Teacher is a verb, not a noun: A performative approach
Main Article Content
Keywords
binary, dressage, Judith Butler, performativity, teacher acts
Abstract
This paper documents a qualitative study of four south Texas female teachers. It reports the experiences of each teacher with the state teacher evaluation system, currently known as the Texas Teacher Evaluation and Support System (TTESS), as documented by three sets of semi-structured interview sessions. The study provided insight into how teachers made meaning of the evaluation system and how that meaning revealed the circulation of performativity throughout the system. The study provided three examples of the circulation of performativity: dressage, temporality of teacher acts, and performance embodies teacher acts. As a result of performative pressures, each teacher described the repetition of specific teacher behaviors that reinforced the preservation of performative acts among teachers. The findings expose the performative nature evaluation systems hold on teachers by use of the TTESS. In addition, the findings showed the need for increased qualitative research aimed at disrupting performance acts within teachers and teacher evaluation systems. It showed a deliberate need for school administrators to consider the performative pressures circulating through evaluation systems and begun to disrupt the effective teacher narrative. The study concluded with considerations for added research in the area of effective teacher narrative and considered dialogue that allows for teachers to teacher free of the performativity trap.
References
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Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity Routledge, Chapman and Hall.
Creswell, J. W. (2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Creswell, J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. (A. Sheridan, Trans.) New York, New York: Vintage Books.
Galletta, A. (2013). Mastering the Semi-Structured Interview and Beyond. New York, New York: NYU Press.
Hill, H. & Grossman, P. (2013). Learning from Teacher Observations: Challenges and Opportunities Posed by New Teacher Evaluation System. Harvard Educational Review, (83)2, 371401.
Rutherford, V., Conway, P. F., & Murphy, R. (2015). Looking like a teacher: Fashioning an embodied identity through dressage. Teaching Education, 26(3), 325.
Sanjari, M., Bahramnezhad, F., Fomani, F. K., Shoghi, M., & Cheraghi, M. A. (2014). Ethical challenges of researchers in qualitative studies: the necessity to develop a specific guideline. Journal of medical ethics and history of medicine, 7, 14.
Strong, M., Gargani, J., & Hacifazlio?lu, Ö. (2011). Do we know a successful teacher when we see one? Experiments in the identification of effective teachers. Journal of Teacher Education, 62(4), 367-382.
Saldana, J. (2009). The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Wolcott, H. F. (1994). Transforming qualitative data: Description, analysis, and interpretation. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.