Introduction

This Introduction prepares you by outlining the main themes presented in the thesis. A short account of these is provided further down the page. You can access the full written version by downloading the document. The main themes are:

Background to my research and formulating the research question
Using ICT as a form of communicative action
The need to identify my standards of judgement
My claim to knowledge
A living form of theorising
Significance of my research
My contribution to the knowledge base of educational enquiry
Forms of the thesis

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Background to my research and formulating the research question

I work in two capacities for two separate organisations. One context is that of teacher and information and communications technologies (ICT) coordinator in a large secondary school for boys in north Dublin. The second is as an ICT consultant for a national awarding body, the National Council for Vocational Awards (NCVA). The two positions share some characteristics and have other characteristics which are different. In both locations ICT form the overall focus for my work. While teaching is the primary focus within school, administration is the primary focus in the awarding body. As the similarities and differences between the two organisations are an important part of this work I will address these here. From a personal point of view a key similarity between my work in both contexts is that my work is driven by my own personal values base.

While ICT work can often be seen in impersonal, mechanistic terms, I have personal values which are person-centred. I regard the uniqueness of the individual as important in my work. Because of this I place a value on the experience of democracy in my work and life and I see a need for an approach to practice that is collaborative in nature. However it is my day-to-day experience that these values are frequently denied in my practice.

Arendt’s conception of natality resonates with my own values around the uniqueness of individuals and her conception of plurality resonates with my desire to value diversity. Taking Arendt’s analysis as my ‘espoused theory’, how can this form the basis of my ‘theory of action’? My research questions begin to take the form: Are there ways that I could work with students, whom I otherwise isolate and marginalise, that would recognise their natality and plurality? Are there ways that I could work with colleagues in NCVA that would recognise the unique contributions that they have to make and enable them to enable others to do the same?

Using ICT as a form of communicative action

In Arendt’s (1958: 178-9) formulation, the actor’s action becomes relevant through the spoken word. It is through the spoken word that actors identify themselves as actors and announce what they do, have done and intend to do. As I engage with the questions in this thesis I will engage in a dialogical form, using the spoken word, both real and virtual, to offer my labour, work and action to public critique. In doing this I am being political because ‘…to be political means that everything is decided through words and persuasion…’ (Arendt 1958: 26). The actions communicated in this thesis, whether my own or those of my students or colleagues, are frequently offered dialogically. Within the thesis I am taking several steps to support a dialogic approach to my research. My approach to writing this thesis is dialogic in nature. I am endeavouring to involve the reader in this thesis by writing for the reader and supporting the reader in walking through this thesis with me. Through the online forum in the multimedia version of the thesis readers can and have communicated their thoughts and ideas to me and to other readers. Throughout the writing of the thesis I have communicated the ideas of the thesis in a wide range of fora including presentations within my school and at educational conferences. By these means I am engaging dialogically with the reader and the public and offering my claims to public critique.

The process of dialogue in itself can be seen in terms of ‘communicative action’ (Habermas 1975). The thesis shows that my practice has moved from the coercive, marginalising, authoritarian approach described above to a practice where individuals’ voices are heard in dialogic processes of deciding future plans, planning activities and carrying them out. In school this has been achieved through the implementation of a range of projects including the Setanta project and in NCVA through the Action Learning Group. I will pursue the idea of communicative action further in Chapter 1 and detail the work of these projects in Chapter 5.

The need to identify my standards of judgement

It is acknowledged that practitioner action research has much to offer in terms of informing good practice but its capacity to generate theory is challenged by questions of what counts as quality and what standards of judgement can be used in assessing quality (Furlong and Oancea 2005). There have been calls on practitioner researchers to do serious work on identifying their own criteria and standards of judgement ‘to show that they know what quality means in action research and that they are capable of articulating those standards and producing theories that stand the test of the standards in achieving originality, significance and rigour’ (Whitehead and McNiff 2006: 2). Later in the thesis I respond to this call by offering criteria that can be used to assess the validity of my claims to knowledge. My criteria are based on the idea of transforming my ontological values into living standards of judgement (Whitehead and McNiff 2006: 84; Whitehead 2005). I will show the validity of my claim to know by showing the standards of judgement used in realising that claim. I ground my claim to know in personal knowledge, my own sense that what I am doing seems right. My personal knowledge will be tested against the evidential base of the thesis that shows the realisation of my values in practice as well as the criteria for social validation (Habermas 1987). These criteria include establishing the comprehensibility, the truthfulness, sincerity and appropriateness of the account of my work (Habermas 1987). I will assess the validity of my claim to knowledge through the achievement of my values in my practice. In Chapter 5 I will show the achievement of my values of justice, natality and plurality in my practice. I will explain how I transform my values into living standards of judgement in Chapter 6.

My claim to knowledge

The thesis is an account of the development of my own living theory of practice. While my practice is about contributing to a just and caring society, my living theory of practice is about how I have encouraged myself and others to work in solidarity to exercise our agency through communicative action (Habermas 1975). I have made brief reference above to some of my experiences within my practice in school and as ICT consultant to the national awarding body, NCVA. Over a period of time I have changed my practice in both institutions from one that was authoritarian, controlling and coercive to a practice that is relational, co-operative and enabling. This has been accomplished through a process of communicative action, in many cases using ICT as a medium. The process of achieving this change in my practice forms the basis of my original claim to know my practice.
My learning has been stimulated by my experience of dissonance when my values are not being realised in my practice. My research has involved a process of looking for ways to bring my practice into line with my values. In the evidence base that is presented in more detail later you will find one of my students indicating that his learning had improved as a result of a web design project. But the web design project had grown out my learning that project work enabled students to take control of their own learning. Taking control of your own learning is a powerful encouragement to learn. I have come to understand that knowledge is something that we may create together. I create knowledge as I work with other people who are creating their own knowledge. My claim in the thesis is that I know some of the ways that I learn. The evidence of my learning can be seen in the change in my practice. My early practice was as a didactic, controlling, traditional teacher. My later practice shows me involved as a collaborative co-learner.

A living form of theorising

Whitehead (1989) has developed the idea of ‘living theories’. He sees practice as a form of real-life theorising and calls the theories developed in this way ‘living theories of practice’. I have come to appreciate the need for new models to reconceptualise social processes and the education of social formations (Whitehead 2003b; 2003d; 2004). In my work as an educator and as an administrator I have explored these issues and found ways of understanding my teaching and administration as educational practices. This work supports Boyer’s (1990) concept of the New Scholarship by developing a theory grounded in my own practice and the practice of colleagues and supports Schön’s (1995: 27) development of Boyer’s ideas by contributing to an epistemology which is relational and inclusive in nature and therefore challenges the norms of technical rationality. I am practising Boyer’s scholarship of integration by drawing on work from different contexts, my school context and administrative context, and bringing them together in a single integrated theory of practice.

Significance of my research

Within the thesis I am contributing to a new scholarship of educational enquiry (Whitehead 1999). Whitehead’s work is part of an evolution of ideas started by Boyer (1990) when he developed the idea of a new scholarship of teaching. Schön (1995) advanced this idea by arguing for the need for a new epistemology for the new scholarship of teaching. Whitehead (1999) further advanced this with the idea of a new scholarship of educational enquiry. I see my contribution to a new scholarship of educational enquiry in the sense that I am involved in developing my own living educational theory. I am putting that theory to the test in my own practice and offering it to public scrutiny. By offering my work to public scrutiny in the thesis, on the Internet and elsewhere, I am contributing to a knowledge base to show how I have developed my personal theory of education. My contribution to the knowledge base is presented in the form of a multimedia thesis and in that way I show how I am transforming propositional theory into a living form of theory.

My contribution to the knowledge base of educational enquiry

The main focus of my research is in examining my educational influence and transforming my embodied knowledge into explicit knowledge and from explicit knowledge into public knowledge (Varela et al. 1993). In making my embodied knowledge public I am responding to Snow’s (2001: 3) call to systematise personal knowledge so that it will be become publicly accessible and contribute to the knowledge base of teaching. In my thesis I show this process in action and explain its significance. In particular I aim to show my educational influence in the learning of others while I support them as students, administrators and colleagues. I explain how ICT have exhibited a transformational quality in supporting my own learning and the learning of colleagues. I explain how my educational knowledge has developed through my practice, as I have engaged colleagues and students in enquiries into their own learning as they ask and research the question: how can I improve what I do? The production of the multimedia version of this thesis at www.ictaspoliticalaction.com is part of the process of systematising my personal knowledge and making it public. The forum facility on the web site invites public critique of the thesis and supports a collaborative approach to the building of the knowledge base of teaching.

Forms of the thesis

An important part of this work has been evidence of the impact of change brought about by my initiatives through the medium of the technology. I am making the case that technology has a transformational quality within classrooms and in other places of work. I go beyond that by using technology to transform the doctoral thesis from a purely linguistic form to a living form which enfolds (Bohm 1992) the linguistic within it. Eisner (1997) has warned that using alternative forms of data representation is not without promise and perils. The promise and perils may be even greater in attempting an alternative representation of the thesis. Nonetheless the multimedia thesis, at www.ictaspoliticalaction.com, addresses one of Eisner’s principal reservations about alternative forms: the constraints imposed by our publication system on material that does not take printed form. The multimedia thesis will offer a web based format that offers the promise of clearer representation and wider dissemination than the printed form.

ICT as Political Action

Themes

Issues

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