Education Commons^™

Teachers’ Work: Communicating On Difficult Knowledge In Ontario Schools, Zsofia Agoston Villalba

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines how K-12 teachers in Ontario navigate the complexities of teaching "difficult knowledge"—topics such as racial and ethnic injustices, Indigenous perspectives, immigration experiences, and gender issues—within the parameters of the school and the curriculum. Utilizing an institutional ethnography approach, the study examines the curriculum as an institutional text that coordinates and shapes teachers’ practices. Working with and against the curriculum, teachers find innovative ways to engage their students on difficult knowledge topics. Based on interviews with 12 K-12 teachers, this research explores teachers’ work and pedagogical approaches. They employ diverse teaching methods like storytelling, open dialogues, and collaborative …

Exploring The Underrepresentation Of Women Coaches In Canadian University Sport, Hayley Finn

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Currently, there are disproportionally few women who hold coaching positions within Canadian university sport. To investigate the gender gap, this dissertation explores the institutional practices that inform women coaches’ working realities. Applying Smith’s (1987) institutional ethnography as a mode of inquiry directed the exploration towards the everyday practices and processes that inform experience, to better understand current barriers and supports in place. In this study, particular attention is given to social relations, which Smith (2005) calls the relations of ruling that coordinate activities and experiences of individuals within organizations. Institutional ethnography aims to explicate these relations of ruling by exploring …

Using Institutional Ethnography To Illuminate The Contested Space Of Grading, Sharon Ultsch

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

A plethora of research has documented the detrimental effects of assigning grades, A-F, to student work as well as the inherent inequities embedded in this century-old assessment practice that persists in the majority of US higher education institutions. Coupled with the ubiquitous Grade Point Average (GPA) and prevailing neoliberal audit culture in HEI, grades serve to maintain a social hierarchy veiled by the myth of meritocracy and objectivity. The goal of this study was to investigate how grades operate as a text to mediate social relations and how faculty participate in the social organization of ruling regimes, often unknowingly. This …

Producing Flexible Nurses: How Institutional Texts Organize Nurses’ Experiences Of Learning To Work On Redesigned Nursing Teams (Préparer Des Infirmières Polyvalentes : Comment Des Documents Officiels Orientent Les Expériences D’Apprentissage Des Infirmières En Fonction Du Travail Au Sein D’Équipes Reconfigurées), Diane L. Butcher, Karen Mackinnon, Anne W. Bruce

Quality Advancement in Nursing Education - Avancées en formation infirmière

The purpose of this qualitative research was to utilize an Institutional Ethnographic (IE) lens to trace how various institutional (regulatory, educational, union, governmental, or health authority) texts and resources organize baccalaureate (RN) and diploma (vocational or practical) nurses’ experiences of learning to practice on acute care teams. Functional care models have been introduced in acute care, creating RN-LPN-health care aide (HCA) teams in conjunction with expanded practice scopes for LPNs. Questions arise as to how nurses (RNs and LPNs) learn to work together on these intra-professional teams. Beginning from the standpoint of front-line workers provides an entry-point into understanding how …

Supporting Indigenous Students: A Critical Analysis Of The Sociocultural Context Of Nursing Education, Kay E. Vallee

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The purpose of this study was to critically examine the sociocultural context of nursing education as an institution. Using a postcolonial feminist theoretical framework and institutional ethnography, I illuminated the institutional complex of nursing education. This study addressed the following research questions: 1) How do practices, programs, and policies coordinate social relations within the institution of nursing education; and 2) How are Indigenous students’ everyday lives shaped by the institution of nursing education?

Multiple methods were used to collect data, including: interviews, observations, and text analysis. Interviews were conducted with students, educators, and administrators and others involved in nursing education. …

Examining Equity In Tenure Processes At Higher Education Music Programs: An Institutional Ethnography, Deborah Bradley, Deanna Yerichuk, Lori-Anne Dolloff, Kiera Galway, Kathy M. Robinson, Jody Stark, Elizabeth Gould

Music Faculty Publications

As part of a larger mixed-methods study, this article presents findings from research on processes of tenure in Canadian higher education music faculties. The Principle Investigator and three teams of two researchers analyzed the process of tenure at three Canadian institutions to gain insight into how tenure decisions are made in relation to gender and race/ethnicity. The researchers used institutional ethnography, developed by sociologist Dorothy Smith, to examine institutional documents that organize tenure, as well as how documents organize people’s actions, studied through interviews with key stakeholders, such as directors, tenure applicants, and union representatives. The findings from the three …

Writing Assignments: A Relatively Emotional Experience Of Learning To Write In One Baccalaureate Nursing Program, Susan Chaudoir, Gerri Lasiuk, Katherine Trepanier

Quality Advancement in Nursing Education - Avancées en formation infirmière

This article specifically reports findings from an interdisciplinary case study that explored classroom experiences of learning to write across one baccalaureate nursing degree program in Canada. A combination of rhetorical genre and situated learning theories and institutional ethnography methods were used to help document student and instructor experiences of learning to write two recurring writing assignments called the scholarly paper and journal of reflective practice, which students composed in each semester of their program. Data included 38 classroom/student observations, 22 assignment instruction documents, and 39 voluntary, semi-structured interviews with 34 students and 5 instructors from 4 courses. Interviews focused primarily …

An Institutional Ethnographic Account Of Mandatory Professional Development In New Mexico, Lanysha Adams

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Current research has focused primarily on prescriptive models of professional development (PD), yet few have focused on teachers experiences of mandatory PD. Furthermore, researchers (Adams, 2014; Elmore, 2002; Hargreaves, 2011) have shown numerous points of disconnection between the prescribed policies for teacher PD and the de facto policies reflected in teachers' experiences of PD, leaving teachers' accounts of mandatory PD largely underexplored. The purpose of this study was to examine the institution of mandatory PD in New Mexico, exploring the characteristics of mandatory PD and full-time public high school teachers' perceptions of their PD experiences at one high school and …

Global Perspectives: Exploring School-Based Brazilian Librarianship Through Institutional Ethnography, M. Johnston, Lucy Santos Green

Department of Leadership, Technology, and Human Development Faculty Presentations

No abstract provided.

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

Innovative Partnerships: Exploring School Librarianship Through A Global Lens, Melissa P. Johnston, Lucy Santos Green

Department of Leadership, Technology, and Human Development Faculty Publications

Institutional ethnography uncovers how institutional factors shape practice in sometimes unrecognized ways. This IE study on Brazilian school librarianship, conducted in the summer of 2013 in Florianópolis, SC, Brazil, uncovers similar challenges experienced by school library professionals the world over, as well as unique approaches informed by Brazilian culture.

Institutional Ethnography And Actor Network Theory: The Possibilities And Challenges Of Exploring The Relational In Adult Education Research, Terrie Lynn Thompson, Christine Pinsent-Johnson

Adult Education Research Conference

Adult education practices are imbued with the relational and the material. Drawing on our empirical studies we explore the utility of Actor Network Theory and Institutional Ethnography—theoretically and methodologically—for adult education researchers. A brief theoretical overview of the two perspectives will highlight their convergences and divergences. We then introduce several methodological concepts to explore how IE and ANT encouraged us as researchers to unravel relations, bring relations into view, and attend to coordination/translation. Adult education is a disparate and complex field. Researchers may find the approaches useful in understanding the ways adult education practices are coordinated and connected.

Unfolding The Adult Literacy Regime, Richard Darville

Adult Education Research Conference

A quarter-century’s development of a regime that promotes and regulates adult literacy has diminished the space for responsive and relational literacy work. Many institutional processes – in media, transnational policy- making, survey-based knowledge, and governmental regulation – are tied together in this development. Mapping their connections allows a better understanding of this development than does ideological critique.