Course leader awarded his doctorate
Mon, 11 Aug 2014 10:45:00 BST
Congratulations are offered to Dr Jonathan Glazzard who received his doctorate from Sheffield University. His thesis entitled ‘Translating the Rhetoric of Inclusion into Reality: A Life History Account of One Teacher's Determination to make Inclusion work’ was supervised by Professor Pat Sikes.
Currently a Senior Lecturer in Primary Education at the University, Jonathan offers the following comments on his doctorate award:
“I researched into the biographical factors which shaped the professional identity of a teacher who had demonstrated a commitment to inclusion throughout the duration of a teaching career which spanned 38 years. I believe that teacher identities are influenced by personal biographies and I adopted a life history approach to analyse how one teacher's personal biography had influenced a deep professional commitment to inclusive education and social justice.
I found that the theme of transgression was critical to understanding this teacher's commitment to inclusion. Drawing on the work of Foucault I was able to locate examples of transgression throughout the narrative during childhood, early adulthood and throughout the professional life of my informant. I was also able to analyse how policy changes over time had impacted on my informant's ability to translate inclusion into reality. I found that a deep commitment to the principles of social justice and an ability to transgress from current performative discourses which underpin education were critical to shaping the development of an inclusive teacher identity. Drawing on auto-ethnographic approaches I was also able to analyse the insidious effects of inclusion on a school which had demonstrated a deep commitment to inclusion.
I have already published academic articles from my research and I have disseminated my research through conferences. I have embedded narrative approaches into my own courses and I have drawn on my own approaches to narrative analysis with students working at postgraduate level.”
