Abstract
This chapter explores the dilemmas that we, two Australian researchers, faced as we worked with school communities to improve students’ literacy outcomes. Our current research focuses on literacy learning and teachers engaging parents, community members, and students in curriculum inquiry, which integrates social media use. Combining a design-based research approach and social media channels, we research amidst the fray of emerging and sometimes changing policy mandates, political and cultural change in school systems, and rapidly developing digital technologies. This chapter uses the research method of metalogue as a reflexive approach to render visible the methodological and ethical dilemmas in our current research. In presenting our metalogue, we explain not only how we brokered our way through the dilemmas that arose but also how we created opportunities for innovative classroom practice and thus literacy research. We draw conclusions from our experience about the importance of doing difficult research and offer hope to future researchers who, like us, approach their work with bold plans to improve literacy education for all students.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The use of the term “parents” is taken to also mean parents and carers.
- 2.
All participant names are pseudonyms.
References
Alexander, R. J. (2017). Towards dialogical teaching: Rethinking classroom talk (5th ed.). Dialogos.
Australian Government. (2020). eSafety Commissioner: Helping Australians have safer, more positive experiences online. Retrieved from https://www.esafety.gov.au/
Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. Ballantine Books.
Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: Theory, research, critique. Rowman & Littlefield.
Blackmore, J., & Hutchison, K. (2010). Ambivalent relations: The ‘tricky footwork’ of parental involvement in school communities. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 14(5), 499–515. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603110802657685
Boran, S., & Comber, B. (Eds.). (2001). Critiquing whole language and classroom inquiry. National Council of Teachers of English.
Bower, M. (2017). Design of technology-enhanced learning: Integrating research and practice. Emerald.
Bradfield, K., & Exley, B. (2020). Teachers’ accounts of their curriculum use: External contextual influences during times of curriculum reform. Curriculum Journal, 31(4), 757–774.
Cumming, J. J., Wyatt-Smith, C., & Colbert, P. (2016). Students at risk and NAPLAN: The collateral damage. In B. Lingard, G. Thompson, & S. Sellar (Eds.), National testing in schools: An Australian assessment (pp. 126–138). Routledge.
Delamont, S. (2005). Four great gates: Dilemmas, directions and distractions in educational research. Research Papers in Education, 20(1), 85–100. https://doi.org/10.1080/0267152052000341345
Department of Education. (2019). Alice Springs (Mparntwe) education declaration. Retrieved from https://docs.education.gov.au/documents/alice-springs-mparntwe-education-declaration
Education Council. (2014). The Hobart declaration on schooling (1989). Retrieved from http://www.educationcouncil.edu.au/EC-Publications/EC-Publications-archive/EC-The-Hobart-Declaration-on-Schooling-1989.aspx
Exley, B., & Luke, A. (2010). Uncritical framing: Lesson and knowledge structure in school science. In D. Cole & D. L. Pullen (Eds.), Multiliteracies in motion: Current theory and practice (pp. 17–41). Routledge.
Exley, B., & Willis, L.-D. (2016). Children’s pedagogic rights in the web 2.0 era: A case study of a child’s open access interactive travel blog. Global Studies of Childhood, 6(4), 400–413. https://doi.org/10.1177/2043610616676026
Exley, B., Willis, L.-D., & McCosker, M. (2017). Children as advocates—The potential of using social media in the early years of schooling. Practical Literacy: The Early and Primary Years, 22(2), 9–12.
Fransson, G. (2016). Manoeuvring in a digital dilemmatic space: Making sense of a digitised society. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 11(3), 185–201.
Goodall, J., & Montgomery, C. (2014). Parental involvement to parental engagement: A continuum. Educational Review, 66(4), 399–410.
Honig, B. (1996). Difference, dilemmas, and the politics of home. In S. Benhabib (Ed.), Democracy and difference. Contesting the boundaries of the political (pp. 257–277). Princeton University Press.
Kamler, B., & Comber, B. (2005). Turn-around pedagogies: Improving the education of at-risk students. Improving Schools, 8(2), 121–131. https://doi.org/10.1177/1365480205057702
Klenowski, V. (2013). Sustaining teacher professionalism in the context of standards referenced assessment reform. In A. Luke, A. Woods, & K. Weir (Eds.), Curriculum, syllabus design and equity: A primer and model (pp. 88–102). Routledge.
Luke, A., Wood, A., & Weir, K. (2012). Curriculum, syllabus design and equity. Routledge.
Matusov, E. (2020). Pattern-recognition, intersubjectivity, and dialogic meaning-making in education. Dialogic Pedagogy, 8, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.5195/dpj.2020.314
Mills, K. A., & Exley, B. (2014). Time, space and text in the elementary school digital writing classroom. Written Communication, 31(4), 434–469.
Pandya, J. Z., & Golden, N. A. (2018). Fostering impossible possible through critical media literacies. In K. Mills, A. Stornaiuolo, A. Smith, & J. Z. Pandya (Eds.), Handbook of writing, literacies and education in digital cultures (pp. 50–60). Routledge.
Ridgewell, J., & Exley, B. (2011). The potentials of student initiated netspeak in a middle primary science-inspired multiliteracies project. Research in Science Education, 41(5), 635–649.
Selwyn, N. (2011). Schools and schooling in the digital age: A critical analysis. Routledge.
The Design-Based Collective. (2003). Design-based research: An emerging paradigm for educational inquiry. Educational Researcher, 32(1), 5–8.
The New London Group. (2000). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. In B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (Eds.), Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures. Macmillan Publishers.
Willis, L.-D. (2013). Parent-teacher engagement: A coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing approach. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation), Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.
Willis, L.-D. (2016). Exploring cogenerativity for developing a coteaching community of practice in a parent-teacher engagement project. International Journal of Educational Research, 80, 124–133. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2016.08.009
Willis, L.-D., & Exley, B. (2016). Language variation and change in the Australian Curriculum English: Integrating sub-strands through a pedagogy of metalogue. English in Australia, 51(2), 74–84.
Willis, L.-D., & Exley, B. (2018). Using an online social media space to engage parents in student learning in the early-years: Enablers and impediments. Digital Education Review, 33, 87–104.
Willis, L.-D., & Exley, B. (2020). Engaging parents in their child’s learning and wellbeing – Change, continuity and COVID-19. Our schools – Our Future issues paper. Published by Independent Schools Queensland. Retrieved from https://rms.isq.qld.edu.au/files/Weblive_OSOF/Engaging_Parents_Issues_Paper.pdf
Willis, L.-D., & Exley, B. (2021). Spotlight on parent engagement: Practice and research. Ways to engage parents in their child’s learning and wellbeing: Lessons from lockdown. Practical Literacy: The Early and Primary Years, 26(1), 40–41.
Willis, L.-D., Grimmett, H., & Heck, D. (2018). Exploring cogenerativity in initial teacher education school-university partnerships using the methodology of metalogue. In J. Kriewaldt, A. Ambrosetti, D. Rorrison, & R. Capeness (Eds.), Educating future teachers: Innovative perspectives in professional experience (pp. 49–69). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5484-6_4
Willis, L.-D., Exley, B., & Clancy, S. (2020). Spotlight on parent engagement: Practice and research. Using science inquiry to engage parents in student language and literacy learning. Practical Literacy: The Early and Primary Years, 25(2), 42–43.
Willis, L.-D., Povey, J., Hodges, J., & Carroll, A. (2021). Principal leadership for parent engagement in disadvantaged schools: What qualities and strategies distinguish effective principals? Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1264-0
Woods, A., Dooley, K., Luke, A., & Exley, B. (2014). School leadership, literacy and social justice: The place of local school curriculum planning and reform. In I. Bogotch & C. Shields (Eds.), International handbook of educational leadership and social (in)justice: Springer international handbooks of education volume 29 (pp. 509–520). Springer Publishing.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Willis, LD., Exley, B. (2022). Engaging Parents in Inquiry Curriculum Projects with Social Media: Using Metalogue to Probe the Methodological and Ethical Dilemmas in Literacy Research. In: Lee, C., Bailey, C., Burnett, C., Rowsell, J. (eds) Unsettling Literacies. Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education, vol 15. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6944-6_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6944-6_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-16-6943-9
Online ISBN: 978-981-16-6944-6
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)