Session Information
19 SES 06 B, Parallel Paper Session 6B
Paper Session
Contribution
One of the most profound changes in UK schools in recent years has been the huge and unprecedented increase in support staff in schools, and this has been a similar story throughout Europe and worldwide (Giangreco and Doyle, 2007). In Scotland there are now over 7,500 classroom assistants working in primary schools. ‘Classroom Assistant’ is both a specific and generic term to describe a range of paid, additional, non-teaching staff employed in Scottish schools. In generic terms it covers posts such as Additional Support Needs auxiliary, behaviour support assistant, classroom auxiliary, nursery nurse, pupil support assistant and support for learning assistant. Classroom assistants are responsible for ‘…some of the most challenging and complex needs’ and are ‘…pivotal to the development of successful inclusive practice’ (O’ Brien and Garner, 2001:1) and are “critical role in maintaining some pupils in mainstream education” (Stead, et al., 2007: 186). However, despite this classroom assistants remain on the margins of school hierarchies as witnessed by short-term contracts, low pay, limited access to formal training and ‘low status’. Classroom assistants are almost exclusively White women (Schlapp et al., 2001; EOC, 2007), typically 31-50, but concentrated in 41-50 age range, partnered, and parents of school aged children (SCER, 2006; EOC, 2007). Typically classroom assistants are often from the local area (Stead et al., 2007) and are likely to have had experience with children through previous school based activities such as working as voluntary parent helpers or playground supervisors (SCER, 2005). Given this narrow range of social characteristics, and their lowly position in the school hierarchy it is not surprising then that classroom assistants might develop particular types of social identities, through individual, and collective action. One of the most important ways in which social identities are constructed is through the process of ‘narrative’, a story told by an individual or group of individuals (Plummer, 2001), and the way people construct and present accounts of their lives (Goodson, 2013). Narrative is a device for making sense of social action and can give privileged insights into how people make sense of the world. Given this it would seem classroom assistants use narratives to construct identities that socialise and enculture them as ‘classroom assistants’. By deconstructing such narratives we have the potential to understand how classroom assistants attempt to use narratives in order to construct identities that create boundaries and spaces to be able to negotiate their roles within the micro-political world of the school.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES COMMISSION (EOC) (2007) Valuable Assets: A General Formal Investigation into the Role and Status of Classroom Assistants in Scottish Schools, Final Report. Manchester: EOC. GIANGRECO, M. F. & DOYLE, M. B. (2007) ‘Teacher assistants in inclusive schools’, in Florian, L. (ed.) The SAGE Handbook of Special Education. London: Sage, pp. 429-439. GOODSON, I, F. (2013) Developing Narrative Theory: Life Histories and Personal Representation. London: Routledge. O’ BRIEN, T. & GARNER, P. (2001) Untold Stories: Learning Support Assistants and their Work. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books. PLUMMER, K. (2001) Documents of Life 2: An Invitation to Critical Humanism. London: Sage. SCHLAPP, U., WILSON, V. & DAVIDSON, J. (2001) ‘An Extra Pair of Hands?’: Evaluation of the Classroom Assistants Initiative Interim Report. Glasgow: SCRE. SCOTTISH CENTRE FOR EMPLOYMENT RESEARCH (SCER) (2005) The Role and Status of Classroom Assistants in Scotland’s Primary Schools: A Pilot Study for the Equal Opportunities Commission (Scotland), SCER Research Report 8, May 2005. Glasgow: SCER. SCOTTISH CENTRE FOR EMPLOYMENT RESEARCH (SCRE) (2006) Valuable Assets: A General Formal Investigation into the Role and Status of Classroom Assistants in Scotland’s Primary Schools, SCER Research Report 11, July 2006. Glasgow: SCER. STEAD, J., LLOYD, G., MUNN, P., RIDDELL, S., KANE, J. & MACLEOD, G. (2007) ‘Supporting our most challenging pupils with our lowest status staff: can additional staff in Scottish schools offer a distinctive kind of help?’, Scottish Educational Review, 29 (2), pp. 186-197. THOMAS, J. (1993) Doing Critical Ethnography. London: Sage.
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