Teaching in the Margins: A Study of an Adult Teacher Practice
Date
2013-12-09
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Abstract
This study explores the interplay of adult educator backgrounds with organizational contexts and discusses how those elements combine to inform teacher practice. Using life history methodology as a basis for educational research, this study connected life experience to educational practice by examining the relationship of individual adult educator histories and the workplace settings in which their educator practices were situated. The primary purpose of this study was to explore aspects of life journeys that relate to the practice of adult education and correlate this understanding to examine how specific workplace contexts influence courses of action and decision-making in adult teaching and learning environments. A significant part of this research included an inquiry into how educators convey a personal essence within their instruction in order to form holistic or authentic teacher practices based on the tenets of transformative and critical adult education. Elements emerging from the data in this research pointed to how the unique position of adult educators, particularly in the area of English language teaching (ELT), enables educational practitioners to bridge gaps between educational practice, business agendas, and organizational paradigms. At the same time, in understanding links from personal to professional aspects of self, data from this research highlighted the notion of ELT as providing rather unstable workplace contexts that influence and possibly restrict educator ability to develop self-identity and authenticity.
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Education--Adult and Continuing
Citation
Rappel, L. J. (2013). Teaching in the Margins: A Study of an Adult Teacher Practice (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/27986