• Exploring Learning Conversations between Mentors and Associate Teachers in Initial Teacher Education

  Jones, Luke; Tones, Steve; Foulkes, Gethin; University of Chester (Emerald, 2019)

  Purpose - The aim of this paper is to analyse the learning conversations that take place in the context of secondary initial teacher education (ITE) in England. More specifically, it aims to examine the learning conversations that occurred between physical education (PE) subject mentors and their associate teachers (ATs) during a one-year postgraduate programme. Design/methodology/approach – Self-completion questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, with eleven ATs within a university ITE partnership, were used to explore ATs’ perceptions of the learning conversations that occurred between them and their mentors. A process of content analysis was used to identify and analyse themes in the data. Findings – Meaningful learning conversations are not exclusively based on mentors’ feedback on ATs’ teaching. The ongoing everyday dialogue that occurs between mentors and ATs has a direct impact on the ATs’ teaching and a more indirect effect of nurturing collaborative relationships and providing access to a learning community. Successful mentoring is not realised through an isolated weekly lesson observation of the ATs’ teaching. It is an immersive process where the AT and the mentor face the ongoing challenge of exploring aspects of pedagogy and developing a relationship that is conducive to shared learning. Practical implications - These findings have implications for providers of ITE and more specifically how they approach mentor training. Examining learning conversations, and in particular the more informal everyday dialogue that occurs between the mentor and the AT, may have significant impact on the learning of those who are training to teach. Originality/value - Informal learning conversations are central to the mentoring process. These findings highlight the value of learning conversations and in particular the impact of informal everyday dialogue that may otherwise be overlooked.
• Crossings and Crosses: Borders, Educations, and Religions in Northern Europe

  Cracknell, David (SAGE Publications, 2017-12-06)
• Exploring the material mediation of dialogic space – A qualitative analysis of professional learning in Initial teacher education based on reflective sketchbooks

  Moate, Josephine; Hulse, Bethan; Jahnke, Holger; Owens, Allan; Jyvaskyla University; University of Chester; Europa University, Flensburg (Elsevier, 2018-12-05)

  This study addresses the crucial relationship between theory and practice as a key feature of professional learning in initial teacher education. The context for the study is an EU-funded intensive programme drawing on different dimensions of insideness and outsideness and arts-based pedagogies in response to the diversity of education today. The data for the study comes from self-selected pages from preservice teacher participants’ reflective sketchbooks. As a methodological approach that unifies the sensuous and cognitive this study suggests that reflective sketchbooks document the dialogic encounters of students whilst also providing a material space that can itself become a form of dialogic space for critical reflection. The main findings of the study outline critical ways in which preservice teachers transform theoretical inputs into individual expressions as well as conceptualise theory in relation to lived experience.
• 

  What really matters about teacher education at Cathedrals Group Universities: volume 2 the case studies

  Holt, James D.; Bowie, Robert; Stone, Glenn; University of Chester; Canterbury Christ Church University; University of Chichester (Canterbury Christ Church University, 2018)

  The NICER project, What really matters about teacher education at Cathedrals Group universities, sought to understand better how teacher education staff, partnership schools student teachers perceived their teacher education institutions and programmes including specific reference to the Institution’s Christian foundation. The data was collected between November 2016 and January 2018. The aims: To investigate why ITE trainees choose Christian foundation university teacher training programmes To investigate why schools choose Christian foundation universities as training programme partners To investigate what Christian foundation universities claim is particular to their Christian foundation, what is particularly or deeply Christian about their ITE provision To investigate what Christian foundation universities, ITE trainees and partnership schools claim about ITE trainees at the point of qualification, that is particular to the institutions’ Christian foundation. The National Institute of Christian Education Research at Canterbury Christ Church University led the research project. The project took place over two years with a pilot and qualitative phase and a quantitative phase.
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  A review of: Selling Folk Music: An Illustrated History, by Ronald D. Cohen and David Bonner.

  Poole, Simon Elis; University of Chester; Storyhouse (Western States Folklore Society, 2018-06-01)

  A review of the book, Selling Folk Music: An Illustrated History. Ronald D. Cohen and David Bonner. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2018. ISBN 978-1-62846-215-9
• An exploration of the tension between tradition and innovation.

  Poole, Simon, E.; University of Chester and Storyhouse (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018-08-01)

  This chapter will present an exploration of the tension between tradition and innovation. Terms and meanings will first be defined and delineated. Tradition will be delineated by way of a consideration of folk culture in extremis, and innovation by way of a personological understanding of creativity, again in extremis. The exploration will take place within a framework expounded by folklorist Bausinger in ‘Folk culture in a world of technology’ (Bausinger, 1961). By revisiting his concepts, and utilising his notions of spatial expansion, temporal expansion and social expansion as lenses, I will reconsider folk culture, and the relationships it has with multi-dimensional topological theories of creativity in a world of digital technology. Several tensions extant in the concept of culture have been posited by previous writers, such as Elliot (1948), Dundes (Dundes, 2002), and Dewey (Dewey, 1938). These tensions are often seen as dichotomies, divisions or contrasts, which are represented as being opposed or entirely different, as a binary construct. Such constructs might serve the creative practitioner better if reframed instead as spectrums of tension. These two extremes, existing in a state of equilibrium, might benefit the creative practitioner, creative act and culture and society more broadly. Exploring these tensions, will make help contribute to the themes and discourses of creativity and culture. Reconsidering each expansion will in turn present new perspectives and ways forward, through the examination of the supposed tensions, and the values and ideas that each expansion deals with. The chapter concludes with thoughts on what the ramifications of these tensions might be; and on the implications for future creative and traditional practice: I am mindful here of the purpose of Bausinger’s original concepts concerned with uncovering new folkloric perspectives and potential standpoints. The chapter therefore has three aims, first to propose an alternative way of being, and knowing the world, that suggests by connecting with, or knowing the past and our cultural traditions, practitioners, professionals or workers can engage in a more personally and socially meaningful creative practice in the digital world. A secondary aim is to reflect upon how this standpoint promotes identity formation and broader social cohesion. And, finally how it might in itself represent a folk realpolitik.
• Psychogeography and Well-Being

  Scott, Clare; Marichalar-Freixa, Eva; Poole, Simon Elis; University of Chester and Storyhouse (Springer, 2019)

  A psychogeographical understanding offers a contemporary view that can be concerned with finding personal connections with place; an expression of political dissent; an expression of spirituality; or a documentation and consideration of a journey. It could also be an amalgamation of any of these to greater or lesser degrees. This understanding considers the historical significance of the flâneur, the dérive, psychogeography, from the urban to the rural, and how it has and will have, significant impact on self-efficacy, self-esteem, community, identity, landscape, and above all sustainability today and tomorrow.
• Applied fantasy and wellbeing

  Wall, Tony; MacKenzie, Anna; Poole, Simon Elis; University of Chester and Storyhouse (Springer, 2019)

  Applied Fantasy is a new, innovative approach to wellbeing that demonstrates the significant potential within fantasy literature and media to provide effective and sustainable coping strategies for positive mental health. Emerging at the intersection of fantasy literature and media, mental health and wellbeing, and fan studies, the benefits from Applied Fantasy are two-fold. First, the concept of an individual being part of a wider fandom is a positive step towards a) combating isolation and b) subverting the stigma surrounding mental health; and second, the contents of the fantasy works themselves provide solid examples and guidance on how to manage mental health concerns while not overtly discussing coping strategies for mental health.
• Informal Music-Making and Well-Being

  Solé i Salas, Lluís; Poole, Simon; University of Chester and Storyhouse (Springer, 2019)

  In order to define the nature of informal music, specifically music making and its multidimensional connections with one’s wellbeing. A brief history of how music making is understood is first offered in order to delineate associated research, and music learning models. It is hoped that this will provide some detailed definition of the contemporary context of music making, so that the approach of ‘Universal Design’, amongst others, in the making of music might be understood as a paradigm shift that might have benefits for wellbeing. Informal music making is in short defined as categorically separate from formal music making, but their overlapping and dynamic relationship is nonetheless recognised and also further expanded upon. Informal music making is also aligned to understandings of the intuitivist and rationalist composer.
• Creativity and Democracy in Education: practices and politics of learning through the arts.

  Owens, Allan; Adams, Jeff; University of Chester (Routledge, 2015-08-04)

  The struggle to establish more democratic education pedagogies has a long history in the politics of mainstream education. This book argues for the significance of the creative arts in the establishment of social justice in education, using examples drawn from a selection of contemporary case studies including Japanese applied drama, Palestinian teacher education and Room 13 children’s contemporary art. Jeff Adams and Allan Owens use their research in practice to explore creativity conceptually, historically and metaphorically within a variety of UK and international contexts, which are analysed using political and social theories of democratic and relational education. Each chapter discusses the relationship between models of democratic creativity and the cultural conditions in which they are practised, with a focus on new critical pedagogies that have developed in response to neoliberalism and marketization in education. The book is structured throughout by the theories, practices and the ideals that were once considered to be foundational for education: democratic citizenship and a just society. Creativity and Democracy in Education will be of key interest to postgraduate students, researchers, and academics in the field of education, especially those interested in the arts and creativity, democratic learning, teacher education, cultural and organisational studies, and political theories of education.
• 

  Rancière and the demise of the book

  Poole, Simon; University of Chester; Storyhouse Chester (NAACE: The Education Technology Association, 2018-02-02)

  This paper is concerned with the future of the physical book, and everything we know and perhaps hold dear about it as an object. As something treasured, stored, loved and remembered. It draws as inspiration and data upon a question posed by Preston (2014): ‘Is the demise of the book imminent?’, and the debate held by members of Mirandanet over a couple of days in response to the question. It is a paper that deals with the books hypothetically anachronistic existence within the digital world of technology. Through the identification and exploration of the benefits and drawbacks of Rancière’s theoretical approaches, their relevance to social issues will be highlighted through a folkloristic perspective. Given this relevance, Rancière’s ideas are applied to the field of educational theory and practice, and an interpretation of ‘the demise of the book’ is offered.
• 

  Folk Culture in the Digital Age: The Emergent Dynamics of Human Interaction

  Poole, Simon; University of Chester (Taylor & Francis, 2016-01-13)

  A review of Folk Culture in the Digital Age: The Emergent Dynamics of Human Interaction for the journal Folklore.
• 

  The LGBT+ Pupil as the Abject: An Ethnographic Exploration of Subjectivity and Discourse in UK Secondary Schools

  Moran, Paul; Wright, Anne-Marie; Clark, Natalie E. (University of Chester, 2018-11-22)

  According to many scholars, schools are the last bastion of permitted homophobia (Beadle, 2009; Grew, 2008; as cited in Formby, 2013). Primarily using the theories of Foucault, Kristeva and Butler, the thesis uses critical theory as a means to both understand and critically analyse the construction of subjectivity within and throughout discourse in the hetero-/cis-normative institution, and how this related to the potential abjection of LGBT+ pupils. Whilst it is agreed in this thesis that LGBT+phobia is still widespread in both schools and wider society, it was found in this research that the impact of direct LGBT+phobic discrimination was less evident. Instead, the discursive spaces where LGBT+phobia had been silenced were filled with hetero-/cis-normative discourse. Concomitantly, the impact of LGBT+ invisibility, the silencing of positive discourse surrounding sexuality and the institutional rejection of performative LGBT+phobia without cultural or organisational change meant there remained a negative impact on LGBT+ young people, despite a reduction in visible LGBT+phobia (DePalma and Atkinson, 2006/2010). Through the use of short vignettes taken from a period of ethnographic research, I have used discursive reflexivity to offer an alternative discourse surrounding the LGBT+ pupil in the school. In a thesis preoccupied with language, the institutional denial of appropriate language, the lack of positive space for LGBT+ young people to construct their identity and the potential risk of abjection from the hetero-/cis-normative institution are all highlighted as points for discussion. Viewed through a critical theory lens, the exemplars used to illustrate these complex theories are chosen from 72 workshops undertaken in schools with Year Nine pupils over a the 2015 to 2016 academic year in the Merseyside region, and also from self-identified LGBT+ young people (also in Year Nine during the academic year 2015 to 2016), who were part of discussions in an LGBT+ Youth drop in based in Liverpool city centre. Intertwining academic analysis and philosophical reflection, the research finds that not only is the LGBT+ pupil abject in the school, but this abjection is threefold. It is enacted by the institution, the peer group and by the internalised LGBT+phobia of the abjected pupil. In the conclusion, it is reflected upon how the impact abjection from school continues to affect LGBT+ people into adulthood.
• 

  Book Review: 'Art Disobedience and Ethics: The Adventure of Pedagogy'

  Adams, Jeff; University of Chester (National Society for Education in Art and Design, 2018-09-01)

  Book review of Dennis Atkinson's 'Art, disobedience and ethics: The adventure of pedagogy',
• The Philosophy of Homelessness

  Moran, Paul; Atherton, Frances; University of Chester (Routledge, 2018-08-06)

  A Philosophy of Homelessness is, in a number of respects, a ground-breaking work. It critically analyses the, for the most part, ordinary assumptions by which most of us in the developed world appear to live our daily, ordinary lives. These ordinary assumptions include rights of ownership, and the ability through ownership to fashion one’s own living environment, for example by being able to decorate, add to and modify one’s home, and therefore to express some agency about place, belonging and being; the capacity to engage in an economic system in such a way that allows a distance, an abstraction, a dissociation of the participant, including the participant’s body, from that which is being exchanged; as well as a more general ontology that identifies and establishes the personal, the private, the condition that this - whatever this might be - being mine, again, including one’s own body, and the intimate cradle of one’s self, and thus one’s soul. Our research about homelessness, we suggest, discloses these facets of our contemporary, mundane neoliberal experience as products of an economy of being that forges our beliefs and practices about who and what we are. This critical analysis, amounting to a philosophy, is engendered from the mundane experiences of a community of chronically homeless people; a community that we have known and been part of for over three years. For example: the taken for granted experiences of shopping and belonging are discussed through the prism of heroin dealers and addicts; the process of being a couple and wanting to have a family is understood via a homeless couple’s struggle to live together and have a baby; the attempt to achieve financial independence is discussed by way of enforcers who collect drug debts for organised criminals; and themes of intimacy and privacy are explored through the lives of homeless sex-workers. Whilst the daily events of the homeless people that populate this work are arresting enough in themselves, it is their implications, their ontological and political implications, that are most shocking and telling about the brutal and parlous state of contemporary first world society, and the growing number of marginalised and dispossessed that it begets. The appeal of this powerful work therefore extends beyond an ethnographic and sociological analysis of homelessness in urban Britain; it provides a concrete opening for those interested in a radical critique, at the quotidian level of realisation, of the current global crisis of neoliberal beliefs and forms of organization. There are no other books on the market that undertake this work in this intimate, gritty, disturbing and irreverent way. By way of structure it achieves this by foregrounding in each chapter the lives of specific homeless people, which illustrate and develop the themes of being homeless.
• Artist teachers and democratic pedagogy

  Adams, Jeff; Atherton, Frances; Hoekstra, Marike (University of Chester, 2018-09-28)

  Combining artistic practice with teaching is not unusual for teachers in the visual arts. A dual professional practice, which can be found throughout the field of art education with art teachers in all levels of education, requires a negotiation of roles and positions on a personal level and has impact on pedagogy. However, the binary opposition of artist versus teacher fails to comprise the diversity of practices where art making and teaching are combined. Not only does identification with artist or teacher vary, so does the extent to which the two disciplines are fused, to the point where it can be called a hybrid practice when the distinction between art and teaching is no longer relevant. The democratic nature of contemporary visual art making further problematises a singular model of artist teacher practice. In order to do justice to the personal strategies artist teachers employ in balancing their dual professional roles, this thesis proposes a multifaceted concept of artist teacher practice. In this thesis, the notion of hybridity and diversity in artist teacher practice and the implications for democratic models of teaching and learning is subject to both theoretical, empirical, and artistic inquiry. The employment of different lenses enables a multi-layered approach to a complex practice. By focusing on the knowledge incorporated in the practice of two Dutch artist teachers this thesis informs how artist teacher practice relates to models of democratic teaching and learning. The miniature dioramas visually explore my own perception of democratic learning spaces and add an extra auto-ethnographic layer of understanding to artist teacher pedagogy. Central in this thesis is the notion of a pedagogical thirdspace. A spatial representation of social realities helps to create a critical understanding of human life. A thirdspace is a place in the margins between reality and ideals (Soja, 1999). When binary models of understanding are exchanged for real-life knowledge of the pedagogical practice of artist teachers an ambiguous open space emerges, where there is room for experiential learning, uncertainty, risk-taking, care, equality, inclusion, tacit experience, sensitivity, play, flexibility, and conflict. The engaged pedagogy (hooks, 1994) of artist teachers emancipates learners because of the fact that the duality of the artist teacher invites learners to join in a democratic, living model of artistic practice.
• “‘There's only one God, ma'am’- one God or many gods in the world of the Avengers”

  Holt, James D.; University of Chester (Open Court, 2018-08-30)

  This chapter will explore the nature of God within Captain America’s world and how much this draws on the ‘previous life’ of Captain Steve Rogers. It will do so, however, utilizing the exploration of the experience of Moses and the identification of God at the burning bush as a way to understand a worldview that accepts the existence of multiple deities, but with one supreme deity: ‘I am’. The chapter will then contrast this understanding with a Humean approach to the understanding of religion and the nature of God.
• The Critically Designed Garden.

  Adams, Jeff; Hyde, Wendy; University of Chester (Wiley, 2018-08-08)

  This article is concerned with design applied to gardens, using examples from the Chelsea Flower Show in London. There is a discussion of those show gardens that represented Syrian refugees’ gardens in Iraq and the Windrush generation immigration to the UK. The garden designs combine the aesthetics of organic materials and spatial architecture with an implicit critique of topical contemporary social issues. The article concludes by commenting on the risks posed by the reduced and impoverished UK arts education policies for producing the next generation of applied design practitioners.
• An autoethnographic exploration of creative self-efficacy (CSE)

  Adams, Jeff; Bristow, Maxine; Smith, Helen (University of Chester, 2018-09-28)

  This autoethnographic study investigates my self-perception of my artistic abilities which I posit as my Creative Self Efficacy (CSE). This is a part-practice thesis which uses arts-based research methods to investigate shifting self-perceptions and understandings of creativity and how these may have influenced my visual arts practice. CSE can be defined as one’s view of and belief in one’s creative abilities. Many scholars have written about the power of self-efficacy to condition behavioural choices, motivations and persistence. This research provides an autoethnographic enquiry into how these self-beliefs can shape, limit or enhance the possibilities for creative practice. The primary aim is to better understand the relationship between my own CSE and the influence of these on my creative practice. Arts-based methods enabled me to explore this territory, allowing a self-awareness to be developed through responding to the self-judgements and doubts experienced during the creative process. Reflexive resonances between these experiences of self-efficacy and pedagogical implications were made and framed through the lenses of theories such as habitus and my different roles of artist, teacher and researcher. Main findings include the influences of social comparisons, parental socialisation, and approaches and attitudes to art-making to my CSE, culminating in an experimental shift in practice which embraces a process approach. These findings suggest implications for pedagogical practices and approaches to art-making which demonstrate awareness of self-evaluative judgements and embrace uncertainty, ambiguity and not knowing.
• 

  The experience of women as mature students in Higher Education

  Atherton, Frances; Hanrahan, Lindsay J. (University of Chester, 2018-08-30)

  There is a substantial body of knowledge into the factors that can influence women’s experiences of Higher Education (HE) such as social class, ethnicity and gender. Additionally, there is a significant focus on women and education in relation to their academic abilities such as comparing their achievement in terms of their gender. However, much of this research focuses on attainment between groups such as men and women or explores the impact of one specific characteristic. The principal aim of my study was to explore the experiences of a small group of women who had returned to education and entered HE. Through a series of conversations their unique stories were revealed, including the challenges and opportunities that they had encountered. The original contribution to knowledge that my study makes is in the way it documents five mature women’s experiences who traditionally would not have been expected to go to university. These women are working class, with caring responsibilities, who did not anticipate a time in their lives when they would continue into HE. To attain an undergraduate degree or professional qualification seemed beyond their particular sphere. In this study, the stories of five women over the age of twenty-one, returning to HE is captured and reveals the complex issues faced as they navigated their way through unfamiliar territory. During the research recurring themes emerged in the women’s experiences including personal motivations and aspirations, challenges to learning, networks of support and learning communities which shaped their time in HE. My ethnographic analysis of their stories is framed by my own experience of returning to HE and is viewed through the lens of feminist theory. The overall conclusions from the research reveal that the five women were able to complete their courses successfully and highlights a range of positive factors about returning to education including the opportunity to engage with fellow students, increasing personal confidence and independence and developing understandings, knowledge and skills. However, my study also illustrates the real barriers and constraints to learning that proved to be tough for the women to overcome both emotionally and practically. By examining several Marxist feminist writers such as Benston (1969) and Putnam Tong (1993), I recognised how women may be oppressed or restricted in their choices based on the numerous roles that they must perform in the home. For some of the women, attempting to study in addition to fulfilling other domestic and caring responsibilities proved to be very demanding. Overall, the research highlights the complexities that this group of non-traditional students face when attempting to improve their prospects and fulfil hitherto latent potential.

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