The action in action research for inclusion - CiteSeerX

1 downloads 0 Views 71KB Size Report
and LEA in a collaborative action research network focused on inclusion, which .... Network which included school-to-school linking was strongly promoted by some of the LEA staff involved, in ..... notice board refers to it, newsletters don't mention it. ..... friends to colleagues in the host school, with a focus on generating data ...
The action in action research for inclusion: intention, iteration and impact Phase I Network: Understanding and Developing Inclusive Practices in Schools

Andrew Howes, Mel Ainscow, Peter Farrell and Jo Frankham University of Manchester, Faculty of Education Educational Support and Inclusion

Paper presented at the ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme Conference Huntingdon, 23-34 September, 2002

Educational Support and Inclusion Faculty of Education, University of Manchester Oxford Rd, Manchester, M13 9PL 0161 2753503

Introduction This is a paper about people, actions and research. It explores the relationship between schools, university and LEA in a collaborative action research network focused on inclusion, which those guiding the network take to be a concern with overcoming barriers to learning and participation in schools. Some of the action research that has taken place in network schools is explored, with the focus on the actions taken, and the context and consequences of these actions. In this way, some of the institutional, social and conceptual influences on the development of more inclusive schools are identified. The network, 'Understanding and Developing Inclusive Practices in Schools' is one of four set up as the first phase of the Economic and Social Research Council's Teaching and Learning Research Programme. It involves teachers and headteachers in six secondary and nineteen primary schools, staff in three Local Education Authorities (LEAs), and teams of researchers in three higher education institutions. Its work is guided by four questions: What are the barriers to participation and learning experienced by students? What practices can help to overcome these barriers? To what extent do such practices facilitate improved learning outcomes? How can such practices be encouraged and sustained within LEAs and schools? The LEAs were invited to participate in the Network on the basis of existing working relationships with one of the universities. Schools volunteered for the Network on the invitation of LEA staff, in some cases being urged to do so. In the LEA from which the data for this paper is drawn, the 'inclusion network' was described to schools as an opportunity to develop teaching and learning in partnership with the LEA and additional support of the university. The key concept of the barrier to participation and learning is embedded in a document sent to all schools in England and Wales in the year 2000, the Index for Inclusion (Booth & Ainscow, 2000), which offers a series of questions for the identification of barriers in the areas of policy, practice and culture. Inclusion is concerned not just with adapting schools to meet the special educational needs that some children are perceived to have, but with the capacity of schools to respond to the diversity of students in all possible dimensions in such a way that all marginalised students are able to participate more fully and learn more effectively. Inclusion is not a programme for action; it is more like a critical perspective on the school. The effectiveness of any action in developing a more inclusive school can only be determined by viewing the outcomes in a particular context from that perspective. All accounts of action research clean up what is a ‘messy’, reflexive reality (Smyth & Shacklock, 1998) in order to present an intelligible version of what happened between partners whose expectations and interpretations of events differ in many ways. The same is true in this paper, by focusing on actions and the role of actions as part of the reality of collaborative action research. An action research orientation at the level of the Network The Network was set up to promote a particular kind of school development: deep-rooted, value-related, institutional, heading in a direction at least tangential if not opposite to what is still perceived to be the government agenda for raising attainment. Behind the origins of the Network lay an assumption that the development of inclusive schools requires deep change, involving personal values, dispositions and attitudes as well as changes in practice. The social dimension of such change is very significant, and this is part of the reason for adopting action research as an approach. Action research entails social participation, so that barriers related to social interactions are addressed within the research process. In proposing and setting up the Network, university staff aimed to create a context in which school development would take place through the active involvement of schools in research. The role of the university staff was to assist the research process in school, and in particular to foster the critical edge that is sometimes lacking in practitioner research. Reason and Bradbury (2001) define three modes of action research: ‘First-person research practice brings inquiry into more and more of our moments of action – not as outside researchers but in the whole range of everyday activities…. Second-person inquiry starts with interpersonal dialogue and includes the development of communities of inquiry and learning organisations…. Third-person research/practice aims to extend these relatively small-scale projects so that … they are also defined as “political events”…the most compelling and enduring kind of action research will engage all three strategies’ (Reason and Bradbury, 2001 p.xxvi). Within the Network, there was to be relatively little focus on the individual teacher reflecting systematically on his or her own practice, and 2

relatively more on second- and third-person research. Our aspiration is towards ‘action research which might reasonably be labelled critical or emancipatory…. [aiming at] assisting practitioners to arrive at a critique of their social or educational work and work settings…. It recognises that we may want to improve our selfunderstandings, but also that our self-understandings may be shaped by collective misunderstandings about the nature and consequences of what we do’ (Kemmis, 2001 p.92) By seeking the active involvement of LEAs as well as schools, it was hoped that the Network would build on, rather than compete with, LEAs’ ongoing school development work. Two advantages of such an approach were identified; firstly that the schools would have access to more resources to assist with the action research process, and secondly that the participation of LEA officers in development work focusing on school-level barriers to participation and learning would strengthen their capacity to support inclusive development. One measure of the reality of partnership is the balance of control over activities and resources that exists between partners, so that their particular intentions can be realised. Whilst control of financial resources in the Network has remained with the universities, the Network structures that evolved through negotiations between school, LEA and university staff were not planned or anticipated by the universities. The notion of fostering direct contact between schools emerged early on. Within the discourse of changing LEA roles at the start of the Network was the idea that direct links between schools may be a more effective structure for school development than the relatively paternalistic relationship with LEA officers. The need to create a Network which included school-to-school linking was strongly promoted by some of the LEA staff involved, in particular those who had recent headship experience. To an extent the Network has become a context for testing the effectiveness of forms of school-to-school contact in promoting inclusive school development. In meetings between staff from the three universities and LEAs, additional financial resources were allocated by LEAs to facilitate the involvement of teachers in a series of national seminars. An additional expectation of these seminars was that sustaining the active participation of schools in the project would be more likely if the Network was experienced through social events that would be, according to one LEA school improvement officer, like ‘milestones’ on the path of development. The national seminars have come to hold different meanings for different partners. For the universities and LEAs, they have become one means of exerting an element of control on the direction of development in schools. The justification for such manipulation is the need to build coherence in a Network which is never far from the edge of fragmentation, given the range of levels of investment in it. By contrast, in school accounts of participation in the Network, national seminars have figured strongly as opportunities for visiting schools in other authorities in order to make direct contact of a kind which is seen to be all too rare: ‘I thoroughly enjoyed [the seminars], because we visited schools. If you can take just one thing away that you think will work… From the school we visited we've been able to implement something straight away that we saw there. We're so insular, we never get into other people's schools, it's terrible… it was wonderful to attend other schools and to listen to other people talking about their situations. We don't do enough of it' (headteacher, 4/3/02). Facilitating inclusive development through an action research orientation has proved to be an iterative process, for several reasons. Firstly, inclusive development is seen to demand self-reflective and self-critical practice, and the autonomy of school staff to address particular barriers seems an essential step towards such practice, yet the initial directions taken by some schools were not inclusive in orientation. School autonomy won out over manipulation by outsiders, for as outsiders we considered the habits of institutional introspection that we could not mandate more valuable than the smooth initial alignment in the direction of inclusion. In any case, autonomy was a highly-prized feature of the Network for headteachers working in a prevailing climate of initiatives designed by distant policy makers. A typical comment from one headteacher to her staff was that 'it really is the school that is leading this, not the university or anyone else' (11/10/00). This contrasts with earlier experiences of researchers facilitating the engagement of teachers in action research: ‘When we asked groups of … teachers to decide on which issue to explore in their research there were various forms of consternation such as “we thought you would tell us what we would research”’ (Adelman, 1993 p.18). There was a general appetite for control over the focus of development in Network schools. A second reason why development has proved necessarily iterative is that the meaning of inclusion depends on many features of context, and a shared meaning can only develop through shared experience. In any real school, action to address perceived barriers to learning and participation has to begin without such shared 3

meaning. Schools do not simply 'identify starting points' and have 'initial questions'; such phrases gloss over necessary social processes of conflict and negotiation. The process of development is one of taking action to overcome barriers to participation in the school, learning about the intended and unintended effects of those actions and simultaneously about the meaning of those effects in relation to a developing framework of inclusive values. In discussing how action research has taken shape over the two years since schools’ involvement began, the rest of this paper focuses on the contexts, patterns and consequences of action taken in schools. Seen as part of a social process, data is not important for its own sake, but as an artefact produced by and acting on the changes taking place in the school system. This gives rise to a notion of data as interruption, and a notion of data facilitating the access of outsider researchers into the contradictions and uncomfortable places in a school community. But the first question was where to start. Establishing starting points Within the Network as a whole, and certainly in the LEA which is the context of the examples in this paper, a direct result of the autonomous orientation described above was that starting points varied enormously. The introductory Network day in June 2000 was called 'Starting Points', and school teams were invited to discuss and select priorities for action to overcome barriers to learning and participation from a pile of indicators taken from the Index for Inclusion (Booth & Ainscow, 2000). This activity comprised both an opportunity for reconceptualising inclusion and a chance for initial decisions about the starting point for action in each school. Most staff found this a helpful exercise: 'I think the ray of light that came was when we went through the Index. That was like a ray of light for me. Most people look at this exclusion, behaviour, race, gender. But ... the penny really dropped for me then, and as the leader / manager of the school, it did raise my awareness of how we can exclude some groups' (4/03/02). For others, the analysis of areas for change in terms of policy, practice and culture was very meaningful: ‘I don't think I'd thought about it as the policies, practices, cultures. I don't think I'd actually split it up into those areas, inclusion was all one big mass, so that everybody's included in everything. But when you split it down into policies, practices cultures, it becomes more specific that everything backs up everything else… We might believe one thing but actually act in a different way… And one practice that might not look inclusive, can be inclusive if it's supporting the overall aim of inclusion’ (30/1/02). But the resulting outlines for action research suggest that the assumption about the far-reaching nature of inclusive development was not initially shared by all staff in schools. For example, the primary aim of the intended action in one school was to improve the teaching of spelling such that all children learn to spell better. In another school, it was to improve the educational inclusion of a particular group of young children. In a third, the intention was to learn about and then act on the changes necessary in teaching, educational resources and school culture such that boys would achieve more. One relevant feature of the context that becomes clear from these examples of starting points is that the network includes a diverse set of schools. This diversity extends to their socio-economic and ethnic location, their relationship to the local community, and the regard in which they are held by each other. In each school, the core teams associated with the Network saw inclusion in different ways, and they fitted these different conceptions into their initial plans. The understanding of inclusion held by many practitioners appears vague and slippery, so that it sometimes overlaps with other agendas, reinforced by the lack of time that teachers have for gaining clarity over priorities (4/03/02). In particular, an emphasis on raising attainment sometimes obscures wider concerns, and this is reinforced in various ways even in relation to school plans in relation to the Network, such as where an LEA officer told a headteacher: 'The impact on learning, within numeracy, literacy.. is at the heart of what you are doing. That is not an add-on at all. That is absolutely crucial to achievement across the board' (28/01/02). An interchange in a staff meeting during a discussion of the Network involvement showed how this focus on attainment can also be reinforced and legitimated by parents: 'The headteacher began the meeting with a quote about "schools as they might become". At one point the Year 6 teacher outlined a theory that children in Year 6 had nothing to aim for apart from SATS, and that this was not particularly important to them… The librarian immediately gave a counter example of her own daughter who last year had been working with a group of girls towards SATS in a very determined way (fieldnotes, 27/11/00). In other schools, inclusion is associated with equal access to achievement in the curriculum: The spelling that you're doing. What's that got to do with inclusion? The starting point for us was how to include those 4

children who are non-catchers. The children who are non-spellers... And it's not an EAL issue especially. It's that we are not giving any provision for the children who are non-natural catchers. No that's fine. How would you construe inclusion? Access for all, really. Equal opportunity for everybody’ (interview with teacher, 4/3/02). Such narrowly operationalised definitions of inclusion are associated with constraints on the generation of data, so that only outcome data is seen to be relevant. 'We got a bit into classroom observations, and I think that was a bit of a tangent really, if I'm honest' (headteacher, 4/3/02). In all of the Network schools, there are staff who do not use the notion of inclusion to interrogate existing practices or forthcoming changes. After two years, some teachers interviewed appeared to know nothing of the Network, their priorities dominated by the standards agenda: 'My biggest concern with this class, which is where I have to start, is with very low standards. Complete lack of attention... inability to tell them a story and them even remember one character. Despite standing up and sitting down... I really feel it's hard to motivate those children… They're lacking pride. The homework has come back appalling. On scraps of torn out paper, scrawled in crayon... A colleague of mine used to say "Junior One and Two, are the bee's knees for teaching...they are like little sponges all ready to take it in". Well, they're very soggy sponges by the time they get to you' (28/01/02). These examples are reminders that agreeing on a starting point and assigning a priority to inclusive practice are negotiated processes which go on through conversations and activities within a school. University staff have been present in some of these, so that it has been possible to observe the micropolitics of the school directly shaping the engagement with inclusion: In one staff meeting, ‘we got into a discussion about possible starting points. One of the longer-standing staff focused on play as an area where a big difference could be made to learning, without directly addressing processes in the classroom. Did anyone really believe that? It seemed that there was some defensiveness with regard to possible intrusion in the classroom’ (fieldnotes on staff meeting, 8.6.00). During the first year of the Network in this school, a team of teachers and teaching assistants carefully investigated behaviour on the playground, but without venturing into other teachers’ classrooms or any discussion of the connections with classroom processes. In secondary schools in particular, there has been a difficulty in identifying a meaningful and realistic starting point for action. In Autumn 2000 two university staff became involved in what the Head of one secondary school saw as her strategy for harnessing the enthusiasm for change of the more dynamic staff: the formation of 'school improvement teams'. Prior to this point, our involvement had been limited to observations of lessons and in the school generally, and to interviews with the Headteacher. The school improvement team for teaching and learning met regularly throughout the year. With the involvement of the university staff, discussions were focused around video recordings made of lessons taught by members of the group, and transcripts of interviews with students. The meetings were well received by those who took part and led to interesting discussions, but were generally rather hurried. They were not attended by any senior members of staff, reflecting the lack of integration into a wider process of school development. University staff asked a series of questions about the developments in the school: ‘How do we link the activities of the group to other structures and processes in the school? … How do we develop a research agenda that can hold the initiative together? At present the process tends to be focused on procedures, with individual teachers constructing their own individual areas of focus… How do we bring a more critical dimension to the process?’ There were some promising discussions with the senior management team over these questions, but more pressing issues meant that they were left unresolved. The focus of university input shifted as the management of the school tried out a series of different strategies for change. The most visible initiatives for change in the school were those that came with additional resources, mainly associated with a new 'miniEAZ' that was centred around the school. The focus of these initiatives included the teaching of English and Maths, and a provision aimed at 'Gifted and Talented' students in the school, and university staff became involved in building some coherence between these initiatives. But the Network still fails to command a high priority from school staff. Part of the reason may be that the balance of primary and secondary schools in the Network is wrong, and has influenced its value to the secondary schools involved. Secondary school teachers have commented on the lack of secondary colleagues at the Network events they have attended, and it may be that secondary teachers see few connections with their experience when the discourse is dominated by examples from primary schools. Many of the case study accounts that have been written about schools’ involvement in the Network reflect on a struggle to formulate and work on an agenda that will evoke commitment on the part of staff, make sense to the senior leadership team in relation to school priorities, and effectively address barriers to participation and learning. In the face of an extensive list of externally-sponsored initiatives, involvement the Network 5

sometimes becomes just one more demand on the capacity of teachers and headteachers to cope with change. Some schools have kept their involvement in the Network to a minimum. The surprise is that so many schools have committed resources to Network involvement and risked the uncomfortable uncertainties of critical engagement. Ownership, action and values The changes required for inclusive development are personal, not simply technical. Ownership of such an agenda demands individual investment. Headteachers, as well as teachers, invest a great deal of themselves in their work (Woods, 1996). One headteacher referred to critical reflection on school practices as an ‘introspection process’, the words indicating the extent to which she perceives the school as an extension of her self. The extent of ownership felt by headteachers became evident when the university team invited a group of LEA staff to come to a Network meeting halfway through the project, informing the headteachers but without seeking their agreement. Many headteachers were angry at what they perceived to be an unwarranted intrusion into their Network. Actions are selected and carried out in the context of many imperatives within a lived, social life. The selection of action is based on the norms and values of the community and the individual, and on the perceived and actual constraints imposed by the context and setting. The findings of a review of literature on the actions that schools can take to promote inclusion (Dyson et al., 2002) suggest that such actions are facilitated by a set of values shared by staff, students, parents and community, by dismantling structures which separate groups of students and staff from each other, and in the context of a national policy which does not undermine the efforts of schools to become more inclusive. In the context of a consideration of action in schools, the implications for leadership are perhaps the most salient. ‘These findings re-establish the central place of values in educational improvement. They call for notions of school leadership which are about much more than managerial efficiency’. Again, 'schools aspiring to greater inclusivity need to be seriously governed and not just effectively managed' (Halpin, 1998). The orientation to critical action research in the Network is premised on the need for an inclusive leadership to be aware of how barriers form at different levels in a school, and to take steps beyond the norms of the community to try to do something about those barriers. The link between actions and values is significant here, for only in action do competing values become tested and priorities resolved. The philosopher Alistair MacIntyre (MacIntyre, 1984) offers the idea that shared values become established through ‘practice’ in a community, ‘in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to… that form of activity’ (p.187). A feeling of welcome and acceptance of diversity in a school community is important, but it is only part of the way to establishing inclusive values in action. In one school within the network, there is a strong sense that everyone is committed to inclusion as an ideal, with much sharing of ideas and a common concern with the well-being of everyone in the community, but the implications are not always worked out in classroom practice. The social use of data can help to develop grittier links between values and action. In another network school, the perspectives of teaching assistants were systematically sought on their role, and it was clear that their concern and knowledge about the participation and learning of particular children were not always effectively shared with classroom teachers. Possible responses to diversity were sometimes limited to action that a teaching assistant could take, with no chance to change the norms of the classroom. The results of questionnaires with support staff were the subject of discussion during a meeting of all the staff. Since the data came from the school, it had immediacy, and there was a considerable buzz as staff considered the anonymised responses of individuals, as well as the range of answers for each question. There was much discussion of the words ‘critical friend'. Many emphasised how generally supportive relationships were between support staff and teachers, so that the word 'critical' seemed to overemphasise the role of mutual critique in the relationship. There was recognition that, as in any relationship, critical comments can only be made in a context of support and trust. "Would you have the guts to say that it wasn't going quite right?' one support teacher challenged another, who seemed to be implying that there was no difficulty in her relationship with teachers. One group noted how being critical was easier when the teacher invited discussion with a comment such as 'Well that didn't go very well, did it?' It was understood that establishing the practice of exchanging perspectives often required a change of behaviour on the part of both teacher and support assistant (07.11.01).

6

This group interpretation of data from the school served to develop the need for more collaboration in the classroom. Later the headteacher reflected, ‘When we talked to support staff… and started to realise their views about things and their working practices, when we got into the conversations, it wasn't that (teachers) were reluctant to change; they hadn't put that 'thinking hat' on and thought about these things… I think the teaching staff are going to be saying that we want to be working as equal partners, we want to work in teams, and I think before that it would have been a much more mixed picture’ (30/01/02). In the questionnaire for teachers that was subsequently analysed, all nine teachers strongly agreed with the statement 'I value support staff and feel that they play an important role in the class', and that 'support staff improve the learning outcomes and confidence of the children that they work with'. Six teachers agreed, and two strongly agreed, that 'planning with support staff improves the process of teaching and learning in my class', and that they 'use the expertise of support staff in order to plan and differentiate work for the children that they know best'. Eight teachers agreed, and one strongly agree that 'I am still learning how to work with support staff in the most effective way' (30/01/02). The process exemplifies how data can create a space for communication as a potentially divisive issue is taken before the whole staff. Patterns in the forms of action in which schools engage Schools fall into two broad groups in relation to the patterns of action that they have pursued: those focused on the value of inclusion and its consequences, and those focused on a particular action which is related to the inclusion agenda. Schools focused on inclusion as a value Schools whose involvement in the Network has focused on values have engaged in a series of new activities, including school councils, circle time, a week-long alternative curriculum, visits and visitors to school, partially under the banner of participation in the Network. Consideration of values has produced more questions than answers. For example, in one school, the headteacher reflected on ‘…other “What nexts”...... this task was focussed on the ethos and policy of the School, it would be good to look at specifics now of how people operate. Are we agreed on things like who checks inappropriate behaviour, what kind of interactions we value with children, the use of names, giving rewards etc…. If you are not naturally the kind of person who would speak to children as they pass you on the corridor - how can we foster this in everyone? - should we foster this in everyone and why?’ (30/01/02). New actions are developed in response to such questions. For the core team in this school, Network meetings have proved to be opportunities for strategic thinking, and stories from those meetings have been quite effective as tactics for engaging a wider group of staff in a wide-ranging series of actions. The headteacher described in a staff meeting how the core team had used the Index for Inclusion in the initial Network seminar in a way that had led them to ask 'questions, questions, more questions', had 'fired us up' and 'made us think' (11/10/00). Involvement in the Network has influenced action research in the school in various ways. At a second staff meeting about the research four months later, the headteacher began by telling the story of a 'breakthrough' at a Network meeting. Talking through the experience with other head teachers, the core team had realised that the experience of exclusion at the school was neither to do with academic ability, nor with the experience of withdrawal. They had interpreted interview data as showing that withdrawal didn't seem to worry either hearing or hearing impaired children. Rather, exclusion appeared to have to do with social integration in the school. This conclusion resonated with staff, who then easily identified some children in their classes that they considered to be relatively isolated. This discussion led to a suggestion of making a sociogram in the different classes, by asking all pupils to identify their two closest friends (05/02/01). In summer 2002, the school took up the opportunity to run an after-school club for children who had been identified as being relatively isolated, where they could meet away from more socially active children, make friends, work together and practise social skills. Staff report that it has been very successful. In all the schools in this group, artefacts which construct a sense of coherence in the developing initiatives have been important to maintaining strategic direction, and for communicating this direction with others in the school community. One headteacher constructed a painted project tree, whilst in another school, a mindmap was constructed, the branches of which grew as different actions were developed. In a governors meeting, the mind map was used to legitimate a focus on a branch which had not received much attention 'the school in the community'. The role of the governors, as voluntary representatives of the community who 7

have a role in monitoring and supporting the development of the quality of educational provision at the school appeared extremely significant (3/10/01). Subsequently, the headteacher has worked hard to increase the frequency of visits by governors into the school, and to increase parental involvement more generally. A group of parent volunteers has been formed that meets every six weeks with the senior management team in the school, providing them with a valuable regular parental perspective on the school and reinforcing the value placed on parental participation in school. The enthusiasm of parents new to the classroom is refreshing for the teachers involved. Having parents in school shows children that there is a direct link between school and the outside world; parents know how children speak, the things they like doing when not at school better than many teachers; parents know how children feel about school and older children in particular sometimes relate better to other adults rather than teachers. One member of the core team at this school commented on how ‘our project seems to have snowballed in a way, compared to other schools. It seems to encompass lots of different areas, instead of one narrow agenda… I think that's good in a way, because as things have cropped up we've sort of tapered it into the project and it's got lots of different facets to it. It's not just affecting the children, it's affecting staff, parents’ (28/01/02). In this group of schools, there is a dilemma over the visibility of the Network. To an extent, new actions need representation in some form if they are to be seen as significant. They need emphasising, presenting and establishing in a world where there are many possible competing courses of action. But promoting them entails the risk of their becoming ‘just one more initiative’ in an already overloaded context. The profile of the umbrella framework 'Supporting Achievement for All' has been deliberately kept low in one school: no notice board refers to it, newsletters don't mention it. One of the core team in the school explained that the thinking that it would be better that 'people aren't conscious of it happening [so that] it becomes a natural thing... we want "Supporting Achievement for All" to be part of the school' (28/01/02). The head's view was that as a result, most staff would consider 'things like your teaching of your Maths, English, Geography... what we've got to do, that's nothing to do with the 'ESRC thing' (28/01/02). The formal curriculum is seen to be out of bounds to inclusive development. Even more worryingly, the school is the site for a new resource for children labelled as having moderate learning difficulties (MLD), and yet this development was excluded from discussions about inclusion, mainly because it was a source of conflict between staff. The habit of looking from the perspective of children on the margins would be most useful in this development, with the possibility that additional resources of staff, expertise and space could be put to use across the school in a planned way such that all are better included. The school faces a choice between using the MLD-focused resources to promote changes across the school, and maintaining the status quo as far as possible in order not to unsettle staff. Tough decisions about making changes may be easier with convincing data about the positive impact of developments that have taken place. A weakness in some schools is that the data available does not seem that convincing: SENCO: What we feel we've not done is to analyse the results of all these things. You've interviewed children and governors, but we haven't got any research…. Teacher: the things we've done are difficult to measure. Perhaps we should have done something more at the beginning, a questionnaire or something, to see if attitudes have changed. Headteacher: we know that circle time is really beneficial, but it's up here (taps head). The mind gyms, and interactive displays. We know that the children are benefiting from the movement. But it's our thoughts (28/01/02). A different headteacher in this group commented on the same difficulty. ‘How you measure (the effect) is very difficult. The children - are - confident, here, I feel. They are, generally, very happy children. And positive. In the main. About their school experiences. And that is what we want. Again, how you measure that is difficult. People coming in say - how else can you measure it? But look at results, and this is how people do measure things, isn't it? Which is not very good, is it?’ Evaluations of particular aspects of developing action have been carried out and fed back to staff, but there is a need for better strategies for understanding the overall contribution of the focus on values. In particular, there is a need to find out from teachers and support staff, about how their classroom practice, their understanding of inclusion and their commitment to inclusive values have changed. There are lessons for getting the balance right between insisting on the generation of certain kinds of data and maintaining the valued autonomy that schools had 8

from the beginning of the network. But it is not too late, and the recognition of the importance of data by teachers is significant in itself. Schools focused on particular actions Different issues are evident in the second group of schools, where involvement in the network has been centred around a particular action, including the development of a new teaching method, better opportunities for children with special educational needs to achieve some GCSEs, and the establishment of a 'nurture group' for an at-risk group of young children. Typically these developments involve allocated resources and well-articulated aims, and have tended to absord the interests of the particular subgroup of staff involved. In all cases, staff commitment has led to measurable success. At this stage in the Network, the main issue in these schools is an unintended consequence of such focused action: relatively poor connections between those involved in the development and teachers who play no part in it. The initiatives become somewhat peripheral to the majority of staff, so that the action has relatively little impact on their values or attitudes. University staff reflected back to the school that has set up the nurture group: ‘With such an initiative, a lot of time is needed in making sure it is functioning well in its' own terms. There is never much time for considering the wider implications. Looking wider is one of the uses of data such as the interviews with other children. All systems have potential barriers within them, and misunderstandings proliferate across such barriers’ (July 2002). Perhaps the biggest threat to inclusive development in these schools is the differential value assigned to teachers who are central to development, and those who are not. Studying the data, it appears that some actions and actors in these schools are not acknowledged. The autonomy associated with a sense of ownership means that there are limits on what staff communicate to each other, or to university researchers. To report to someone, is literally to be accountable to them, which is not the status of an autonomous agent. For university staff, this gives rise to a contradiction with the research demand for evidence, which can be very frustrating. Senior staff within a school may not get to know what some staff are thinking and doing, and conclude that they are doing neither. But concealment is sometimes a necessary part of development. Referring to an ethnography of a software development company committed to openness and shared creativity, the anthropologist Marilyn Strathern notes that ‘the same people who gave so much value to openness and transparency in the communication of ideas also needed to exercise ownership over short stretches of their activities, to work at night to avoid having to interact with their colleagues or be overseen by others, to withdraw from communication (Strathern, 2000 p.317). Changes in orientation do not and cannot all take place in full view of those who aspire to change in a school community. Sometimes the communication barrier is associated with clashes of personality, feeding beliefs about the intransigence of colleagues. Asked about the reasons why some staff in her school might choose not to participate, one teacher distinguished her attitude from that of another member of staff who had told her 'You'll never change these children'. Staff who see themselves as committed to difficult change sometimes use their colleagues as a measuring stick, further polarising the community. Yet the unregarded actions of those outside the core of staff involved in development in a school are sometimes crucial. Headteachers in these schools do recognise that a lot of the life of a school is not about headline change, and much that goes on through custom and practice is significant in supporting processes of learning. In thinking about action within developing schools, the perspectives of those who play a major part in maintaining a sense of order and continuity are important, even if those perspectives are difficult to ascertain. The nurture group referred to above involves the part-time segregation of children at risk of failure in the mainstream away from others for a period of up to a year. In this school, the powerful maintenance role of other staff in the school was indicated by the rise in disruptive behaviour when even one teacher was absent. Even so, staff involved in the nurture group development have begun to assume that those other staff lack commitment to the school. In this case and others, critical case study has proved valuable in challenging these assumptions. Part of the case study role is as long-term memory: in this school, the danger of creating a segregated nurture group had been noted early on. 'At the moment, the rhetoric from the nurture group teacher and the headteacher is strongly against this, but the decisions made every day to facilitate the smooth running of the room and for the benefit of other staff are tending always to push towards a unit' (fieldnotes, 20/03/01). 9

The case study contained data from an interview by university staff with one of the mainstream teachers about whom assumptions had grown. ‘‘I do find when they come in, they are still, quite disruptive. When they come back from a session because they charge straight over and they're always calling out.. Which is fine, lovely to have a chat, which we try to do, especially in the morning, we ask them whichever class they've been to for literacy, what they've done. You know we ask 'what have you done in the Sunshine Room'. But they do tend to come in and take over a bit' (mainstream teacher)’. Having read the case study, the nurture group teacher and the headteacher discussed how despite their best efforts, the nurture group had failed to become an integral part of the school. `Headteacher: It's very very important that time is made for the children. To be brought back into the class. There is still that feeling that, oh, we're getting these back now. They're not really mine. Researcher: I think it's not surprising that there is that perception. Headteacher: Because they're not actually controlling it are they. When children are being taken out to do work with an SSA, it's usually teacher directed. This isn't. These children go to the nurture group, they have no responsibility at all. They rarely meet with you to evaluate children's progress. NG teacher: Not one member of staff, said can I come down and have a look at you working. Can I look at their work? It's never happened. If it was me and my child…. Educational psychologist: That's the inclusion issue. Headteacher: That is an area that we've definitely failed on… it wasn't formalised. And I think J and I have … overestimated the staff's commitment to the nurture group. We felt they would need to know what was happening. We didn't set it up in a formalised way….About the idea that this would be a room, and not a unit. Looking back now, and with what we've just discussed, its clear that in the minds of many staff, it is now your classroom. That it is separate; that it's not a resource for the school’ (9/7/02). As in this example, written accounts ranging from relatively informal emails to carefully constructed case studies offer staff in schools alternative versions of what is going on within the school. Even emailed reflections have stimulated alternative interpretations from teachers and headteachers, indicating that they have been seen as powerful representations of reality, worthy of negotiation. One teacher acknowledged the different perspectives, and describes her own ‘assumptions’: 'I really enjoyed reading the transcripts and found that they offered insight into areas I hadn't thought about. I'd always assumed that the other children didn't mention the hearing impaired children because they didn't see them as being different to themselves, rather than being invisible’. The teacher then introduces evidence about the norms of interaction in her own classroom which contradicts my interpretation and concern: ‘My experience of the hearing-impaired and hearing children has always been positive. The hearing children have always been supportive of the hearing-impaired and have always included them in group /paired work. Lack of language is an issue for the younger hearing-impaired children, but as they progress through the school, this becomes less of a problem'. Finally, the teacher sets out an agenda for learning: ‘For this project to be successful, we (the staff) need to be able to accept your findings without feeling 'got at'. It's easy to be defensive but I feel we can learn from what you have found out. It makes us question whether we are including all our children. Perhaps as staff we come very close, but do we teach the children to be inclusive with each other? I have found some of my children who will laugh at someone else because they have done/said something different or unusual’. Inclusion by pupils has been an important issue in subsequent development in that school. Case study accounts are a step towards public accounts, telling a story of change in schools. At the same time, they are a means of promoting critical reflection by school staff on the action that has taken place. One headteacher thought that a draft case study underplayed the effect of their involvement in the Network. The negotiated case study reads: 'The establishment of a school council, as mentioned earlier, has been the single most visible changes in the school in the year 2001/2002. The headteacher considers that this is a major step forward which would not have happened without the Network. As a means for pupil participation, the council represents a major change in the relationships between staff and students, and it is having an impact in all classrooms' (12/7/02). Case studies serve a purpose of confirming actions and the values that lie behind them for practitioners in the midst of change.

Action and research in pursuit of an impact The focus on action taken in this paper has constituted an interrogation of the impact of the Network on staff in schools, and led to greater understanding of the interactions between developing values, social relationships and activities in different contexts. More convincing evidence of impact is needed, which describes and evaluates changes made at different levels, from the changing values of an individual teacher, 10

changes in classroom practice, to the way the school approaches change. The project of assessing impact through actions is ongoing, for there is clearly a need to learn more about the difference that the Network has made to pupils in schools, LEA and university staff. This paper began with descriptions of the establishment of a network of schools aiming towards the development of more inclusive policies, practices and cultures, and features of the search for appropriate starting points that went on, involving teachers, researchers and LEA officers. Although this paper has singled out actions in schools as a focus for attention, this action has taken place alongside an evolving rhetoric from university and LEA staff which has contributed to the construction and maintenance of the Network, by attracting schools to participate in the first place, and by instituting a degree of common language. School staff have taken up some of this rhetoric in Network meetings. In the language of activity theory (Engestrom, 1993), school rhetoric might be seen as a tool which together with an espoused goal has constituted a context for actions in particular settings. The role of rhetoric bears more careful consideration in this system of change. One of the key areas from a research perspective may be the relationship between rhetoric and data. Data from pupils, or particular groups of pupils, or from relatively marginalised staff, or parents, has been seen to be effective in challenging assumptions of those at the centre of the institution, but in this process the data has taken on many of the characteristics of rhetoric. Given an appropriate context for the interpretation of this data, it has stimulated further action towards inclusion. This suggests that the role of rhetoric in research should not be dismissed, but better understood. The role of university staff has not been explicitly in focus in this paper, but it is apparent that the roles taken on have been at various sites in the activity systems of the Network. Roles have included that of confidante to the headteacher, member of working groups, facilitator of staff discussions, data generation through a variety of methods, and writer of accounts which reflect back to the school aspects of action and context. This list raises an issue of the extent to which such a role is necessary for the process of change that has been attempted. Plans for the final stage of the network involve investigating the roles that might be carried out through school-to-school linking. Direct links between schools have been explored through the three national network seminars which have taken place, and evidence from the conversations and interactions between participants that these links have facilitated increasingly focused mutual challenge from and to all parties. So far direct linking has taken place only between schools from different LEAs; the issue is how to construct a framework for mutual challenge within the local network, which would be much more sustainable. We are facilitating a process of ‘peer supported self-review’ in each school. Each school will prepare a plan as to how visitors from another Network school can spend a day helping to collect and engage with evidence. Responsibility for setting the agenda, formulating a timetable for the day, and drawing out the lessons from the day will rest with the coordinating team in the host school. Two members of staff from the coordinating team from another Network school will then visit the school for a day. Their task will be to act as critical friends to colleagues in the host school, with a focus on generating data about the consequences of the actions that have been carried out in schools. It is assumed that the visit will be of benefit to the visitors in that it will provide an opportunity for them to reflect upon policy and practice in their own schools. These visits will be carried out in the context of an ethical agreement that requires all information that is generated to be regarded as being confidential. It is important, too, that ‘visitors’ understand that they are NOT inspectors or external evaluators but as co-learners. The University team will take on the task of capturing the lessons from these activities about how to use the idea of peer assisted self-review for promoting inclusive policies and practices in schools. Notes: 1.

Contact details: Andy Howes, University of Manchester, [email protected], 0161 2753444

2.

The research on which this paper draws is funded by Award L139 25 1001 and as such is part of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme of the UK's Economic and Social Research Council.

3.

The members of the three university research teams in the Network are: in Canterbury, Tony Booth, Roy Smith and Carrie Weston; in Manchester, Mel Ainscow, Peter Farrell, Jo Frankham and Andy Howes; and in Newcastle, Alan Dyson, Alan Millward and Francis Gallanaugh.

11

Bibliography Adelman, C. (1993) Kurt Lewin and the Origins of Action Research, Educational Action Research, 1(1). Booth, T. & Ainscow, M. (2000) Index for Inclusion (Bristol, Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education). Dyson, A., Howes, A. & Roberts, B. (2002) A systematic review of the effectiveness of school-level actions for promoting participation by all students (EPPI Centre Review)Research Evidence in Education Library Issue 1. (London, EPPI Centre, Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education). Engestrom, Y. (1993) Development studies of work as a testbed of activity theory: the case of primary care medical practice, in: S. Chaiklin & J. Lave (Eds) Understanding Practice (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). Halpin, D. (1998) Democracy, Inclusive Schooling And The Politics Of Education, British Educational Research Association Annual Conference (The Queen's University of Belfast) Kemmis, S. (2001) Exploring the Relevance of Critical Theory for Action Research: Emancipatory Action Research in the Footsteps of Jurgen Habermas", in: R. P. & H. Bradbury (Eds) Handbook of Action Research; Participative Inquiry and Practice . (London, Sage). MacIntyre, A. (1984) After Virtue: a study in moral theory (NotreDame, University of Notre Dame Press). Reason, P. & Bradbury, H. (Eds.) (2001) Handbook of Action Research; Participative Inquiry and Practice (London, Sage). Smyth, J. & Shacklock, G. (1998) Behind the 'Cleansing' of Socially Critical Research Accounts, in: G. Shacklock & J. Smyth (Eds) Being reflexive in critical educational and social research (London, Falmer). Strathern, M. (2000) The Tyranny of Transparency, British Educational Research Journal, 26(3), pp. 309321. Woods, P. (1996) Researching the art of teaching : ethnography for educational use (London, Routledge).

12