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Reassembling teachers' professional practice: an ethnography of intertextual hierarchies in primary mathematics

Unsworth, R.; Tummons, J.

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Authors

R. Unsworth



Abstract

The formation of teachers’ professional practice has been discussed in relation to a wide variety of influences, with government prescription of practice often criticised as oppressing professional agency. Set within an ethnographic study within one English primary school, this paper explores the role of intertextuality in the form of intertextual hierarchies during a policy-led period of change to teachers’ professional practice: the introduction of a new way of teaching mathematics. Drawing on actor-network theory and literacy studies, we trace the stages of the translation of the new method from policy into practice, through the intertextual hierarchies which carry this knowledge across policy/practice boundaries. We highlight the crucial role of texts as actors within a remodelling of professional practice. Describing how the socio-material use and creation of texts leads to localisation of policies, we lend hope to schools in terms of their own agency within government-driven agendas.

Citation

Unsworth, R., & Tummons, J. (2021). Reassembling teachers' professional practice: an ethnography of intertextual hierarchies in primary mathematics. Ethnography and Education, 16(1), 109-126. https://doi.org/10.1080/17457823.2020.1788405

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jun 6, 2020
Online Publication Date Jul 3, 2020
Publication Date 2021
Deposit Date Jun 8, 2020
Publicly Available Date Jan 3, 2022
Journal Ethnography and Education
Print ISSN 1745-7823
Electronic ISSN 1745-7831
Publisher Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 16
Issue 1
Pages 109-126
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/17457823.2020.1788405
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1269230

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