In the Research Conversations podcast series, researchers and teachers come together in conversation to collectively explore different aspects of engaging with literacy research. They draw on their diverse priorities, interests and concerns as they reflect on what their encounters with research are and reimagine what they could be.
You can listen to the episode or read the transcript below to consider their different perspectives when it comes to engaging with research.
“Contested spaces”: Bridging the gap between literacy research and practice
In this episode, researcher Navan Govender and teacher Simon Collis reflect on how different literacy partners can work together to bridge the gaps between them.
Classroom practitioners work at the meeting point of different stakeholders and their diverse ideas, practices and perspectives. Navigating these contested spaces alongside competing pressures can be a challenge. One way forward is increasing partnerships between researchers and teachers by co-constructing research. This can help teachers exercise their professional, creative and critical capacities to turn the research they engage with into something that better serves them and the people they serve.
Listen to the episode here
Navan Govender (NG): Hi, folks. My name is Navan Govender. I’m a lecturer in applied language and literacy education at the University of Strathclyde, the Strathclyde Institute of Education.
Simon Collis [SC]: Hi, I’m Simon Collis. I am an English and curriculum lead at Emmaus Primary School which is in Sheffield.
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NG: One of the questions that we were thinking of is what was the research that inspired us into different kinds of action in language and literacy education? What are some of the like key examples of research that we’ve engaged with in terms of the work that we do?
SC: One of the things that we have been engaging with recently is to do with Reading for Pleasure. So the Open University with Teresa Cremin have got a really good website about Reading for Pleasure. And I think what’s made it really helpful for us as teachers is that it’s got this really sort of rich background in research. But also it’s got lots of ways to apply it and make it so it’s something that you could see in the classroom. So they’ve thought quite carefully about bridging the gap between research and practice, which I think is always a bit of a challenge. So that’s kind of something we’ve been working on for the last couple of years. And then more recently, we’re looking at how we sort of refresh our writing curriculum and how we can take actions that are research-informed which is a little bit more tricksy.
NG: I mean that sounds amazing. What is it, do you think, that helps that kind of programme and those resources work, right? You spoke a little bit about you know the bridging between say research and practice, for instance. In what ways does that resource act as an example of “Ooh! This is something I can see that’s practicable. I can take this into the classroom.”
SC: Yeah, I think what they’ve done is they’ve worked really hard on thinking about how you can make a change and how you can indicate impact because I think Reading for Pleasure is something that’s really tricksy; it’s not something that you can measure with a test score or with sort of a satisfaction survey. So they’ve had to think about it a bit differently about not only how could you make change to your teaching practice, but also how do you know it’s working? How do you know that the thing that you’ve changed is actually the thing that’s made the difference? And they’ve put quite a lot of careful thought into sort of audit tools and they’ve put thought into how you could train up your staff.
So I’m the English lead at my school, so this is something I’ve led on for the last sort of couple of years. And we thought about how we could create a programme supported by training by Teresa Cremin, supported by training through our local English hub. I think it’s about all these different partners working in the same direction. You’ve got something from a university, you’ve got local sort of training partners and then you’ve also got – even though we hate to say it – the big O, the Osted word! – but you’ve also got support from the Ofsted framework as well in making that kind of positive change to the children in terms of their reading habits.
I suppose as well, you’ve also got this breadth of literature that is telling you that reading for pleasure is something that’s important and that there’s a real need to address there as well. So I think the reason why it’s working better – I would never say it works because there’s always something more to do – but the reason why it’s an effective piece of sort of research into practice is because all of those sort of things are working in the same direction.
NG: That’s really interesting because I mean it touches on that like kind of complex community of practice kind of stuff.
SC: Hmm.
NG: It’s an interesting kind of complexity that it is all of these different stakeholders and all of these people who bring something different to the work that you’re doing. I work in teacher education with secondary English student teachers. One of the things that I think I really have to grapple with is that, you know, bridging between theory and research into practice in ways that hopefully supports our student teachers to start thinking about what are the main components of English language and literacy education and then what does this look like when I’m in a classroom? The classrooms can be very diverse and interesting and strange and complicated places, you know, so it’s difficult to say, “Oh, you must do this!” Because that’s not always going to work. And it’s something that you said that makes me think about that is that, you know, like, oh, this is what makes this resource work now, but oh, hold on, there’s always more work to be done, right?
SC: Yeah.
NG: So how do some of these resources and these kind of communities of practice that you work with or kind of engage with, to what extent do you think they contribute to you developing an approach to teaching, you know? So is it just about the strategies and like some of it’s not quantifiable, you’ve said. So how much of this is, do you think, helping you build like an approach or a disposition to the teaching and learning that you’re involved in and that you lead?
SC: Yeah, I think that’s really interesting. You’ve talked about the sort of the complexity and the gnarliness of how to decide to make a change, and what is the right thing to do. And then what’s interesting is you’ve got these sort of competing, different narratives in terms of you’ve got research but then you’ve also got commercial interests who are trying to sell you something and they will promise you the world and its aunty [laughter] to kind of get in the building and get you to buy their product. So I think as someone who has to make those decisions in conjunction with other people at my school, it’s a really tricky arena to navigate. I think the research for pleasure is sort of in some ways quite complicated because the original research study is so comprehensive and they’ve built resources around that really sort of huge study that is so comprehensive.
I think what’s interesting just to move away from reading is actually writing. At the moment we’re looking at how we change our writing curriculum to make it have more of a sentence structure focus. So at the moment, the driver of our curriculum is a mixture between a shared stimulus of a shared book and text types – which is old fashioned. We’ve moved away from that a little bit, we’ve loosened a little bit, but a lot of research and a lot of the direction of travel is to sort of really move towards a sentence structure focus where the building blocks of the children’s writing is the sentence. They get really sort of skilled in writing simple, complex, compound sentences and you build up texts from there.
And lots of research is saying this but I think the research is a lot more contested. So for example the Ofsted English research report, I had some training on that by the author and it was really excellent training. But what wasn’t apparent was where that research that they’d done, where that had come from. So as an English lead, you’re listening to this really good piece of training, you’re listening to this really good piece of research, but also there’s a missing part of the puzzle, which is that kind of contested element, which is a lot more of a gnarlier problem than the research for pleasure appears to be at the moment.
It’s trying to sort of square that circle and trying to think about not only sort of a piece of research, like the English Research Review from Ofsted, but also think about how that would be implemented within your context and then how it would be implemented differently from classroom to classroom. It’s a bit of a Rubik’s cube of a problem because you’ve got to think about, “right, OK, I think this would work here. Then how would I implement this? How would I support this teacher who maybe is not implementing it as effectively as another one? And if it’s not working in this classroom, what is the reason for that? Is it to do with implementation? Is it to do with the fact that it just doesn’t work?” It’s a real head scratcher at times. But you’re not gonna get bored. [laughs]
NG: No, well exactly. I think that’s probably what makes this really interesting work and what maybe suggests that there’s the need for kind of constant work and constant evaluation. Actually, as you know, anyone working in education, whatever classroom you’re in, you’re actually working at like the meeting point of all of these all of these ideas and practices and perspectives and all of these different stakeholders. And it does make me wonder how often we – any of us – really talk about that as an ongoing contested space, right? Because we spoke about this commercial investment, you know. So a local authority may very well have invested in a particular package or a set of resources, for instance, or you know within a school you’ve taken a particular approach, but actually it gets implemented in different ways across different classrooms and teachers.
I mean we see that in teacher education as well, you know. A teacher education programme or a particular module is also shaped by the person who’s running it and their own kind of investment and things like that. It makes me wonder how comfortable we are talking about both the research and the practice and even at the meeting point of those two things, that these are constantly contested and they are constantly a range of perspectives and practices and things that we have to navigate, right?
And it maybe points to that question of what are the mainstream resources and kind of research outputs that we come into contact with or that we’re made to come into contact with as well? And how do you navigate that and what are the practices that we have for accessing what might not be mainstream, you know? So the research that maybe doesn’t make it into those commercialised spaces or into policy discourse or anything like that.
SC: Yeah, and I think that’s what makes sort of trying to be research-informed such a challenge because it’s all about those barriers to accessing good quality research as someone who’s not affiliated to a university. I would sort of say that I’m a nerd. [laughter] I find joy in finding sort of something to inform my practice. And yet, sometimes you do just come across barriers you know. More recently, it’s become a bit easier if you can be quite savvy about negotiating people’s individual university websites. So if I found a research article that I’d like to read and I haven’t got access because I’m not affiliated with an institution, I’ll try the university website see if I can get a sort of an accepted copy through there.
But that’s something where you do have to be quite savvy, you have to understand these different pathways to try and get to what you need. And sometimes that’s not always possible. So as someone who has other conflicting stresses on their time, it can be quite a challenge and sometimes you think, “well, is that worth it?” If you’re thinking, “is it worth it?”, then that’s an immediate barrier.
Just to sort of almost take a step back as well, it almost becomes a metaphysical philosophical kind of issue a bit like when I’m teaching a class, how do I know what I’m saying and teaching is being understood by the children in the same way? As a researcher, you must have a similar kind of challenge in that you are producing this research and how do you know the research you are producing is going to be implemented in the way that you intended? How’s it going to be read and accessed by the people that you’d like – so I suppose I’m quite interested from your point of view whether that’s something you even consider? I don’t know.
NG: There’s like two things that it makes me think of. One is the kind of structural privileges that come with working at a university, right? So it’s easy to advocate for accessing and using research and engaging in like the resources and the practices that are – I really hate to use this term – but like the cutting edge of where the field is at, you know, all of these kind of ways of thinking about it. But I mean, you know, research is also a component of our contract. So if you’re on an research-active contract and working at the university or in teacher education, then you know that time is carved out for you. It’s maybe not always as simple as that because there’s always kind of under pressure and workloads are always an issue.
But I mean that technically that’s part of the remit, which means that folks on research-active contracts are in a more privileged position to engage, you know. And then there are the benefits and privileges that come with that. So you can access or break through some of those paywalls and all sorts of things you know. So we’re potentially very differently positioned in terms of that kind of access and engagement. And so maybe this also points back to what you said about how research is then done, you know. Those kind of complex communities of practice, those become really powerful spaces for maybe like breaking through some of those barriers, bridging some of those barriers.
The other thing is I too am a nerd and also a very awkward and self-conscious one [laughs]. So there is a very strange space that I maybe don’t often think about or maybe don’t often want to think about or find difficult to think about in terms of the research that I do and then how I’m able to distribute that. So whether that’s through presentations, conversations like this, through the teaching that I do, through research publications, you know through all of those activities. And then the other side of that of whether or not that gets taken up or read or who’s engaging with that. And there are points where there’s almost a very awkward moment where you meet someone who has read something that you’ve written and it is terrifying because I don’t know [laughs] what I want from that or, you know, what to take away from that.
So maybe that’s also a question of how humanising research is presented, you know. So, the same way that we maybe don’t always recognise or aren’t always kind of fully aware of how contested the space is, it’s also that there are humans on the other side of those projects, and they have investments which means that as a person doing research, I’m also researching the things that matter to the field, that I think matter, that I have a personal connection to the kind of research that I do. Because I work in like critical literacies and so I am interested in those intersections with gender and sexuality, with inclusion, with power, with race and ethnicity, with linguistic diversity, you know, so all of those things. But those are also issues and areas of inquiry because of who I am as well. And it’s likely true for most researchers.
And probably the teacher side of me, it’s true in terms of well, what are the kinds of things that I take into the classroom and the kinds of questions that I want to ask or try to ask in classrooms with student teachers and previously with young people. You know they’re also informed by who I am and our own interactions. So what are the questions that emerge in that lived kind of situation? And how do we figure out ways of addressing it or confronting it or when are we sidelining it? There’s an interesting kind of component there of how not just what the research says, but then what happens when you take it into a space and then try to you know, work with the living, breathing side of it, right?
SC: That’s really interesting that you kind of presented research as a like embodied process, which is not something I’d really considered before from the terms of the researcher as well. I was just sort of considering some of the things you were saying … it was earlier in the discussion really about that gap between research and practice and I do wonder if there is more space for trying to bridge that gap. Because if researchers and teachers don’t do that, then that is where of the sort of competing influences can work their magic. If we don’t fill that space, that’s where commercial – especially within education – where they can present sort of claims that don’t have to go through the same rigorous process that I’m sure you have to do as a researcher and the kind of evidence basis can be quite skewed. And I just think that’s quite interesting about how would we bridge that gap between researchers and practitioners? And whether there’s anybody out there who’s filling that gap in an effective way.
NG: Yeah. And I mean I think those are questions that researchers and research-active folks are asking. The examples that I can think of are there are colleagues at UKLA (the UK Literacy Association) who have a participatory research Special Interest Group. And that’s really interesting because I think there’s an emerging kind of move to understand, well hold on, in education or particularly research that’s meant to impact work in the classroom space with teachers and children and young people, how do you bridge that so that it’s co-constructed and picks up on these nuances in a little more detail?
SC: I think that the co-construction is a really important idea. There was some work I did like when I was at university a long time ago, it was to do with children’s participation in democratic exercises. And he created a ladder of different levels of participation. And I think that that could be something that could be really helpful perhaps in how we consider teacher participation in research; about whether it’s the teacher as the subject, whether it’s the teacher as involved in co-construction of the research and whether there’s more space for that kind of partnership between universities or other sort of researchers and teachers directly.
The one example I can think of that is going towards that is probably the Chartered College and some of their work that they’ve been doing with the Chartered Teacher status which I’ve been involved in in the past. Where it is prompting teachers and other sort of educational practitioners to really think critically about research and sort of see it as that contested space. And to look at it from that point of view and that lens is really valuable and has been valuable to me sort of from that point on as well.
NG: You said something that really kind of pricked my years – is the research almost being done to teachers or done with teachers or for? You know that relationship is a relationship of power, but it’s also a relationship that – and maybe I’m generalising here – but potentially has an impact on how people view their relationship with researchers and research, right?
SC: Yeah.
NG: So if research is always kind of done to you or the thing you are meant to use and not something that you participate in or contribute to or you’re not necessarily I guess positioned as an active person like a human being with some kind of agency in that whole process of that dynamic, then you know, I wonder how much of that starts to become internalised? You know, you have this feeling of, “oh, I need to be doing this” as opposed to, “how am I taking this up and what can I do with this?” I think there’s a slight difference there.
And again, working in teacher education means that I often feel like I am walking those two paths, right? I still step into the classroom, I still very much identify as a teacher. Working in classrooms, I’m very interested in how classroom spaces work in teacher education with student teachers. So on one hand, am I taking the research and bringing it into the space and using it as a directive? Or how do we create a space where we go, “okay, well, this is what the research says. Let’s see how well that works. [laughs] And for who?” We have all of these discussions – you go up to placement, when you come back, “actually, what are the directions that you chose to take and why? What did you choose to follow up on and why? And how was that related to say the particular schools that you landed up in during the programme? And what does that teach you, right? That’s all still a question.
It’s one of those difficult things to evidence, you know, how you could speak to student teachers about their experiences and their choices. It’s a difficult thing to pinpoint of like, okay, well, hold on what did you take up and actually where did you feel like you were making choices versus where were the choices that you made actually constrained by a million different things? Such as the observation that your tutor comes out to do [laughs] versus like the standards that you’re meant to uphold versus the curriculum or the point in the curriculum that you stepped into the classroom at versus the teacher that you were working with versus the kids, you know. So I think you’re right, how do we hone that kind of critical perspective or critical viewpoint on how to work with research, how to work in a particular space? That becomes really, really important.
SC: The sort of analogy that while you were speaking, it made me think, was that almost like a spider’s web of all these different competing influences – curriculum, government, Ofsted, children in front of you, teacher’s curriculums. As a teacher, you’re almost in the middle of the spider web and you’ve either got to be a spider who is able to negotiate all these different things or you’re the fly who is entrapped by them. And for that to happen, you’ve got to have that professional confidence, you’ve got hone that professional judgment as well as having all the support of the people around you. And one of the sort of major tools in your toolkit is that ability to be research-aware to inform the actions that you take.
NG: I think it’s a useful analogy because it’s whether we start to view that as, “oh my goodness, I’m constrained by all these things. What am I supposed to do?” So like whether we see it as a disempowering kind of position to be in. Or actually, this is a place for critical and creative engagement, you know.
SC: Mhmm.
NG: Like there are all of these perspectives, but also there’s all this information. Hopefully we’re not drowning in information, but it’s also, “well, there are things that I can latch onto in here and I can take to my classroom and I want to try this out. I’m like, how do I translate this, you know. What is that professional but also creative and critical capacity to turn the research into something that serves you and the folks that you work with.
And I think that creative element is hopefully exciting and generative because then you’re working with the kids in your classroom, or you’re working with the folks around you to constantly kind of figure out, “okay what does this mean? How do we take it in?” Or “this is something that really moved me, right?” I often have to like pull myself back sometimes because there’s sometimes this research that comes out or there’s a paper and you’re like “[gasps] this is amazing! Like this is fascinating and I wanna try it out.” But I can’t or I can only do it in a particular way or I have to figure out what it might look like in my context. But there’s definitely that research that moves me because it’s touches on an interest or a kind of emotional capacity or something like that. I think if we recognise how we take up research and work with the resources that that are around us that are either handed to us or that we find ourselves, then I think the space to interrogate, “well hold on, why am I taking up what I am? And why am I resistant to maybe some kinds of research or some findings or some practices? And what is it that I actually wanted to do? And what is it that I need or the people that I’m working with need as well? It’s that constant kind of negotiation.
SC: I’d probably want to stick with my little spider web analogy and about how do we help teachers and sort of educationalists to be the spider in the web of all these, and see the opportunity of being at that sort of unique centre point of different influences and avoid being the fly who’s sort of stuck down and bogged down by all these different kind of competing interests.
I’ve been really interested to talk to you today, Navan. I think it’s been really interesting to talk to someone who is involved in that sort of generation of research and to kind of get your point of view. I never would have considered sort of the other person’s point of view if I came up and fanboyed them at some conference or other [laughs].
NG: [laughs] Oh, no. Well thank you very much. I think it’s been absolutely brilliant to chat to you. Sounds like you’re doing like really interesting work and I’m really fascinated by the questions that you’re asking and the way you’re approaching it. Yeah, for me, that approach just really resonates with me. And it probably frustrates a lot of people because it raises more questions than maybe provides answers. But I think there’s something really generative about that. It recognises that this is always contested, this is ongoing, this is a practice of like navigating all of these things. And there’s a critical way of doing that, which it sounds like, yeah, you’re totally doing. So it’s been really fascinating to hear what you’ve been up to.
SC: Thanks!
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