The lives and identities of UK Black and South Asian head teachers

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 842-862 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauri Johnson
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Head Teachers ◽  
Policy Context ◽  
History Approach ◽  
Changing Attitudes ◽  
Minority Ethnic

This article reports on the preliminary findings from a national UK study of the life histories of 28 Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) educators who led schools across a 47-year period (1968–2015). BAME head teachers were grouped by generations (i.e. pioneer, experienced, and novice) and questioned about the critical life experiences that influenced their path to leadership, the intersection of their professional and social identities, and their metaphors for leadership. Participants claimed leadership metaphors which included the head teacher as parent, ambassador, moral steward, role model, and community advocate. Pioneer Black and South Asian headteachers narrated more collectivist identities as community leaders and race equality activists, while current BAME headteachers appear more individually focused on raising attainment for students who have been marginalized. A life history approach across generations emphasizes the influence of changing attitudes toward race and the shifting policy context on professional identities.

Portraits of UK Black and South Asian headteachers five years on: Leadership retention in the age of academization

2021 ◽  
pp. 174114322110098
Author(s):  
Lauri Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Career Progression ◽  
Professional Support ◽  
Work Lives ◽  
Career Trajectories ◽  
History Approach ◽  
Minority Ethnic ◽  
Over Time

This article analyzes the career trajectories of eight Black and South Asian headteachers who were part of a larger study of three generations of Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) headteachers (28) interviewed in 2015 (Johnson, 2017). Using a longitudinal life history approach and portraiture, it seeks to answer the question, “How do Black and South Asian headteachers narrate their career progression and leadership values over time?” In particular, I explore the growth of academization and the formation of Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) on the work lives of Black and South Asian headteachers and the role of autonomy, value alignment, and professional support on their leadership retention.

scholarly journals P159 Factors associated between SLE and work amongst South Asian people: an explorative qualitative study

Rheumatology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 60 (Supplement_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mandeep Ubhi ◽  
Shirish Dubey ◽  
John Reynolds ◽  
Caroline Gordon ◽  
Tochukwu Adizie ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Work Ability ◽  
Lupus Erythematosus ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Asian Origin ◽  
South Asian Origin ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Minority Ethnic

Abstract Background/Aims  Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) affect patients from minority ethnic backgrounds, with many patients experiencing symptoms that affect their daily lives despite receiving long-term controller medication. Work is a large part of most people’s lives, yet little has been explored into how people from minority ethnic backgrounds cope at work whilst living with SLE. We conducted a study to understand the impact of SLE on working lives of South Asian patients. The aim was to identify and develop support mechanisms that could assist them with remaining at work. Methods  Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten patients of South Asian origin with SLE to explore their work experiences. Patients were recruited from three rheumatology centres in the West Midlands, UK and were interviewed between November 2019 and March 2020. Interviews were audio-recorded and typed by an independent transcribing company. Returned transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis and QSR NVivo 12 software was used to organise and manage the data. Results  The majority (n = 8) of patients were female. Eight patients were from an Indian background, and two were from a Pakistani background. Half of all patients were educated to degree level. The age range of patients was 23 - 58 years old (S.D = 10.79), and disease duration varied between 3 months-33 years (S.D = 9.52). All patients had permanent jobs; six were in full-time employment, and four were in part-time employment. Four main themes emerged from the data: 1) Disease related factors; impacting work ability; 2) Employment related factors; impacting work ability; 3) Personal and cultural related factors; impacting work ability; 4) Recommendations for improvement were made by patients. Conclusion  In this novel study we highlight patients’ experiences of being at work. This study reports low awareness of SLE and mixed support in the workplace. Patients discussed work to varying degrees with their clinicians and needed further information for employers that was not available nor provided by their clinicians. The study reports cultural barriers in understanding SLE that could lead to lack of family support to remain in employment. Moreover, recommendations made in this study require further investigation and could be used by clinicians and Lupus UK to support patients of South Asian origin at work. Disclosure  M. Ubhi: None. S. Dubey: None. J. Reynolds: None. C. Gordon: None. T. Adizie: None. T. Sheeran: None. K. Allen: None. R. Jordan: None. S. Sadhra: None. J. Adams: None. R. Daji: None. K. Kumar: None.

scholarly journals Shifting Positionalities: Empirical Reflections on a Queer/Trans of Colour Methodology

2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 162-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin Haritaworn
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Social Differences ◽  
Interracial Families ◽  
Trans People ◽  
Cultural Texts ◽  
Alternative Methodology ◽  
Selection Of

How can we study ‘Queer’, or indeed, should we? Drawing on fieldwork with people raised in interracial families in Britain and Germany, and reflecting on my own coming out as transgendered/genderqueer during the research, I reflect on the role of difference, similarity, and change in the production of queer knowledges. My entry point is a queer diasporic one. Queers of colour, I argue, have a particular stake in queering racialised heterosexualities; yet differences within diasporic spaces clearly matter. While ‘Queer’ can open up an alternative methodology of redefining and reframing social differences, the directionality of our queering - ‘up’ rather than ‘down’ - is clearly relevant. I suggest the anti-racist feminist principle of positionality as fruitful for such a queer methodology of change. This is explored with regard to a selection of empirical and cultural texts, including the debate around Paris is Burning, Jenny Livingston's film about the Harlem house/ball scene; the appeal that a non-white heterosexual artist such as South-Asian pop singer MIA can have for queers of colour; the camp role model which Thai sex work femininity can represent for queer and trans people from the second generation of Thai migration; and the solidarity of a Southeast Asian butch with feminine women in her diasporic collectivity.

The effect of childhood unpredictability on co-parenting relationships during the transition to parenthood: A life history approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (8-9) ◽  
pp. 2438-2458
Author(s):  
Ohad Szepsenwol
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Life History Theory ◽  
Transition To Parenthood ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Parental Behaviors ◽  
Childhood Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Environmental Unpredictability ◽  
History Approach

Recent extensions to life history theory posit that exposure to environmental unpredictability during childhood should forecast negative parental behaviors in adulthood. In the current research, this logic was extended to co-parental behaviors, which refer to how parents coordinate, share responsibility, and support each other’s parental efforts. The effects of early-life unpredictability on individual and dyadic co-parental functioning were examined in a sample of 109 families (two parents and their firstborn child) who were followed longitudinally from before the child’s birth until the age of two. Greater early-life unpredictability (family changes, residential changes, and parents’ occupational changes by age 8) experienced by mothers, but not fathers, predicted more negative co-parental behaviors in triadic observations 6 months post birth, and lower couple-reported co-parenting quality assessed 3, 9, 18, and 24 months post birth. These effects were not explained by parents’ childhood socioeconomic status or current relationship quality. These findings highlight the role of mothers in shaping co-parenting relationships and how these relationships might be influenced by mothers’ early-life experiences.

Different pathways for different journeys: ethnicity, identity transition and desistance

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Calverley
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Cultural Expectations ◽  
Asian Male ◽  
Minority Ethnic

This chapter argues that the processes of adopting viable non-offending identities are as important in the desistance of minority ethnic offenders as they are for offenders who are white. However, differences in structural location and cultural expectations and practices mean that the forms of pro-social identity that are accessible and available vary. The author examines the ways Black and dual heritage and South Asian male desisters invest in available discourses of masculinity which are shaped by ethnicity (Gadd and Farrall, 2004) and how this process of identity re-construction provides a means of transitioning from an offender to a non-offender identity. The author then pinpoints the ways that identity is racialised and reviews the effects this has on desistance and the different strategies employed to deal with challenges imposed by racism.

scholarly journals Four Religious Education Teachers: Four Retrospective Career Trajectories

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 474
Author(s):  
Juha Luodeslampi ◽  
Arniika Kuusisto ◽  
Arto Kallioniemi
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Religious Education ◽  
Career Paths ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
School Subject ◽  
Written Narratives ◽  
Lutheran Church ◽  
Career Trajectories ◽  
History Approach

This article examines the career paths of Finnish Religious Education (RE) teachers who were born in the 1930s, through a retrospective, self-autobiographical life history approach. The material reported here is a part of wider data of mainly written narratives (N = 62) from RE teachers who recount their career trajectories. In these career-focused life histories, the teachers outline their own professionalism as embedded in changing sociohistorical contexts, where to a great extent they tell about the active development of the school and the teaching of their particular subject to answer to the changing needs and challenges. Some teachers have, along with their teaching, also been actively involved in different communities or associations. Many of the Religious Education teachers here reflect on their career paths in relation to their profession as a teacher and often also with double qualifications as pastor trained theologians. At times, this constructs a possibility for tension between the roles of a teacher and that of a pastor, and in the perceptions of RE as a school subject and as something “preached” in the pulpit—some see their professionalism above all in relation to their religious life. This also includes a notable gender divide in the data, as at the time when these teachers gained their professional qualifications, it was only possible for men to be ordained in the Finnish Lutheran Church. Succeeding this, the male teachers in these data commonly have pastorhood as their first profession. For the purpose of this article, the career accounts of four teachers have been selected for further analysis, as they were perceived as telling examples of the wider material in terms of more or less typical career paths.

scholarly journals Teacher Research: Uncovering Professional Identities and Trajectories of Teacher Researchers through Narrative Research—A Colombian Case

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Fernando Ubaque ◽  
Harold Castaneda-Pena
Keyword(s):  
Life Histories ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
Professional Identities ◽  
Institutional Practices ◽  
Teaching Expertise ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Efl Teacher ◽  
Teacher Researchers

This work explores real-life experiences around research. Thinking of the English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher as an inquirer of the academic reality, the study presents accounts of professional identity as narrated in the life histories of three EFL teachers-researchers in a private but non-profit institution in Bogota, Colombia. This study sheds light on different institutional practices that, grounded on a community of practice, reinforce research as an inquiry process and as an opportunity for professional and institutional development. Additionally, the study also addresses issues of investment when teachers engage in this practice. The work concludes by reflecting that teachers’ professional identities as researchers are composed of experiences that have an important effect on their teaching expertise. Thus, teachers tend to alter their identities based on the relationships they establish within the community and undergo changes when previous and current experiences are put together. It is suggested that teacher education should help teachers-to-be understand these dynamics.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document