Question Time at CamERA 2006
Dr Linda Hargreaves and Professor Neil Mercer gave a short presentation about their current research before answering questions from the audience.
- Raising the Stakes for Teacher Status - Dr Linda Hargreaves
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In 1997, the new Labour government set itself the target of raising the image, morale and status of the teaching profession, such that, according to Estelle Morris in 2001, our best teachers will be the equivalent of consultants rather than junior doctors or nurses. The government has reiterated its status message several times since then and introduced a raft of policies with the potential to achieve this. Many of these policies appear to have equal potential to undermine teacher status, however. The Teacher Status Project was instigated by the DfES in 2002 to identify a baseline of perceptions of the status of teachers and the teaching profession in the eyes of the public, education stakeholders and teachers themselves, to see how/whether this has changed by 2006, and to understand the factors that teachers think influence their status. The project conducted large scale cross-sectional surveys in 2003, and is currently doing so again, to assess changes in perceptions of teacher status among the groups listed above. In addition it has conducted a programme of school-based case studies and focus groups of specific groups of teachers (e.g. those involved in research/ CPD; minority ethnic teachers; early years teachers etc.) during 2004-6. At CamERA we shall consider data from these sources to provide teachers' definitive version of a 'high status profession' and how well teaching fits this definition. Time permitting we shall also look at trainees' perceptions of teacher status and whether their perceptions have changed since 2003.
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Language and collective thinking: a sociocultural approach to analysing classroom talk - Professor Neil Mercer
My research in classrooms is based on a sociocultural perspective on teaching and learning, summarised as follows. Language is a tool for thinking collectively and education is a dialogic process. In schools and elsewhere, communication is shaped by cultural and historical factors, and thinking, learning and development cannot be understood without taking account of the intrinsically social and communicative nature of human life. Educational outcomes may be determined by the quality of classroom dialogue, and not only by the capability of individual students or the skill of their teachers. My research is both practical and theoretical, involving the investigation of how teachers and students may be helped to use the tool of language most effectively, and aimed at shedding light on the relationship between what Vygotsky called the 'intermental' and the 'intramental' - the social and the psychological.
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