvantage.

Such cultural, linguistic, or academic capital is of great advantage in schooling for children from the dominant culture. If children come from alternative cultures, then the capital which they bring is frequently ignored or devalued (not always intentionally) and they must begin to assimilate and learn the capital of the dominant society as well as the curriculum of their lessons in school. Given this viewpoint, education is seen as more supportive of those who have the valued capital, and disparaging of those who do not. Because many of these cultural attributes are tacit, it is difficult for socially and culturally different pupils or teachers to develop the indispensable capital during the school years when the curriculum and mode of instruction begins with the assumption that everyone has the socially acceptable background. Social institutions such as schools value the habitus of the middle or upper class and they implicitly develop curriculum and expectations as if everyone had access to the same habitus, ignoring or being unaware of the invisible but weighty barriers that curtail growth and advancement for people from alternative backgrounds. Education is seen through this perspective as mainly a process of socialization.

The possession of the dominant habitus then, in Bourdieu's terminology, becomes a form of symbolic capital and its legitimation as a natural rather than a social gift becomes an exercise in symbolic violence by the school in its power to dominate disadvantaged groups. (May, 1994, p. 24)

Complicating Bourdieu's thesis is the development of habitus as pupils grow into adolescence and adulthood. Individuals within subordinate groups may find themselves at odds with the capital of their own culture, subject to symbolic violence within their own culture, as they learn about and are forced to acquiesce to the traditional ideologies of the dominant group in order to succeed by current society's standards. This forced assimilation creates hard choices for diverse learners and teachers to make as they determine their future outcomes in a society which may not be as tolerant yet as we would hope. At the same time, this shaping of a new identity estranges them from their own birth culture. Simultaneously, individuals within the dominant group who challenge the norms of cultural and academic capital of their own advantaged group may find themselves excluded and isolated. For example, student teachers of the dominant culture with alternative beliefs and lifestyles (e.g., in terms of sexual preferences) may be marginalized and forced to worry about evaluation of their practice as teachers if their life values are made public. Thus, schools may be seen to educate in order to socialize. Such socialization creates stratification within our schools that spreads into society at large.

Stratification in schools occurs as a result of the way in which schools function. Michael Apple (1982), in fact, lists the major functions of schools in our society as he sees them. He notes that schools select and certify the workforce, and through streaming of classes prepare some students (usually from the disadvantaged classes and minority cultures) for working-class attitudes and labour through a skills-oriented, non-thinking curriculum; meanwhile, schools prepare others (usually from the dominant mid-upper class population) in upper-class thinking for intellectual-
type, highly-paid positions, thus maintaining the stratification of society. Schools maintain privilege by passing on the norms of the dominant culture and defining these norms as the legitimate knowledge; schools legitimate new knowledge, new classes, and social strata in the context of the dominant society. The dominant values of society are the dominant values of the schools and are defended by the state.

Consider again the activity the you completed at beginning of this chapter. Now think about the concept of habitus as it relates to yourself.

1. Describe the cultural capital of your home. How did it blend with your activities as a primary (or older) pupil in school? Did you at any point feel any tensions between the cultural expectations of your home and your school?

2. Describe the academic capital of your background? What expectations for academic success were placed on you by parents/guardians/others? How congruent were these expectations with those of your teachers? Of yourself? How many people in your direct family have a university education? What percentage of your friends has or will have a university education?

3. Describe the linguistic capital of your home. How does the everyday conversational language of your home environment compare with that used in your school classrooms? How does the language of your friends compare to that of your parents? The teachers you had in elementary or secondary school?

4. Think honestly. What impact has your habitus had on your attitudes toward others (e.g., classmates who dropped out of school, who did not go on to university, street people, members of other cultures)?

Continue to think about the information you have gathered here as you read and reflect on the issues raised further in this chapter. What impact might this information have on you as a teacher?

The concept of habitus, educational socialization and stratification lead to the theory that there are two power structures in society--the privileged and the oppressed. The privileged dominate the oppressed in society--not always intentionally, by the way--and, therefore, do not allow minority interests to be integrated into the mainstream. To be successful, members of the marginal cultures (and, by members of marginal cultures, we mean cultural and social minorities as well as members of other disadvantaged groups such as women, disabled people, persons with alternative sexual orientations, and so on) have to learn and internalize the ideologies and customs of the privileged or the powerful in society. May (1994) acknowledges that such an ideology is functional because the power of the capitalist class determines both the explicit and hidden curriculum in schools. As such, researchers and educators are urged to question current practice and to find collective, collaborative, and formal ways to help or emancipate those who are oppressed in overt and implicit practices both in classroom teaching and in the education of new teachers.

The term, emancipate, means more than simply liberating some person or group; it implies that all persons, given opportunity and appropriate support, can liberate themselves from that which oppresses them, be it poverty, ethnicity and/or gender. And, as a result of this perspective and because we live in a country that is formally committed to recognizing and enshrining minority rights, reality in the educational system is being reclaimed in a different and controversial, albeit a seemingly prolonged, way.

Teacher education lives within the realms of schooling and, as a result, is subject to the same constraining structural norms, ideologies, and values which govern schools. Just as schools are premised on the fundamental beliefs of the dominant society, so too are teacher education institutions. Popkewitz (1987) notes that the same rituals of public schooling are institutionalized in teacher education facilities:

Conduct is structured by codes of culture which govern the ways in which people think, feel, and "see" and act toward the practices of schooling. (p. 2)

Corson (1993) notes that just as schooling evolved to socialize youngsters into society, so too did a specific group emerge who had the authority and power to develop and implement the curriculum (overt and hidden) and the norms of the schooling that would inculcate and reinforce society's ideologies and beliefs into the minds of students. New teachers were trained to take over these responsibilities, overtly through such activities as teaching lessons during practice teaching and subtly through maintaining the norms of the culture through classroom management (Popkewitz, 1987). If field experiences in schools are for student teachers to practice and be evaluated on their ability to convey the codes of the system to students, then student teachers who understand the structures and codes of the dominant society in education may be better able to demonstrate these particular attributes and may be more successful at teaching. Student teachers who come from a different or minority background, be it gender, race, or class, may be impeded in their own understanding of what is important and may not be able to achieve the desired results unless they become assimilated into the norms of the dominant culture in schooling.

As mentioned previously, one complicating factor in considering the intersectionality of gender, race and class in learning-to-teach is the fact that the composition of teacher education classes, as well as their cooperating teachers and the university-based teacher educators, continues to be a homogeneous grouping of white, middle class candidates across North America (McIntyre & Byrd, 1996). Thus, if new teachers are rewarded for conforming behaviour in becoming professionals, then change is unlikely unless they can view the system in a critical manner. Student teachers who attempt to question the norms and structures generally do so with personal risk. Townsend (1995) confirms the homogeneity of the teaching population but points out the problems that politicians have when confronted with such a problem. While politicians note the lack of diversity in the teaching force and recognize that minorities may have been and continue to be disadvantaged, they have done little about the situation.

The notion of risk to contextual stability here enters into policy makers' talk. Interviewees tell me that, until recently, the department has been concerned that greater aggressiveness in affirmative action might have been divisive and therefore potentially destabilizing. (p. 155)

In short, there appears to be a recognition of the need for more effective affirmative action programs to diversify the teaching population, but paradoxically, the implementation of affirmative action programs remains unlikely because they might upset the status quo of the dominant culture.

Working Together Toward Resolution

There is evidence, however, that change is afoot as noted in some preservice university programs. Topics of social action and justice are becoming a fundamental component of mandatory courses; courses in alternative pedagogies are becoming more prevalent. Instructors and student teachers are influenced by writers who encourage us to consider alterative ways of viewing our world. Paolo Freire is one researcher/writer who provides some insight for those of us learning-to-teach through his work with poor, adult learners in South America. Freire (1985) describes government educational programs that were designed to teach adult illiterate peasant farmers to read and write. Although the exercise appeared to be a commendable and just affair to liberate these adults from their prison of ignorance, Freire exposes the pitfalls of such an intervention. He shows that the teaching methods that were used were irrelevant in helping the adults learn anything more than just the mechanics of reading and writing; they learned nothing about their situation or their place in society. The peasants' teachers used a curriculum in their teaching that made use of statements to help them read, such as The birds fly, which were of little illuminative use to them in genuine learning. In his situation, Freire (1985) argued for a meaningful curriculum for his peasants that would make use of, what he calls generative words, in order to open dialogue with the peasants about their role in society. This curriculum would form a critical component in their learning so that they could use the new knowledge not only to read and write, but to discuss ways of freeing themselves from their poverty. Freire calls for an emancipatory curriculum for both pupils and teachers. He reminds us that the peasants develop their own way of seeing and understanding the world, according to cultural patterns that are marked by the ideology of dominant groups in their global society; their ways of thinking are adapted by the very behaviour that conditions their thinking, having been developed and crystallized over a long period of time (Freire, 1985).

What does this mean to us in learning-to-teach? Certainly, we are not claiming that our student teachers are peasants; they are not illiterate and they can have voice if they are willing to use it. But, they have been trained to see the world in certain ways (Lortie, 1975) and have been successful as pupils themselves in accommodating that view of society. As pupils in classrooms, student teachers have been conditioned to the norms of the system after thousands of hours of experience in classrooms before they enter teaching. In fact, many may have chosen teaching as a career because of a holistic acceptance of the educational system, the inner need to pass on the knowledge to others, or the urge to exercise power over others. Thus, before they even begin teaching, it appears that new teachers may work willingly toward maintaining the status quo. We need to work consciously to open all of our minds to difference and diversity, to be aware of the position of privilege that we have, and to give voice to novice teachers to give their pupils a fair chance in today's world.

Working with student teachers in such emancipatory ways may not be easy, not only for the reasons listed above as to why many have come into teaching. We have heard our own student teachers complain about their teacher education classes in the university setting, about how meaningless they often are because we often talk about framing and reframing issues in education and managing dilemmas, rather than providing solutions that work. Some novice teachers see their role as one in which, as teachers, they need to maintain power and control in schools and some seek a curriculum that guarantees success in the classroom, a methodological bags of tricks to help them at least maintain the status quo. Success in student teaching is an excellent report from the supervising teacher, and an excellent report is truly powerful because it is the most influential route to employment in the system. Supervising teachers, on the other hand, hold all of the power in that it is they who determine who will receive the excellent teaching reports that will permit beginning teachers to obtain teaching positions (see chapter 6); they are, in fact, the gatekeepers of the profession (see chapter 11). To assist student teachers to find success in alternative and risky teaching methodologies, teacher educators need to put our own theory into practice. We must all strive to recreate the situation in which the participants live and we must rethink our own thinking in terms of those disempowered by the system. While we are not about to recommend that we throw everything away that we have in our system, we encourage a thorough critique and a need to show our student teachers how to do the same.

Power or authority in teaching is frequently measured in terms of quiet and compliant pupils who can regurgitate the content that teachers put into their minds. Freire (1985) refers to this type of teaching as a banking method that visualizes pupils as empty vessels waiting to be filled. If pupils are perceived as empty vessels, then student teachers also must be vessels waiting to be given the codified knowledge of teaching which they then impart to their pupils. In his advocacy of generative words, he champions the people's words and demands that they become an integral part of the teaching. Succinctly, Freire says that

we all have a lot to learn from peasants and if we refuse to do so, we can't teach them anything (p. 25).

Thus, he exhorts teacher educators, to challenge the community (student teachers and teacher educator colleagues) to decode the structures, language, and discourse (of the educational establishment). In Freire's terms then, by understanding the codification's deep structure, student teachers as well as experienced teachers can understand the dialectic that exists between the categories presented in the surface structure. They may also see the unity between the "surface and deep structures" (p. 52) in order to reconstruct their former practice and become capable of an emancipated way of engaging in teaching and learning. Freire (1985) emphasizes that the relationship between theoretical context and the concrete context has to be made real. The researcher/educator's role is to propose problems about the codified existential situation to help the learners arrive at a more critical view of educational reality in order to resist current practice. Aspiring teachers must be confronted at the outset with examination and re-examination of who they are as teachers because learning to teach is personally constructed (Britzman, 1991). Student teachers' voices must be acknowledged, heard, encouraged, and even challenged in the discourse according to Sumara and Luce-Kapler (1996) because

learning to teach means engaging in acts of forgetting, discarding, silencing, and ignoring(p. 78).

If the curriculum of learning to teach does not include such emancipatory practices, then student teachers remain as prisoners throughout their own preservice education.

Teacher educators, both university-based and school-based, need to closely examine their practices. While universities may be seen as liberalizing institutions, using such methods as inquiry and critical reflection for student learning, they really are very conservative. University courses are generally offered and evaluated in a depository way, to further Freire's notions of the banking method, that directs certain, limited types of learning. Simultaneously, in the practicum, teacher education students are socialized into the conservative norms of the schools (Feiman-Nemser & Buchmann, 1987). In developing a solution to these problems, Cochran-Smith (1994) advocates an idealistic model of collaborative resonance in teacher education where student teachers learn in mutually constructed learning communities, developed between the university and the schools, where the purpose is not how to teach but how to continue learning. She notes that the way to link theory and practice is through a self-critical program where systematic inquiry about learning (both teacher and student) is paramount. This suggestion resonates with our concept of the scholarship of pedagogy as outlined in chapter 1.

Such comments as noted above may be perceived as revolutionary for student teachers and teacher educators but we see them as relevant. If teacher education is to become more than teacher socialization that is intended to educate pupils according to dominant norms and ideologies, then beginning teachers must be made aware of the tensions that exist and given opportunity to engage in the scholarship of pedagogy so that they may be released from the influential forces that socialize. They need safe access to Freire's generative language of educational discourse. Indeed, this release may help enable them to begin the process of decoding the dialogue of power, so that they can arrive at a critical view of the reality in education in order to provide an optimal learning environment for their pupils in the twenty-first century.

CASE STUDY 1

MAKING THE GRADE: BUT WHAT IF THE GRADE IS JUST TOO STEEP?

Gihajnne was the first of her family ever to finish secondary school and to go to university. Her parents, both non-English speaking immigrants who worked 10 - 14 hours a day at hard physical labour to support their extended family, were so proud of her accomplishments. The youngest of seven children, she was quite aware that she carried a huge responsibility. All of her siblings were employed in minimum wage jobs, some were married with their own young but growing families, and most of them were happy. But all were just managing to scrape by. Her parents and family were so proud that one of their own would someday be a respected professional in the community; she felt that she was perceived to be the one who would save her family merely because she was enrolled in a local university program. It seemed that almost each week, her mother and father would ask her what she planned to do when she graduated from university. Giha observed that even her own cultural community, most of whom were just managing to survive themselves, beamed at her when she came to events and always wished her well, bestowing blessings on her quite publicly. At times, members of her community would even ask her advice about important personal decisions and she felt most uncomfortable giving her opinion.

Giha enjoyed her schooling and realized that the only way that she could go to university was to win some scholarship money and to carry a full-time job outside of school. She was determined to get a degree, to find a well-paying professional career and to do her part to help out her struggling family. As she proceeded through first, second and then third year, Giha realized that she had little idea of what career to pursue. She was taking a social science degree with a major in sociology. As she entered her fourth and final year, she felt exhausted. Over the summer, she had carried two jobs, working seven days a week and as many as 14 hours a day. When she finally got home, she would often meet her equally-exhausted parents just coming in. She tried to help out her mother by cleaning, cooking, and caring for her little nieces/nephew whose parents were on the night shift. Since English was rarely spoken in their home, she tried to read to the little ones in English as often as she could because she believed that might help them do better in school.

Two weeks into her fourth year, Giha was determined to make a decision about her future before the end of that month. After attending some of the professional school recruitment sessions and talking briefly to a very busy academic counsellor, Giha decided to focus on teaching. Initially she thought she might want to become a secondary teacher but when she discovered that she did not have the appropriate teaching subjects, she opted to apply for a generalist elementary teaching program. As she completed the lengthy application process, wrote out the cheque for the stiff application fees, and sent it off in the mail, Giha felt a sense of relief. Now she could tell her parents that she was going to be a teacher. She knew they would be so proud of her.

At the Faculty of Education, Giha found herself in a very different academic community. She was taking courses in curriculum areas she had not even thought about since high school, and she realized that not only would she have to learn that content but also how to teach it! She had not really thought about what the program would involve. Suddenly she found she was forced to think about herself as the teacher of a primary classroom, working with 25 or 30 young children who would believe she knew what she was doing. As her first student teaching block approached in a grade two classroom, she felt a real sense of apprehension. She felt she had no one to really talk to. Her parents would have no idea what she was talking about. These days they beamed at her with noble smiles. She had no real friends at school or in her community to talk to. She suddenly realized that she was a loner; she had never had time for a social life. She did not want to talk to any of her professors for fear they felt she would be seen as a weak candidate and so she never volunteered to speak in their classes. She felt truly alone in a very confusing world of teacher education. But that feeling soon evaporated each day as she ran out of her university class to arrive on time for her work as a waitress at a local diner.

During student teaching, Giha observed her cooperating teacher very carefully and she planned her teaching assignments meticulously in the early hours of the morning after working another eight-hour shift. The teaching went well and her cooperating teacher seemed pleased. She always had many positive comments to make as well as some very realistic suggestions for improvement. However, Giha felt her cooperating teacher was being too nice and she could see how much she needed to improve. On the other hand, she did not feel at ease talking about teaching with such an experienced professional. At the end of the placement, Giha accepted a fair report and she looked forward to getting back to her university classes.

Back in class, she heard her colleagues talking excitedly about their experiences. In fact, the halls, the cafeteria, her classes buzzed with the enthusiastic chatter of her peers. She did not find her way into any of the conversations and she realized that she was anything but enthusiastic about her experience. As the term progressed, Giha began to feel somewhat depressed about herself and her career choice. She began to realize that she could not become excited about teaching for the next 35 years of her life. Should she quit? But what would she tell her family? She just could not bear to see the disappointment in their eyes or in the eyes of her community. Should she just continue on and try to finish the program? What if she failed? That would certainly be worse.

In mid-November, Giha asked for an appointment with the faculty's Academic Counsellor. She explained her problem as carefully as she could and asked about withdrawing. She learned that if she made the decision to withdraw at this point, she could do so without academic penalty and would receive a modest refund of her fees. If she waited any later to withdraw, she would certainly lose all of her tuition and have a permanent grade of failure on her transcript. The Academic Counsellor outlined all of the options and asked her to consider her decision most carefully. As another week dragged by, Giha began to feel physically ill and could not even bear to go to classes. She felt she had no choice but to withdraw from the program, which she did. Giha went out immediately to look for another minimum-wage job to fill in her now empty days. As she left the Faculty of Education for the last time, she felt relief on one hand, but a sense of foreboding about what she was doing to her family on the other. She considered alternatives for awhile--running away from home, suicide, lying to them. She felt totally alone and empty inside.

Questions

Framing, Reframing and Exploring Solutions

1.	Review the case study again to outline the problems that Giha faces.

2.	How does her gender, race and class make her particularly vulnerable in this case study?

3.	Review Bourdieu's concept of habitus. How does his framework of cultural capital, academic capital and linguistic capital help us to understand Giha's situation?

4.	Review Freire's framework of education in light of the illiterate peasants with whom he worked? How can this conceptual framework be transferred to be applicable in teacher education for a situation like Giha's?

4.	What realistic and satisfactory solutions could Giha seek in her future?

5.	Are there supports that the university system, the school system and the community could/should have had to assist Giha in managing her dilemmas? What are they?

Personal Reflections and Connections

1.	Have you ever been forced into a difficult situation because of expectations placed on you? Whose expectations were they and what did they relate to? Describe the situation and tell how you reacted. Now that the situation is behind you and you have time to think about it, how might you have reacted?

2.	Have you ever had an advantage because of your gender, race or class? Describe the situation.

3.	Articulate your own values of schooling, thinking about both teachers and learners. How are your values explicitly and implicitly demonstrated in your curriculum and in your teaching methods?

4.	How might your values differ/be similar to the values of your pupils, your colleagues, your cooperating teacher, the school administration, the government?

5.	Consider carefully your expectations of your pupils based on their gender. What expectations do you have of the male students in your class(es)? Of the female students? How do they differ?

6.	Consider your expectations in relation to the socioeconomic status of your students and also of their cultural background. How does this affect your teaching and your evaluation of student progress?

7.	Canvass your own school or university community to find the supports that exist for students with concerns or vulnerabilities. How well is the system working? How do you know for sure?

Broader Reflections on Learning-to-Teach

1.	We live in a society where there are supposed to be support mechanisms in place to help people who are victimized by circumstances. If this is true, why do we hear time and again that vulnerable people do not find success in using these supports?

2.	How can we, not only as teachers but as members of a society that seeks to address issues of social justice, identify and assist those who require support.

3.	Do teachers really want to hear voices in our society that are different from their own? Give an example of a situation where you have observed a teacher develop practices that support marginalized pupils. Why did this strategy work? What were its limitations?

4.	What is essential knowledge for schools? How can a provincial curriculum or base of knowledge be developed for schools that meets high standards yet is still inclusive?

CASE STUDY 2

STEVE'S PRIMARY DILEMMA: TOUCH IN THE CLASSROOM

One day on recess yard duty, during Steve's first primary teaching assignment as a student teacher, a little girl named Maggie came running up to him. She had fallen and skinned her little knees, and was crying. Maggie was obviously hurt and frightened. She instinctively reached out to Steve to be held and comforted but he responded by stepping back. Instead he gave Maggie a stiff pat on the back when she hugged his knees, and then gently pushed her away. While Maggie backed away, looking hurt and disappointed, Steve realized that his response left him feeling inadequate as a teacher to this young child. He thought that if he gave her a hug, he would get in trouble, especially since he was in view of other staff members and parent volunteers on recess duty. Although he had always wanted to be a primary teacher, he had heard that males who wanted to teach young children were seen as suspect or questionable.

Steve had always been naturally affectionate with children, and as a student teacher, he noticed how the pupils in his grade one class craved touch. He just had to sit on the floor, and within a matter of seconds, there would be a couple of children on his lap. Steve was warned by peers and teachers he knew, that men in primary grades had to be very careful about touching pupils. He was quite aware that there was a current climate of concern about male primary teachers as latent sexual predators. Steve felt torn by his natural affection towards the children and concern for his own personal protection. He also felt angry that his cooperating teacher, a woman, could confidently touch children without any fear of reproach, while he had to be extremely careful and reflect on every incident. He felt that this affected his ability to be spontaneous with the students.

While Steve had heard that some female teachers were not very positive towards males in the primary teaching positions, Susan Lambert was a very encouraging, helpful cooperating teacher but she had little advice to give Steve with this problem. She understood his concerns and suggested that he speak with the one other male teacher on staff. This sounded like a good idea and that afternoon, Steve made an arrangement to speak with an experienced male teacher, Jason Field.

Jason was able to relate immediately to Steve's difficulties. In his many years of teaching experience, he had developed strategies for dealing with touch in the classroom. Jason felt that the children in his classes did need to be touched, but in a compromising way that was not dangerous for him. He made a point of shaking hands with the students before they left for the day. Pats on the back were also appropriate. When Steve related the incident with Maggie in the school yard, Jason told him of an approach he had developed. He would kneel down to the child's eye level and warmly take her hands, while listening intently. Jason suggested that this was a way to keep the child from feeling rejected, and also allowed Jason to connect and comfort a child without being put in a compromising situation. Steve was relieved to know that other male teachers felt similarly, and that there might be some alternative and creative ways to deal with touch in the classroom. He just wished he had thought of those strategies earlier in the day as he remembered the disconsolate look in Maggie's eyes.

Framing, Reframing, and Exploring Solutions

Review this case to study the issues that Steve faces.

Was Steve justified in feeling concern about touching the pupils in his class? Why? Why not?

What other solutions might Steve find to address his concerns?

What are strategies that both male and female teachers can use to deal with such situations?

Personal Reflections and Connections

1.	In what ways have the values and norms of our North American society perpetuated concerns about male teachers in the primary division? What intersection with race and class might male teachers face?

2.	Identify other areas of sensitivity related to gender, socioeconomic status or ethnicity that teachers face in their work as professionals in the classroom.

3.	How can cooperating teachers assist student teachers in understanding sensitive areas of teachers' work?

4.	Have you had any experiences in your teaching like Steve's? Use the Critical Teaching Incident framework (Figure 1.1)to outline your case and share it with a colleague.

Broader Reflections on Learning-to-Teach

1.	Will having more male teachers in early years classrooms alleviate or aggravate the dilemma which Steve faced? Support your answer using one of the conceptual frameworks of Freire or Bourdieu as described in the beginning section of this chapter. Find some primary and secondary sources about your researcher's work to augment your answer.