1. "Just a tutor": narratives of tutor
development in a changing Irish
adult education landscape.
Jerry O’Neill
PhD Candidate
John and Pat Hume Scholar
Department of Adult and Community Education
NUI Maynooth, Ireland
2. Research objective
... to identify the barriers and
opportunities facing adult education
tutor development by coconstructing and analysing their
narratives of occupational
experience.
11. Growth in educator programmes:
• Professional Diploma in Education (Further Education), NUIG,
Galway
• Graduate Diploma in Adult & Further Education, MIC Limerick
• Professional Diploma in Education (Further Education), MIC,
Limerick
• Postgraduate Diploma in Arts in Learning and Teaching, NCI , Dublin
• Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Teaching in Further Education & Adult
Education, WIT. Waterford
• Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching in Further Education, WIT
• Higher Diploma in Further Education (HDFE), NUIM, Maynooth
• Professional Diploma in Education (Further Education), MIE, Dublin
• BSc in Education and Training (Further, Adult and Continuing
Education),DCU, Dublin
• MA in Socially Engaged Art: (Further, Adult and Community
Education, NCAD, Dublin
(Teaching Council, 2013)
13. Some recommendations from Alpine
Report (2008):
• Improve transparency of
educational pathways entering
the profession (p.12)
• Staff need a stronger lobby
(p.13)
• More attention to Continuous
Professional Development
(p.14)
14. Tutor development
• Centrality of tutor role in high quality sector
(Snow- Gerona, 2005; Coffield, 2008; Teaching
Council, 2011)
• Role of critical, peer dialogue in tutor
development (Wenger, 1998; Marceau, 2003;
James, 2007; Penlington, 2008; Scales, 2011).
15. Biographical context
University tutor
“unqualified, part- time”
Teaching Practice Tutor
Doctoral
researcher
Student
Son
Husband
Father
Friend
Adult Education tutor
FE Lecturer
Who am I?
Curriculum advisor
Teaching Fellow
Qualified secondary
school teacher
Senior Lecturer
Distant learning tutor
Education Officer
18. Narrative Approach
• connection between narrative, community and
professional knowledge (Elbaz-Luwisch, 2007)
• Welsh study of occupational lives of adult
educators stressed importance of narrative in
educator ontology (Jephcote et al, 2008)
• Narrative ‘creates a longitudinal sense of self’
(Tedder, 2009, 78)
• Writing as a method of inquiry (Richardson, 1994)
21. Emerging narrative threads
• Voluntarism – significant occupational pathway
• Social and individual development – core purpose of tutor role
• For some tutors, there are limited opportunities for the development of
peer dialogue networks.
• Importance of local context
• Relationships and experiences generally focussed, positively or negatively,
vertically through an organiser rather than independently through
horizontal peer networks.
• Contractual contexts ∞ tutor learning development networks.
• Lack of a designated and shared tutor space to work, share and talk.
• Evidence of tension, amongst some tutors, regarding ongoing commitment
to unpaid CPD or, particularly, administration activity.
• Some evidence of frustration and confusion with aspects of the evolving
national curricular framework for further and adult education
• Narratives also reveal rich occupational and life experiences
• Sense of self-worth under-played - 'just a tutor'.
• Self-identify as “tutor” or “trainer” – never “teacher”
• Research is ongoing – narratives unfolding
22. Selection of references (1) …
AONTAS. (2010). Response to the Report of the Further Education (Teacher Education Qualification Group) of the Teaching
Council. Dublin: AONTAS.
Bakhtin, M. (1988). The dialogic imagination: four essays. (M. Holquist, Ed., & C. a. Emerson, Trans.) Austin: University of Texas
Press.
Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of Meaning. London: Harvard University Press.
Clandinin, D. J. (2007). Handbook of Narrative Inquiry: Mapping a Methodology. London: Sage.
Clandinin, D. J. (2000). Narrative Inquiry: experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Coffield, F. E. (2007). How policy impacts on practice and how practice does not impact on policy. British Educational Research
Journal , 33 (5), 723-741.
Coffield, F. (2009). Rolling out 'good', 'best' and 'excellent' practice. What next? Perfect practice? British Education Research
Journal , 35 (3), 371-390.
Davies, B. a. (2007). Having, and Being Had by, "Experience" Or, "Experience" in the Social Sciences After the
Discursive/Poststructuralist Turn. Qualitative Inquiry , 13 (8), 1139-1159.
Department of Education and Science. (2000). Learning for Life: White Paper on Adult Education. Dublin: Dublin Stationery
Office.
Department of Education and Skills . (2012). An Action Plan for SOLAS: The new Further Education and Training Authority (FET).
Dublin: Dublin Stationery Office.
Dewey, J. (1997). Experience and education. New York: Touchstone.
Elbaz-Luwisch, F. (2007). Studying Teachers' Lives and Experience: Narrative Inquiry Into K-12 Teaching. In D. J. Clandinin (Ed.),
Handbook of Narrative Inquiry: Mapping a Methodology. London: Sage.
Fitzsimons, C. (2010). Professionalism in community work and its implications for radical community education. The Adult
Learner , 53-72.
Government of Ireland. (2013). Further Education and Training Bill. Dublin.
Holstein, J. A. (2004). The active interview. In D. Silverman (Ed.), Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice (2nd ed., pp.
140-161). London: Sage.
James, D. a. (2007). Improving Learning Cultures in Further Education. London: Routledge.
Lynch, K., Grummell, B., & Devine, D. (2012). New Managerialism in Education: Commercialization, Carelessness and Gender.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
23. Selection of references (2) …
Maniscalco, R. S. (2013). Adult education policy in the European Union during the Lisbon decade (Unpublished PhD). Turku,
Finland: University of Turku.
Marceau, G. (2003). Professional Development in Adult Basic Education. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education , 98,
67.
Moi, T. (1985). Sexual/textual politics: feminist literary theory. London: Routledge.
Penlington, C. (2008). Diaolgue as a catalyst for teacher change: a conceptual analysis. Teaching and Teacher Education , 24,
1304-1316.
Polkinghorne, D. (1988). Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Research voor Beleid. (2008). ALPINE – Adult Learning Professions in Europe. Zoetermeer: European Commission.
Richardson, L. (1994). Writing: A Method of Inquiry. In N. a. Denzin (Ed.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (pp. 923-948).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Riessman, C. K. (2008). Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences. London: Routledge.
Ryan, A. B. (2001). Feminist Ways of Knowing: Towards Theorising the Person for Radical Adult Education. Leicester: NIACE.
Scales, P., Pickering, J., Senior, L., Headley, K., Garner, P., & Boulton, H. (2011). Continuing Professional Development in the
Lifelong Learning Sector. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Sikes, P. a. (2006). Narrative Approaches to Education Research. Plymouth: University of Plymouth.
Snow-Gerono, J. (2005). Professional development in a culture of inquiry: PDS teachers identify the benefits of professioal
learning communities. Teaching and Teacher Education , 21, 241-256.
SOLAS. (2012). New VEC structures. Retrieved October 2013, 20, from http://www.solas.ie/etbs.aspx
Tedder, M. a. (2009). Biography, transition and learning in the lifecourse: the role of narrative. In J. Field, J. Gallacher, & R. and
Ingram (Eds.), Researching Transitions in Lifelong Learning (pp. 76-90). London: Routledge.
The Teaching Council. (2011). Further Education: General and Programme Requirements for the Acrreditation of Teacher
Education Qualifications. Maynooth: The Teaching Council.
The Teaching Council. (2011`). Policy on the Continuum of Teacher Education. Maynooth: The Teaching Council.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wildemeersch, D. a. (2012). Editorial: The effects of policies for the education and learning of adults - from ‘adult education’ to
‘lifelong. European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults , 3 (2), 97-101.
24. "Just a tutor": narratives of tutor
development in a changing Irish
adult education landscape.
Jerry O’Neill
PhD Candidate
John and Pat Hume Scholar
Department of Adult and Community Education
NUI Maynooth, Ireland
jerryoneill@hotmail.com or jeremiah.oneill.2012@nuim.ie
