Reflecting back upon the research process

The rationale for this research was to provide an insight into the lived experience of assessment practice for Early Childhood Studies graduates who work in the Private, Voluntary and Independent (PVI) sector. The neo-liberal discourses that underpin

156 educational policy have had a significant impact on this particular group of practitioners. Whilst they have received increased political attention and have been encouraged to increase their social capital through further training and qualifications, the ‘structural injustices’ within the field mean that they have found themselves in an elevated but still submissive position (Osgood 2009; McGillivray, 2008).

The methodological framework that underpinned this study was located within a critical social constructionist stance. Any knowledge claim that is made from this perspective takes account that constructions of the world are bound by power relations; thus knowledge can be understood to be “ideological, political, and permeated with values” (Schwandt, 2000, p198). Bourdieu’s (1986) thinking tools: “[(habitus) (capital)] + field = practice” served as a conceptual framework to help explain and understand the nature of the relationships that exist between practitioners and other agents in the field of ECE. It also allowed me to consider how notions of power, class and status may have served to be (i) reproducing certain inequalities; (ii) misrecognising differences in habitus and therefore (iii) producing particular types of assessment practices.

Reflecting on my own professional life history at the inception of this study helped me to understand my own habitus and how my subjective construction of this professional group (certainly at the early stage of my career) was both elitist and misunderstood. This was a consequence of the doxa that was prevalent in the field. At the time I was working in the school sector, where its economic capital brought with it more status and power than cultural capital (Thomson, 2010 p70). The cultural capital that embodied the PVI sector was underpinned by maternal and caring discourses and as such made them the poor relation to practitioners in the CSE sector. It was not until I worked with them in an academic context that I truly understood the challenges they faced in being recognised as professionals in their own right. There was therefore an emancipatory element that underpinned this research. It needed to employ a methodology that would allow me to challenge the

dominant socio-political and economic structures that influence both assessment practices and the construction of this group of practitioners by seeking other ways in which they could be understood.

157 I wanted to find a way of opening up spaces that would allow this group of practitioners to tell their own stories of how assessment policies were enacted and mediated in their workplaces. I wanted this space to allow them to think in the discursive ways that had formed part of their habitus during their degree studies. This would enable them to engage in praxis so that collectively, we could problematise dominant discourses and make space for other discourses to be heard (Dahlberg and Moss, 2005), as well as understand the past and present experiences that had shaped their professional habitus.

8.1.1. Methods

The dialogic and praxeological intentions of this study meant that I needed to employ data collection methods that lent themselves to narrative inquiry within a collaborative context. Praxis is open to revisions when narratives are shared (Griffiths and Macleod, 2008), and so I felt the Focus Group and on-line Discussion site were appropriate methods that allowed the participants to revisit their narratives. Kamberelis and Dimitriadis (2013) see the FG

approach as having three specific functions, namely: “the pedagogical, the political and the empirical” (p19). When the group came together, the sharing of empirical material served as a powerful way for them to begin to understand their own subjectivities (Kamberelis and Dimitriadis, 2013), as well as the significance of policy interpretations in shaping assessment pedagogies. The group participants were comfortable sharing their assessment stories and their desire to listen to and support each other was also significant. They formed their own conclusions about the tensions that they experienced in both mediating local and national policies and the personal challenges that they faced in using their symbolic capital (as an EYP/EY teacher) to either play the assessment game, or seek ways of subverting the rules.

Methodological Limitations

My original intention had been to conduct four focus group sessions, and I had imagined that the final two sessions would have provided opportunities to engage more deeply with the theoretical dimensions that inform pedagogy in ways similar to when they were students. Time limitations were a logistical barrier that meant we were only able to meet

158 twice - it also seemed initially that time was equally a factor in engagement in the

Discussion Site. The participants actively engaged with the site at the beginning of the study, but during the study this tapered off. At the end of the last session I asked the groups to reflect on the research process. The group were unanimous that meeting “face to face” was more preferable than the discussion site as they felt “when someone says something you can bounce off it” [Lucy]. Jackie provided another perspective that offered a different reason as to why there was less engagement with the discussion site. The following excerpt from the second FG session provides this insight:

Jackie: Your questions were too hard too!..You know the one about how do you involve children in your assessment…

Kathy: Were they ?

Jackie: …I just sat at it and looked at it and thought…Do I?...Maybe I do.. Jo: So it made you think

Jackie: I couldn’t answer you because I thought…’Should I be?’…And then I had to go through that whole…What’s that word…dis...

Jo: Disequilibrium?

Jackie: yeah that one! And I’m thinking…God who’ve I turned into…Which theorist…

The intention of using the discussion site was to enable the participants to have a means of controlling how the ‘self’ was presented to others (Markham, 2005). Did Jackie feel that there was an expectation to present her ‘self’ in such a way that demonstrated her professional worth through her knowledge of theory? If this was the case, then I was not sure whether this was an expectation she had imposed on herself, or whether it was an assumed expectation that I had placed upon the group.

The intention of posing a question was to provoke deeper thinking about their practice. As Hedges (2010) reminds us, unless practitioners are encouraged to engage in theoretically informed dialogue then reflection can be merely a superficial endeavour. Interestingly, there was only one instance in the study where an opportunity arose to draw the participants towards thinking about the theory/practice relationship. It evolved from a comment made by Jackie, who alluded to parental involvement being seen as a “triangle”

159 between the “parent, practitioner and child”. This was a pertinent point at which to remind the participants of Margaret Carr’s (2001) principles behind Learning Journeys. What is noteworthy in this situation was that the initial provocation had come from the participants themselves. Conversely, on the discussion site I posted a question, which on reflection was based on my own subjectivities about what ‘good’ assessment should look like (namely, involving children in an authentic manner). I wanted to gain a sense of how this featured in their own practice. Whilst I was seeing my role as the critical ‘expert’ friend to seek ways of making the unconscious more conscious, I had shifted the attention away from the

empirical and pedagogical narratives that were important to the participants to aspects of practice upon which I placed importance. This was a learning point for me as a researcher. It reminded me of the importance of a “virtue-based approach to ethics” (Macfarlane, 2004, p.23) and the importance of being critical of one’s own performance as a researcher. As the question was posted on the discussion site however, arguably the participants were still able to exercise their power through choosing not to answer the question. The use of MacNaughton’s (2005) three positions in the analysis of data provided a vehicle for

addressing researcher bias. Examining the narratives through three different lenses served as a “test point” to read the data from a technical, practical and critical perspective.

As a form of summary regarding the methodological aspects of this study, I believe that the narrative approach produced rich and nuanced data that gave a provoking insight into how the participants were mediating their professional habitus within their workplace settings and the wider policy context. In the following section, I draw on the literature review, policy analysis and my own findings to consider the interrelationship between habitus and field and the consequences for assessment practice.