Embodying pedagogical habitus change : a narrative-based account of a teacher’s pedagogical change within a professional learning community
Date
2018
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of KwaZulu-Natal
Abstract
Situated in the context of teaching in South Africa, this article narrates the journey of pedagogical change and adaptation of one teacher who participated in a professional learning community (PLC). It discusses the durability and malleability of this teacher’s pedagogical disposition by arguing for a conceptualisation of teacher change that moves beyond a cognitivist approach, i.e. one that is driven primarily by knowledge acquisition, to one that engages the embodied practices of teachers in the light of the shifts and adaptations that they undergo when trying to establish augmented pedagogical approaches. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field, bodily hexis and doxa, this article argues that sustained pedagogical change involves an engagement with the teacher’s embodied pedagogical habitus which has formed over time given the educational spaces they have inhabited. The article is based on data collected over a two-year period from PLC transcripts, observational school visits and multiple in-depth interviews with the teacher. This article describes the constraints or ‘hardness’ of change as the teacher engages with his embodied pedagogical habitus which has developed over time. However, this article further argues that possibilities of embodied pedagogical adaptation and change exist in the reflexive, on-going dialogical space that a professional learning community offers.
Description
CITATION: Feldman, J. & Fataar, A. 2018. Embodying pedagogical habitus change : a narrative-based account of a teacher’s pedagogical change within a professional learning community. Journal of Education, 70:74:88.
The original publication is available at https://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe/
The original publication is available at https://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe/
Keywords
Educational change -- South Africa, Bourdieu, Pierre -- 1930-2002 -- Theories, South Africa -- Study and teaching -- 21st century, Professional learning community, Educational sociology
Citation
Feldman, J. & Fataar, A. 2018. Embodying pedagogical habitus change : a narrative-based account of a teacher’s pedagogical change within a professional learning community. Journal of Education, 70:74:88