Narratives of practice and ‘behaviour management’: the development of professional identities.
Cate Watson
School of Education
University of Aberdeen
Paper presented at the Scottish Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Perth, 25-27 November 2004
Abstract
Traditional notions view 'identity' as a fairly stable and unchanging aspect of self. However, by contrast more recent conceptions tend to construct identity as an ongoing and performative process which emerges in and through narrative. This paper is based on research into teachers professional identities in relation to behaviour management and presents a preliminary analysis of one narrative understood as a teacher 'doing' being a teacher managing a class. The paper also discusses some of the methodological decisions concerning transcription and analysis of the interview.
Key words
Narrative, behaviour management, teacher professional identity, interview methodology
What is an ‘identity’?
What is it to have an identity? The traditional notion of identity is of something essential about oneself – fixed and unchanging. Something inside us like the kernel of a nut that enables us to say, ‘yes, this is who I am’.
But an alternative view argues that identity can never be something that is just inside of us because identity is relational – something to do with recognition of sameness and difference between ourselves and others. Identity only has meaning within a chain of relationships i.e. there is no fixed point of reference for ‘an identity’.
This implies that rather than thinking about ‘identity’ as such, we can instead think about an ongoing process of identification - not so much a question of ‘having’ an identity, but of ‘doing’ an identity. And since we form part of many relationships it becomes a question of doing ‘identities’ (Widdecombe 1998).
Identity and narrative
If identity is conceived as an ongoing process of identification, then how is this process carried on? Hinchman and Hinchman (1997) suggest that
‘Identity is that which emerges in and through narrative.’
This again highlights the external, relational nature of identity construction. In this view the process of identity construction is carried on in the narratives we create and tell about our lives – how we externalise ourselves to others.
But in addition, as Mark Currie (1999) says, ‘we learn how to narrate through a process of identification with other characters. This gives narratives at large the potential to teach us how to conceive of ourselves, what to make of our inner lives and how to organise it.’
In other words, people construct narratives and narratives construct people and our identities emerge through these processes.
Narrative studies have become fairly ubiquitous in recent times – a widespread view is that people live out their lives narratively, we live storied lives.
So what is a narrative? The definition I am going to give of ‘narrative’ is a fairly broad one ‘accounts that offer some scheme, either implicitly or explicitly for organising and understanding the relation of objects and events described. Narratives need not be full-blown stories with requisite internal structures, but may be short accounts that emerge within or across turns at ordinary conversation, in interviews or interrogations, in public documents, or in organizational records.’ (Gubrium and Holstein 1997:146)
It is the way in which the narrative functions to make sense of events and structure them that is important rather than conforming to some rigid structure.
If lives are to be understood narratively, then the task of the researcher is to develop an understanding of the resources from which the narratives are constructed and they way in which they are utilised. What narrative studies attempt to do is to look at narratives and to examine both the content – the ‘what’ of the story, the ‘how’ of its construction , and to ask ‘why was it structured that way?’
How individuals use these resources and how they are positioned by ‘narratives at large’ or discourses as they engage in an ongoing and effortful process of constructing and maintaining their identities – how individuals are engaged in the process of making meaning for themselves.
If identity construction is viewed as an ongoing process of ‘identification with’ need to examine the resources available for this process. We can think of resources that are potentially implicated:
• Professional knowledge
•personal experience – other social identities
•the ‘micro-politics’ of the setting and the relationships within that
•the wider socio-cultural politics and prevailing ideologies
Potentially, these different resources can give rise to different aspects of identity or indeed to the development of different and – potentially - conflicting identities.
My research is about how teachers identities are constructed and the uses to which identities are put. I want to present to you some preliminary data from a pilot interview with an experienced teacher called Arni and to discuss some of the issues arising.
Narrative: Unorthodox methods of discipline
Arni: ‘Ay then, unorthodox methods of discipline. A boy at the door (the one I was telling you about was involved with this attempted murder) and he’s a bit of a hard nut y’know and he’s at the door blethering to someone else, and not going into the classroom and blocking the room. Um, I do things that I’m not supposed to, an’ I said ‘Sit down or I’ll kiss you’ (laughs). You’ve never seen a pupil head for his seat . It was funny, y’know.’
Me:[both laughing] I shan’t ask if you’ve ever had to carry that punishment out…
Arni: No, maybe not. Right. Ah, dangerous things to say to pupils. I’m having, y’know, I have to moderate this. You have to keep a very, very … close eye on yourself, when you do things that are unorthodox, because the school is a place that is for orthodox people to be working. Teachers are meant to be orthodox.
In analytic terms there are a number of approaches that one could take in looking at this – one way, the ‘naturalist’ approach perhaps, is to look at the content- the what of construction i.e. what the text says. This would present Arni’s view of himself and his reality at face value. In a sense this is using Arni’s own analytical resources to interpret the data. Thus in this extract and in many other areas of the transcript, Arni presents himself as ‘unorthodox’ and subversive within the system. Thus we see Arni consciously subverting ideas about behaviour management:
For example, he subverts the widely stated view (i.e. the professional knowledge view) that the teacher should control where the pupils sit. In Arni’s class pupils sit where they want to. Arni interprets this as going against the grain:
‘You’re told “oh, set your class out in such and such a way.”
This very conscious subversion of the received wisdom appears again in other areas of the transcript.
‘I have given lines out and then the pupil has behaved for the rest of the period and if that happens I take them back. I know you’re not supposed to do that.’
Similarly, in talking about his pupils Arni says
‘I remember saying, “I’m going to make it my business never to dislike a pupil” and I was told that that was impossible.’
So, clearly an important part of Arni’s identity is that he is unorthodox and subversive within the system.
This is perhaps an illustration of what Erving Goffman (1961) is referring to in his work ‘Asylums’. In this Goffman talks about the necessity for the individual to ‘reserve something of oneself from the clutch of the institution.’ Goffman defines the ‘individual’ as ‘a stance taking entity a something that takes up a position somewhere between identification with an organisation and opposition to it.’ (Goffman 1961:320). He goes on, ‘Our status is backed by the solid buildings of the world while our sense of personal identity often resides in the cracks.’
A different orientation will view the text differently – in this case it is not so much the content, the ‘what’ of the narratives, as much as the question of ‘how is it constructed?’ and ‘why is it constructed like that?’ I have temporarily ‘bracketed off’ the ‘what’ in order to examine the way in which that social reality as presented is constructed and the way in which resources have been drawn upon in creating it.
In this extract I think what is of interest is the nature of the power relationships presented – which are largely accepted by all involved and therefore transparent to view i.e. how does the school as an institution serve to construct the individuals within it and position them? In this extract the fluid and circulatory nature of power is evident – thus we see Arni exercising teacher power in order – in effect – despite what he says about such matters - to control the positioning of the pupil in the room. And we see the pupil, exercising power as resistance by standing at the door blethering and not going into the room. Arni and the pupil are both positioned by the institution which thus serves as a powerful resource for identity construction. Later, in the strange change in mood, we see Arni aware of his positioning within the school and the danger that this places him in – as an ‘unorthodox teacher’ he exercises power as resistance within the institution.
Moreover, in this extract we can see how both protagonists in this narrative construct the power relations in which they are engaged – they are not merely following a script laid down for them, a code of behaviour if you like, they are actively writing the script – each performing for the other the identity relation which is none-the-less framed by the institution as a set of social relations.
By combining the two approaches – considering the what and the how of narrative construction – and not privileging one over the other – the different aspects of identity can be considered.
Another aspect of identity that I think emerges from this extract is that of gender i.e the construction of masculinity here. Masculinity is here being performed in the teacher-pupil relationship. As Haywood and Mac an Ghaill (1996:54) suggest, ‘masculinities have to operate or be competent at operating some degree of power and authority. An inability to be powerful and authoritative is a code for an inability to be a “proper man”.’ Arni does impose his will, he does control the bodily positioning of the pupil in the class, but he doesn’t do it in the way that Mac an Ghaill suggest i.e. through the use of ‘discipline and force’. Rather he uses the strategy of the ‘clever reaction in an awkward moment’ – a feature of men’s stories remarked on by Barbara Johnstone (1990).
So in this one short extract I have looked at two resources available for Arni’s identity construction – institutional power and masculinity – and how he uses these resources, in other words, the work he puts them to in performing an identity as a teacher in an ongoing act of construction rather than a once and for all time accomplishment. Levi-Strauss (1996, cited in Holstein and Gubrium 2000:153) uses the metaphor of the ‘bricoleur’ to describe this:
‘As a bricoleur, the self constructor is involved in something like an interpretive salvage operation, crafting selves from the vast array of available resources, making do with what he or she has to work with in the circumstances at hand, all the while constrained, but not completely controlled, by the working conditions of the moment.’
Methodological issues:
Of course, the other thing that has to be held in mind simultaneously, is that the text is itself a construction. I shouldn’t present it unproblematically as ‘what Arni said’. How I have chosen to represent his talk is the first stage in analysis – there are potentially limitless ways in which I could have presented Arni’s words as text. In a way, I have artfully presented something that I want to be taken as ‘naturalistic’ – ‘this is what he said and this is how he said it’. For example, I have put in the punctuation. I have presented it as continuous prose. I could have done it line by line putting in all the intonation or presenting it in such a way as to emphasise aspects of linguistic structure.
Ay’ then unorthodox methods of discipline
a boy at the door .
the one ((that)) I was telling you
about
((that)) was involved with this attempted murder [draws breath]
and he’s a y’know
bit of a hard nut y’know
an’ he’s at the door blethering to someone else
and . not going into the classroom
and blocking the ((room)) [draws breath]
um I <do> things that I’m not supposed to .
((an’ I said)) ‘Sit down or I’ll kiss you’ (laughs)
you’ve never seen a pupil head for his seat
it was funny
y’know
I could have presented it as a poem of 3 verses.
Unorthodox methods of discipline
A boy at the door
The one I was telling you about
Was involved with this attempted murder
and he’s a - y’know
bit of a hard nut - y’know
And he’s at the door
blethering to someone else
and not going into the classroom
and blocking the room
Um I do things I’m not supposed to
And I said ‘sit down or I’ll kiss you’
You’ve never seen a pupil head for this seat
It was funny - y’know
And, as Bennett and Royl (2004) remark, a title is a promise. If I change the title to something like, ‘A boy at the door’, the focus and emphasis change.
Others might legitimately ask why I made those particular decisions. They are analytical decisions.
And of course, even prior to that, the way in which this talk emerged – the interview context and the interaction between Arni and me is also something that needs to be reflexively recognised.
In fact, in this extract something of the situated and interactive nature of interviewing emerges in the change of mood from laughter to seriousness in response to my remark. The interaction is an important element in considering interview data – the interviewee should not be thought of as a ‘vessel of answers’ to be tapped into (Holstein and Gubrium 1995). The interviewee is engaged in an active process of knowledge construction. What emerges on this day at this time in response to this question may be highly situation specific.
Conclusion
What I have talked about today is one short extract from a 3 hour interview. I’ve used it to exemplify some of the analytical choices I am in the process of making with respect to looking at the way in which teachers construct and perform identities.
References
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