The name of the project
Values in Teachers’ Personal Narratives
The name of the principal investigator
Mare Sadam, PhD student: Educational Sciences
Institution and structural unit
Tallinn University, Institute of Educational Sciences
Start and end dates
04.2014-31.12.2016
Research area (by CERCS and Frascati Manual https://www.etis.ee/otsingud/classification.aspx).
Social Sciences: S270 Pedagogy and didactics (CERCS)
Social Sciences: Educational Sciences (Frascati Manual)
Summary (up to 1000 characters)
This thesis aim is to analyze values of different generations teachers' personal narratives, to have better understanding of teachers' values in Estonia.
Values education is both new and old theme, it is always been valued in society (Davidson; Licona, 2007). Likewise, values and values education is widely studied in Estonia now: what are the values that should be taught in school and how to teach them. In today's world that is abundant in information and opportunities, intentional values mediation and teaching has an important role to play to help young people to make their choices. However, actually we cant say that there is a value free education. It is always in the school climate and text books and in teachers actions and attitudes. It all influences shaping the value system of a new generation. This research project is contributing to draw a picture of what values there actually are at the moment, studying teachers' values.
Personal narratives (stories) that people tell contain their values, either highlighted or hidden (Riessman, 2008). Teachers life stories and aslo stories that they tell to their pupils mediate their values. There is a reason to expect that narrative analysis enables to get a closer view of a person - opportunity to see what kind of people they are, who are teaching here at the moment. Story about their life experiences may give a better understanding of formation of their values. In addition, a socio-cultural aspect of developing a person values can be considered. In Estonia, we had a socio-cultural change not long ago. The previous culture background and its mentality is well documented, it gives a good opportunity to compare it to the results.
Theoretical background, analysis of previous studies (3000)
A significant body of research can be found on values: Inglehart, R.; Schwartz, S.; Licona, T.; Davidson, M. Noddings, N.; Haydon, G.; Niemi, H.; Teachers’ personal narratives have been studied by Goodson, I.; Sham; N. Jalongo, M. R.;Isenberg, J. P.;Gerbracht, G; in Great Britain, Australia; United States of America. In Estonia, teachers’ values have been researched by Schihalejev, O.; Valk, P.; Lilles, L., Ginter, J.; Talts, L.; Tuulik, M.; Veisson, M. However, no one has researched the personal narratives of mentioned two groups of teachers with a narrative method proposed in this thesis.
The Concept of Value
Values are objects of desire that guide ones’ choices and actions. Values are relative and people values differ. Personal values can be viewed as an internal reference for what is good, beneficial, desirable, important, useful, beautiful, constructive, etc. (Sutrop, 2009).
The Concept of Narrative.
The term ‘narrative’ carries many meanings and is used in a variety of ways by different disciplines, often synonymously with a ‘story’ but there is a difference between these terms. A story is one kind of narrative. Also interviews are narrative occasions (Riessman, 2008). In this thesis a ‘narrative’ will be used synonymously with a ‘story’. Goodson referring to Hinchman & Hinchman claims that narratives (stories) in the human sciences should be defined provisionally as discourses with a clear sequential order that connect events in a meaningful way for a definite audience and thus offer insights about the world and/or people’s experiences of it (Hinchman & Hinchman, 1997, p.xvi in Goodson, 2011) A narrative can also be defined as a story with a plot and existence separate from the life of the teller. Narrative is linked with time as a fundamental aspect of social action. Narratives provide the organization for our actions and experiences, since we experience a life through conceptions of the past, present and future (Ojemark, 2007 in Goodson, 2011).
A personal narrative is affected by cultural and political background. Goodson (2011) illustrates it like this: “human stories are a personal elaboration and construction, but the building bricks and sometimes the elementary parts of narrative scripts are socially located.” Stories integrate the characteristics of particular historical periods. A human life has been deeply embedded in a web of narratives which in turn allow individuals, communities, cultures and nations to express who they are, where they have been, how they have lived and what they aspire to. For Example, If a teacher is sharing with pupils personal narratives it allows pupils to enter empathically into his or her life and in the process they may find themselves wiser and nurtured (Goodson, 2011). Narratives contain narrators’ values and by storytelling is possible to mediate them to learners. A storytelling engages an audience in the experience of narrator. Narratives invite listeners to enter the perspective of the narrator (Riessman, 2008).
Objective, research questions, hypotheses, research methodology (5000)
Research strategy is qualitative: Grounded theory; Narrative Analysis.
Objectives are teachers' personal narratives. In order to identify teachers’ values their personal narratives will be analyzed.
Reseach Technique
Every teacher included to the study will be interviewed twice. Goodson (2011) claims that every storyteller tells his or her narrative differently and there are no common aspirations and forms. Some narratives are more descriptive while some are more analytical or evaluative. In this sense, a narrative analysis is a case-centered research (Goodson, 2011). Caterine K. Riessman warns interviewers not to interrupt the narrator with an imposed structure (Riessman, 2008).
In this thesis Catherin K. Riessman’s thematic narrative analysis model will be used (Riessman, 2008). An ananlysis to be undertaken will be divided into 3 phases.
In the first phase, categories of narratives structure will be identified, also categories for values will be prepared. Earlier researches suggest that values can be classified in many ways. For example biological, physical, social, moral, aesthetical. They can also be classified as internal values, something we want for its own sake, for example happiness and instrumental values, means to achieve something else, for example money. Values related with education can also be called virtues. Some virtues are of moral kind, like honesty and thankfulness and some have useful characteristics, like diligence and creativity (Sutrop, 2009).
In the second phase of analysis for each narrative will be created a table. One column of the table will list categories of narrative structure. For example: the event; characters in it; the higlighted lesson in the story. Second column lists findings from the narrative that fits the category. In the third column the findings would be analysed by researcher: what and why the teacher wanted to teach with the chosen thing? What is the value behind and how it could be classified.
In the third phase of analysis the tables of teachers’ personal narratives will be compared. Do similar values refer to the similar education period, similar age, gender, cultural background ore something else?
Description of prior R&D of the applicant (includes also this not directly related with the topic of the project, 3000)
Principal investigator of the project participated as a researcher in the project „Soorollid õppekirjanduses“ (Gender Roles in Educational Literature) on 2002, Tartu University.
Schedule (1500)
2014 spring Research methodology improvement according to pilot study and carrying out new narrative interviews
2014/15 Work with main part of the study; collecting (interviewing) narratives; analyzing results, writing a scientific article.
2015/16 Analyzing survey results; writing a scientific article; writing the analytical review for article- based doctoral thesis.
Budget (staff costs, stipends, mobility costs, infrastructure, services, other costs).
15040 EUR:
· 33*380 EUR Doctoral Stipend
· 3*800 EUR Participation in Scientific Conferences
Outcomes, their possible application and follow-up activities (2000)
Better understanding of teachers' values. Possible application of the resulst might be in teacher training and admission to teacher training.
Follow-up activities. As it is a qualitative research, one result of the study may be a hypothesis that could be tested by a quantitative research.
List of publications cited in the proposal.
1. Aava, K. (2010). Eesti Haridusdiskursuse analüüs. Tallinna Ülikooli sotsiaalteaduste dissertatsioonid. Tallinn: Tallinna Ülikool.
2. Barrow, R. (1994). "Philosophy of education: Analytic tradition," In Husen, T., Postlethwaite N. T. (Eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Education. 2nd edition. (4442-4447). Oxford: Pergamon Press.
3. Davidson, M., Lickona, T. (2007). Smart&Good. Independent School 01459635, 66 (2).
4. Goodson, Ivor (2010) Times of educational change: towards an understanding of patterns of historical and cultural refraction, Journal of Education Policy, 25(6): 767-775.
5. Henry, S. E. (2001). What Happens When We use Kohlberg? His Troubling Functionalism and The Potential of Pragmatism in Moral Education. Educational Theory, 52 (3), 259-275
6. Noddings, N. (2008). Caring and Moral Education. In Nucc, L. P., Narvaez, D. (Eds.), Handbook of Moral and Character Education (161-172). New York, NY: Routledge.
7. Riessman, C. K. (2008 ). Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences. California, Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
8. Steffy, B. E., Wolfe, M. P., Pasch, S. H., Enz, B. J. (Eds.). (2000). Life Cycle of the Career Teacher. California, Thousand Oaks: A Sage Publication Company.
9. Strauss, A., Corbin, J. (1998) Basics of Qualitative Research. Teaching and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. California, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publication