Qualitative Research in Education

Transcripción

Qualitative Research
in Education
Volume 4, Number 1
Hipatia Press
www.hipatiapress.com
h
Compelling Counternarratives to Deficit Discourses: An Investigation
into the Funds of Knowledge of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse
U.S. Elementary Students’ Households - Angela Kinney .......................... 1
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The Road to the Ivory Tower: The Learning Experiences of Students
with Disabilities at the University of Manitoba - Fiona Moola ................. 45
El Portafolios de los Estudiantes como Estrategia Alternativa a las
Pruebas Estandarizadas para la Evaluación de Competencias Monsalud Gallardo Gil, J. Eduardo Sierra Nieto, Ana Domínguez
Ramos ............................................................................................................. 71
Review
Emerging Critical Scholarship in Education: Navigating the Doctoral
Journey - Suyapa Martínez Scott............................................................... 102
List of Reviewers ......................................................................................... 105
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Compelling Counternarratives to Deficit Discourses:
An Investigation into the Funds of Knowledge of
Culturally and Linguistically Diverse U.S. Elementary Students’
Households
Angela Kinney1
1) School of Education, Mount St. Joseph University, United States of
America.
th
Date of publication: February 28 , 2015
Edition period: February 2015–June 2015
To cite this article: Kinney, A. (2015). Compelling Counternarratives to
Deficit Discourses: An Investigation into the Funds of Knowledge of
Culturally and Linguistically Diverse U.S. Elementary Students’ Households.
Qualitative Research in Education, 4(1), 1-25. doi: 10.4471/qre.2015.54
To link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/qre.2015.54
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Qualitative Research in Education Vol.4 No.1 February 2015 pp. 1-25
Compelling Counternarratives to
Deficit Discourses: An Investigation
into the Funds of Knowledge of
Culturally and Linguistically Diverse
U.S. Elementary Students’
Households
Angela Kinney
Mount St. Joseph University
(Received: 12 June 2014; Accepted: 5 October 2014; Published: 28
February 2015)
Abstract
This study focused on household funds of knowledge or “historically accumulated bodies of
knowledge and skills essential for household functioning and well-being” (Gonzalez,
Andrade, Civil, & Moll, 2001). A Funds of Knowledge approach provides both a
methodological and theoretical lens for educators to understand both themselves and their
students in more complex ways. Participants included five culturally, economically, and
linguistically diverse students and their families. The study setting was a middle- and
working-class first-ring suburb in the Midwestern United States. Data collection included
visits to home, church, and Sunday school settings; observations in Language Arts classroom
settings; and informal conversations and ethnographic semi-structured interviews with
students, parents, and teachers. Data sources included interview transcripts; fieldnotes and
reflections on those fieldnotes; and data collected from each student’s school cumulative
folder. I coded parent and child interview and home visit data to create a multifaceted portrait
of each household. Findings reveal that households possess a breadth and variety of resources,
skills, bodies of knowledge, and strengths. These findings provide compelling
counterevidence to deficit discourses by demonstrating that these households possess valuable
knowledge and experiences.
Keywords: Funds of Knowledge, cultural and linguistic diversity, counternarratives
2015 Hipatia Press
ISSN: 2014-6418
DOI: 10.4471/qre.2015.54
Qualitative Research in Education Vol.4 No.1 Febrero 2015 pp. 1-25
Contranarrativas Convincentes para los
Discursos de Déficit: Una Investigación
de los Fondos de Conocimiento sobre la
Diversidad Cultural y Lingüística en los
Hogares de los Estudiantes de Primaria
de EE.UU.
Angela Kinney
Mount St. Joseph University
(Recibido: 12 de junio de 2014; Aceptado: 5 de octubre de 2014; Publicado:
28 de febrero de 2015)
Resumen
Este estudio se centró en los recursos de los Fondos del Conocimiento o "cuerpos
históricamente acumulados de conocimientos y habilidades esenciales para el funcionamiento
de los hogares y el bienestar" (González, Andrade, Civiles, & Moll, 2001). Una aproximación
a los Fondos de Conocimiento proporciona una lente metodológica y teórica para que los
educadores entiendan a sí mismos ya sus estudiantes en formas más complejas. Los
participantes incluyeron a cinco estudiantes y sus familias con diversidad cultural, económica
y lingüísticamente. El ámbito del estudio fue un suburbio de primer anillo en el medio oeste
de Estados Unidos con clase media y trabajadora. La recolección de datos incluyó visitas a la
casa, la iglesia y la escuela dominical; observaciones en las aulas de Lengua y Literatura; y
conversaciones informales y entrevistas semi-estructuradas etnográficas con los estudiantes,
familias y docentes. Las fuentes de datos incluyen transcripciones de la entrevista; notas de
campo y reflexiones sobre esas notas de campo; y los datos obtenidos de la carpeta escolar de
la escuela de cada estudiante. Se codifico las entrevistas de familias e hijo y los datos de
visitas a casa para crear un retrato multifacético de cada hogar. Los hallazgos revelan que los
hogares poseen una amplitud y variedad de recursos, habilidades, saberes y fortalezas. Estos
resultados proporcionan evidencias contrarias a los discursos de déficit, que demuestran que
estos hogares poseen valiosos conocimientos y experiencias.
Palabras clave: Fondos de Conocimiento, diversidad cultural y lingüística,
contranarrativas
2015 Hipatia Press
ISSN: 2014-6418
DOI: 10.4471/qre.2015.54
Qualitative Research in Education, 4(1)
D
3
uring the past ten years, I have been fortunate enough to teach in
culturally, linguistically, and socioeconomically diverse
elementary schools. Across this decade, it has often struck me how
we teachers are generally unaware of students’ lives outside of school. I
have come to wonder about the cultural and linguistic resources which
students and their families possess—largely invisible within schools—that
could be leveraged for school learning. Consequently, students’ lives,
experiences, and knowledge outside of school have become of more interest
to me. As a result, I embarked upon a dissertation study with the goal of
trying to know students and their families in ways outside of the purview of
the classroom.
Thus, informed by Funds of Knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff, &
Gonzalez, 1992/2005; Gonzalez et al., 1995/2005; Gonzalez, Andrade,
Civil, & Moll, 2001/2005) understandings, I designed a case study that
documents the funds of knowledge of culturally and linguistically diverse
elementary students and their families. The study focused upon five
students and their families who are former students of mine and who live in
the communities comprising the school district in which I had taught for the
past decade. In the fall of 2011, I devoted one week per household to visit,
observe, and interview participants in home, school, and sometimes
community settings, in order to document the resources possessed by
students and their families. Interviews conducted with students and their
parents provided the basis for the majority of the findings regarding
household resources. Findings indicate that students and their families
possessed rich and varied cultural and linguistic assets. With these findings,
I hoped to provide teachers and teacher educators with other ways of
knowing culturally and linguistically diverse students—beyond the limited
portraits often provided by schooled measures of performance. At the same
time, the findings of the current study challenge pervasive deficit discourses
that perceive diverse students as deficient or lacking in knowledge and
resources. This dissertation was guided by the following research questions:
What funds of knowledge (or historically accumulated bodies of
knowledge and skills essential for household functioning and well-being)
do culturally and linguistically diverse elementary students and their
families possess?
How are these funds of knowledge employed by household members
and for what purposes?
4
Kinney – Compelling Counternarratives to Deficit Discourses
Conceptual Framework: Funds of Knowledge
“Funds of knowledge” refers to “historically developed and accumulated
strategies (skills, abilities, ideas, practices) or bodies of knowledge that are
essential to a household’s functioning and well-being” (Gonzalez et al.,
1995/2005, p. 91-92). Rather than being limited to the individual child, this
research takes “households” as the unit of analysis in order to discover and
document domains of knowledge and skills to which the child might have
access (Gonzalez et al., 1995/2005). A household includes not only the
home itself but the knowledge and skills of those living in the home, along
with participants’ social networks and relationships. These relationships
include social and labor histories of families and social and reciprocal
exchange networks—central to any household’s functioning—through
which these bodies of knowledge and skills are produced and circulate
(Gonzalez et al., 2005).
Funds of Knowledge research seeks to understand the knowledge and
skills found in local households and to use this knowledge to improve
educational opportunities for students in schools (Moll et al., 1992/2005).
Households differ from classrooms in key ways. Households, in contrast to
classrooms, draw from resources outside of the home in order to meet
needs. However, classrooms tend to be more insular and isolated, as
teachers are rarely aware of the resources students possess in their everyday
lives and therefore do not mobilize them (Moll et al., 1992/2005).
Furthermore, the social exchange networks and relationships households
form are often reciprocal in nature. These relationships usually rely upon
trust and often lead to long-term relationships. For example, a parent may
provide housing for a family friend, and in return that friend helps with
household repairs. Children can participate in these efforts, which provide a
further opportunity for learning. In contrast, relationships and pedagogy
within classrooms tend to be more “thin” and “single-stranded” (Moll et al.,
1992/2005).
The basic premise underlying the FoK perspective is that “people are
competent and have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them
that knowledge” (Gonzalez & Moll, 2002, p. 625). Funds of knowledge
manifest themselves through events or activities and are therefore not
possessions or traits of household members but are characteristics of
people-in-an-activity (p. 326). By focusing on the particulars of everyday
5
life, or how people experience life “culturally” (Gonzalez & Moll, 2002),
researchers come to recognize how people acquire and use a variety of
resources across contexts.
In contrast to more deficit-oriented outlooks, FoK research reframes
children’s language, culture, and intellectual capacities as resources—rather
than problems to be remedied—that teachers can use in intentional ways to
foster academic achievement and engagement (Moll & Diaz, 1987). As
such, it represents a more “additive” or “asset-based” approach to
education, as opposed to a more deficit-driven paradigm (Moll, 2005).
Households are recast primarily in terms of the strengths and resources they
possess, versus what they may lack. In this way, its methodological tools
represent more than a series of techniques—it also represents a conceptual
heuristic for viewing households. FoK advocates an ethnographic approach
to data collection and interpretation, in that it seeks to center participants’
lives and experiences and attempts to understand the ways in which they
make sense of their everyday lives (Agar, 1996; Spradley, 1980). Within
FoK, ethnographic understandings function as a lens with which households
are viewed as multifaceted and vibrant entities (Gonzalez et al., 2001).
Studying households in an ethnographic way provides an alternate view
to schooled forms of pedagogy, relationships, and social networks. First,
household networks are adaptable and dynamic and may involve
individuals from outside the home; in other words, they are “thick” and
“multi-stranded” (Moll et al., 1992, p. 133). For example, within a family,
an uncle may teach a child about computers and may be the same person to
attend church with that child, or go fishing with the father on weekends. In
this way, the uncle and child then know and interact with one another
throughout a number of different spheres. In contrast, teacher-student
relationships within schools are “thin” and “single-stranded,” as the teacher
knows and understands the student in very limited ways, typically based
upon data collected from standardized measures (Moll et al., 1992). Further,
the child is often an active learner in household practices, in contrast to the
more passive role s/he plays within the classroom structure. Much of this
learning is also driven by the children’s interests, rather than dictated by
mandated curricula (Moll et al., 1992).
For these reasons, Funds of Knowledge methodologies uncover youths’
cultural and linguistic resources in useful ways. Such methodologies offer
educators and researchers qualitative means to discover and understand the
6
strengths, knowledge, and skills of students’ households beyond the scope
of the classroom. These methods “mediate the teachers’ comprehension of
social life within the households… [and] serve as a strategic way of
reducing theoretically … the complexity of people’s everyday experiences,
without losing sight of the rich and dynamic totality of their lives” (Moll &
Gonzalez, 2005, p. 21). This theoretical lens views youths’ social worlds in
a positive light and considers the ways in which they might be used to
support academic learning. In other words, the framework offers both
“theoretical provision and methodological guidance” (Moll & Gonzalez,
2005, p. 22).
Alternative Constructions of Difference
Funds of Knowledge research offers a significantly different set of
understandings about linguistically, culturally, and socioeconomically
diverse individuals than those put forth by psychological, measurementbased, or culture of poverty outlooks (Bomer, Dworin, May, & Semingson,
2008). A Funds of Knowledge approach demonstrates that students and
their families have access to a number of social and cultural tools and
knowledge that teachers may employ. Rather than prescribe remediation or
intervention, these scholars concentrate upon strengths and resources (or
funds of knowledge) as students’ “defining pedagogical characteristic”
(Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005, p. X). I n other words, a FoK approach
reframes these families as possessing, rather than lacking, rich and varied
assets.
Culture of Poverty: The Assignment of Blame
Funds of Knowledge studies provide an important alternative to influential
deficit views of cultural and linguistic difference, such as the work of Ruby
Payne. Over the past decade, Payne’s (2003) book, A Framework for
Understanding Poverty, has been central to professional development
efforts in school districts across the country to help teachers understand
poverty (Bomer et al., 2008)—including Tri-County School District, in
which the current study took place. Payne’s fundamental assertion is that
the key to understanding poverty is exposure to the hidden rules of class
(e.g., rules across topics like education, food, clothing, entertainment, and
7
family structures). Payne’s book exemplifies the deficit model of difference
that FoK and sociocultural research critique. The basis for this criticism is
the way in which a “culture of poverty” approach blames the victims of
poverty (i.e., children and their families)—and their poor life choices,
orientations, and behaviors—for perceived shortcomings. Payne’s work is
predicated on the view that there is something wrong with students in
poverty, and they are in need of intervention, remediation, and fixing,
thereby individuating and construing the problem as something other than
systemic (Osei-Kofi, 2005; Kunjufu, 2006). It also conveys these
potentially harmful and reified views toward culture and poverty to
preservice teachers (Ladson-Billings, 2006; Bomer et al., 2008; Sato &
Lensmire, 2008).
In contrast, FoK views culture and language as assets for, rather than
hindrances to, learning and education. In this tradition, the present study
documents the rich and varied knowledge and experiences of diverse
households and posits that such knowledge can actually enhance the
learning experiences of children within school. This contrasts starkly with
the more intervention- and remediation-based approaches, like the “culture
of poverty” outlook described above. Deviating from such deficit-oriented
approaches further contributes to extant discourses of diverse families as
capable and knowledgeable.
Measurement: The Assignment of Labels
My study also gets behind the labels that many schools assign to learners in
order to challenge notions of diverse learners as less capable, in need of
intervention and remediation. The labels and categories which we ascribe to
students (e.g., mainstream, English Language Learner, limited English
proficient, “at risk”) affect the ways in which we perceive these students, in
terms of their abilities and competencies, and indeed for the ways in which
they view themselves (Enright, 2011).
By emphasizing the varied resources and assets of diverse students,
rather than comparison to established norms and standards, the present
study aims to unsettle these labels. Recently, with the passage of No Child
Left Behind and consequent emphasis upon high-stakes testing,
socioeconomically disadvantaged students and English Language Learners
(ELL) have become a named subgroup in state standardized testing.
8
Students assigned these labels have thus garnered attention in education
discourse about how to “close the gap” between non-minority, middle-class
students and their socioeconomically-disadvantaged and/or ELL peers.
Importantly, Bomer, Dworin, May, and Semingson (2008) asked:
What happens when a category of student is constructed, through
language, as a uniform group in need of improvement? ... A
category has been created, and along with it, a charge to change the
members of that category… The easiest answer is to bring in a
program, especially one that will not overly drain already depleted
budgets, one that does not ask too much of already overworked
teachers. An affordable program is identified, and its language
begins to form ways of thinking for the teachers in their
interactions with the children from the identified group. The
program’s language creates representation, frames for thinking
about “these kids.” (p. 2498)
In contrast, the current study examines the resources, rather than
“limitations,” that students possess and thereby assists in countering the
deficit narratives by which these students have traditionally been
constructed and defined, or “single stories”—normalized, unproblematized
stereotypes, assumptions, and inaccuracies which negatively define and
label children (Lopez-Robertson, Long, and Turner-Nash, 2010). As
teachers’ socioeconomic, cultural, racial, and linguistic experiences and
backgrounds often differ greatly from those of their students—“other
people’s children” (Delpit, 1995)—the current study provides a portrait for
educators of children’s multiple cultural and linguistic worlds,
communities, and identities, apart from those represented by commonlyused labels and categories.
Psychology: The Assignment of Cultural Traits
The current study also calls into question many mainstream approaches to
educating diverse learners. Often in education, cultural diversity is treated
as a set of static “traits” located in individuals, rather than dynamic
practices. Doing so does not account for change within the individual, the
context for the activity, or the community (Gutierrez & Rogoff, 2003).
Oftentimes, ascribed learning or cognitive style traits (e.g., holistic learners,
analytical learners) of students from nondominant groups are used to
9
account for school failure. Moreover, viewing learning styles as cultural
traits is a common way to prepare teachers to work with diverse
populations. As such, this approach risks overgeneralizing and
essentializing groups of people on the basis of ethnic or cultural group
membership (Gutierrez & Rogoff, 2003).
In contrast, this study presents another approach to understanding
linguistic and cultural “difference.” Within a Funds of Knowledge
perspective, cultural differences are believed to be due to the variations in
people’s varied histories of participation and engagement in practices
within particular cultural communities. Therefore, it is more helpful in our
pedagogical and scholarly treatments of difference if we direct our gaze
toward “cultural processes in which individuals engage with other people in
dynamic cultural communities” (Gutierrez & Rogoff, 2003, p. 21). Thus,
the current study counters more psychological, static outlooks toward
culture by entering homes and communities with an eye toward learning
about the cultural and other practices therein, which are not fixed and
immutable and thus able to be described in advance, but are in perpetual
need of discovery (Gonzalez, 2005).
Methodology
Context
This study took place in Cloverdale, which lies several miles from the
center of a major metropolitan area in the Midwestern United States. It is a
middle- and working-class first-ring suburb with a residential population of
15,000 that has experienced demographic change over the last decade.
Between 2000 and 2010, censuses revealed a slight decline in overall
population but a near-doubling in Black residents and a near-tripling of
Hispanic residents in the town. This demographic change manifested itself
in the local school district—Tri-County School District—and the two
schools attended by participants of this study, Elmwood Elementary and
Lakeside Elementary.
10
Tri-County School District
The two elementary schools represented in this study are part of a larger
school district, Tri-County School District, which is comprised of eight
elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school. According to
demographics website proximityone.com, approximately 61% of the
district’s total population is White, almost 27% are Black, 7% are Hispanic,
and approximately 4% are Asian. Approximately 10% of the population
was born outside of the United States, nearly three-fourths of whom were
born in Latin America or Asia. Twelve percent of households speak a
language other than or in addition to English. Nearly seven percent of
families within the district live below the poverty level. There are nearly
6,000 students enrolled in the schools, with almost half of these students
characterized as economically disadvantaged, while 15% have been
diagnosed with disabilities. Given these statistics, Cloverdale and TriCounty Schools are reflective of the increasing heterogeneity and diversity
present in many classrooms across the U.S. (Enright, 2011; Genishi &
Dyson, 2009).
Participants
All five student participants were former students of mine who lived and
attended schools within the Tri-County School District, where I have taught
for the past ten years. The participating third and fourth grade students—
Frank; Phineas; Hannah; Zack; and Jack—represented the linguistic and
cultural diversity present throughout the district and schools.
Frank lived in the Sully household. Frank was a White, monolingual
fourth grader at the time of the study. The Sully family included Frank’s
mother and father and an older and younger sister. Mr. Sully worked in
carpentry, and Mrs. Sully worked at a footwear retail store. For 11 years,
the family had lived close to Elmwood Elementary which Frank (student
participant) attended . The Sully family spoke English exclusively.
The Ramirez household consisted of Phineas (student participant), his
mother and father, and younger brother who was in the first grade. At the
time of the study, Phineas was a Latino, bilingual, nine-year-old third
grader at Elmwood Elementary. The family spoke Spanish at home, though
Phineas and his brother would occasionally speak English to each other.
11
Mr. Ramirez worked in construction, while Mrs. Ramirez worked
occasionally cleaning houses. They had lived in the area for nearly six
years, living in Georgia previously and emigrating from Mexico prior to
that.
The White family included student participant, Hannah, who lived with
her father and stepmother half of the week, while the rest of the week she
lived with her mother (who lived nearby), stepfather, and younger sister. At
the time of the study, Hannah was a White, monolingual, nine-year-old
fourth grader at Elmwood Elementary. Both families spoke English at
home. Her father had recently begun a job as an instructional technology
design consultant and was taking a hiatus from pursuing his doctorate in
this area. They had recently moved to a townhouse so that they could be
closer to Hannah’s mother.
The Smith household consisted of 10-year-old Zack (student
participant), his mother Stacy and her 10-month-old toddler, and a family
friend from Jamaica. At the time of the study, Zack was a nine-year-old
Black, monolingual, third grader at Lakeside Elementary, where it was his
first year attending. Zack’s mother spoke English at home primarily but
occasionally spoke Jamaican Patois with the family friend who also lived in
the home. Stacy worked as a State Tested Nurse Aide at a care center where
she assisted elderly patients in their daily living. In addition, she was
enrolled in school to become a Registered Nurse. Stacy had emigrated from
Jamaica to the United States when she was in high school, about ten years
prior to the study.
The Ledezma family household consisted of Jack (student participant),
his mother, father, and younger sister, and his father’s cousin. At the time
of the study, Jack was a Latino, bilingual, ten-year-old fourth grader at
Elmwood Elementary. The family moved to the United States from Mexico
about eleven years prior to the study, shortly before Jack was born. The
family spoke primarily Spanish and some English at home. Jack’s father
worked an overnight shift at a meat-packing facility, and his mother worked
part-time during the day cleaning houses while Jack was at school. The
family had recently begun renting a house about a year prior to the study,
which was close to the apartment complex where they had lived previously.
12
Data Collection
In keeping with a Funds of Knowledge approach, this qualitative study
employed ethnographic observations of participants in home, school, and
some community settings. Data collection included peripheral nonparticipant observation (Spradley, 1980) in home, community, and
language arts classroom settings; observation fieldnotes and reflections
upon these fieldnotes; and informal conversations and ethnographic semistructured interviews done during home visits. Data sources included
interview transcripts; fieldnotes and reflections on those fieldnotes; and
data collected from each student’s school cumulative folder. I collected data
for each household intensively over a one-week period, visiting each
household for approximately 2 to 3 hours for 3 or 4 evenings in order to
make observations, and most importantly, to conduct parent and student
interviews. Similarly, I observed the Language Arts classroom of each
participant across 1 week, observing approximately 2 hours each for 4 class
sessions.
Home Visits
I coordinated with each family’s schedule and visited each home 3 to 4
times in a 1-week period for approximately 2 hours each visit. During these
visits, I made notes of each family member’s activities, conversations, and
interactions and also conducted interviews with parents and children. In
addition, I recorded notes regarding the interior and exterior of the home
itself.
Interviews
I supplemented home visits with interviews and other data in order to create
a complex portrait of each household—my unit of analysis. I conducted
interviews with students, their parents, and their teachers. A Funds of
Knowledge approach to inquiry centers upon the ethnographic interview, or
mix of guided conversation and interviewing, in order to both glean
information and to establish relations based upon trust between researcher
and interviewee. FoK parent interviews are typically conversational in
13
nature and organized into three questionnaires to be used as general guides
rather than formal protocols (Gonzalez & Moll, 2002).
The first interview focused upon social and family histories—largely
based on narratives about family roots, labor histories, and geographical
movements. For instance, I asked parents about how they learned of their
job and how they then learned the skills necessary for that job. In particular,
discussions of labor histories revealed a breadth of knowledge in a vast
array of areas. Additionally, discussions of familial ties pointed to areas of
knowledge possessed by members outside of the nuclear family, like aunts,
uncles, and grandparents.
In order to develop a complex and multiple view of the scope of
potential funds of knowledge present within the household, the second
interview focused upon the regular household activities of everyday life and
the role of children within these activities. Some questions asked
participants to discuss times in which they had helped friends or family
members in need, or vice versa, and thus uncovered the complex social
networks in which households participate. Other questions dealt with
ongoing daily, weekly, and monthly household activities and routines.
The third interview centered upon language use in the home, the ways in
which parents viewed their roles as caretakers, their own experiences in
schools, and how this compared to or contrasted with their child’s school
experiences. I asked parents about their hopes and goals for their children,
in terms of their behavior, values, and educational accomplishments. I
audio-recorded all interviews (for all but two parents and one teacher who
declined) and later transcribed them.
Although in most FoK studies interviews are conducted only with
parents, I also interviewed student participants. With its emphasis on
parents within households, many FoK studies have overlooked the funds of
knowledge, lives, experiences, and networks of the children (Moll, 2005;
Nespor, 1997). Interview questions focused upon uses of written and
spoken language and favorite subjects and activities in and outside of
school.
Additionally, I conducted interviews with each child’s Language Arts
teacher in order to determine the general perception of the teachers toward
the student participants and their families—in particular, their academic
abilities and performance. I also asked more general questions regarding
their perspectives on teaching diverse populations, the resources they
14
believed their students to possess, their means in determining these
resources, and whether and how they utilized these resources in planning
instruction and/or curricula. To supplement this data, I also collected the
standardized test scores for the each participant and noted which, if any,
specialized services they received within the school. Together, these data
helped to create a multidimensional portrait of each participant as a student.
Data Analysis
I coded parent and child interview transcriptions and field notes by
employing the following codes, created by Tenery (2005): The Strategizing
Household (behaviors, activities, and customs to sustain the household);
Interactional Patterns (social and familial networks); Domains of
Knowledge (knowledge, skills, and talents); Cultural Practices (linguistic,
literate, religious, and cultural traditions and events). These codes allowed
me to uncover and index the funds of knowledge present in the households,
across a variety of domains.
Coding in this manner provided a means to document the resources and
bodies of knowledge possessed by students and their families within these
domains of knowledge. I then met with participants to receive their
feedback regarding my characterizations of the household and to gain
additional information as needed. Additionally, I analyzed the classroom
observations, cumulative folder data, and teacher interviews to gain a sense
of the child as a student; the type of language and literacy instruction taking
place in the school; and the perspectives of the teacher toward working with
a culturally, socioeconomically, and linguistically diverse population. For
the purposes of this article, I will present findings related to household
bodies of knowledge.
Findings: Bodies of Knowledge
The households possessed a range of knowledge and skills, many of which
were related to labor histories or funds contributed by extended family
members. Mrs. Ledezma’s family had a background in agriculture; both her
brother who lived nearby and her parents in Mexico were farmers. Mr.
Ledezma’s cousin was proficient in computer programming and repair. He
and Mr. Ledezma, along with Mr. Ramirez, also had knowledge and
15
experience in construction and car repair and used this knowledge to
maintain the family home and vehicles. Mrs. Ledezma and Mrs. Ramirez
both had knowledge in the areas of shopping, cooking, household chores,
clothing repair, gardening, and herbal remedies. Mrs. Ledezma was also
skilled in language, able to read, write, and speak in both Spanish and
English. Further, she communicated with friends and family back in
Mexico and therefore had knowledge of and skill with social networking
media.
As described, Ms. Smith had knowledge in the area of nursing.
Knowledge in the medical field also extended beyond the household since
her mother was a nurse and she had an aunt who was a registered nurse
studying to be a general practitioner. Other extended family knowledge
included agriculture and chemistry. Household knowledge also included
gardening, household chores, shopping, cooking, language, higher
education, and social networking media like Facebook. Cooking was an
especially important fund of knowledge for Ms. Smith. She had been taught
by her family to cook at an early age and worked at a restaurant and a hotel
when first moving to the U.S. She made sure that her children only had
fresh food—no fast food or processed food—and even made her own baby
food for the toddler. Ms. Smith passed this knowledge on to Zack by
teaching him to cook. She felt that knowing how to cook (“knowing what to
do with food”) would provide him a certain amount of independence, along
with educating him about nutrition and how to save money.
Based on interviews and observations, the White household possessed
knowledge across a number of domains. For instance, as mentioned
previously Mrs. White cooked for the family often, a skill she was taught
by her mother when she was growing up. While she had gained much of her
cooking knowledge from her mother, she also consulted a number of
cookbooks and recipes when cooking. In addition, Mrs. White had also
majored in fashion design in college and was also a proficient seamstress
who could both make and repair clothes, another skill that she and her
sisters had learned while growing up.
Additionally, Mr. White also did basic maintenance for the cars owned
by the household. His occupation was as an instructional technology
designer. As such, he possessed a number of funds of knowledge related to
his profession, like grant writing. In addition to grant writing, he was
required to reports for his job, which required him to read other reports and
16
entire books. According to Mr. White, reading and writing tasks accounted
for approximately 50% of his work day.
Prior to his current position, Mr. White had worked in a position in
which he designed professional opportunities for teachers, related to how to
integrate mobile technologies into the classroom. This position also called
for him to conduct educational research. Additionally, he had also been a
medical research coordinator for a children’s hospital, gathering data on
topics like traumatic brain injury. Funds of knowledge could also be
gleaned from extended family members. For instance, Mr. White’s brother
was a general contractor so he often turned to him when making household
repairs or looked for resources on the Internet.
The Sully household possessed knowledge and skills across a number of
domains, many of which were related to Mr. Sully’s occupation as a
Computer Numeric Controlled (CNC) Machine Operator. Mr. Sully
described this position as “program[ming] stuff to cut, cut different kinda
shapes and different kinda things. We make display units that go to a lot of
companies.” He had been at this job for ten years and received training
through a trade school; he was a warehouse manager prior to his current
position. This position required him to do a lot of reading throughout the
day: “I have to read different things to make sure what I’m gonna do for
different like depth of a different blade for a different piece of wood or stuff
like that or size the wood that I’m gonna use or how it’s gonna be put
together, like if I’m gonna use laminate.” These skills translated into the
home, as well. At the time of the study, the Sullys were beginning to
remodel their kitchen. Using the skills and knowledge from his job, Mr.
Sully was able to do a large part of this work himself, such as cutting and
installing the laminate countertops. Table 1 provides an overview of the
domains of knowledge possessed across all five households.
Table 1.
A sample of household funds of knowledge1
Material & Scientific Knowledge
Education/pedagogy
Domestic pets/animals
Computer technology, programming, repair
Nursing
Instructional design & technology
Carpentry
Construction
Automobile repair & maintenance
Education
Teacher: Instructional design & technology, child psychology
Household Management
Childcare
Comparative shopping
Budget & finances
Home repair & maintenance
Cooking & nutrition
Clothing repair
Gardening
Cleaning
Communications
Bilingualism
Translation & interpretation
Patient care charts
Written reports
Oral presentations
Social networking media
Recreation & Hobbies
Computer & video games
Movies
Television
Policies & Practices
Courts
Hospitals
Religion & rituals
Higher education
Bible studies
Volunteer work with elderly
Folklife
Celebrating traditions
Religious beliefs & practices
Traditional foods
17
18
Discussion and Implications: Reframing Constructions of Difference
As Moll and Gonzalez (2004) noted, working-class and language-minority
households are often viewed as “places from which children must be saved
or rescued” and “lacking worthwhile knowledge and experiences” (p. 162).
The findings of this study provide compelling counterevidence to deficit
discourses by demonstrating that these households possess “valuable
knowledge and experiences that can foster children’s development” (Moll
& Gonzalez, 2004, p. 162) and thus offer a significantly different set of
understandings about linguistically, culturally, and socioeconomically
diverse households. The findings outlined above show that students and
families had access to and employed a number of social and cultural tools
and specialized knowledge acquired through labor histories, formal
schooling, social networks, cultural and linguistic practices, and so forth.
As a result of these varied experiences, each participant household had
accumulated, deployed, and discarded a number of varied funds of
knowledge. Younger members of households also had access to the content
of these funds, along with the opportunity to experiment with them, as in
the case of Frank and his father making household repairs, or Hannah and
Zack learning to cook with their mothers. In this way, these findings
contribute to asset-based discourses of diverse families as capable and
knowledgeable. That is, the study focuses on strengths and knowledge as
students’ primary defining pedagogical characteristics, rather than
perceived shortcoming of students and their families, such as those related
to language learner or socioeconomic status. This is not to deny the
existence of troubling aspects in students’ lives, such as poverty, but to
mitigate against these circumstances becoming the sole means by which
diverse students are represented.
The findings of this study also challenge the labels that many schools
assign to culturally and linguistically diverse learners as less capable and in
need of intervention and remediation. In contrast, the current study
examines the resources, rather than “limitations,” which these students
possess. For instance, based upon their status as a “limited English
proficient,” Jack and Phineas were thereby considered “at-risk” according
to school logic. Throughout their elementary school careers, they had
received pull-out services, special accommodations for standardized testing,
and during the time of the study, were in below-grade level reading groups.
19
Jack’s teacher also described a need for his comprehension and written
expression levels to increase. However, cumulative records demonstrate the
two boys’ relative success in school, according to report cards and
standardized test results. In spite of this, their defining pedagogical
characteristic continued to be “English Language Learner” and “limited
English proficient.” Despite academic progress and successes, this label
stayed with them as a sort of ‘academic baggage,’ illustrating how “socially
constructed differences take on material effects” (Gutierrez & Orellana,
2006, p. 122).
In this case, these labels continued to define them primarily in terms of
what was lacking, rather than what the two boys possessed in terms of
resources. In this way, Jack’s and Phineas’ cases serve as “telling” cases
(Mitchell, 1984) for the ways in which race and ethnicity can intersect with
socioeconomic status to complicate educational outcomes for children. For
instance, though Zack and Frank were characterized as socioeconomically
disadvantaged, through their academic performance they eventually largely
avoided the “at-risk” label typically associated with low SES status.
However, Jack and Phineas, though they performed similarly well on many
measures, continued to receive remedial instruction, in the form of pull-out
intervention services and participation in a below-level reading group. In
this sense, the school district’s focus on the “adequate yearly progress” of
its largest-growing (and lowest performing on state standardized tests)
subgroup—English Language Learners—had consequences for the ways in
which “difference” was inscribed in the boys’ academic identities, as well
as in the patterns of instruction they had received throughout the course of
their school years. So though teachers themselves spoke of participating
students in this study in fairly positive terms, there were practices in place
at an institutional level that were rooted in deficit perspectives.
In spite of evidence of empirical knowledge to the contrary, some
findings from teacher interviews show deficit discourses about parents to
persist, discourses based on attitude rather than observation. For example,
in response to a question about the possible challenges of teaching diverse
students, one teacher replied, “Some families don’t feel that education is
‘number one’ and don’t recognize the importance of their job at home”—a
common refrain regarding families experiencing poverty, and which
contains reverberations of Ruby Payne’s work, which was required reading
several years ago within this school district. Another teacher, when asked if
20
there was anything a child’s parents could do to help him do better at
school, replied, “Don’t let him speak Spanish.” Consciously or not, such
teacher comments resonate with deficit perspectives toward diverse
households—outlooks which are countered by the findings of this study.
Both tangibly and intangibly, the parents of this study supported the
educational goals which they held for their children. Most helped with
nightly homework and had some children’s books in the home, as is the
general expectation within mainstream education. However, many parents
supported and prepared their children for schooling in ways not broadly
recognized. Research has shown that other, non-school related activities
like those in which study participants engaged (such as shopping, using the
computer, and playing sports) to contribute to children’s language and
literacy development (e.g., Volk & Long, 2005). Within the current study,
Mr. and Mrs. Sully shopped with Frank, and Frank’s father taught him to
aspects of his work with computers, along with how to repair televisions—
skills which could support Frank at school in his learning of math and
science. Mr. Sully and Frank also played video games together, and read
comic books and children’s novels together. Mrs. Ledezma and Mrs.
Ramirez encouraged their children’s bilingual and biliterate development;
the family attended Spanish-language mass on Sunday, and Jack and
Phineas also attended the Sunday school class with instruction in Spanish,
following the service. Research has demonstrated second-language
development to flourish with concurrent development of students’ first
language (Silverman, 2007). During my visits to their home, I observed Ms.
Smith talking continuously to her youngest child, and would assume she
likely did the same with Zack when he was a toddler. This more than likely
was one of the factors contributing Zack’s strong vocabulary as pointed to
by his teacher (Duke & Moses, 2003), and challenges those studies which
suggest that children from socioeconomically disadvantaged households are
less likely to engage in conversation with adults (e.g., Hart & Risley, 1995).
Counternarratives, like the ones provided by this study, are important in
challenging what might be called “deficit habits,” or “deficit perspectives
that often exist more from habit, hearsay, and institutional tradition rather
than from real experience and knowledge” (cited in Lopez-Robertson et al.,
p. 93). Contrary to what teachers might believe, all parents in this study
believed education to be ‘number one’ and all worked with and their
children to the best of their ability to ensure their child’s success at school,
21
though not always in ways that might be recognized by White, middle-class
educators (Rios, 2010). The Ledezma and Ramirez households made visible
the importance of education within their home by displaying all of their
children’s awards and medals won at school on the family room wall. Mrs.
Ledezma also kept all of Jack’s tests and other schoolwork stored in
drawers of furniture within the home. Three out of the 4 parents
interviewed named education as a value that they felt important for their
child to hold, expected their children to pursue higher education in some
form, expressed this expectation to their children, and supported them in
these goals.
Final Thoughts
I designed this study with the goal of trying to understand and come to
know some of my students and their families in ways outside of the
purview of the classroom. Five families were hospitable enough to allow
me to enter their homes, sometimes their churches, and to share meals and
birthday celebrations with me. In doing so, they also shared with me the
cultural practices, skills, bodies of knowledge, and resources shaped by
their diverse backgrounds and experiences. Too often, current educational
discourses cast students and their families in negative lights, concentrating
on limitations and shortcomings. This is especially true of students from
non-mainstream backgrounds, particularly in today’s educational climate of
standards, accountability, and high-stakes testing. As Bomer and Maloch
(2012) cogently argued: “Policies that make teachers fearful of a test rather
than curious about their students’ lives and cultures may obscure those
riches and position teachers to think of immigrant students as problems
rather than signals and agents of exciting social transformation” (pp. 4748). In this vein, Campano and Ghiso (2010) urged us to view students,
particularly culturally and linguistically diverse students, as “cosmopolitan
intellectuals,” who “by virtue of their diverse vantage points and
transnational negotiations…are uniquely positioned to educate their peers
and teachers about the world” (p. 166). The invitation of this study, in its
methodology, conceptual framework, and findings, is to provide a
foundation for this shift toward viewing the potentials and promise of
diverse students and families.
22
Notes
1
Adapted from Mercado, 2005
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[email protected]
When is Peer Aggression 'Bullying?' An Analysis of Elementary
and Middle School Student Discourse on Bullying at School
Christopher Donoghue1, Dina Rosen2, Angela Almeida3 & David
Brandwein4
1) Department of Sociology, Montclair State University, United States of
America.
2) Department of Early Childhood & Family Studies, Kean University, United
States of America.
3) Department of Combined & Integrated School and Clinical. Kean
University, United States of America.
4) Department of Psychology, Kean University, United States of America.
th
To cite this article: Donoghue, C., Rosen, D., Almeida, A., & Brandwein, D.
(2015). When is Peer Aggression 'Bullying?' An Analysis of Elementary and
Middle School Student Discourse on Bullying at School. Qualitative
Research in Education, 4(1), 26-44. doi: 10.4471/qre2015.55
When is Peer Aggression 'Bullying?'
An Analysis of Elementary and
Middle School Student Discourse on
Bullying at School
Christopher Donoghue
Montclair State University
Dina Rosen
Kean University
Angela Almeida
Kean University
David Brandwein
Kean University
(Received: 05 May 2014; Accepted: 02 November 2014; Published: 28
February 2015)
Abstract
Many forms of peer aggression are referred to as "bullying" by students, parents and
adults, and this can be a source of confusion in schools. The main purpose of this
study is to explore the circumstances under which students characterize peer
aggression as “bullying” incidents. A secondary goal is to examine the feelings
students have about the effectiveness of reporting peer aggression to adults. Both
objectives are intended to reveal information that will enhance communication about
peer aggression and bullying between students and adults. Six focus groups with 54
students in grades three through eight were conducted. The groups were organized
in patterns based on grade level and gender, and qualitative methods were used to
analyze the results. The findings showed that although the students defined bullying
in ways that are similar to the criteria in the literature, they chose different words to
describe them. Younger students also expressed greater faith in the ability of adults
to respond effectively to bullying situations. Older students preferred to confront a
bully with equal force or to reason with a bully to stop the aggression.
Keywords: peer aggression, bullying, Elementary School, Middle School, focus
groups
2015 Hipatia Press
ISSN: 2014-6418
DOI: 10.4471/qre.2015.55
¿Cuándo es la Agresión entre Iguales
Bullying”? Un análisis del Discurso
de Estudiantes Educación Primaria y
Secundaría sobre Acoso Escolar
Christopher Donoghue
Montclair State University
Dina Rosen
Kean University
Angela Almeida
Kean University
David Brandwein
Kean University
(Recibido: 05 de mayo de 2014; Aceptado: 02 de noviembre de 2014;
Publicado: 28 de febrero de 2015)
Resumen
Algunas formas de agresión entre iguales son llamadas de “acoso escolar” por estudiantes,
familias y adultos, y esto puede ser una fuente de confusión en las instituciones educativas. El
principal propósito de este estudio es explorar las circunstancias en las cuales los estudiantes
caracterizan la agresión entre iguales como casos de acoso escolar. Una meta secundaria es
examinar los sentimientos que los estudiantes tienen sobre la eficacia de denunciar la agresión
entre iguales a los adultos. Ambos objetivos intentan revelar información que permita mejorar
la comunicación entre adultos y estudiantes sobre la agresión entre iguales y el acoso escolar.
Se realizaron seis grupos de discusión con 54 estudiantes entre los cursos de tercero a octavo
en el sistema educativo de Estados Unidos de América. Los grupos fueron organizados
basados en el patrón del nivel del curso, el género, y el método cualitativo usado para el
análisis. Los hallazgos muestran que aunque los estudiantes definen el acoso escolar con
criterios similares a la literatura científica, ellos lo describen con un vocabulario diferente.
Los estudiantes jóvenes también expresan mayor fe en la habilidad de los adultos para
responder efectivamente a las situaciones de acoso escolar. Los estudiantes mayores prefieren
confrontar al abusón con la fuerza de los iguales o razonando para que el acosador detenga la
agresión.
Palabras clave: agresión entre iguales, acoso escolar, Escuela Primaria, Instituto de
Secundaria, grupos de discusión
2015 Hipatia Press
ISSN: 2014-6418
DOI: 10.4471/qre.2015.55
28
Donoghue et al. – When is Peer Aggression 'Bullying?'
T
he past decade has been marked by a dramatic rise in interest in
bullying as it has become more widely recognized that students
who fear being harassed or degraded at school cannot achieve or
function to their potential. Research shows long term negative effects for
bullies, victims, those who are both bullies and victims, and also observers
(Nansel, Haynie, & Simonsmorton, 2003; Rivers, Poteat, Noret, & Ashurst,
2009). In addition, maladaptive social behavioral patterns can increase the
occurrence of various other forms of peer rejection and victimization in
school, and societal pressure can lead uninvolved students to become
impassive bystanders that are unwilling to help the victim or report the
incident to an adult.
Qualitative Approaches to Bullying
Olweus (1993) defines bullying as a deliberate and repeated long term
exposure to negative acts performed by an individual or group with either
higher status or greater strength than the victim. It may involve verbal acts
such as threats or insults, physical acts such as assault, and social isolation
as in deliberate exclusion of an individual from a group (Due et al., 2005).
Survey research is the dominant methodology used to measure bullying
prevalence, and school administrators are advised to carry out surveys as an
initial way of determining the extent of bullying in their schools. In most
student questionnaires, the actors and behaviors thought to be associated
with bullying incidents are defined by researchers and presented to students
on paper, on a computer screen or read aloud. Despite the abundance of this
research, doubts may be raised about the accuracy of quantitative estimates,
considering the age and developmental level of the research subjects, the
degree of cultural variation across school settings, the varying definitions of
bullying used in the questionnaires, and the fear of reprisal if confidentiality
is breached. Overreliance on surveys may also contribute to a void in what
the research community knows about the ways that children understand and
interpret their own actions (Teräsahjo & Salmivalli, 2003). In addition, the
use of generalized terms for actors (e.g. victim) and incidents can have a
lasting effect on children and their behaviors, that will impact their future
interactions and identities (Ringrose & Renold, 2010).
Ethnographic studies of middle school and high school students on peer
aggression are less common than surveys, but they are notable for the ways
29
in which they reveal aspects of adolescent culture. In School Talk, for
example, Eder (1995) exposed ritualistic aspects of verbal abuse and sexual
harassment that were a very normal part of everyday life at school.
Similarly, in Freaks, Geeks and Cool Kids, Milner (2004) draws an analogy
between high school peer behavior and the traditional Indian caste system
by demonstrating how victimized students can be reduced to the status of
one who is so low that he or she is considered “untouchable.”
Other qualitative studies show that children talk about bullying using
different terms than educators and the research community. For example,
Mishna (2004) found that 4th and 5th grade students tended to define
bullying as a situation in which an older or a stronger person is hurting
someone who is smaller or younger, whereas teachers and parents defined
bullying as an individual or group exerting power over others, or taking
advantage of them. Vaillancourt et al.'s (2008) research suggests that
children use different criteria to identify personal experiences with bullying
when they are primed with a standardized definition of what bullying
means. In this study, a sample of 1,767 students between the ages of 8 and
18 were divided into groups, one that was read a standardized definition of
bullying and the other that was given the opportunity to write freely about
what bullying meant to them. The students who were allowed to write
freely reported more victimization than those given the standardized
definition, and their definitions included very few of the terms that
researchers use, such as intention, repetition, and power imbalance. Instead,
the students who wrote freely about bullying reported incidents that were in
line with expectations about specific forms of harm for their grade level
(younger students reporting more physical aggression and older students
reporting more relational aggression). One evident policy implication
drawn by the authors of this study is that clear and standardized definitions
yield more conservative estimates of prevalence.
There is also evidence that young people describe bullying situations
using predictable speech patterns that minimize the impact of bullying.
Teräsahjo & Salmivalli's (2003) case study of children in classes with
noticeable bullying problems identified interpretative repertoires that the
subjects used to explain things that adults defined as bullying. In general,
the students were found to be downplaying the harm that a bully’s actions
have on their victims by using discursive devices that suggested that things
were not as bad as they seemed to adults, or that the victim was to blame
30
because of his or her differences from the others. Similarly, Guerra,
Williams, & Sadek (2011) found that young people viewed bullying as "as
a next step in the continuum after teasing, somewhat normative at low
levels but problematic when really hurtful" (p. 303).
Child discourse on the motivations for bullying can also be understood
in an interpretive fashion. Thornberg's (2010) qualitative interviews of
children aged 10 to 13 years positioned child representations under the
microscope by permitting the subjects to feel as though they were the
experts in defining bullying. Thornberg's approach draws upon the
symbolic interactionist, new sociology of childhood, and grounded theory
traditions by resisting the structural constraints imposed by authoritative
categorizations of behaviors, and electing instead for an interpretivist
approach that is attentive to the ways in which actors themselves describe
their cognitions and activity. The results indicate that most students believe
that bullying is a response to social deviance, such as the possession of an
unfavorable characteristic or membership in a minority group. Ranking
second is social positioning, such as an attempt to improve one's popularity
or to simply "fit in." Both of these representations were made by children
who were not primed with a standard definition of bullying, yet they reflect
established definitions of behaviors such as biased-based bullying, or that
which is associated with undesirable victim characteristics (Greene, 2006;
Rigby, 2002), and the commonly referenced "power imbalance," which
may be maintained or reinforced through harmful behavior toward others
perceived as vulnerable.
These qualitative results point to complexities in the nature of child
behavior and cognition which may be nearly impossible to detect in survey
research. The illusiveness of this phenomena is exemplified in Crosnoe's
(2011) ethnography of a large public high school. Interview data from this
school show that students identified particular "looks" or facial expressions
as conveying the message that they did not fit in. If these behaviors are
correctly perceived by the subjects to be incidents of social exclusion, they
might meet Rigby's (2002) criteria for bullying since they are intended by
the perpetrator to inflict harm and they are experienced by the victim as a
form of unjust treatment. Yet paradoxically, one student interviewed by
Crosnoe felt she did not fit in because she reported receiving no looks from
others at all. Although the feeling of injustice might be experienced in this
case by the apparent victim, it is unclear whether the intention to do harm
31
was really present on the part of the believed perpetrators. In these cases,
qualitative interviewing has value in its potential to reveal forms of bullying
that are unlikely to be discovered in a survey. One of the goals of the
current study was to learn about peer aggression and bullying from the
actors themselves, by enabling students to freely describe and interpret their
own experiences.
In the current study, we examine the ways that young people define and
respond to situations involving peer aggression. We also explore the
congruence and dissonance between established, published adult definitions
of bullying and those of the study participants. The data are derived from a
series of focus groups conducted with students in grades 3 through 8 using
deliberate naiveté (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2008) on the part of the moderators
as a way of stimulating discussion about incidents that the students define
as bullying on their own, regardless of whether they would meet the criteria
for a standardized definition of bullying. The results provide information
that can be used by school social workers, counselors, psychologists and
educators to better identify with the language that young people use to
describe bullying and their willingness to report it to an adult.
Method
The data for this study came from a larger Needs Assessment for an antibullying program in a parochial elementary and middle school in the
Northeast region of the United States. At the time when the study took
place the school did not have an anti-bullying curriculum. All of the 179
students in grades three through eight were invited to participate in a
confidential computerized survey on bullying in their school by sending
home notices and consent forms. 161 students (or 89.9%) agreed to
participate in the surveys. This subsample was 51.6% female, 45.3% White,
18% Asian, 2.5% Black or African American, and 31.7% "Other" or mixed
race. 50% of the students who selected the "Other" race option, or 26.1% of
the overall subsample, also identified as Hispanic or Latino. A random
sample of 54 students was then selected to participate in a series of six
focus groups. In order to ensure an equal number of girls and boys and an
equal number of students from each grade, the sample of 161 survey
respondents was first stratified by age and gender, and then a systematic
random sample was drawn.
32
Among the 54 randomly selected students, parental consent was
obtained for 46 (85%), and all but two of the subjects provided child assent
to participate. The consent form made it clear that although the focus
groups would be tape recorded, the names of the children would not appear
in any publications or reports, and the transcriptions would be destroyed
after a five year period. The students were divided into three focus groups
for each of the two grade levels, based on their gender and the order in
which they were randomly drawn. The elementary set (grades 3-5) included
an all boys group, an all girls group, and a mixed group of boys and girls.
The middle school set (grades 6-8) included an all boys group, an all girls
group, and a mixed group of boys and girls. The final sample was 50%
female, 36.4% White, 25% Asian, 2.3% Black or African American, and
34.1% "Other" or mixed race. 34.1% of the subsample also identified as
Hispanic or Latino. Each grade level was represented by 18-20% of the
final sample, except for the third grade which represented 11.4%. Five of
the six focus groups ranged from 7 to 9 students and one focus group was
comprised of 5 students. Each session lasted between 55 and 65 minutes.
A female researcher moderated all three of the focus groups in grades
six through eight with the assistance of a female graduate student, and a
male researcher moderated the same in grades three through five with the
assistance of a different female graduate student. The first two focus groups
were used as norming sessions, enabling the moderators and assistants to
silently observe one another. One norming session was run by the male
moderator and his assistant, while the other moderator and assistant
observed. The second was run by the female moderator and her assistant,
while the other moderator and assistant observed. The remaining four
sessions were conducted with just a single moderator and a single assistant.
The focus groups were held in a comfortable space (all participants sat
in couches) in an activity room at the school. Each session began with the
moderator reading a description of how the session would take place, and
advising them that their words would be tape recorded. The students were
told that they would be asked to talk about times when they witnessed peer
aggression, or they were involved in it, being careful not to reveal the
names of the people involved. The students were then given an opportunity
to indicate whether they wanted to participate or not on an assent form. It
was viewed by the research team as essential that the students were asked to
assent after they entered the room so that they could see the other students
33
first and use that information to help them decide whether they wanted to
participate. In the event that any students decided not to assent (this
happened with two students), they were walked back to class.
At the beginning of the focus groups the moderators asked the students
to express a form of bullying that came to their minds by drawing a picture
and sharing it with one or two other students seated near them. After they
discussed the drawings, the moderator started posing questions to the group
by asking about the common actors in a bullying situation, namely the
bystander, the victim, and the bully. In reference to each common actor, the
groups were asked, "If you were this kid, what would you do?" Normally
this led the students to talk about being a bully, a victim, or a bystander. It
also led them to bring up experiences they have had in the past. When this
happened, the moderator treated all of their contributions as plausible and
worthy of consideration. No presuppositions about the appropriateness of
defining an incident as "bullying" were made by the moderators.
Complementary probes were used to invoke further comments by the
responders, and the group as a whole, such as, "Good," "I understand,"
"That was a good idea," etc. During the interviews, the moderators
exercised deliberate naiveté, which Kvale and Brinkmann (2008) define as,
"openness to new and unexpected phenomena, rather than having
readymade categories and schemes of interpretation" (p. 28).
The interviews were analyzed using open coding to identify themes in
the student responses and discussions. The process began with a researcher
who was not present during the focus groups listening to all of the audio
recordings. Then the recordings were transcribed, and examined again by
the same researcher. After each word-processed transcription was carefully
read, common strings of text were compared and analyzed following
Corbin & Strauss' (1990) open coding technique. This led to the
identification of code segments which were grouped and labeled by their
focus group session, the gender of the speakers, the gender mix of the
group, and the grade level of the group.
The code segments were used to develop one event category, classified
as a "bullying incident," and several other themes and subthemes, as
recommended by Creswell (2012). A bullying incident was coded as any
situation in which the students told a story about physical violence, teasing
or relational aggression. All stories told by the students were considered,
regardless of whether they fit popular definitions of bullying in the
34
literature (e.g. power imbalance or minimum duration). The coded bullying
incidents included one-time events, recurring events, fights, insults, rumor
spreading, etc. Incidents were further coded as acts of physical aggression if
they involved physical contact, such as hitting, kicking, pushing or
punching; verbal aggression if they involved shouting, cursing, name
calling or other forms of teasing; relational aggression if they involved
spreading rumors, telling lies to hurt someone, exclusion, or deliberately
damaging someone's friendships; and cyber aggression if they took place on
a computer, a cellular phone, or another technological device.
During the probing and discussion, the moderators also asked prepared
questions on how they defined a situation as a case of bullying. For
example, the moderator would listen to a story and then ask the speaker if
they thought the situation was a case of bullying, and why. The responses to
these questions, and the discussions that ensued, contained many
“definitions of bullying" which were coded. Similarly, when students
reported having witnessed or been a victim of bullying, the moderator
would ask how they responded to it. The dialogue that followed these
questions contained many “responses to bullying” which were also coded.
During the coding process, two subthemes on responses to bullying among
the older students were also identified and labeled, one on “confronting the
bully,” and the other on “reasoning with the bully.” Once all of the data
were coded, the quotations were examined again, classified by the grade
level and gender mix of the group, and summarized in writing.
Results
Bullying Incidents
During the interviews, the students made references to 49 incidents of peer
aggression. Fifty one percent of the incidents involved verbal aggression. In
one instance, a boy named Jimmy said, "...one day I saw a couple of kids
playing basketball and a kid missed a shot and they were all like making
fun of him and calling him stupid." In 29% of the incidents physical
aggression was reported. For example, Eric, a boy in grades 3 through 5
said, "I was in the park and um, I was like going down the stairs to um play
baseball and then I saw a guy punched another guy in the face and his
glasses like flew off." Only one case of cyberbullying was reported and in
35
a small number of other incidents, the nature of the conflict was unclear. In
18% of all incidents (or 64% of all cases of physical aggression), it was
determined that a physical fight had occurred, meaning that both students
were engaging in the physical contact. In 60% of the incidents mentioned,
the students reported that they had been a victim and in 36% of the
incidents, an observer. Their role was unclear in the remaining incidents.
No child admitting that he or she had bullied anyone else.
Forms of relational aggression were reported in 18% of the incidents.
For example, several girls in grades 3 through 5 responded in turn to a
moderator's question about whether or not they had witnessed bullying:
Alicia: People kept telling me to like somebody, but I didn’t really
like the person. So then I told my mom and she told me to ignore
them and they will probably find somebody else to bully.
Mary Anne: Rumors…a rumor that I like someone else, but then I
said “No I don’t.” But then I just ignored them entirely.
Brittany: Rumors… people kept saying that I did something and I
really didn’t, and they kept saying it. I told my mom and my mom
knew the person that spread the rumor. She told them to stop.
Definitions of Bullying
Students in all grades included a variety of physical encounters (mostly
fights), lying, spreading rumors and hurting feelings as forms of bullying.
In their definitions, no children in either the younger groups or the older
groups made a specific reference to a power differential between the bully
and victim, but they often described situations in which one child was
harming another child, by hurting them physically, verbally harassing them,
or damaging their reputation.
Students in grades 3 through 5 tended to use broader definitions of
bullying than the older students. The following exchange provides a
representative example of a student from one of the younger groups trying
to capture a form of relational aggression into her definition of bullying:
Samantha: Lies…once, one of my friends was talking to her other
friend and her other friend told that it was me who did it, when it
was actually her friend because she lied to her and doesn’t want to
tell on her.
36
Moderator: Do you think all that stuff is bullying or is that just
someone saying some things that aren’t true about you?
Samantha: It’s bullying... I think it is when others hurt another
person.
Another student at the same grade level attempted to use physical
aggression in his definition of bullying:
Moderator: Is there a difference between someone being bullied
and being mean to each other? So what is the difference, Bobby?
Boy 1: The difference is when two people are fighting, they are
fighting but they are just staying stuff back and forth to each other.
When somebody is bullying, they are actually being mean and
making someone feel bad.
Among the students in the older grades, there was a tendency to identify
an incident as bullying when a situation moved from bad to worse, or when
it occurred with a certain degree of regularity. An example of this sentiment
was expressed in an exchange between a few of the girls in one of the older
focus groups:
Sharon: If it is like in that scenario with the phone it’s just like
teasing. Saying you are better than me, you’re not better than me
just because you have a different phone.
Moderator: It’s interesting; you are talking about the difference
between teasing and bullying. How do you know? What to you
makes the difference between teasing and bullying?
Sharon: Bullying is like something really serious.
Lacey: When they are teasing, I know they are just joking.
Sharon: Exactly.
Lacey: And usually it’s with a close group of friends.
Sharon: But then when you kind of get really hurt instead and
you’re kind of like “ok it’s enough,” then it is bullying.
Lacey: And when it happens day after day.
37
Responding to Bullying Situations
Students in grades 6 through 8 typically said they would try to work the
situation out with the bully, but students in grades 3 through 5 were more
likely to report the incident to an adult. Among the older students who said
they would try to stop the bully, two subthemes were evident in the data. In
the first, students said they would try to stop the bully by presenting a
countering force, either physical or verbal. For example, Joseph (grade 6-8)
said, "I would just go up to the kid and be like wow you're really making
fun of him? Why don’t you think you could pick on some one you could
actually take. What makes you think you could pick on little kids. I would
say look why don’t you take him? He’s your size." In the second
subtheme, students made appeals to the bully's sense of reasoning. In
reference to an actual incident, Daniel (grade 6-8) reported, "Well
somebody was calling somebody else names and I said you really shouldn’t
do that because you're also one. The kid was saying that he was ugly and
weird and wasn’t smart. But the other guy was smarter than him. Which
was like really stupid because he kind of knew his self so I just waited there
and said you're dumber than him."
Reporting the incident to a teacher was common among the younger
students but very uncommon among the older students. When asked
hypothetically what adults should do in response to bullying situations, the
younger students and the older students suggested punishments, shouting
and forcing the children to work out their problems. One difference
between the two age groups was noticeable in their expectations for results.
Younger students tended to think these actions would resolve the problem,
yet the older students tended to think this would do no good. For example, a
common response among the younger students was expressed by Sylvia
(grade 3-5), who simply said, "Walk up to the two who are talking, break
them apart, and say it’s not right to talk behind the person’s back. And give
them reasons." In contrast, Dylan (grade 6-8) said:
Dylan: If the victim goes to the teacher and says this person is
bullying me...they say you should (be) mature and work it out
yourself. I think they should at least give them advice to help you.
The victim has a problem and he is going to the teacher for help. So
I think if you want them to work it out on their own, at least help
38
them a little bit because obviously they don’t know what to do. So I
think that is what the teacher should say to the victim to help them.
When the moderators probed with the younger students, however, it was
evident that reporting incidents of bullying often did not lead to the
intended results.
Carolina: This one kid was picking on me and I told him to stop but
he said no. Then I told the teacher but the teacher talked to the
person and he didn’t stop. So I told my mom and he still didn’t
stop, so I just stayed away from him.
Many of the older students seemed to be recalling experiences like these
when they said that they felt telling an adult would accomplish very little.
For example, an older student named Michael had the following exchange
with the moderator:
Moderator: Is telling the bully to apologize, something that works
usually?
Michael gives body language, indicating "no."
Michael, do you think no?
Michael: No, they don’t actually mean it; they’re just doing it so
that the adult would just walk away and another time do it.
Moderator: Does that sound like it would happen?
A couple of students respond affirmatively.
Moderator: Mark you think so?
Mark: Yeah
Other students in grades 6 through 8, expressed the sentiment that telling
was something they would do only if they felt they had no other choice.
This feeling is evident in the comments made by Angela and Jessica:
Angela: I wouldn’t just let them just bully me...I would say
something back. I would say leave me alone, or I would kind of
defend myself. And if that didn’t work, I would tell an adult. If it
really got bad and I was really upset, then I would tell an adult.
Jessica: I would just tell them to stop and if they don’t, I would just
tell them again. I wouldn’t go to an adult, unless it was really
serious.
39
Discussion
Qualitative methodologies can be used to obtain “a more naturalistic,
contextual and holistic understanding of human beings” (Todd, Nerlich,
McKeown, & Clarke, 2004, p. 3). Although qualitative studies remain
outside of the mainstream literature on bullying, their findings provide
illustration of the ways that young people understand various forms of peer
aggression, such as relational aggression. They also demonstrate areas of
weakness in the generalized conceptualizations of bullying used in the
literature, and in schools, by bringing attention to discrepancies between
young people's definitions of bullying and those used on questionnaires and
in official school codes of conduct (deLara, 2012).
Like other focus group studies on this topic (Cunningham, Cunningham,
Ratcliffe, & Vaillancourt, 2010; deLara, 2012) the interviewing technique
in this research allowed the respondents to engage freely with the
moderators and their fellow students in a way that led them to new
discoveries and conclusions about their past experiences and the events they
have witnessed. School social workers can also benefit from this approach
by enabling students to gain support from their peers through productive
interaction in group settings (Cowie, 2011).
A socio-ecological systems perspective views the phenomena of
bullying as a result of complex relationships between the individual, family,
peer group, school, and community (Benbenishty & Astor, 2005). Yet when
describing bullying situations, the respondents in this study made very little
mention of their family members or school community members other than
teachers. This may be explained by the belief expressed among the older
students that adults are incapable of helping effectively.
Although both age groups reported that adults tend to punish bullies, the
older students had little faith that this would change the bully’s behavior. In
result, reporting tended to be viewed as a last resort. More often, the older
students said they would prefer to take on the bully all by themselves either
by challenging the bully to a fight or by returning a verbal assault to defend
another student. Others tried to convince the bully that what they were
doing was wrong, or that they should stop because they would not want it
done to them. The younger students, on the other hand, exhibited a greater
faith in the ability of adults to respond effectively, but it was evident from
40
their accounts that the behavior often did not stop after they reported it.
These findings point to age-related differences in the ways in which
adolescents view bullying and adult responses to bullying, and emphasize
the need for tailored approaches to anti-bullying curricula.
The differences in the opinions between the older and younger students
about reporting might be explained by the older students’ higher awareness
of a failing reporting cycle. If their experiences tell them that reporting does
not bring about a positive change, then their decision to employ other
means may be adaptive. For this reason, school interventions that are
intended to encourage a greater willingness to report cases of bullying may
not bring positive results. Instead, school social workers might attempt to
better educate parents and adults at school about more appropriate and
effective ways of helping children who are victims and bystanders, and
offer strategies that will enable them to better obtain student trust.
The results also showed that the children did not use the specific terms
to define bullying situations that are common in the literature, such as the
presence of a power differential, the intention to cause harm, or a minimum
duration of the aggression. Instead, they used their own terms to capture
many of the same ideas. For example, it was evident that the children saw
bullies as more powerful than victims when they described the direct
physical or psychological harm they inflicted upon them. The children also
described situations as bullying when they were more hurtful or when they
worsened, indicating that they may relate to the inclusion of criteria such as
intent, severity, and harm, in the definition of bullying even though they
preferred an alternative language for describing them. It is also possible,
however, that the students were not prepared to talk about power or a
minimum duration of aggression in the context of a discussion on bullying,
especially since the school did not have an anti-bullying curriculum where
these topics might have been introduced.
The results of this study demonstrate the value in encouraging children
to speak about bullying and their feelings about reporting it. By engaging in
open group discussions, school social workers and psychologists can enable
young people to express themselves about bullying using the words that
they prefer. This can lead to an enhanced understanding of the congruence
between the terms in the literature and the words that young people use
themselves and perhaps enable children to inform research and practice on
this topic in a more direct and meaningful way. It can also enable school
41
personnel to learn more about how they can be more receptive to student
needs when writing curricula and developing new strategies to help victims
and encourage incident reporting.
Limitations
Although this study features several desirable conditions for focus group
research, such as randomization, and groups characterized by grade
homogeneity and varying gender compositions, a main limitation is that it is
set in only one parochial school. Focus groups are also prone to
conversation digressions, especially among children. In the current study,
this was minimized by having the moderators utilize a highly structured
script of questions and activities. Focus group interviews also require
discussion in a public place, which in this study included closely related
peer group members. This may have inhibited the willingness of the
students to discuss sensitive information or to reveal their most inner
thoughts on some subjects. To counteract this problem, the moderators used
the drawing exercise to break the ice and build rapport. This may have
enabled the conversations to take place with greater trust. They also
promised them confidentiality and required them not to use names when
discussing real situations. Finally, parents were informed about the
availability of free mental health services in case their child became upset
during or after participation, and the moderators and assistants were
prepared to facilitate this if needed.
Conclusion
As school social workers, psychologists and counselors learn about the
fears, anxieties, and difficulties that students face when dealing with
aggression, there is a benefit they can bring to a school community by
sharing the information with others in a sensitive and productive manner.
This can serve a dual purpose as it not only enables adults at school to
better respond to student needs, but also creates the potential for students to
perceive greater advantage to reporting incidents of peer aggression when
they see it or when they are victimized by it. Furthermore, by developing a
more in depth understanding of the cultural cues and contexts that young
42
people associate with bullying incidents, parents and educators can provide
more effective and individualized supports and interventions to students.
Acknowledgment
The authors are grateful to Barbara Prempeh and Dorota Szerzenowicz who served as Focus
Group Moderators on this project.
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10.1177/0165025408095553
Christopher Donoghue is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Montclair
State University, United States of America. ORCID id: 0000-0002-93221173
Dina Rosen is an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education at
Kean University, United States of America.
Angela Almeida is a Doctoral Student in the Combined and Integrated
School and Clinical PsyD. Kean University, United States of America.
ORCID id: 0000-0001-6371-8309
David Brandwein is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Kean
University, United States of America. ORCID id: 0000-0002-4933-1041
Contact Address: Department of Sociology, Montclair State University, 1
Normal Avenue, Montclaire, NJ 07043. United States of America. Email:
[email protected]
The Road to the Ivory Tower: The Learning Experiences of
Students with Disabilities at the University of Manitoba
Fiona J. Moola1
1) Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management, University of
Manitoba, Canada.
th
To cite this article: Moola, F. J. (2015). The Road to the Ivory Tower: The
Learning Experiences of Students with Disabilities at the University of
Manitoba. Qualitative Research in Education, 4(1), 45-70. doi:
10.4471/qre2015.56
The Road to the Ivory Tower:
The Learning Experiences of
Students with Disabilities at the
University of Manitoba
Fiona J. Moola
(Received: 11 September 2014; Accepted: 19 December 2014; Published: 28
February 2015)
Abstract
Although qualitative research on the learning experiences of disabled students at
university is burgeoning, either/or, medical or social approaches are most often used
to study disablement. In this study, I adopted an interpretive phenomenological
analysis — which considers the fundamental imbrication of bodies, identities, and
environments — to explore the learning experiences of students with disabilities at
the University of Manitoba in Canada. While some students received social support
to attend university, other students negotiated a challenging journey to higher
education, characterized by low expectations for academic success. At university,
the students reported bodily-social challenges to academic achievement that
hindered the learning process. Students anticipated an uneasy future upon
graduation, characterized by poor job opportunities and economic disparity. The
findings suggest that great strides and much advocacy are still required for students
with disabilities to be viewed as bodies that bear intellectual value in university
settings. Researchers should consider the merits of phenomenological approaches to
thinking about the body-social challenges that disabled students still face in the
struggle for inclusive higher education.
Keywords: disability, university, education, phenomenology
2015 Hipatia Press
ISSN: 2014-6418
DOI: 10.4471/qre.2015.56
El Camino a la Torre de Marfil:
Las Experiencias de Aprendizaje
de los Estudiantes con
Discapacidad en la Universidad
de Manitoba
Fiona J. Moola
(Recibido: 11 de septiembre de 2014; Aceptado: 19 de diciembre de 2014;
Resumen
Aunque la investigación cualitativa sobre las experiencias de aprendizaje de los estudiantes
con discapacidad en la universidad floreciente, y/o , las aproximaciones médicas o sociales se
utilizan con mayor frecuencia para estudiar la discapacidad. En este estudio, he adoptado un
análisis fenomenológico interpretativo, que considera fundamental la imbricación de cuerpos,
identidades y entornos- para explorar las experiencias de aprendizaje de los estudiantes con
discapacidad en la Universidad de Manitoba en Canadá. Mientras que algunos de los
estudiantes recibieron apoyo social para asistir a la universidad con apoyos, otros estudiantes
plantean un reto a la universidad, caracterizado por las bajas expectativas de éxito académico.
En la universidad, los estudiantes reportaron problemas corporales y sociales al logro
académico que obstaculizan el proceso de aprendizaje. Los estudiantes prevén un futuro
inestable después de la graduación, caracterizado por las escasas oportunidades de trabajo y
las dificultades económicas. Los resultados del estudio indican que los grandes avances y
mucha de la promoción son necesarios para los estudiantes con discapacidad, que se
consideran como órganos que tengan valor intelectual en contextos universitarios. Los
investigadores deben considerar los méritos de los enfoques fenomenológicos a la reflexión
sobre los problemas corporales y sociales que enfrentan los estudiantes con discapacidad
todavía en la lucha por una educación superior inclusiva.
Palabras clave: discapacidad, universidad, enseñanza, la fenomenología
2015 Hipatia Press
ISSN: 2014-6418
DOI: 10.4471/qre.2015.56
I
47
n contemporary Canadian culture, going to university is regarded
as an important “right of passage”. It may be a time of challenge
and change, the least of which involves attaining advanced
academic training for a future career. Rather, going to university may better
be regarded as an arduous journey (Borland & James, 1999) in which
students expand their horizons, push past their comfort zones, hone their
critical intellectual acumen, and forge life-long relationships.
The empowering potential of higher education, however, is not always
achieved (Fuller, Bradley, & Healey, 2004) for students with disabilities.
They are vastly under-represented at university, remaining on the outskirts
of the “ivory tower”. Disabled students suffer from low academic
aspirations, powerful beliefs that are perpetuated by others and themselves.
The invisibility of disabled students on university campuses is not
surprising when we consider that the academy — as an institution that is
century’s years old — has an elite history. Historically, the academy served
to educate white males from privileged socio-economic statures (Boursicot
& Roberts, 2009). Since the academy may be regarded as a locus for quiet
conservatism, rather than transgressive social and political change (Barnes,
2007, p.136), including disabled students as valued members of the
university community has been marked by tacit tolerance rather than radical
transformation. A dangerous discourse of benevolence (Goode, 2007;
Shevlin, Kenny, & Mcneela, 2004; Vickerman & Blundell, 2010) tends to
pervade when disabled students are included. In this case, able-bodied
individuals “slap themselves on the back for having done a good job”. Such
a discourse, however, which includes notions of meritocracy and equality,
may better be considered as the “eugenics of everyday life” (Madriaga,
2007). Reeking of academic elitism, it may conceal a more sinister agenda
in which disabled students are not regarded as having the same intellectual
ability, nor prowess, as their able-bodied peers.
Since disabled students are most often alienated from the research
process, it is important for researchers to take the perspective of these
students seriously. In this paper, I attempt to address this call (Holloway,
2001) and confirm the sentiments of other scholars who suggest that
disabled students have a desire to attend university (Madriaga, 2007). Since
there is a lack of qualitative scholarship from the Canadian context, I
sought to explore how disability affects learning among students at the
University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, using an interpretive
48
Moola – The Road to the Ivory Tower
phenomenological lens. In doing so, I attempt to ask “what does a socially
just pedagogy” (Madriaga, 2007) for disabled students look like?
Review of the Literature: My Desire to Learn and the Barriers I Face
Several scholars have demonstrated that disabled student’s posses a
strong desire to attend university. In a qualitative study with 21 disabled
students in England, Madriaga, Hanson, Kay, & Walker (2011) found that
these students want to attend university as a means of enhancing their
financial standing by “getting a real job.” Further, disabled students want to
prove their worth by demonstrating to themselves and others that they can
attend university (Madriaga, 2007). Despite the desire to study, however,
disabled students face numerous challenges in their efforts to attain an
education. These learning challenges pertain to teaching, learning and
assessment. Fuller et al. (2004) conduced focus groups with 27 disabled
students at a university in the United Kingdom regarding experiences of
teaching and learning. The students encountered several barriers to
teaching, including obtaining note-takers on time and participating in
seminar sessions. Students had difficulty accessing information about
available disability supports provided by the university. Borland & James
(1999) also reported significant barriers to teaching and learning among 22
disabled students at a British university. Although they were provided with
academic tutors, they actually had very little contact with these mentors.
Access to learning materials was often delayed, resulting in significant
learning challenges. In a qualitative study with 16 disabled students in
Ireland, Shevlin et al. (2004) also reported barriers to teaching and learning,
including difficulty accessing course information and obtaining assistive
devices to accommodate learning needs. In a qualitative study that
employed a grounded theory methodology with six university students in
England, Holloway (2001) found that these students face many barriers to
learning and academic accommodation. Specifically, having their learning
needs accommodated for takes a significant amount of time, requiring the
students to be dependent on university administrators for this support.
Students also faced barriers to exam accommodations and adaptations, as
well as obtaining access to crucial library information. The lengthy amount
of time that students had to wait to obtain accommodations resulted in
much frustration. Similarly, Goode (2007) found that there is a double-
49
edged sword associated with receiving learning accommodations for
students with disabilities. While accommodations facilitate learning, they
may “mark and stigmatize” disabled students by making them hypervisible. The difficulty in making accommodations may in part be related to
a lack of awareness about disability issues on campus. In a qualitative study
that utilized the case study approach with 12 disabled students in Scotland,
Tinklin & Hall (1999) reported low levels of staff awareness about
disability issues. Lack of knowledge greatly hindered the provision of
learning accommodations.
Several authors suggest that disabled students face numerous challenges
related to the disclosure of disability on campus. Further, disabled students
struggle with identity formation at university. For example, Vickerman &
Blundell (2010) employed a mixed methods qualitative research design to
examine disabled students’ experience at a university in the United
Kingdom. The study involved administering 504 questionnaires to disabled
students and conducting interviews. Due to the fear of stigma, the students
were reluctant to disclose their disabilities. In an ethnographic study
undertaken with nine participants at a Canadian university, Low (1996)
found that disabled students struggle to manage both normative and nonnormative identities. Although they want to be regarded as “normal”
students, the process of getting academic accommodations involves
submitting themselves to pejorative medical labels. Goode (2007)
conducted a qualitative study with 20 disabled students in the UK. Video
footage and fieldwork were some of the methodological tools employed.
Attending university is critical to forging an identity for disabled students,
and is a part of social and psychological rehabilitation (Goode, 2007). In
addition to problems with disclosure, Baron, Phillips, & Stalker (2010)
found that access to friendships and optimal social development was stifled
for university students with disabilities, who generally had more difficulty
participating in the same social opportunities as their peers.
Disabled students appear to face challenges to career development upon
graduation from university. In a qualitative study, Vickerman & Blundell
(2010) found that most disabled students had not visited the career centre
and were generally poorly equipped for the university—career transition.
Decision making about future career choices was compromised, suggesting
that disabled students require more preparation regarding future career
development. Madriaga et al. (2011) also suggest that paying attention to
50
the postgraduate opportunities for students with disabilities should feature
centrally on the agendas of university staff.
Disability type appears to complicate the barriers that students with
disabilities face at university. While it is a matter of controversy, in general,
most students in this group have invisible disabilities or learning
disabilities. In a cross-sectional study at a large university in the United
States, Madriaga et al. (2011) found that students with learning disabilities
who receive institutional support under-achieve, demonstrating reduced
learning outcomes.
The physical space is also a barrier to university participation. For those
with mobility impairments in particular, the campus architecture is not
inclusive, requiring students to navigate an uncomfortable environment
(Low, 1996). In a qualitative study, Holloway found that navigating the
built environment at university poses formidable barriers to inclusion. The
simple quintessential act of “going to lectures together” was denied to
disabled students, largely due to the inaccessibility of the campus. Tinklin
& Hall (1999) and Baron et al. (2010) reported similar findings.
While it has not featured as centrally in the literature, a few scholars
have examined the lack of disability friendly policies in higher education.
Policy development is needed before curriculum changes can occur. In a
qualitative study that entailed policy analysis and interviews with students,
teachers, and tutors at a university in Scotland, Baron et al. (2010) found
that there is a lack of policy documents referring specifically to the learning
needs of disabled students. Disability issues may be sidelined by a greater
focus on diversifying the curriculum in terms of gender and race.
Summary of the Review
Despite disabled students’ great desire to study at university — including
enhanced economic stability in the future and proving their worth — the
existing qualitative scholarship shows that these students encounter
formidable challenges to learning. Obstacles to teaching, learning and
assessment, navigating an environment built for able-bodied people, and a
lack of disability friendly policies at university, are just some of these
barriers. Negotiating the challenge of disclosing disability at university,
developing a student identity, and facing bleak future career prospects, are
other challenges. This research illustrates a few other issues that are
51
pertinent to the learning experiences of disabled students. First, a liberalist,
rights-based discourse of accommodation and tacit tolerance tends to
characterize the way that disability issues are managed. This liberal, rather
than radical approach is deeply problematic because it means that “getting
accommodations” are largely regarded as the personal responsibility of the
disabled student (Riddell, Tinklin, & Wilson, 2005). In addition to victim
blaming, rights-based liberal discourses of accommodation maintain an
individualist focus. Encouraging broader systemic and institutional change
in the academy is overlooked by this individualist focus that holds the
disabled student responsible for learning. Thus, the elite academy
(Boursicot & Roberts, 2009) — that has historically closed its doors to the
disabled — is exempt from reflecting on its roots. Relatedly, this rightsbased rhetoric of inclusion tends to perpetuate a discourse of charity and
goodwill amongst university administrators. Rather than making efforts to
democratize the academy by reflecting all of humanity’s diversity, there is a
tendency to “pat ourselves on the back” when “we” accommodate disabled
students (Bouriscot & Roberts, 2009). Further, Borland & James (1999)
purport that … “a spurious association is often made between disability,
poor performance, and special treatment at university”. As a result of this
individualist discourse, disabled students are often regarded as “getting
special treatment” when their learning needs are accommodated for.
Although disabled students are entering the academy in greater numbers,
inclusion may be better regarded as “rhetoric” rather than “reality”
(Vickerman & Blundell, 2010).
Further, the existing literature is characterized by a few limitations.
First, most studies pertain to students with a specific disability who are
pursuing the same degree program at university, such as medicine. By
studying the experiences of students with multiple disabilities who are
pursuing a wide range of academic disciplines, in this study, I sought to
broaden this limited focus. Secondly, with the exception of one Canadian
study (Low, 1996), these qualitative investigations have largely been
undertaken in the European context. Arguably, Canadian students with
disabilities negotiate a different set of health care and educational issues.
While some would argue that privatized models are encroaching on the
Canadian health care system, in general, Canada still adheres to a universal
model of care. Theoretically, this means that all Canadians have free access
to health care, likely changing which disability supports are publically
52
funded. Secondly, in comparison to Europe and the United States, Canadian
universities are characterized by less heterogeneity. Canada does not have
Ivy League Colleges or private universities. This might allow a broader
demographic of diverse students from different socioeconomic brackets to
access university. Additionally, Manitoba is a province that is characterized
by particular constraints. In the heart of the Canadian prairie, the eightmonth winters are arduous. As a medium sized city comprised of multiple
demographics — such as First Nations people who have endured a lasting
legacy of European colonization, the farming community, and the influx of
immigrants from Europe, India, Africa, and the South Pacific — Winnipeg
is characterized by the collision of multiple worlds and identities. In
comparison to other Canadian provinces, Manitoba may also be considered
as less prosperous (Layne, 2000). In particular, the burden of poverty in
Maintoba is high among First Nations urban dwellers. For these reasons,
studying the university experiences of disabled students in Manitoba was
particularly important. Furthermore, while some scholars have employed
major qualitative traditions to study disabled university students’
experiences, no studies have turned to interpretive phenomenological
analysis (IPA) as a methodological lens. Disability scholars have tended to
rely exclusively on medical or socio-approaches to the study of
disablement. In this either/or approach, the complex inter-connection
between bodies and the learning environments in which they interact is
foreclosed (Allen, 2004). In this study, I turned to IPA to assist me in
theorizing the interconnection between disability, the body, identity,
learning, and the environment. I attempt to address just some of these
lingering questions by asking “how does disability affect learning for
disabled students at the University of Manitoba?
Research Design and Methodology
The Research Ethics Board at the University of Manitoba approved this
study in the winter of 2012. I sent a recruitment script for the study through
Student Accessibility Services, that is, an on campus organization that is
responsible for attending to the academic needs of disabled students. This
recruitment script was sent via list serve to the 900 disabled students that
are registered with the service. Approximately 15 students contacted me, to
53
either express interest or request further information. The final sample was
comprised of 12 students.
Inviting the body back into scholarship: Interpretive phenomenological
analysis (IPA)
This article was informed by the IPA research tradition. IPA provides a
way to circumvent the simplistic socio versus medico-bodily theorization of
disability. In thinking about disability, it thus allowed me to consider the
fundamental imbrication of the body and society (Smith, 2004). IPA is a
derivative of phenomenology. The epistemological roots of IPA are derived
from both interpretivism and phenomenology (Smith, 2004). The roots of
interpretivism may be traced to Germanic philosopher Emmanuel Kant’s
seminal work. In the “The Critique of Pure Reason”, Kant suggests that
human perception is not only derived from the sensory world (Ponterotto,
2005). Rather, mental impressions and cognitive machinery shape humans’
perception of the world around them. Informed by this insight,
interpretivists adhere to the notion that there are multiple realities and plural
identities (Smith, 2004). Thus, disabled students likely negotiate
fragmented identities at home, school, and in the community. Knowledge is
not regarded as static and unchanging. Rather, it is an interpretive venture
that is co-produced in the complex interaction between researchers and
participants. Acknowledging how personal values colour the research
process is critical to interpretivist thought.
In turn, phenomenology — which forms the other twin pillar of the IPA
tradition — is rooted in early 20th century Germanic philosophy (Smith,
2004). Although numerous disciples adopted the phenomenological
tradition, such as Martin Heidegger and Maurice Meurleau Ponty, the 20th
century German philosopher Edmund Husserl is credited with the
development of the phenomenological tradition. Phenomenology is
coloured by particular theoretical concepts that are relevant to the current
study. First, phenomenology may be regarded as a critique of positivist
research traditions in which mechanistic metaphors are applied to study
complex human phenomena. However, phenomenologists believe that a
human science — which entails understanding the lived experience of
particular phenomena — is necessary to capture the complexity of
humanity. For example, when trying to understand the experiences of
disabled students at university, a scientific, positivist perspective might not
54
be an appropriate theoretical lens to use (Smith, 2004). Secondly,
phenomenologists believe that there is a pre-reflexive world that exists prior
to our consciousness of it (Merleau-Ponty, 1962). Phenomenologists also
believe that human consciousness always has a direction of intentionality.
Our consciousness is most often oriented toward a particular object with a
distinct intentional pathway. Uncovering humans’ direction of intentionality
in the worlds that we inhabit is critical to the phenomenological
perspective. An emphasis on the body is the final theoretical concept that is
relevant to the study discussed here. In Western metaphysics, the body is
often regarded as an inert surface rather than an object of theoretical and
empirical analysis. Most often, the body is simply regarded as that which
bears down heavily on a transcendental mind (Merleau-Ponty, 1962). In
current Western metaphysics, the mind is regarded as pure. In stark
contrast, the body is often metonymically considered as sinful because of its
vulnerability to a range of gluttonous temptations, such as eating and sex.
So, in the cognitive intellectual traditions that pervade scholarship today,
the body is either foreclosed as a source of inquiry or regarded as a
potentially slothful and dangerous “container” for the body. Rather,
phenomenologists suggest that the body is the seat of consciousness and a
rich source of scholarship. Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau Ponty’s
phenomenological derivatives in particular consider bodies and their
contexts. In doing so, they provide a way to think about how the body and
the environment in which it is a part may collide in the experience of
disablement (Smith, 2004). In this study, the participants constantly talked
about the complex interaction between their bodies, identities, learning
practices and broader campus environment. In doing so, they took up a
body-society perspective to think about their disabilities at university.
When scholars study disablement, medical or socio approaches most often
pervade. In addition to allowing me to study the lived experience of
attending university with a disability, phenomenology may provide a rich
theoretical lens to side step the dualist, either/or approach that continues to
shape our understanding of disability today.
Participants
The 12 students who participated were registered as either part-time or fulltime students at the University of Manitoba. While 11 participants were
55
completing undergraduate degrees, one student was registered in a graduate
program. The participants were enrolled in a broad range of degree
programs, including nursing, business, economics, entry-level courses, and
kinesiology. On average, the students were slightly older than their peers
(26.4 years). The sample included eight women and four men. While the
sample was mainly homogenous with respect to race and culture, three
participants immigrated from the Middle East and Europe. The participants
had multiple disabilities, including visual impairments, hearing
impairments, learning disabilities, mental health conditions, gastrointestinal
diseases and disabilities leading to mobility loss. Two participants used
wheelchairs and one participant used crutches or knee braces to ambulate.
The participants were ambitious and aspired to either further study or job
opportunities upon graduation.
Methodological Tools
In-depth semi-structured interviews and field notes were the main
methodological tools employed. The interviews were conducted in my
office at the University of Manitoba. For participants with visual
impairments who requested assistance ambulating to and from my office,
hand-over-arm mobility assistance was provided. The interview guide was
based on central concepts from the literature and my particular research
interests. Although the interview guide contained particular thematic
threads, I pursued novel lines of inquiry that the participants’ raised. The
interviews were between 60-90 minutes. I also documented field notes
during the interview process in a research field journal. These contextual
observations served as a way to document salient points raised in the
interview and to facilitate data analysis.
Data Analysis
The audio taped interviews were transcribed verbatim by a research
assistant and subject to IPA. First, the transcribed data was read multiple
times to facilitate close familiarization with the data. Second, each
individual transcript was read again. Recurring threads of meaning were
coded with a label, such as “staircases” or “assistive devices”. Then, the
entire data set was read with the view to coding all of the transcripts for
56
recurring threads of meaning. In the fourth step, current threads of meaning
across the data corpus were grouped together in a chart under a provisional
category name. Interpretive notes about these categories, such as “physical
barriers on campus” or “how my disability affects my learning”, were
documented. These notes described my interpretation of what the category
meant and served as a way to connect the category to the broader
phenomena under study – learning at University with a disability. In the
next level of analysis, the provisional categories were refined and
crystalized into over arching themes. This involved some data sorting and
re-organization in which similar categories were collapsed into broader
themes. Again, interpretive notes to explain theme names and relevant
theoretical concepts and phenomena, were made. The resulting IPA was an
interpretive act that speaks to the phenomena “how does having a disability
affect learning at the University of Manitoba?”
Findings: the Road to the Ivory Tower
In the findings below, I discuss the central themes resulting from the IPA.
First, the journey to university was an arduous one, marked by two sets of
experiences. Second, the participants discussed how their disabilities make
it challenging to learn at university. Some of these challenges were bodily,
while others were social. As a result of these learning challenges, the
participants forecasted an uneasy future with limited employment
prospects.
The Journey to University
The journey to university for students with disabilities was an arduous one.
Some participants faced low academic expectations from others who
believed that they were not likely to amount to much in life, let alone
become university students. Regardless of when these negative experiences
had occurred, they were forever seared in the participants’ memories. In
contrast, for other students, important social relationships with parents,
peers and mentors helped to instill a belief that they could succeed at
university.
Nadiyah is in her early twenties and living with vision loss. She
emigrated with her parents and siblings from Afghanistan due to civil war
57
and political turmoil. Because of her visual impairment, Nadiyah faced low
academic expectations from others. She reflects on her childhood in
Afghanistan and what it was like to interact with town gossips and
elementary school teachers who questioned the point of educating Nadiyah.
During childhood, these people always insulted her mother for having bore
three disabled daughters who would “never amount to much.”
One of the teachers was like "I can't teach her, she can't see, why
do you even bother sending her to school? Like there's no point in
her getting an education"… Some people used to say that to my
parents and I can imagine how hard it was listening to "why does
she even go to school?" Yes I think when I was growing up back
home, people would always come to parents, like at that time it was
just the three of us (female children with vision loss) and they
would always be like "oh I feel so sorry that your daughters
disabled, they would never be able to do anything for themselves in
their life.” They would automatically think "oh they can't see and
they can't do much in life". But you know those same people that
they hear now that I'm in university or they hear “studying”, they're
like shocked.
Josiah is in his early 30s and pursuing entry-level university education.
As a result of viral meningitis that resulted in paralysis and some brain
damage, Josiah uses a wheelchair to move around the campus. After
Josiah’s infection, no one expected him to speak, let alone become a
university student. He states that… “I didn’t think anybody thought that I
would be able to string two words together. I remember having to do a
bunch of aptitude/psychological tests, because everyone thought that I was
going to be like catatonic.”
For other students, the journey to university was not as fraught with
roadblocks. Social relationships with parents, peers, and mentors served to
pave the way to university and open the doors to the academy. This social
support also facilitated students’ belief in their ability to succeed at postsecondary education. While these students still encountered derogatory
attitudes, the social support they did receive from caring friends and family
appeared to mitigate these disabling beliefs.
Jodie has a visual impairment. Jodie did face limited expectations from
certain members of the community who believed that only “normal” young
58
people should attend university. However, she received strong social
support from friends and family who had faith in her capacity to succeed in
her studies. She credits her success to this sustained social support. Going
to university has, in a way, served to prove the limited expectations of
others wrong.
My friends, parents and teachers definitely expected me to go to
university. However there were a few people in my community that
did not expect me to go to university. Some people in my
community think that someone with a disability cannot accomplish
as much as someone who is "normal". These people who think that
are what motivated me to go to university to prove that even if you
have a disability you are still able to accomplish things those
"normal" people can. The support from my friends, family and
teachers is what has kept me going throughout my first year of
university and it is what has me going back (for more study).
Vincenzo is a 27-year old student of Italian ancestry who is pursuing a
degree in business. He has a visual impairment. Vincenzo received social
support from others who believed in his capacity to attend university. While
Vincenzo appreciates this support, he does believe that it is rooted in a wellintentioned and benevolent pity. Vincenzo’s family wants him to attend
university so that he can escape from the hardship of his present condition.
As a person with a physical (visual) disability, family members,
friends, and others in the community have expected me to attend
university. One reason, but not the main reason for this, is because
family members, friends, and others in the community do want me
to succeed in life... The main reason for others to want me to attend
university, is because they see it as a “way out,” or a counterbalance from my present situation. Those that know that I am living
with vision loss, also know that I will also be limited in my career
choices… They also know that having a higher education will
allow for more opportunities. So naturally, they expect me to go to
university so I can make the best of my present situation. I believe
that their intentions to want me to succeed are admirable, however,
their reasons for wanting me to attend university is misplaced. To
sum up the reasons for expecting me to attend university into one
word, “pity” would come to mind.
59
For some of the participants, attending university meant dealing with
others’ limited expectations about the inherent “incompatibility” between
attaining an advanced education and having a disability. These memories
were potent and had profoundly shaped the participants’ university journey.
Other participants received unconditional faith that they could in fact
succeed at university.
Learning with Disability at University: Body-Socio Challenges
As university students, the participants discussed a range of bodily and
social challenges that posed limitations to the learning process. The
“language of inability” coloured the form and content of this theme, with
words such as “can’t, won’t, and not able” sprinkling the data set. A
graduate student with a visual impairment — who is originally from the
Middle East — explained the difficulty he has in deciphering particular
objects when the lighting conditions in campus learning spaces are not
optimal. Bright light and close proximity are the only conditions under
which he can see objects. This poses a challenge for his learning, requiring
him to rely on sound and smell to determine form and content. Using the
example of two people crossing in a university hallway— a quintessential
campus experience — he states that:
If there's a strong light ... And I'm close to the person, I can tell
what the object is when I learn. Normally, I can't tell. I can't
identify you for example, if you passed by me in certain corridor,
here or there, I can't tell that this figure is (Fiona). My hearing, I
depend a lot on my hearing and my smell to get around and learn.
That's too weird cause sometimes I can identify people depending
on their smell (Khalil).
Carmen is in her early 30s and living with deaf-blindness. Her vision
loss poses a challenge in learning environments.
I have low vision, it's called RP (renitis pigmentosa)… I can't see a
lot of things by myself I can't read for example I can't read small
font, I need to enlarge the font. Larger screen, specific or special
configurations like for example, the background should be black
60
and the font white, it's easier for me. I enlarge the font to like 70 or
60. And I used a screen reader sometimes, like “Jazz.”
Jodie reflects on how her disability poses challenges to social interaction
in the classroom. Since she often misses out on the nuances of social
interaction during classroom activities, she has to ask other students to
repeat what has happened.
Clearly I'm not the same as everybody else, I mean I miss a lot of
things in class and sometimes — it's like I kind of think to myself
“well I guess, I can be considered a high maintenance person
because people have to tell me "oh this is what this person did and
that's why we're all laughing" or "this is what happened over there"
and they have to tell me these things cause I don't see them in class.
Although Josiah’s intellect is “normal”, his disability impacts almost all
aspects of learning, including the ability to speak, move, and write. He
states that … “For my brain injury, everything in my body gets it. There are
a lot of things that I can understand no problem but somethings, it just like
when I'm were to write something, it takes long cause of the muscles that
don't work.”
The participants explained that environmental features on campus —
such as the physical space — pose challenges to learning. Cloe lives with
Crone’s disease. For Cloe, feeling comfortable in class means “having
space”. Certain classrooms are designed to maximize social interaction
during class; for this reason, the chairs are located extremely close to one
another. This design feature increases anxiety for Cloe and makes it hard to
learn.
So yeah another way it's not inclusive, I guess it's just the fact that
teachers think that everyone just wants to be sitting on top of
people's laps. Like I have another class where it's shaped like a U to
facilitate talking but it's like I try to sit on the corner but you're still
packed in and when I'm going through a bad day, I need my space,
I can't move people, there's nowhere for them to go.
Lily is in her mid twenties and pursuing a degree in nutrition. As a result
of a severe gastrointestinal disease, Lily suffers from fatigue associated
61
with low iron, low weight, difficulty absorbing food, and terrible stomach
cramping. Fatigue and stomach pains at school often necessitate that she lie
down in a quiet spot on campus, rather than go to class or walk home. To
feel comfortable in her learning environment, she requires immediate
access to a bathroom in case she has urgent symptoms. She recounts a story
in which she became very ill during an exam as a result of not knowing
where to find a bathroom in time … “sometimes there won't be bathrooms
on floors and I have to go downstairs and it's like that time I had to throw
up during an exam, I threw up on the floor because the bathroom was so far
away that I couldn't get there in time, so it is a little inaccessible.”
Disability posed a range of body-socio challenges to learning at university.
“Even if I Wanted to:” Forecasting an Uneasy Future
The negative impact of disability on learning had a future dimension for all
participants. The participants forecasted a difficult future upon graduation,
in which the challenges associated with having a disability would impact
their employability and vocational pursuits. With frustration, Vincenzo
reflects on the narrow range of employment opportunities that may be
available to him when he graduates.
And I mean, 90% of those jobs I can't do. Just because of the
physical disability. So I need that predictability because I need to
know what is going to happen after all of this study. And even
more so having a disability because the, my chances, or my
employability is reduced like I can't go drive a forklift or fly a
plane. Even if I wanted to.
Given the stigmatizing nature of bowel diseases, Lily often misses class
due to stomach cramping and worry about using public bathroom spaces on
campus. In addition to describing her physical malaise, Lily forecasts that
her future employability may be limited by her disability.
I think it's when I have low iron and might've been that. Also just
feeling really sick that I'm fatigued and that I don't have that much
energy because I don't have very much absorption of the nutrients
or anything and then sleep too … It's hard especially when so much
of my career and getting an internship in my field depends on how
62
much my grades are. If I have friends in the class talking about
grades, that’s when my disability’s really impacting my learning.
Jace is a psychology student who also has an intellectual disability. He
reflects on an encounter with a particular psychology professor who is often
condescending toward disabled students. This professor does not believe
that students with disabilities are capable of becoming practicing
psychologists …. “The professor just thought that students with disabilities
don't match to what they need to be, to be practicing psychologists.”
As a result of his visual impairment, Khalil believes that the doors to
many vocational pursuits may be forever closed to him. He states …. “for
example, I can't be an engineer, I can't be a doctor, a pediatric surgeon, or
whatever. You know, so, it could be claimed that it is my disability that
limited this”. Some students, like Carmen, reflected on the harsh socioeconomic realities that disabled students might face upon graduation, such
as a lack of job prospects. She states that … “it's true that having a
disability makes most things harder but I think employment is the worst
problem and daily living is pretty hard too.” Thus, due to the negative effect
of disability on learning, most participants forecasted a difficult future, in
which it may be challenging to acquire employment in their respective
fields. The findings are discussed below, within the context of the existing
scholarship.
Discussion
The findings confirm and extend scholarship in the area of disability and
education. The participant’s journey to university was an arduous one that
began long before their entry into the academy. As youth, some of the
participant’s encountered collective low expectations that they would never
amount to much, let alone become university students. These disabling
sentiments were seared in the participants’ memories as poignant moments.
In contrast, unconditional faith from parents, peers and teachers had helped
to pave the way to the academy for other participants, in effect mitigating
others’ bleak prospects. Thus, it appears that the participants had two
different paths to university. While some faced a road littered with
obstacles, the journey for other participants was made easier by receiving
social support.
63
I can turn to several scholars to assist in theorizing this finding. Other
scholars have theoretically discussed the concept of low academic
expectations for young disabled people (Madriaga, 2007). However, this is
the first qualitative study to empirically demonstrate that some disabled
students attend university in the face of low expectations for academic
success, in which the “doors of the academy” are barely open. Sociology of
the body scholar Pierre Bourdieu suggested that bodies in culture bear
particular forms of embodied capital — or value (Allen, 2004). While
physical capital refers to one’s physical prowess and attractiveness, social
capital pertains to the available social networks that are accessible to a
particular individual. In turn, the amount of capital that we embody in
culture forms the basis for our symbolic capital, that is, the degree to which
a particular body is regarded to bear value and worth. Since disabled bodies
depart from normative aesthetic ideals, a number of scholars have
suggested that they bear little physical capital in a culture that reveres only
certain forms of physicality (Allen, 2004).
As evidenced from the findings reported here, it appears that some
young people with disabilities who attend university are not regarded as
valued intellectual bodies that bear knowledge capital in contemporary
culture. This may perhaps be due to the powerful assumption that having a
disability, being intelligent, attending university, and forging an exciting
future, are incompatible and irreconcilable subject positions. Further, the
anti-intellectual sentiments that shape the lives of some young disabled
people may also be a function of the problem of physiognomy, which
arguably, still pervades today. Here, the cognitive and moral capacities of
the body are assumed and derived from ones’ physical exterior. For
instance, critical obesity scholars suggest that the assumptions which we
have about the inherent “moral lassitude and laziness” of the fat body, stem
from a physiognomy lens (Gilman, 2008). It could be that through the lens
of physiognomy, a “deformed physicality” might imply “reduced cognitive
ability” and the inability to engage in advanced academic studies. Further
research is required from multiple stakeholders — such as parents, early
year teachers, students with disabilities, and university faculty — regarding
whether disabled young people are regarded as intellectual bodies that bear
value in culture. The anti-intellectualism, which might still pervade when
considering the learning of students with disabilities, needs to be challenged
and changed.
64
However, other students with disabilities received much social support
from parents, peers and teachers to attend university. This finding is
encouraging and might speak to the gradual widening of university
participation. Further, many contemporary scholars discuss the importance
of social support to fostering a healthy sense of self-efficacy, that is, a
belief in our ability to succeed at particular tasks. For some students with
disabilities, social support from critical stakeholders appeared to shape a
strong sense of academic self-efficacy (Bandura, 1982). Thus, it appears
that students with disabilities negotiate different paths to university. While
some face formidable roadblocks, the burden is lessened for others who
receive social support. Hopefully, as the process of widening university
participation continues and the ideology of ableism is challenged, more
young people with disabilities will navigate an easier path to higher
education.
The participants discussed the numerous learning challenges that they
encounter at university. Some of these challenges were characterized as
bodily or disability-related in nature. The participants, for example,
described difficulty with reading, writing, interacting with others, walking
to class, or engaging in small group learning scenarios. The students
explained that architectural facets on the university campus hindered the
learning process.
A number of scholars have discussed the learning challenges that
students with disabilities face in their effort to obtain a university education.
Students with disabilities find it difficult to access academic materials and
note-taking services (Fuller et al., 2004). These students also encounter a
lack of support and contact time with academic tutors (Borland & James,
1999). Obtaining access to assistive technologies is another significant
learning challenge (Shevlin et al., 2004). The physical layout of learning
spaces is often inaccessible, and, in general, students find that there is poor
disability education and awareness on campus (Tinklin & Hall, 1999).
Phenomenology might be an appropriate methodological and
philosophical lens to make sense of the learning challenges that students
with disabilities face at university. First, most disability scholars have used
an either/or, medico-social approach when thinking about the challenges
that people with disabilities encounter. In the former, disability is thought to
be an organic problem that is inherent to the body, that is, a problem of
failed physicality. When people with disabilities fail to take reparative or
65
rehabilitative actions, medical approaches easily lend themselves to victim
blaming. In contrast, social approaches root the cause of disability in
oppressive learning environments (Allen, 2004). The goals of social
approaches to disability are noble. For the first time, these scholars have
forced us to scrutinize the able-bodied environment in which we live.
However, environmental determinism may overlook the embodied nature of
disability, failing to theorize important concepts such as the experience of
pain. Critics of the social model beg scholars to invite the body back into
scholarship (Allen, 2004).
From the stories told here, it appears that learning challenges are neither
only bodily nor only social. Rather, an experience of disablement at
university occurs when there is a “collision” of sorts between the body and
the learning spaces that it interacts with. For example, for a young woman
in the study with severe gastro-intestinal disease, the collision between
bowel symptoms, anxiety, an over-crowded learning space, and a lack of
access to bathroom facilities, challenge her learning and create a sense of
disablement at university.
Phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1962) in particular, offers
important concepts that facilitate a better understanding of how bodies
interact with environments to create disability. Merleau-Ponty (1962)
suggests that there are four existentials that shape humans’ being in the
world. Embodied, lived experiences are profoundly shaped by time, space,
and social relationships. The spaces in which bodies inhabit, the passage of
time, and the network of social relationships that we are embedded in
influence our bodily and human experiences (Merleau-Ponty 1962). As
evidenced by the stories told here, when disabled bodies interact with
learning spaces at university, the lived experience of disability is felt and
learning is threatened. Since it encourages scholars to take up a body-social
approach to thinking about disablement, future researchers should consider
the contributions of IPA to the study of disability at university.
The students foreshadowed an uneasy future upon graduation from
university. While they were confident in their ability to complete a
university education, they envisioned that their job prospects would be
bleak. Students attributed a lack of job opportunities in the future to the
bodily effects of disability. For instance, having a visual impairment made
it “impossible” to fly a plane or become a cardiac surgeon. Similarly,
disability-related fatigue was thought to close the door to particular health
66
related fields — such as nursing — that require a surplus of energy.
Because of limited job prospects in the future, the students anticipated that
they would face socio-economic deprivation.
Other researchers have discussed poor career development at university
for students with disabilities. Calls are repeatedly made to devote more
attention to the career development trajectory of students with disabilities
so that they are prepared to negotiate employment challenges in the future
(Madriaga, 2007; Vickerman & Blundell, 2010). Moola, Fusco, & Kirsh
(2011) also found that young people with chronic illnesses believe that they
will be restricted from certain occupations in the future due to the bodily
effects of their disabilities. Certainly, epidemiological scholarship shows
that disabled Canadians face extremely high rates of unemployment and
much socio-economic disenfranchisement (Shier, Graham, & Jones, 2009).
Disabled students’ projected unemployment offers a few novel points
for consideration. Although disabled students face many closed academic
doors, they largely see themselves as capable of going to university and
obtaining an education. However, most of the students suspect that they
will not attain gainful employment post graduation. This might suggest that
while much progress has been made with respect to gaining access to the
ivory tower – a struggle that was long fought over – disabled students do
not see themselves as having the same educational outcomes and job
opportunities as their able-bodied peers upon departure from the academy.
That disabled students do not see themselves as capable of attaining certain
occupations means that the struggle for inclusive education is far from over.
In addition to career development training for disabled students at
university, employers of businesses and organizations need to implement
equitable employment practices that prioritize hiring disabled people.
Further, disabled students view some careers as “impossible” to ever attain.
They do not demonstrate any nuance or complexity with respect to their
entry into certain jobs, regarding these occupational restrictions as “facts of
life”. The “impossibility” of ever having access to particular jobs was
particularly striking for those occupations where there is an
“incompatibility” between the skills that are currently required for the job
and the “limitations” associated with one’s disability. For instance, rather
than envisioning a time in which performing surgery or plane flying might
be possible with limited vision through processes such as accommodation
and adaptation, the students accept these limitations as static and
67
unchanging facts. The students’ sedimented views about future career
limitations — and lack of nuance — might speak to how deeply engrained
the ideology of ableism is in our collective, public consciousness. At one
time, the academy was thought to be closed off to people with disabilities
(Barnes, 2007). This study shows gradual “cracks in the edifice” by
demonstrating that most of the participants did expect to attend university.
This gradual ideological shift likely speaks to changes in inclusive practices
and whom we believe higher education to be for. In a similar manner,
collectively, we need to undo the metonymic linkage between certain jobs
and certain bodies. It is important to ask “is there a way in re-envision work
such that all jobs are available to all bodies”?
Conclusion
Barnes (2007) suggests that for most of history, the university —as an
institution that is century’s years old— has adopted a reactionary and
liberal agenda with respect to education for students with disabilities. While
the rhetoric of inclusion is regularly espoused, this may not be the everyday
reality for disabled students on university campuses. In this article, I
responded to Fuller et all’s. (2004) call that the “voices” of young disabled
people be incorporated into the dialogue about post-secondary education
and disability. In doing so, I attempted to fill a lacuna in the existing
scholarship by focusing on the learning experiences of students with
disabilities in Manitoba, Canada, a place that is shaped by particular health
care, education and socio-economic circumstances. The participant’s
journey to university was an arduous one. While some faced closed doors
and limited expectations, the helping hands of parents, teachers, and peers
eased this burden for others. At university, the students faced numerous
learning challenges that were both bodily and social in nature. When the
students look forward, they see an uneasy future that will be marked by
bleak employment options and socio-economic disenfranchisement. This
study illustrates the contributions of IPA as a body-social approach toward
understanding disablement in the academy. It appears then, that while the
door to the ivory tower is gradually opening for the disabled, the gateway to
the future — that is, a well developed career trajectory—remains firmly
locked. While there are slight cracks in the intellectual edifice, great strides
and much advocacy is needed before disabled students are fully regarded as
68
bodies that bear intellectual value in the academy. It is hoped that this
scholarship participates in the ongoing struggle for a socially just pedagogy
(Madriaga, 2007).
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the invaluable support of Ms. Carolyn Christie –the
coordinator of student accesibility service at the University of Manitoba– for facilitating this
study. The author would also like to acknowledge the financial support of the University
Research Grants Program at the University of Maintoba.
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Fiona Moola is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Kinesology and
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Maintoba Institue for Child Health. Canada. ORCID id: 0000-0003-49047304
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[email protected]
El Portafolios de los Estudiantes como Estrategia Alternativa a
las Pruebas Estandarizadas para la Evaluación de
Competencias
Monsalud Gallardo Gil1, J. Eduardo Sierra Nieto1 & Ana Domínguez
Ramos1
1) Departamento de Didáctica y Organización Escolar, Universidad de
Málaga, Spain.
th
To cite this article: Gallardo Gil, M., & Sierra Nieto, E. (2015). El Portafolios
de los estudiantes como estrategia alternativa a las pruebas estandarizadas
para la evaluación de competencias. Qualitative Research in Education,
4(1), 72-102. doi: 10.4471/qre.2015.57
The Students Portfolio as an
Alternative Strategy to the
Standardized Competencies
Assessment Tests
Monsalud Gallardo Gil
Universidad de Málaga
J. Eduardo Sierra Nieto
Ana Domínguez Ramos
(Received: 22 February 2014; Accepted: 14 December 2014; Published: 28
February 2015)
Abstract
This paper is part of a wider research, which focuses on education competencies
assessment (I+D Research Project, ref. SEJ-2007-66967), funded by the Spanish
Ministry of Education. What we show in this paper are data from one of the case
studies we carry out as part of this project. We have developed a "collaborative
research" to understand and analyze the educational processes taking place in the
"learnings of second order" ("learning how to learn"). In this sense, we've performed
a didactic experimentation with portfolios of student in a 5th grade classroom; the
conclusions presented are the result of this particular study. As a final, we conclude
that portfolios of student can be an interesting strategy for educational evaluation; as
well as it can become an "alternative strategy" to the standardized competency
assessment tests, which predominate in the current educational landscape.
Keywords: portfolio, assessment, competencies, learning how to learn,
collaborative research
2015 Hipatia Press
ISSN: 2014-6418
DOI: 10.4471/qre.2015.57
El Portafolios de los
Estudiantes como Estrategia
Alternativa a las Pruebas
Estandarizadas para la
Evaluación de Competencias
Monsalud Gallardo Gil
J. Eduardo Sierra Nieto
Ana Domínguez Ramos
(Recebido: 22 de febrero de 2014; Aceptado: 14 de diciembre de 2014;
Resumen
El presente artículo forma parte de una investigación más amplia en el área de la
evaluación de competencias educativas (Proyecto I+D, ref. SEJ-2007-66967),
financiada por el Ministerio de Educación (España). En él ofrecemos los datos
relativos a uno de los estudios de caso que se llevaron a cabo en el marco de dicho
proyecto; bajo la metodología de investigación colaborativa, encaminada a la
comprensión y análisis de los procesos educativos implicados en los aprendizajes de
segundo orden (“aprender cómo aprender”) a través de la experimentación del
portafolios en el aula. En este sentido, se concluye que el portafolios del alumnado
puede ser una interesante estrategia de evaluación educativa, la cual, además, puede
convertirse en estrategia “alternativa” a las pruebas estandarizadas de evaluación de
competencias educativas que predominan en nuestro panorama educativo.
Palabras clave: portafolios, evaluación, competencias, aprender a aprender,
investigación colaborativa
2015 Hipatia Press
ISSN: 2014-6418
DOI: 10.4471/qre.2015.57
73
E
l presente artículo forma parte de una investigación más amplia en
el área de la evaluación de las competencias de aprendizaje de
segundo orden y la experimentación de estrategias alternativas de
evaluación (Proyecto I+D, ref. SEJ-2007-669671). En dicha investigación,
se desarrollaron cuatro estudios de caso, siendo uno de ellos el que
relatamos en las páginas que siguen. En este estudio de caso, desarrollamos
un proceso de investigación de carácter colaborativo en un aula de
Educación Primaria de la provincia de Málaga (España), con objeto de
experimentar el portafolios como una posible estrategia alternativa de
evaluación de competencias educativas.
Previamente, nos detendremos en la aclaración del concepto de
competencias educativas del que partimos, así como de nuestro
posicionamiento en torno a la evaluación educativa y la potencialidad del
portafolios como estrategia alternativa de evaluación de competencias.
Seguidamente, abordaremos la descripción del proceso metodológico
llevado a cabo en este estudio y el análisis de resultados. En el último
apartado, se ofrecen las conclusiones más relevantes de la investigación.
El Controvertido Concepto de las Competencias Educativas
En España, las competencias básicas se han regulado normativamente en la
Ley Orgánica 2/2006, de 3 de mayo, de Educación (LOE), con la que se
inicia una nueva política tendente a incorporar este enfoque pedagógico en
las prácticas de enseñanza de los centros educativos (Monarca &
Rappoport, 2013; Tiana, Moya & Luengo, 2011). Este nuevo enfoque se
enmarca en una tendencia a la convergencia europea, tratando de adoptarse
un discurso cada vez más homogéneo en torno a las competencias, lo cual
ha sido fuente de constantes debates (Gordon et al., 2009; Halász & Michel,
2011; Pérez Gómez, 2008).
Dentro de ese avance, cabe reseñar la influencia del proyecto DeSeCo
(Definition and Selection of Competencies, 2005), impulsado por la OCDE,
como un intento por seleccionar y definir las competencias clave necesarias
para la plena realización personal, la ciudadanía activa, la cohesión social y
la empleabilidad en la sociedad del conocimiento. En este sentido, se
proponen ocho competencias clave: Comunicación en la lengua materna;
Comunicación en lenguas extranjeras; Competencia matemática y
competencias básicas en ciencia y tecnología; Competencia digital;
74
Gallardo et al. – The Students Portfolio as an Alternative Strategy
Competencia de aprender a aprender; Competencias sociales y cívicas;
Sentido de la iniciativa y espíritu de empresa; Conciencia y expresión
culturales (DeSeCo, 2005).
En la definición de las competencias clave, Rychen & Salganik (2001,
2003) concluyen que la competencia es una aproximación funcional frente a
demandas y tareas, en las que se requieren no sólo conocimientos y
destrezas, sino también estrategias y rutinas necesarias para aplicar tales
conocimientos y destrezas, así como emociones y actitudes apropiadas y un
manejo efectivo de todos los componentes. Rychen y Tiana (2004) se
refieren a la competencia como un concepto holístico que integra la
existencia de demandas externas, los atributos personales (incluida la ética
y los valores), así como el contexto. Es decir, se entiende que las
competencias son sistemas complejos de pensamiento y actuación, que
suponen la combinación de conocimientos, habilidades, actitudes, valores y
emociones que utiliza el individuo para hacer frente a los problemas a los
que se enfrenta, así como al incierto y cambiante entramado de nuestra
sociedad (Pérez Gómez, 2007, 2008, 2012).
Esta definición se puede complementar con la de Laisner (2000), para
quien una competencia es un saber hacer complejo, resultado de la
integración, movilización y adecuación de capacidades, conocimientos,
actitudes y habilidades, utilizados eficazmente en situaciones que tengan un
carácter común. The European Commission’s Cedefop Glossary
(CEDEFOP, 2008) considera que la competencia no se reduce a elementos
cognitivos (teorías, conceptos y conocimiento tácito), sino que también
implica aspectos funcionales (habilidades técnicas), atributos
interpersonales (habilidades organizativas y sociales) y valores éticos.
Los rasgos diferenciales de las competencias, capacidades o cualidades
humanas fundamentales, serían los siguientes: un “saber” (pensar, decir y
hacer) y un “querer” (vinculado a las necesidades e intereses primero, y al
propio proyecto vital después), en contextos y situaciones concretas y
complejas en función de propósitos deseados. No estamos hablando de
destrezas, ni de habilidades específicas que, como los conocimientos
concretos, son solamente uno de sus componentes y deben considerarse
instrumentos, componentes necesarios pero no suficientes y, en todo caso,
parciales y cambiantes (Pérez Gómez, 2008). Hablamos de competencias,
capacidades o cualidades humanas fundamentales que constituyen el
entramado básico, los modelos mentales esenciales que utilizan los seres
75
humanos para comprender e intervenir en la vida personal, social y
profesional (Halász & Michel, 2011; Pérez Gómez, 2012).
La Evaluación Educativa de las Competencias
Teniendo en cuenta la definición de competencias que hemos hecho en el
apartado anterior, es preciso definir a continuación qué entendemos por
evaluación de competencias clave. A este respecto, Zabala y Arnau (2008)
señalan que se trata de “una tarea bastante compleja, ya que implica partir
de situaciones-problema que simulen contextos reales y disponer de los
medios de evaluación específicos para cada uno de los componentes de la
competencia” (p. 193). Asumiendo esto, entendemos que la evaluación de
competencias requiere la actitud permanente de ‘aprender a aprender’, que
se relaciona ineludiblemente con el concepto de aprendizaje relevante
(Pérez Gómez, 1998), referido a la adquisición de significados que
consideramos útiles para nuestros propósitos vitales; considerando como tal
aquello que tiene sentido para clarificar y afrontar problemas de la vida
cotidiana de las personas. En este aprendizaje influyen componentes de
muy diversos tipos (cognitivos, motivacionales, afectivos, sociales, etc.),
que difícilmente pueden ser tenidos en cuenta en pruebas de papel y lápiz
(Pérez Gómez & Soto Gómez, 2011) como las que habitualmente se
emplean para evaluar competencias; pruebas que simplemente parecen
medir aprendizajes superficiales (Dede, 2007) o de bajo nivel (Supovitz,
2009). Desde esta perspectiva, resulta evidente la dificultad de evaluar
competencias mediante métodos que atienden a la memorización y
reproducción de información, más que al pensamiento lógico, las aptitudes
y las actitudes del alumnado (Pérez Gómez, 2013; Ravitch, 2013).
Desde una concepción educativa de la evaluación (Santos, 2010),
valoramos la importancia de repensar la enseñanza a la luz de cómo
concebimos el aprendizaje. De esta forma, consideramos que la evaluación
por competencias nos permite desarrollar lo que entendemos como una
auténtica “evaluación educativa” (Pérez Gómez et al., 2009b; Santos,
2002;); en lugar de seguir reproduciendo un modelo de evaluación
amparado en la racionalidad técnica (Álvarez, 2003). Esto significa,
principalmente, contemplar al alumnado como protagonista de todo el
proceso, favoreciendo el trabajo con contenidos educativos
contextualizados en la vida real, así como el empleo de metodologías y
76
recursos que incentiven aprendizajes relevantes en el alumnado (Pérez
Gómez, 1998). En definitiva, nuestra postura sobre la evaluación educativa
apuesta por:
 Convertirse en fuente de aprendizje para evaluados y evaluadores
durante todo el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje;
 Ser una herramienta para promover la participación activa de los
alumnos en su aprendizaje;
 Permitir la autoevaluación y coevaluación
 Favorecer la retroalimentación a todos los participantes sobre el
proceso educativo con objeto de contribuir a su mejora
La evaluación permite atender tanto al aprendizaje directo de algo
(“adquisición”) como al más indirecto (“aprender a aprender”), referido a la
“metacognición” y el “aprendizaje autorregulado” (Stobart, 2010);
dimensiones ante las que las pruebas estandarizadas de evaluación
presentan también carencias, dado que difícilmente permiten identificar qué
aprenden los estudiantes ni cómo lo hacen (Cumming & Wyat-Smith, 2009;
Serván, 2011).
Parece por tanto urgente explorar las posibilidades de metodologías
alternativas para la evaluación de competencias, como pueden ser las
evaluaciones interpares, los programas de aprendizaje individual y/o de
evaluación escolar, la evaluación basada en proyectos, o el portafolios,
como pone de manifiesto el Informe conjunto de 2010 del Consejo y de la
Comisión sobre la puesta en práctica del programa de trabajo “Educación y
Formación 2010” (2010/C 117/01).
El Portafolios como Herramienta Alternativa para la Evaluación
‘Educativa’ de Competencias
Según la Comisión Europea (2007), “aprender a aprender es la habilidad
para iniciar el aprendizaje y persistir en él, para organizar su propio
aprendizaje y gestionar el tiempo y la información eficazmente, ya sea
individualmente o en grupos. Esta competencia conlleva ser consciente del
propio proceso de aprendizaje y de las necesidades de aprendizaje de cada
uno, determinar las oportunidades disponibles y ser capaz de superar los
obstáculos con el fin de culminar el aprendizaje con éxito” (p. 8). Teniendo
en cuenta esta definición, la competencia de ‘aprender a aprender’ sólo
puede evaluarse en situaciones de problemas abiertos y complejos que
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hacen que los alumnos apliquen lo que ya han aprendido al mismo tiempo
que participan en nuevos aprendizajes. Esto sólo ocurre cuando se ven
obligados a reflexionar sobre sus necesidades de aprendizaje contextual
específicas (Halász & Michel, 2011), es decir, cuando hay “metacognición”
o “aprendizaje autorregulado” (Stobart, 2010).
Además, la evaluación de competencias requiere centrar nuestra
atención en el alumnado (Shores & Grace, 2007), lo que supone un cambio
sustancial en las modalidades de evaluación, necesitando el docente
indicadores de cómo está funcionando su enseñanza (retroalimentación).
Con esta intención, nuestro estudio se propone experimentar el portafolios
como estrategia alternativa a las pruebas estandarizadas de evaluación de
competencias educativas.
Para Shulman (1999), los portafolios reflejan los procesos de
aprendizaje, por lo que considera que más que una nueva manera de evaluar
puede considerarse como un modo de entender el proceso de enseñanza. En
muchos aspectos, el método de evaluación basado en carpetas de
aprendizaje (Pozuelos, 2002) refleja lo que los buenos enseñantes han
venido haciendo de forma intuitiva durante años; la diferencia estriba ahora
en que valoramos este método como un valioso instrumento alternativo de
evaluación. El portafolios posibilita el cambio de disposiciones y
actuaciones docentes y discentes, mediante la toma de conciencia del
proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje, a través de una evaluación que trata de
ser interactiva, auténtica, continua y multidimensional.
Un portafolios educativo debe contener una suficiente variedad de
‘evidencias’ del proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje (e-a), teniendo la
precaución de no convertirlo en un contenedor de ‘productos’ carente de
sentido. ¿Qué tipo de ‘evidencias’ puede contener, por tanto, el portafolios?
Entre las ‘evidencias’ de aprendizaje más destacables, el portafolios puede
contener las muestras del trabajo realizado por el estudiante y seleccionadas
por él mismo (p.e.: tareas de clase, diarios, comentarios críticos de lecturas,
escritos realizados en diferentes momentos del proceso de e-a, etc.); el
feedback que le haya podido remitir el docente a modo de anotaciones
escritas o a través de interacciones informales de evaluación; las
autoevaluaciones que haya podido realizar el propio alumno; la
coevaluación de los portafolios realizada con la ayuda de otros compañeros,
en la que pueden valorar los avances y la evidencias que se pueden incluir,
entre otras. Para que este proceso resulte educativo, es preciso que el
78
portafolios esté siempre accesible en el aula, otorgándole un lugar en el que
todos puedan hacer uso del mismo siempre que lo crean conveniente.
Al recoger toda una serie de documentos que sustentan una forma
personal de entender la enseñanza y el aprendizaje, el portafolios resulta un
espejo que refleja el crecimiento personal y profesional (Gavari, 2009),
favoreciendo así la mejora de la enseñanza y del aprendizaje. Respecto a los
estudiantes, esto encierra las posibilidades de conocer los procedimientos,
el contenido y los fundamentos educativos, como también impulsa la
capacidad de explicarse a sí mismos y a los demás por qué se hace algo
(“metacognición”). En este sentido, el uso del portafolios implica un
proceso educativo en tanto que permite estudiar y analizar el propio trabajo
e incluso invitar a otras personas a que lo vean y proponer nuevos cambios.
El diálogo intra-personal e inter-personal que surge de la revisión de las
carpetas es un componente importante tanto de la evaluación como del
propio proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje (Klenowski, 2004). Este diálogo
permite que el estudiante valore de forma reflexiva y crítica su aprendizaje,
incentivando así la habilidad de autoevaluación y el pensamiento reflexivo
(Alfageme, 2007).
En suma, y a diferencia de la evaluación a través de pruebas
estandarizadas, la evaluación mediante portafolios permite que el alumno
participe en la elección del medio y de los modos de enseñanza-aprendizaje
(Gavari, 2009; Klenowski, 2004; Shores & Grace, 2007). De esta forma, el
uso del portafolios en el aula ofrece una serie de aspectos positivos, que,
desde nuestro punto de vista, redundan en gran medida en la mejora del
proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje, los cuales resumimos en la siguiente
figura (Figura 1).
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Figura 1. Bondades del portafolios como estrategia alternativa de evaluación2
La Investigación Educativa de Carácter Colaborativo
El carácter formativo del portafolios nos lleva a hablar de él como una
herramienta que impulsa la indagación sobre la práctica al ofrecer un medio
de recogida sistemática de datos unido a procesos deliberativos de análisis.
De ahí que a la hora de diseñar el estudio nos pareciera adecuado vincular
el proceso de experimentación didáctica con un formato de investigación
que contribuyese a la mejora de la enseñanza. Es por esto que apostamos
por una metodología de carácter colaborativo.
Si bien el estudio que presentamos vincula el cambio educativo con la
tradición de la investigación-acción (Elliot, 2000; Latorre, 2005), son
muchas las iniciativas que desarrollan propuestas de este tipo. Propuestas
que comparten el propósito de favorecer prácticas de indagación que
redunden en una mejora efectiva de la práctica.
La literatura sobre innovación y cambio educativo (Fullan, 2002;
Hargreaves, 2001), como señala Blanco (2005), identifica dos factores
clave para la mejora educativa: (i) la necesidad de reconocer los centros
80
escolares como referentes para el cambio (Masip, Teixidor & Vilalta, 2011;
Rudduck, 1999; (ii) el hecho de que sólo cuando los docentes promueven
los cambios, estos llegan a convertirse en verdaderas innovaciones
(Carbonell, 2002). En este sentido, son muchas las experiencias a las que
podemos aludir.
Una de las apuestas más reconocidas en el panorama internacional a este
respecto la encontramos en la propuesta de Cochran-Smith y Lytle (2003)
acerca de las comunidades de indagación; enfoque que promueve la
superación de la tradicional distinción entre conocimiento teórico y práctico
en virtud de lo que las autoras denominan la generación de conocimiento
local de la práctica. Propuesta que señala “tanto una manera de aprender
acerca de la enseñanza como aquello que los docentes y las comunidades
llegan a saber cuando construyen el conocimiento de manera colaborativa”
(Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2003, p. 72). En este enfoque se da prioridad a los
procesos a través de los cuales se producen nuevas formas de conocimiento
pedagógico, fruto de las interacciones y colaboraciones entre grupos de
educadores procedentes de diversos contextos. Son las interacciones entre
estos agentes, en un régimen de horizontalidad, lo que caracteriza este
modelo, revisándose las tradicionales jerarquías epistemológicas. El
conocimiento producido a través de estos procesos es a la vez formal (en
cuanto que producido a través de procesos rigurosos de indagación),
práctico (en tanto que vinculado a situaciones experienciales concretas) y
público (dada su repercusión para la vida de las escuelas y de la
comunidad). En una línea parecida, podemos señalar el trabajo realizado
por Nieto (2007, 2008) respecto de sus indagaciones acerca de aquello que
sostiene al profesorado para continuar en la brecha pese a las enormes
dificultades que atosigan a la profesión docente en la actualidad. Un trabajo
amparado en una perspectiva biográfica, y asentado en un principio de
reconocimiento de autoridad a los saberes docentes, donde el rol de la
investigadora consiste en facilitar los procesos de discusión, escritura y de
análisis.
Un referente más lo encontramos en el trabajo reciente desarrollado por
el grupo de investigación Innovación y evaluación educativa andaluza,
ligado al movimiento de las lesson study. Según nos indican Pérez Gómez y
Soto Gómez (2011, p. 65), las Lesson y Learning Study (LLS) hacen
referencia “al proceso de trabajo e indagación que desarrollan grupos de
cuatro a seis docentes, que se reúnen de modo regular durante un periodo
81
largo de tiempo (cuatro-doce meses) para trabajar en el diseño, desarrollo,
comprobación, crítica y mejora de una propuesta didáctica (lección)
experimental”. La finalidad perseguida en el empleo y perfeccionamiento
de este recurso, tiene que ver con promover la reconstrucción del
pensamiento práctico docente. Como señalan nuevamente Pérez Gómez y
Soto Gómez (opus cit. p. 67), la virtualidad pedagógica fundamental de las
LLS radica en “ayudar a los docentes noveles y en ejercicio a aprender a
pensar, decidir y actuar sistemáticamente en la complejidad, mediante el
estimulo de procesos colaborativos de construcción de saberes y
experiencias”. El trabajo desarrollado desde este grupo enfoca las LLS
como una forma específica de investigación-acción-participativa, en la
medida en que involucra a un grupo de profesores y asesores en el diseño y
desarrollo cooperativo de una lección, a través de unos ciclos
experimentales de acción-reflexión (Pérez Gómez, Soto Gómez & Serván,
2010).
Como se puede apreciar, son muchos los referentes que, desde diferentes
concepciones, buscan nuevas alianzas entre especialistas y prácticos,
comprometiendo la mejora de la enseñanza en tareas sistemáticas de
investigación. Metodologías que ponen en el centro una cuidada relación de
investigación, tendente a desprenderse de la tradicional división social del
trabajo educativo (Contreras, 1992). Un importante desafío que, sin dejar de
reconocer los avances que han tenido lugar en las dos últimas décadas en
materia de formación inicial y permanente del profesorado (Imbernón,
2007), debe llevarnos a seguir trabajando de cara a: (i) afianzar la
investigación ligada a contextos prácticos (García-Gómez, 2011); (ii) la
consolidación del desarrollo profesional de los docentes ligado al
paradigma del profesional reflexivo (González & Barba, 2014).
Concreción de la Propuesta Metodológica
El objetivo general de la investigación ha sido: experimentar las
posibilidades del portafolios de los estudiantes como herramienta para la
evaluación de la competencia de aprender a aprender. Hablamos de
experimentación en un sentido didáctico y formativo, en tanto que la
investigación fue enfocada como un proceso formativo (Contreras & Pérez
de Lara, 2010; Sierra, 2013). Hablamos también de estudio colaborativo
donde el rol de los investigadores externos es doble y complementario: han
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de realizar el seguimiento investigativo del proceso a la vez que asesoran la
actividad docente en el trabajo de diseño y desarrollo de las propuestas de
trabajo. De acuerdo con Pozuelos (2002), el marco colegiado y simétrico
que se propicia entre docentes e investigadores externos, resultará crucial a
la hora de comprometer investigación y enseñanza (Stenhouse, 1987).
Diseño y Desarrollo de la Investigación
El estudio de caso que aquí relatamos se ha desarrollado en un aula de 5º de
Educación Primaria, compuesta por ocho niñas y once niños, perteneciente
a un Colegio Público de Educación Infantil y Primaria de la provincia de
Málaga. El área en la que se ha desarrollado ha sido la de Lengua
Castellana y Literatura, en la que la docente participante en este estudio
imparte cinco horas a la semana
Tabla 1.
Proyectos llevados a cabo2
PROYECTOS LLEVADOS A CABO
PROYECTO 1
PROYECTO 2
PROYECTO 3
ENERO - MARZO
MARZO - MAYO
ABRIL - MAYO
La semana blanca
en Málaga
La banda sonora de
la clase
ARTIBLÚ
El proceso de experimentación, en el que se diseñaron y desarrollaron
tres proyectos de trabajo (Tabla 1), tuvo lugar entre los meses de Enero a
Julio de 2010, bajo un esquema en espiral propio de la investigación-acción
(ver Figura 2). Gracias al relato autobiográfico que nos ofreció la docente al
inicio de la investigación, pudimos obtener una importante información de
partida en torno a su trayectoria profesional y su pensamiento pedagógico
(preguntas iniciales, aspiraciones de mejora en su práctica, aspectos de sus
metodologías ya asentados, etc.); siendo un buen punto de partida sobre el
que dar inicio al proceso de experimentación. En el primer ciclo de
indagación hubo un trabajo concienzudo sobre el diseño físico de los
83
materiales, su estructuración y la elaboración de guías de trabajo y
cuadernillos para los estudiantes (ver Tabla 2). En cuanto a la estructura, se
definieron trabajos obligatorios (diarios de lectura, diccionario personal,
redacciones, ortografía y gramática, observaciones de la profesora) y
optativos (trabajos diarios, creaciones personales, textos informativos,
materiales audiovisuales, diarios...).
Tabla 2.
Cuadernillos de trabajo para los estudiantes2
CUADERNILLOS DE TRABAJO PARA LOS ESTUDIANTES
CUADERNILLO 1
Presentación de
la experiencia
¿Qué es el
portafolios?
Justificación y
compromiso de
trabajo
CUADERNILLO 2
Planificación del
trabajo
(común para los tres
proyectos
desarrollados)
Elaboración de la tabla
KWFL (qué sé, qué
quiero saber, dónde
busco la información y
qué voy aprendiendo)
¿Qué competencias
básicas vamos a
desarrollar con este
trabajo?
Planificación de las
tareas
Compromiso
individual o colectivo
CUADERNILLO 3
CUADERNILLO 4
Desarrollo y
colección de
tareas
Reflexiono
sobre mi
aprendizaje
Tareas de mi
portafolios
Recomendaciones
y guías de tareas
Me autoevalúo
y reflexiono
sobre lo que he
hecho
En este momento inicial, también se realizó la consulta bibliográfica, así
como se trabajó respecto a la formulación de las preguntas de investigación
e interrogantes prácticos de la maestra. Sobre la base de este trabajo se
realizó el diseño del primer ciclo de la experimentación, fruto de varias
84
sesiones de trabajo en las que se deliberó acerca de asuntos didácticos y
metodológicas que se concretaron en aspectos tales como:
 La decisión de utilizar proyectos de trabajo (Pozuelos, 2007);
 los contenidos de la materia a trabajar;
 la secuencia didáctica propuesta para este primer ciclo;
 el formato del portafolios y el diseño de las indicaciones para su
utilización;
 los instrumentos de recogida de información que nos servirán
para analizar el transcurso de la experimentación.
Figura 2. Proceso en espiral de la I-A2
Como se puede apreciar en el Figura 2, el esquema en espiral
característico de la i-a, parte de una definición de preguntas e hipótesis que
progresivamente se traducen en el diseño y desarrollo de una propuesta de
trabajo en el aula. Este procedimiento se repite para cada ciclo de la i-a; en
nuestro caso, hasta tres veces, finalizando con la elaboración de un informe
85
de todo el proceso. El carácter circular y progresivo de esta clase de
indagación sobre la práctica forma parte de la naturaleza de los diseño de
investigación de corte cualitativo (Flick, 2007;Pérez Gómez, 1998).
Recogida y Análisis de los Datos
Los instrumentos de recogida de datos quedan plasmados en la Tabla 3. Al
cierre de cada ciclo de experimentación se triangulaban los datos obtenidos
a través de los diferentes instrumentos. A partir de ese análisis se diseñaba
el siguiente ciclo, tratando de salvar las dificultades encontradas y afinando
en la utilización del portafolios para los propósitos perseguidos.
En lo que respecta a los registros de observaciones, la información
obtenida se plasmaba en notas de campo detalladas, que eran desarrolladas
fuera del campo a modo de redacciones completas y amplias. De manera
complementaria utilizamos las ‘notas de campo’ y el ‘cuaderno de
investigación’. Señalar también que ha habido un esfuerzo notable por
considerar la carga de subjetividad que imprimíamos a las observaciones,
con objeto de dotar de mayor fiabilidad al proceso. Para ello registramos
nuestros supuestos antes y durante el mismo, introduciendo en el cuaderno
de investigación comentarios e interpretaciones basados en lo evidenciado y
en lo experimentado (intuiciones, sensaciones). Posteriormente
incorporábamos lo que podemos denominar postconcepciones, que
constituían un material que poder contratar con las pre-concepciones.
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Tabla 3.
Instrumentos de recogida de información2
INSTRUMENTOS DE RECOGIDA DE INFORMACIÓN
TIPO
ACLARACIONES
Registro de observaciones
en el aula
15 (1 hora de duración)
Utilización de una rejilla de observaciones
Registradas en el cuaderno de campo + registro
fotográfico
Notas de campo y
cuaderno de investigación
Complementarios al RO
Detalles, reflexiones, comentario, intuiciones...
Entrevistas a la maestra
Informales (entre-pasillos)
Registradas en el cuaderno de campo
Formales: al final de cada ciclo de
experimentación, como parte del momento de
evaluación del proyecto pasado y diseño del
siguiente + entrevista final
Guión de entrevistas a partir de registros de
observaciones
Entrevistas a estudiantes
2 grupos de 3 estudiantes: diálogo a partir de
sus propios portafolios (presentes durante las
entrevistas)
Guión de entrevista semi-estructurada
Grabación en audio y trascripción
Realizadas al final del tercer ciclo de
experimentación
Análisis de los portafolios
de lo estudiantes
-
Diario de la maestra
-
En lo referido a las entrevistas con los estudiantes se realizaron al final
del proceso, con un doble propósito: (i) evaluar el tercer ciclo de
experimentación y (ii) valorar el total del proceso. También con la maestra
realizamos una entrevista final cuyo propósito era el de reflexionar acerca
87
del proceso completo. En términos generales, las entrevistas fueron llevadas
a cabo dentro de un concepto de flexibilidad, dinamismo y apertura.
Nuestra finalidad, ha sido profundizar en el conocimiento de las
concepciones y sentimientos sobre la experimentación del portafolios,
desarrollándolas cuando ya hemos alcanzado cierto rapport durante la fase
de observación. Esto nos ha permitido contrastar la información obtenida a
través de las entrevistas con las de las propias observaciones, ampliando
nuestro conocimiento sobre la realidad estudiada al mismo tiempo que
descubrimos nuevas dimensiones de la misma.
Ya centrándonos en el proceso de análisis de los datos, desarrollamos un
proceso analítico de determinación de vínculos y relaciones, que nos lleva a
establecer categorías o análisis tipológicos bajo proposiciones o
conceptualizaciones. Posteriormente, comenzamos otro proceso consistente
en un ajuste intra e intercategorial, que, finalmente, dará lugar al informe de
investigación, las conclusiones del mismo y las propuestas de mejora.
Hemos trabajado mediante un proceso inductivo-deductivo, y a partir de
nuestras herramientas conceptuales y los propios datos empíricos dentro de
un enfoque progresivo (Pérez Gómez, 1998). Hemos establecido una serie
de tareas u operaciones que constituyen el proceso analítico básico que
hemos llevado a cabo, a saber: a) reducción de datos: b) disposición y
transformaciones de datos; c) obtención de resultados y verificación de
conclusiones.
Principales Hallazgos
- Aprender a trabajar desde la incertidumbre
Pese a que los estudiantes se mostraban conscientes de las distintas tareas a
las que se enfrentaban, en ocasiones se mostraban algo confundidos
respecto de qué trabajos incluir en el portafolios y dónde hacerlo.
A veces nos encontramos perdidos y no sabemos qué tenemos que
meter en la carpeta. (Entrevista estudiantes)
Muchas veces nos surgen dudas a la hora de guardar los trabajos e
intentamos ayudarnos entre nosotros. (Entrevista estudiantes)
88
No sabemos dónde tiene que ir un trabajo y dónde va otro, así que
le tenemos que preguntar a la maestra para que nos ayude.
(Entrevista estudiantes)
Este hecho lo asociamos a la necesidad de afianzar la metodología y al
desarrollo de una mayor autonomía para regular sus aprendizajes. No es
sólo que dudaban respecto de qué incluir y dónde, sino que se mostraban
dependientes de las indicaciones de la maestra. Algo que atribuimos a los
roles a los que están habituados como aprendices pero que, sin embargo,
con el avance de la experimentación disminuía en beneficio de una mayor
autonomía. En este sentido, señalar que la secuencia didáctica se desarrolló
desde una mayor directividad (guías, explicaciones, cuadernillos,
obligatoriedad en los trabajos que incorporar a los portafolios) hacia una
mayor autonomía. En ese paso, la estructura física de los portafolios les
ayudaba a aclararse:
Me gusta tener bonito y bien ordenado mi portafolios. Así me
aclaro más para guardar los trabajos y ver lo que he aprendido.
(Entrevista estudiantes)
Los docentes han de buscar, por tanto, un equilibrio que permita el
aprendizaje autónomo. Los estudiantes sí que dan valor a los cuadernillos
que les facilitaba la maestra, de cara a poder situarse respecto a qué había
que hacer en cada proyecto. Atendiendo a esto, se valoró como un elemento
de gran ayuda el hecho de poder contar con un índice general sobre lo que
iban a realizar, así como con una ficha específica y detallada de tareas en
cada uno de los proyectos:
Menos mal que teníamos el índice y así podíamos saber lo que
teníamos que hacer. Me ha ayudado mucho para no hacerme un lío
con todo. (Entrevista estudiantes)
El que más me ha gustado ha sido el de la banda sonora. Las
normas estaban muy claritas y me lo he pasado muy bien
haciéndolo. (Entrevista estudiantes)
89
- El diseño y desarrollo de los proyectos de trabajo a partir de tareas
integradas
Al adoptar una concepción educativa de las competencias, no hablamos de
entrenamiento en ellas sino de su adquisición y desarrollo como expresión
de un aprendizaje relevante. Algo ligado a los contenidos culturales sobre
los que trabajar (cercanos a sus realidades cotidianas) y al tipo de tareas que
han de abordarse (demandan diferentes tipos de actividad y, por tanto, la
puesta en marcha de distintas competencias).
- Favorecer la implicación de los estudiantes en el diseño curricular
Para ganar en compromiso y responsabilidad, es preciso que los estudiantes
se sientan partícipes de las decisiones que se toman respecto de aquello
sobre lo que van a trabajar; la maestra ha incentivado la participación en
este sentido. Uno de los pilares básicos de todo el proceso de
experimentación del portafolios ha sido la participación activa del
alumnado, haciéndole protagonista de su propio proceso de aprendizaje.
Para ello, era imprescindible que los alumnos se embarcaran en esta
aventura desde el compromiso y la responsabilidad hacia su trabajo; de ahí
que fuese necesario clarificar no sólo en qué consistía la realización de un
portafolios, sino también cuál era su finalidad y qué compromisos requiería
por parte de todos los participantes en el proceso (docente y alumnado).
Con esta finalidad, la docente diseñó un ‘contrato de trabajo’ al inicio del
proceso, en el que aportaron todos los estudiantes y con el que se
comprometieron de forma unánime, decidiendo posteriormente, de forma
democrática, qué tareas podían llevar a cabo:
Al principio del todo hicimos un contrato para saber todos lo que
teníamos que hacer. (Entrevista estudiantes)
Cuando el contrato no se cumplía, lo recordábamos en clase entre
todos y veíamos qué teníamos que hacer. (Entrevista estudiantes)
90
- Avanzar en autonomía y autorregulación como expresiones de una mayor
conciencia sobre qué y cómo se aprende, destacando el carácter
transversal de la competencia de aprender a aprender, que informa y
regula el aprendizaje e impulsa el desarrollo de otras competencias
En nuestro estudio, se pone de manifiesto el hecho de que, a través del
portafolios, se favorece una atención singular a los procesos e itinerarios de
aprendizaje. Esto es, tanto docente como estudiantes van aprendiendo a
identificar y valorar sus enfoques y estrategias de aprendizaje. La toma de
decisiones respecto de qué trabajos incorporar permite a los estudiantes
ganar en capacidad para identificar dificultades y posibilidades. Algo que
les reorienta en sucesivos aprendizajes y que es acompañado por la docente.
A este respecto la autoevaluación resulta un mecanismo formativo eficaz.
- Rol docente
A través de la experimentación del portafolios como estrategia alternativa
de evaluación, la docente se ve impulsada a mantener una atención
constante sobre: (i) los ajustes entre diseño y desarrollo curricular; (ii) los
avances y dificultades de cada estudiantes; (iii) la convivencia y las
dinámicas grupales.
- Una concepción del aprendizaje que pone las relaciones y las emociones
en el centro de los procesos educativos
Perspectiva que se distancia de una concepción técnica de las competencias,
al enfatizar el carácter procesual y relacional de la enseñanza y el
aprendizaje. No desliga las dimensiones del ser humano al enfocar la
educación desde las competencias, sino que expresa su naturaleza holística.
Tal y como hemos podido conocer, no podemos desprender las prácticas
evaluativas de sus implicaciones emocionales, pues toda evaluación implica
emitir una valoración que, para ser acogida como una posibilidad de
aprendizaje, debe darse dentro de una relación de confianza. En este
sentido, fueron muchas las evidencias relacionadas con el trabajo docente
por afianzar los vínculos entre los estudiantes, tanto en un plano de
convivencia como en lo relativo a prácticas de coevaluación.
91
- La evaluación centrada en las producciones de los estudiantes como vía
para el aprendizaje
Por parte de la docente, su implicación en la evaluación del progreso de los
estudiantes a partir de sus producciones, ayudó a comprender mejor qué
hacen sus estudiantes cuando aprenden. Con respecto al alumnado, hemos
analizado que aprende más y mejor cuando participa en la evaluación
negociando con transparencia los criterios y asumiendo el mismo grado de
responsabilidad. Esto se ha producido siempre en un clima en el que el
alumno ha sido escuchado, apreciado, respetado y considerado. Sólo de esta
manera se produce una evaluación como proceso auténtico, en la que, en
nuestro caso, el diálogo ha sido siempre el mejor instrumento para la
negociación.
- El papel de las familias
Es preciso destacar también el cambio de rol de las familias con respecto al
modelo tradicional de evaluación. En el proceso de investigación llevado a
cabo, las familias han formado parte de la vida social del aula, de los
aprendizajes de los estudiantes y, por supuesto, de la evaluación,
entendiéndola como mejora de todo el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje.
- Tensiones con la cultura institucional
La organización académica del currículum disciplinar dificulta y entorpece
el desarrollo de proyectos y tareas integradas, más acorde con el enfoque de
competencias defendido. Como hemos conocido, el hecho de trabajar el
portafolios de forma académicamente compartimentada y en una franja
horaria limitada al tiempo correspondiente a la asignatura de Lengua ha
dificultado el desarrollo de la familia de competencias relacionadas con
“aprender cómo aprender”:
Cuando hacía los ejercicios de inglés, pensaba: ¿Y por qué no meto
esto en mi carpeta de Lengua? Estaría muy bien. (Entrevista
estudiantes)
92
El rollo es que sólo trabajamos con la carpeta en Lengua. Ojalá
pudiéramos hacer una carpeta con todas las asignaturas. (Entrevista
estudiantes)
El tiempo se me pasa volando en Lengua. ¿Por qué no podemos
tener una carpeta en las demás asignaturas? (Entrevista estudiantes)
Además de la propia estructura de horarios y asignaturas, otra dificultad
venía de la mano de la cooperación entre docentes. Pese a contar con el
apoyo institucional (equipo directivo, claustro), el proceso de
experimentación no ha conseguido despertar suficientes alianzas.
Conclusiones
A lo largo del Proyecto de Investigación que soporta este estudio, hemos
tenido la oportunidad de experimentar el Portafolios para la evaluación de
las competencias implicadas en los procesos de aprender cómo aprender;
estrategia sostenida como alternativa a las evaluaciones basadas en pruebas
estandarizadas de evaluación de competencias educativas, tales como:
PISA, Evaluación de Diagnóstico General o Evaluación de Diagnóstico en
Andalucía. Desde esta perspectiva, como se ha expuesto a lo largo del
artículo, la evaluación de aprendizajes de segundo orden, o competencias de
Aprender cómo Aprender (Hargreaves, 2005), requiere que atendamos tanto
a aquellos factores de naturaleza cognitiva como a aquellos otros de
naturaleza afectiva que funcionan como motores de la actividad de los
estudiantes. De acuerdo con esto, y dado que definimos las competencias
como sistemas complejos de reflexión y acción (Pérez Gómez, 2007),
hemos considerado que las mencionadas pruebas estandarizadas resultan
insuficientes para dar cuenta de procesos tan complejos. De ahí que
optásemos por la experimentación del portafolios educativo como estrategia
alternativa de evaluación de competencias.
En la investigación aquí presentada hemos partido de la perspectiva de
la evaluación como aprendizaje (Álvarez, 2003; Santos, 2002, 2010;
Stobart, 2010). El portafolios educativo nos ha permitido desarrollar esta
perspectiva a través de la recopilación de evidencias del aprendizaje del
alumnado, así como de la toma de conciencia (metaconciencia) del proceso
de enseñanza-aprendizaje, la metacognición y el pensamiento reflexivo
tanto del alumnado (que se convierte en el protagonista de todo el proceso)
93
como del profesorado (contribuyendo a su desarrollo profesional). Podemos
concluir, en este sentido, que el portafolios ha favorecido la transformación
de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje en el aula donde se ha desarrollado la
investigación, estimulando una actitud reflexiva e investigadora por parte
de los implicados.
Entre los cambios que han tenido lugar gracias a la experimentación del
portafolios, destacamos los siguientes:
 Se ha favorecido en los estudiante la autonomía en la selección de
evidencias, fomentando el trabajo de toma personal de decisiones
sobre sus itinerario formativos.
 Se ha incentivado el trabajo cooperativo, concretamente respecto a
tareas de coevaluación.
 Pese a las dificultades, se ha buscado resquebrajar las barreras
disciplinares a la hora de enfocar los temas de estudio, empleando
para ello estrategias como los proyectos de investigación.
 Se ha logrado “saltar los muros de la escuela”, recogiendo
problemáticas reales y contando con un papel activo y
verdaderamente involucrado de las familias.
 Se ha potenciado el ajuste a las necesidades, posibilidades y deseos
de aprendizaje de cada estudiante, proponiendo tareas y materiales
de apoyo que tomen en cuenta las diferentes singularidades.
Como se ha visto, los cambios introducidos y los efectos en la vida del
aula, no se reducen a aspectos metodológicos y teóricos respecto del
aprendizaje, sino que trascienden a lo afectivo y a lo relacional: la
confianza, la seguridad, la autoestima, la motivación, la responsabilidad, la
autonomía, etc., dimensiones de la práctica reconocidas como
fundamentales durante los procesos educativos. Esto nos lleva a sostener
que el plano didáctico cobra sentido y relevancia en la medida en que se
integra emocional y vivencialmente, tanto para los estudiantes como para
los docentes.
Por otra parte, es preciso señalar en qué aspectos consideramos que el
portafolios supera a las pruebas estandarizadas de cara a la evaluación de
competencias:
 Permite a los docentes una retroalimentación “en tiempo real”,
frente al servicio que las pruebas estandarizadas de evaluación
prestan en tanto que evaluaciones externas.
94

Ofrece evaluaciones integradas a partir de problemáticas y
experiencias significativas para los estudiantes, resultando más
eficaces para el aprendizaje que el modelo de situaciones-problema
propuestas por las pruebas estandarizadas, como hemos identificado
en otros trabajos (Gallardo, Mayorga & Sierra, 2013). Este tipo de
tareas integradas y de proyectos de trabajo, apoyan una visión más
amplia del aprendizaje (coherente con la concepción de
competencia como saber complejo que hemos defendido en el
artículo) y se sostienen en una concepción más amplia del
conocimiento (Beane, 2005).
 Acerca la enseñanza a propósitos educativos (Pérez Gómez, 1998),
lejos de pretensiones instructivas sobre las que descansa a menudo
una formación basada en el entrenamiento en competencias,
favoreciendo con ello:
 Una concepción inclusiva de los diferentes estilos de
aprendizaje
 Una concepción plural del conocimiento procedente de
diferentes campos del saber
 Una evaluación y una enseñanza más preocupada por los
estudiantes que por las pruebas.
En definitiva, consideramos que experiencias como la desarrollada no
deberían entenderse como una tarea aislada en la cultura institucional del
centro educativo, sino que debería trascender las asignaturas y convertirse
en un proyecto educativo integral, más coherente con el enfoque de
competencias que defendemos. Como fruto de este trabajo y gracias a la
colaboración de todos los implicados llegamos a una conclusión esencial: la
enorme profusión del portafolios. Lo que nos indica que este camino no
tiene retorno en el valor de la educación, animando a no caer en la
desmoralización y a recuperar el convencimiento de que el cambio es
posible desde la participación, desde el trabajo cooperativo, desde las
experiencias en primera persona, desde lo afectivo, desde la formación
docente, desde el diálogo y desde el camino de los sueños.
Agradecimientos
Ministerio de Educación-Proyecto I+D: SEJ 2007-66967
95
Notas
1
Proyecto I+D: “La Evaluación Educativa de los Aprendizajes de Segundo Orden, Aprender
cómo Aprender, Análisis de Proyectos Internacionales y Experimentación de Estrategias
Alternativas” (ref.: SEJ-2007-66967), financiado por el Ministerio de Educación (España).
Proyecto desarrollado por el grupo de investigación de la Universidad de Málaga,
“Evaluación e Investigación Educativa en Andalucía”, dirigido por el profesor Ángel I.
Pérez Gómez.
2
Fuente: Elaboración propia.
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Monsalud Gallardo Gil is Associate Professor in the Department of
Teaching and School Organization at Universidad de Málaga, España.
ORCID id: 0000-0003-4068-2133
J. Eduardo Sierra Nieto is Postdoctroal Researcher in the Department of
ORCID id: 0000-0002-9925-1656
Ana Domínguez Ramos is Associate Professor in the Department of
ORCID id: 0000-0001-5408-4981
Contact Address: Grupo de Investigación “Innovación y Evaluación
Educativa Andaluza (HUM-311), Seminario 2.15P. Facultad de Ciencias de
la Educación, Universidad de Málaga, Bulevar Louis Pasteur, 25. Campus
Teatinos CP: 29071, Málaga (Spain). Email: [email protected]
Emerging Critical Scholarship in Education: Navigating the
Doctoral Journey
Suyapa Martínez Scott1
1) Departamento de Pedagogia, Universidad de Valladolid, Spain.
Date of publication: February 28th, 2015
Edition period: February 2015 - June 2015
To cite this article: Martínez Scott, S. (2014). Emerging Critical Scholarship
in Education: Navigating the Doctoral Journey [Book Review]. Qualitative
Research in Education, 4(1) 102-104. doi: 10.4771/qre.2015.58
Review
Rath, J., & Mutch, C. (Eds.) (2014). Emerging Critical Scholarship in
Education: Navigating the Doctoral Journey. Newcastel Upon Tyne:
Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN: 978-1-4438-5702-4
This book is a valuable document for all those starting or already going into
the process of completing their own doctoral thesis. While this is an
exciting path, it is even more exciting if we do it from a critical point of
view in education research. As a result, the stories in the first-person
appearing in this paper are so valuable that make the book a “must read”.
The volume has four parts, preceded by a prologue that brilliantly displays
the contents of the twenty one chapters. Each part is made of four chapters
written by doctoral candidates, and there is one chapter, written by an
acclaimed doctor, where the contributions from previous chapters are
discussed.
The first part highlights exploring the right methodology in a qualitative
review to perform the research process. All its chapters have in common
that they talk about the beginning of the doctoral journey (PhD journey),
placing the researcher in the center of the process honestly. Three of the
chapters are related to art. The one written by Fitzpatrick, presents the
search for the appropriate research methodology in the form of an
imaginary interview with Nobel Prize Steinbeck, and uses poetry. The other
two, written by Luton and Coleman, talk about a third paradigm in research.
They claim that both numbers and letters are limited, and bring art as an
alternative to collect, analyze and present data. Luton uses the performance
ethnodrama to generate data, and Coleman uses the dance as a metaphor to
describe the process of preparing a doctoral thesis. Perhaps, the chapter
presented by Manning is the one closest to a traditional research, but is no
2015 Hipatia Press
ISSN: 2014-6418
DOI: 10.4471/qre.2015.58
103
less interesting as it uses Bacchi’s work "What's the Problem Represented
to be" (WPR) in her research. In the fifth chapter, Dr. O'Connor comments
earlier chapters providing his own experience.
The chapters in the second part focus on the notion of problematization,
vital to all theorizing process. As Dale says in the last chapter, three of them
address the matters of epistemology, and that of Tatebe, works with more
ontological assumptions. Alex Li’s and Mulya Wijaya’s chapters describe
the beginning of the doctoral journey and make an excellent dissertation on
the role of theory within it. Mulya Wijaya focuses on the relationship
between Christianity and sexuality in Indonesian society, while Alex Li’s
paper focuses on how diasporic Chinese young people turn into sexual
subjects in New Zealand. The contribution of Samu has to do with the
conditions of knowledge production, where these doctoral theses are
shaped. Tatebe's paper is the most different contribution, as she gets closer
to ontological suppositions rather than to epistemological ones, and it´s
closer to the tradition of sociology of education policy.
The third part explores the ethics of research. In the contributions of
these chapters, true ethical issues from the perspective of contingencies that
arise along the path of the thesis are shown. Contributions from Tesar and
Kiani have in common difficulties encountered in data collection due
mainly to the gatekeepers. Fortunately, in their favor, they have grown in
countries where they perform data collection they could to turn to, along
with their inventiveness and flexibility, so they could seek ways to move
forward. Drake encountered difficult to study the educational policies she
wanted in her home country, as they were not implemented at the center
chosen to conduct the research, a fact that became a new study in itself. As
Small explains in the last chapter of this part, Cobb's research takes place in
a developing country which aims to study the change of political climate in
the country. The need to affiliate with a government agency and to share the
data extracted with them is revealed as a big problem, since people
involved in the investigation may be at risk of persecution.
The fourth and final part of this work deals with the practice. Taking as
reference the words of Grant in the final chapter, the contributions of the
four authors of this part suggest the necessity to consider whether we are
thinking about reflective of practice, or reflective for practice, and the
importance of doing it both ways. Schoone’s contribution discusses the
complexity of thinking about educational practice outside the current
104
Martínez Scott – Emerging Critical Scholarship [Book Review]
mainstream education, and experiments with alternative ways of
interpreting data through poetry. Mullen talks about the feeling of
insecurity in using research methods where participants have more
experience than the researcher herself in its implementation. Burfod's paper
starts talking about the practical difficulty of being an academic writer to
delve into the feelings felt by all doctoral candidates and how they are
involved in the process of writing the thesis. Davison explores her position
as teacher-researcher of her own practice using the funnel as a metaphor.
Suyapa Martínez Scott
Universidad de Valladolid
[email protected]
List of Reviewrs
th
Edition period: February 2015 - June 2015
To cite this article: (2014). List of Reviewers. Qualitative Research in
Education, 3(1), 105. doi: 10.4471/qre.2015.59
List of Reviewers
The Qualitative Research in Education journal thanks 2014 reviewers for
their inestimable contribution to raise the quality standart of the journal.
The journal wishes to convey special thanks to:
José J. Barba
Editor
Baker, Courtney N.
Bonell, Lars
Carduzzi, Rozana
Carter-Thuillier, Bastian
Casado Berrocal, Óscar
Cordoba Jiménez, José María
Cortés González, Pablo
Diéz-Palomar, Javier
Domínguez Hernández, Fernando
Eliason, Michele J.
Fernández Muñón, Ricardo
Fernández-Rio, Francisco Javier
Gea Sánchez, Montserrat
González Calvo, Gustavo
Guzmán-Valenzuela, Carolina
Hernando Garijo, Alejandra
Hortigüela Alcalá, David
James, Fiona
Keane, Elaine
Kuntz, Aaron
Learreta Ramos, Begoña
López-Pastor, Víctor M.
2015 Hipatia Press
ISSN: 2014-6418
DOI: 10.4471/qre.2015.57
Marban Prieto, José María
Martín Dominguez, Jorge
Martínez Scott, Suyapa
Miranda, Estela
Mishra Tarc, Aparna Rita
Monreal Guerrero, Inés
Moreno Doña, Alberto
Pintor Diaz, Patricia
Pérez Pueyo, Ángel
Perhamus, Lisa
Pérez Curiel, Ana
Prieto Flores, María Eugenia
Puertas Yañez, Amaya
Randall, Carla E.
Rodriguez Fernandez-Cuevas, Andrea
Rodriguez Hoyos, Carlos
Salazar Pérez, Michelle
Sánchez Santamaría, José
Tilley-Lubbs, Gresilda
Torrego Egido, Luis
Torrego González, Alba
Vallejo Ruiz, Mónica

Qualitative Research in Education

Transcripción

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Mi deseo es que los estudiantes de segundo grado se preparen

“GANARSE EL RESPETO”

Nuestra misión The School Mission