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  Emotional empathy of postgraduate students

  Lambert, Steve; Dimitriadis, Nikolaos; Venerucci, Matteo; Taylor, Michael G.; University of Chester; University of York; Brian Propaganda

  This paper focuses on the leaders’ ability to recognise and empathise with emotions. This is important because leadership and particularly transformational leadership are principally focused on an individual’s social interactions and their ability to identify emotions and to react empathetically to the emotions of others (Psychogios and Dimitriadis, 2020). Many leadership theorists suggest the ability to have and display empathy is an important part of leadership (Bass, 1990; Walumbwa, et. al., 2008). To examine the extent to which those who work in jobs with a significant element of leadership education can recognise and empathise with emotions, ninety-nine part-time postgraduate executive MBA students took part in an emotional recognition test. First, all participants were shown a sequence of pictures portraying different human facial expressions and the electrical activity in the brain as a result of the visual stimuli were recorded using an electroencephalogram (EEG). The second stage of the research was for the participants to see the same seven randomised images, but this time, they had to report what emotion they believed they had visualised and the intensity of it on a self-reporting scale. This study demonstrated that the ability to recognise emotions is more accurate using EEG techniques compared to participants using self-reporting surveys. The results of this study provide academic departments with evidence that more work needs to be done with students to develop their emotional recognition skills. Particularly for those students who are or will go onto occupy leadership roles.
• Empathic gaze: a study of human resource professionals

  Lambert, Steve; Dimitriadis, Nikolaos; Venerucci, Matteo; Taylor, Michael; University of Chester; University of York; Brain Propaganda (Emerald, 2021-09-02)

  The purpose of this research paper is to explore the fixation of the eyes of HR professionals’ when identifying emotions in the context of workplace research, and to propose measures that might support them in their role. This paper combines a contemporary literature review with reflections from practice to develop a more nuanced understanding of 39 HR professionals’ ability to recognise emotions. This paper used eye-tracking technology more commonly used in laboratory based studies to explore the fixation of the eye when identifying emotions. The preliminary findings suggest that HR professionals with higher levels of emotional recognition principally focus on the eyes of the recipient. Whereas those with lower levels of emotional recognition focus more so the nose or the randomly across the face, depending on the level of emotional recognition. The data suggests that women are better than men, in the sample group at recognising emotions, with some variations in recognising specific emotions such as disgust. This research paper proposes a number of implications for middle leaders and suggests that middle leaders should proactively seek out opportunities to be engaged in activities that support the default mode network (DMN) function of the brain and subsequently the relationship-orientated aspects of leadership, for example, coaching other staff members. However, it has to be recognised that the sample size is small and further work is needed before any generalisations can be made. This paper offers a contemporary review underpinned by a preliminary study into HR professionals’ ability to recognise emotions.
• The ‘Teacher Research Group’ as a collaborative model of professional learning

  Jones, Luke; University of Chester (Routledge, 2021-08-10)

  In this study, we adopted a Teacher Research Group model, a collaborative approach to teacher education that draws on the principles of numerous action research models of enquiry. More specifically, a teacher educator worked alongside an experienced physical education teacher over a three-month period to plan, teach and evaluate a series of classroom-based lessons. The Teacher Research Group adopted five teaching strategies that were thought to be significantly related to optimal learning and then refined their use in response to an evaluation of pupils’ learning in the classroom. This article outlines the context for this model, describes its application and finally reviews its value as a means of promoting shared professional learning. Adopting the Teacher Research Group model did lead to changes in teaching strategies and improvements in pupils’ learning outcomes. Moreover, the model was an effective approach to shared professional learning, one that could lead to desirable change among education professionals elsewhere.
• Emotional Leadership

  Lambert, Steve; University of Chester

  Leaders who practice emotional leadership demonstrate a sensitivity to their own and other’s feelings, wellbeing and emotional health. In this style of leadership, the person leads with emotional intelligence, directing others to common goals while developing solid and effective personal relationships. This article explores emotional leadership and argues that it is not only a key quality of effective leaders but has a particular relevance with the emotional burden created within the healthcare workforce by the recent COVID-19 pandemic.
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  How can we engage mathematics ITE students with research?

  Bamber, Sally; Bokhove, Christian; University of Chester; University of Southampton (British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics, 2021-03-06)

  In the Erasmus+ Research in Teacher Education (RiTE) project, student teachers are stimulated to use evidence from educational and scientific research to experiment and innovate their teaching and learning processes. In two case studies we use Engestrom’s expansive learning cycle. The first case study reports on the design and implementation of materials designed to enhance student teachers’ critical review of literature in the context of the post-graduate study that is incorporated within their teacher education. The second case study presents the design of collaborative lesson research that aims to foster authentic connections between school-based learning (teaching practice) and research that informs mathematics teaching and learning. We discuss the aims of research-informed mathematics teacher education at each site, demonstrate some of the approaches used and discuss tensions within the design and early implementation of the projects.
• Associate Teachers’ views on dialogic mentoring

  Jones, Luke; Tones, Steven; Foulkes, Gethin; Jones, Rhys C.; University of Chester; Bangor University

  The aim of this paper is to examine Associate Teachers’ (ATs) views on dialogic mentoring. More specifically it consider, the views of 48 ATs who were involved in an Initial Teacher Education (ITE) partnership that has emerged in response to several changes that have occurred in Welsh education. Educational reforms in Wales have highlighted the value of mentoring and the new ITE partnership is uniquely committed to a dialogic approach. A questionnaire and three focus group interviews were used to generate data from the 48 ATs who were completing a one-year postgraduate programme. Thematic analysis was then used to interrogate the data and identify patterns of response. Adopting a dialogic approach was found to remove some of the anxiety around formal observations and help establish trusting collaborative relationships where ATs were willing to take risks. The dialogic approach was more democratic and gave ATs a stronger voice, but this also created some conflict as mentors’ own beliefs were more likely to be questioned. The dialogic approach relied on mentors being fully invested in the process and being committed to open conversations about learning.
• Diversity and marginalization in childhood: A guide to inclusive thinking 0-11

  Hamilton, Paula; University of Chester

  This core text offers students an accessible foundation to the topics of diversity, inclusion and marginalisation. Not only will they develop an understanding of how marginalisation happens, they will be encouraged to question and challenge policy and practice through case studies, reflective questions and activities. The book analyses issues encountered by marginalised groups and the impact these may have on the lives of those concerned, together with how practitioners can help to empower these individuals and groups. With key chapters bringing attention to less cited marginalised groups such as transgender children, children with mental health conditions and looked after children, the author critically analyses the difficulties and challenges of inclusive ideology in practice, the role of mass media in reinforcing prejudice and examines theoretical frameworks and concepts related to marginalisation, inclusion and diversity.
• An exploration of creativity in the lives of English teachers: Representing voices through found poetry

  Bamber, Sally; Jones, Luke; Matthews, Martin (University of Chester, 2020-10)

  This arts-based research sets out to explore the place of creativity in the lives of a group of English teachers in one secondary school in the north west of England. More specifically, it uses found poetry to examine creativity in the lives of English teachers who work within the context of an increasingly performative educational system. As well as interrogating the place of creativity in the lives of the participants, the study also explores how found poetry can be used as a research method to represent and analyse data and communicate research findings in a manner that is democratic and illuminating. The words that created the poems came from two semi-structured interviews with each participant. After the first interview, the participants were able to scrutinise and reflect upon the content of the found poems before returning for a second interview. This recursive process helped build confidence in the findings and gave a deeper understanding of the experiences of the participants in relation to creativity whilst eliciting further responses in the interview process itself. The findings suggest that English teachers have limited space to be creative, or to think differently in their teaching practice. The limited space to be creative comes from the normalising practices of a performance culture, but the restrictions are both real and self-imposed by the participants. There is perhaps a need to find a new space for English teachers to act, or think creatively and form notions of resistance in order to re-think English teacher identity.
• PREOCCUPIED: The role of peacebuilding in formal education in the West Bank

  Evans, Martin; Wright, Anne-Marie; Arya-Manesh, Emma (University of Chester, 2021-01)

  This thesis is an ethnographic study of six teacher educators working in university settings in the West Bank, an Occupied Palestinian Territory. It explores these teacher educators’ perceptions, values, and attitudes about the role of peacebuilding in Formal Education (FE). It focuses particularly on the teacher educators’ practice, which is to train student teachers to be certified as competent to work in schools either managed or run by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MoEHE). The research shows that there are tensions surrounding the conceptualisation of the meaning of teacher competency among contributors to teacher education. The tension lies most noticeably between schools and universities. This thesis thus captures the (dis)continuities of an FE system caught between the conditions of colonial and military occupation and performative measures and strategies enforced by the MoEHE. These problems are compounded by the complex associations of FE with Palestinian liberation. From the expressions the teacher educators used to convey their ideas, metaphors provide a powerful analytical device. The thesis employs a narrative analysis to foreground these metaphors as more than a rhetorical device. The metaphors provide reflexive insight into the (extra)ordinary lives of the teacher educators and the specificities of the cultural and political context from which their understandings of peacebuilding arise. The data shows that the teacher educators have individual and shared tensions about the underlying principles of peace, which consequently inform the roles of peacebuilding in FE from complex and contradictory positions. These metaphors expose an FE system that is a victim and a perpetrator both of forms of violence, and of the complex conditions under which peacebuilding either thrives or is diminished. The data also shows that peacebuilding in FE is most contentious where there is a disconnect with social justice and a connection with tatbi’a (normalisation) and counterinsurgency. In its final analysis, this thesis draws on the perspectives of Johan Galtung, Paulo Freire and Pierre Bourdieu to disturb deep-rooted thinking about peacebuilding in the West Bank. As a consequence of exploring the data through these theoretical lenses, the thesis exposes deep fractures in thinking and beliefs which are perpetuated by deeply entrenched, competing discourses that cannot be easily resolved. This thesis encourages academics and policy makers in the fields of critical peace education and education in conflict to consider generative peacebuilding frameworks that focus on conflicts within Palestinian society as well as those arising from the Occupation, and see them as mutually reinforcing rather than treating them purely as separate issues.
• Planting Critical Ideas

  Adams, Jeff; University of Chester

  Jeff Adams discusses ideas about art education and artists tackling the environmental crisis, using the theory of anti-mimesis. The video features drawings by the author of pine trees in Wirral and Bethlehem. The video is based on the paper: Adams, J. (2020) Planting Critical Ideas: Artists Reconfiguring the Environmental Crisis, International Journal of Art and Design Education, 39.2, pp. 274-279. DOI: 10.1111/jade.12293.
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  Making the most of crafts in Merseyside schools

  Adams, Jeff; Rhodes, Sam; Smith, Claire; University of Chester; Bluecoat Display Centre, Liverpool

  During 2018/19 the Bluecoat Display Centre (BDC) in Liverpool set out to undertake a review of best-practice models for integrating craft-makers into secondary education to support research-informed practice in creative education. The project took us into a number of local secondary schools around Merseyside to meet teachers who had integrated artist-led working and residencies into their curriculums, to help us build a detailed picture of the conditions and resources that are essential for a productive long-term collaboration between the schools and the craft-maker.
• Planting critical ideas: Artists reconfiguring the environmental crisis

  Adams, Jeff; University of Chester

  This article looks at possible artistic responses to the environmental crisis, using the theory of anti-mimesis as a means to rethink and reconfigure the ways that the crisis is understood. Initially using the nineteenth-century idea of anti-mimesis, or life imitating art, where art brings nature into existence in people’s minds, the article looks at the work of contemporary artists and writers who are challenging existing assumptions about human interventions into the natural world and the ways in which thinking may be reconfigured by these responses. In particular the sluggish response of governments towards tree preservation and planting is used as an example of the potential for artist educators to revivify the thinking around this issue through their creative insights, hence the metaphor of planting critical ideas, with the aim of creating a momentum of consciousness about the preciousness and fragility of our natural environment.
• Art and Solidarity

  Adams, Jeff; University of Chester

  In many countries state support for the arts is declining, for both the arts in general and for the arts in education specifically. The creative and critical thinking that often accompanies the arts is a significant asset for schools in these turbulent times. The increased social awareness and co-operation that arises from the creative juxtaposition of people from different cultures brought together under the auspices of the arts, and who are prepared to overcome traditional differences through a common endeavour, is a form of creative solidarity.
• Understanding emotional empathy at postgraduate business programs: What does the use of EEG reveal for future leaders?

  Lambert, Steve; Dimitriadis, Nikolaos; Taylor, Michael; Venerucci, Matteo; University of Chester; University of York; Brain Propaganda (Emerald, 2021-04-29)

  This paper focuses on the leaders’ ability to recognise and empathise with emotions. This is important because leadership and particularly transformational leadership are principally focused on an individual’s social interactions and their ability to identify emotions and to react empathetically to the emotions of others (Psychogios and Dimitriadis, 2020). Many leadership theorists suggest the ability to have and display empathy is an important part of leadership (Bass, 1990; Walumbwa, et. al., 2008). Design/methodology/approach To examine the extent to which those who work in jobs with a significant element of leadership education can recognise and empathise with emotions, ninety-nine part-time postgraduate executive MBA students took part in an emotional recognition test. First, all participants were shown a sequence of pictures portraying different human facial expressions and the electrical activity in the brain as a result of the visual stimuli were recorded using an electroencephalogram (EEG). The second stage of the research was for the participants to see the same seven randomised images, but this time, they had to report what emotion they believed they had visualised and the intensity of it on a self-reporting scale. Findings This study demonstrated that the ability to recognise emotions is more accurate using EEG techniques compared to participants using self-reporting surveys. The results of this study provide academic departments with evidence that more work needs to be done with students to develop their emotional recognition skills. Particularly for those students who are or will go on to occupy leadership roles. Originality The use of neuroscientific approaches has long been used in clinical settings. However, few studies have applied these approaches to develop our understanding of their use in social sciences. Therefore, this paper provides an original and unique insight into the use of these techniques in higher education.
• Practitioners’ perceptions on the delivery of services provided to children and their families in a disadvantaged area in an Indian context

  Devarakonda, Chandrika; University of Chester

  Several successful children’s programs around the world have highlighted the importance of the quality of relationships among and between the adults involved in the delivery of services. This will enable the adults involved including parents to identify the skills, knowledge and dispositions that will influence the holistic development of their children’s current and future lives (New R.S. (1999). The aim of this research study is to explore the perceptions of practitioners on the delivery of integrated services provided to children and their families living in disadvantaged areas in India. Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) is a government-initiated programme that has been successful in providing the needed services almost on the families’ doorstep. The practitioners - especially those working at grass roots levels, from the same community and a range of different practitioners involved in the delivery of integrated services to children and their families were interviewed using semi structured interview schedule. The interviews were tape recorded in order to accommodate analysis. The findings indicated that the delivery of integrated services for children and their families from disadvantaged families adopted a personal and flexible approach. The families and the members of the community especially women were successfully encouraged to be involved in the education and health aspects of the services provided. The success of the programme as perceived by the practitioners highlighted on the personal qualities such as commitment, high levels of motivation of the practitioners at different levels of implementation of the programme.
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  Conceptions of inclusion and inclusive education: A critical examination of the perspectives and practices of teachers in England

  Devarakonda, Chandrika; Hodkinson, Alan; University of Chester; Liverpool Hope University

  This paper details the development and operation of a system of inclusive education in England during the latter part of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st Century. Through the employment of a literature review and in-depth semi-structured interviews the study sought to determine how teachers defined and operationalised inclusive education in their schools. The studys conclusion details that although many teachers had struggled to understand and operationalise inclusion they had tried very hard to make this initiative work for them, their pupils and their schools. Where inclusion had been most successful was in schools where levels of training were high and ones in which the ethos was positive and supportive of this important educational initiative.
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  For pity’s sake: comparative conceptions of inclusion in England and India.

  Devarakonda, Chandrika; Hodkinson, Alan; University of Chester; Liverpool Hope University

  This paper offers a critique of transnational aspects of ‘inclusion,’ one of those global education buzzwords that as Slee (2009) puts it, say everything but say nothing. It starts off by trying to compare Indian and English usages and attitudes at the level of teacher discourse, and notes the impossibility of any ‘authentic’ translation, given the very different cultural contexts and histories. In response to these divergences, the authors undertake a much more genealogical and ‘forensic’ examination of values associated with ‘inclusion,’ focussing especially on a key notion of ‘pity.’ The Eurocentric tradition is traced from its Platonic origins through what is claimed to be the ‘industrialization of pity’ and its rejection as a virtue in favour of more apparently egalitarian measures of fairness. The Indian tradition relates rather to religious traditions across a number of different belief systems, most of which centre on some version of a karmic notion of pity. The authors both criticise and reject ‘inclusion’ as a colonisation of the global and call for a new understanding of notions like ‘pity’ as affective commitment rather than ‘fair’ dispensation of equality.
• Promoting Inclusion and Diversity in Early Years Settings A Professional Guide to Ethnicity, Religion, Culture and Language

  Devarakonda, Chandrika; University of Chester

  his guide provides insights, case studies and resources to enable anyone working in early years settings to identify and understand the individual needs of children from diverse backgrounds and the steps that can be taken to support and extend their learning. Examining the impact of unconscious bias, blind spots and institutionalised discrimination that set some children at a disadvantage, this book raises awareness and provides strategies for professionals to proactively support those affected. It covers race and ethnicity, religion, culture, EAL and intersectionality and enables professionals to help children from diverse backgrounds to develop to the best of their potential
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  Drama as an Ecotone in the Ecosystem of Primary Education

  Owens, Allan; Adams, Jeff; Piasecka, Shelley; Einarsson, Anneli (University of Chester, 2020-01)

  This thesis investigates the tensions that emerge as drama is implemented in the teaching at a primary school. The thesis analyses drama practice in relation to a rationalistic and a holistic theoretical framework, and employs the epistemological view that subjectification and socialization are as important as the qualification dimension in education. A metaphorical model was developed, Schooling–Ecotone–Art, in order to deepen the understanding of drama as a subject in relation to the educational discourse. The ecotone, a notion deriving from ecology, symbolizes drama and serve as a tool to explore the tensions created at the borders of the adjacent habitats. The study describes the developing diversity within the drama practice in relation to the staff’s teaching and the pupils’ learning and meaning making. The empirical data are gathered by field studies at a primary school in Sweden, during one year. A project was made possible by a grant from the local municipality, through which the school was able to engage in a collaborative project with a local culture centre in which teachers and drama pedagogues worked together on a weekly basis. The doctoral study was initiated by an invitation from the school and the culture centre. Anchored in critical ethnography, the data include observations, interviews with staff and pupils, video recordings, questionnaires and email correspondence. The findings reveal different levels of tensions as drama is implemented in the teaching, which reflects the materiality of the discursive order and institutional power in education. Further, the study demonstrates the levels of progression as drama is practiced regularly, in which carnival play was a factor in the initial turbulent phase, and thus a major challenge for the staff. The study suggests that the phases in the progress demonstrate that drama comprises a unique and subject-specific content, which is needed in a holistic epistemology in primary education. Additionally, the progress describes how diversity emerges in the staff’s teaching as well as in the pupils’ creative work and that questions of interculturality are illuminated. The study concludes that there is a need to deconstruct a rationalistic epistemology, and develop a holistic epistemology, in order to achieve a sustainable education. The thesis contributes with deepened knowledge of drama as a unique habitat, and the possibilitiesfor diversity asthe tensions created in relation to adjacent habitats, schooling and art, are viewed as possibilities rather than obstacles to avoid. The material being presented for examination is my own work and has not been submitted for an award of this or another HEI except in minor particulars which are explicitly noted in the body of the thesis. Where research pertaining to the thesis was undertaken collaboratively, the nature and extent of my individual contribution has been made explicit.
• A new felt presence: Making and learning as part of a community of women feltmakers

  Adams, Jeff; Owens, Allan; Spry, Georgina C. (University of Chester, 2020-05)

  The purpose of this qualitative art-based autoethnographic research study is to examine the lived experience of contemporary feltmaking from both collective and individual perspectives and the relationship between personal practice and the learning that takes place in a community of shared practice. The thesis exists as an exhibition of feltworks alongside a written piece, which presents qualitative and arts-based data comprising of my own experiences documenting both my journey through treatment for stage three breast cancer and the learning and teaching taking place as a member of this female community of feltmakers. It explores the principles of tacit knowledge in feltmaking alongside the concept of flow as a key marker of mastery, incorporating an analysis of the collaborative learning elements which facilitate the process of its members’ transformation from novice to expert, within a broad base of abilities, skills and experience. The thesis begins with an examination of the history of feltmaking, and the learned traditions passed through cultural generations. This is followed by an exploration of textile ‘pockets’ in women’s history, examining patriarchy, privacy and interiority through a narrative. Within this context, shared felting projects are presented. The feltmakers’ pockets are displayed as Tripartite Helix, examining international and local felting techniques alongside shared privacy within the physical pockets, the three sections denoting elements of felting as a collective sense. My own work Hushed Reverberations explores privacy, interiority and its exposure to the exterior. My practice and autoethnographic mesearch research are embedded throughout the study to illuminate the experience of learning and teaching of feltmaking in order to appreciate the process as much more than mere material transformation. This art-based research establishes a connection between feltmaking, historical, patriarchal and cultural influences and an autoethnographic, mesearch research methodology. The thesis reveals the affiliation between personal narrative through feltmaking craft and biography as a relational connection between shared journeys, intertwining autoethnographic learning, feltmaking, narrative and cultural history. It also reveals that learning in a collective does not take place simply through increasing participation in an experience, but is also fuelled by pedagogical, social and historical factors. The research contributes to an understanding and an expression of how the process of feltmaking can be used as a way of communicating and conveying a personal journey which can provide the means for individuals to support themselves and each other. However, the basis of the women's experience in crafts cannot be explained in isolation from the environments in which they take place but must be connected through culture, history and gender. The thesis concludes that women can use feltmaking to make sense of life-changing events and adversities, and to begin the healing process, bringing comfort and sense of community during periods of turmoil.

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