MA Ed thesis: Connecting Classrooms: an exploration into the motives Middle Eastern teachers have...

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University of Cambridge

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Connecting Classrooms: an exploration into the motives

Middle Eastern teachers have for linking with British

schools via the British Council.

Matthew James Underwood

Trinity Hall

Supervisor: Dr Bethan Morgan

Submitted: 2009

Words: 19,984

Thesis submitted in part-fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of

Education of the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education.

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Abstract

This thesis is an exploration into the motives Middle Eastern teachers have for linking

with British schools via the ‘Connecting Classrooms with the Middle East

Programme’. The Connecting Classrooms Programme is run by the British Council.

This thesis begins with a literature review placing the Connecting Classrooms

Programme within the context of international comparative educational research. This

literature review was then used to design a deductive framework for the research into

this area. The research consisted of a small-scale exploratory case study. The case

study had three stages. The first stage was collecting field notes at the Connecting

Classrooms Conference, which took place in Kuwait in April 2009. The second stage

was five interviews. Four of these were with Bahraini teachers who coordinate this

programme within their schools and one was with a member of the British Council

Bahrain. The final stage was sending this thesis to the participants for comments. The

boundaries of this case study were that all the interviewees came from just one

country involved in this partnership (Bahrain) and all currently coordinate this

programme in the schools they work in. This is an exploratory case study into a

previously unresearched area and as such I have not attempted to reach broadly

applicable conclusions. However, I outline a framework of motives that may act as a

starting point for further research into the Connecting Classrooms Programme and

into international collaboration between teachers generally. In my conclusion I

suggest areas for possible further research building from this initial study. This

research was conducted as part of the Cambridge University, Schools University

Partnership in Educational Research.

Declaration

I hereby declare that the sources of which I have availed myself have been stated in

the body of the thesis and in the references and that the rest of the work is my own.

This thesis does not exceed 20,000 words in length.

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Acknowledgements

First and most of all, I thank the teachers who were interviewed. I am grateful to you

for your time and for making researching this thesis so fascinating.

I would also like to thank all those at the British Council who supported me in this

research. There are too many to name but without your help this would not have been

possible.

I would like to thank Jackie Kearns for introducing me to the work of the British

Council (a long time ago now) and also for taking the time to read and give me

feedback on this thesis.

I would like to thank Dr Bethan Morgan my supervisor for all her help, patience and

support.

I would like to thank all those others who are part of the SUPER MEd, both students

and teachers, for all so much over these past two years. It has been fascinating

Finally, thank you Christina, Ruth, Laurie and Grace for making writing this possible

by your kindness, understanding and smiles.

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Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction 1

1.1 The Connecting Classrooms with the Middle East Programme 1

1.2 The British Council 2

1.3 My personal interest in this topic 2

1.4 The Connecting Classrooms Programme as research partnerships 3

1.5 This thesis as part of SUPER 3

1.6 The research questions and structure of this thesis 4

Chapter 2: Literature review 5

2.1 My approach to selecting the literature for review 5

2.2 Defining comparative international research 6

2.3 The deductive framework used to review this literature 7

2.4 The reflective motive 8

2.5 The developmental motive 9

2.6 The motive of enabling global understanding 12

2.7 The competitive motive 15

2.8 Western approaches to comparing with various nations 16

2.9 Discussion 20

Chapter 3: Research methodology 22

3.1 My epistemological standpoint 22

3.2 Research design 22

3.3 Data collection methods, field notes 24

3.4 Data collection methods, interviews 25

3.5 Data analysis 26

3.6 Researcher role 28

3.7 Reliability and validity 29

3.8 Ethics 29

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Chapter 4: Findings from the Connecting Classrooms Conference 32

4.1 The Connecting Classrooms Conference 32

4.2 Discussion 36

Chapter 5: Findings from the interviews 38




5.4 Other motives 48

5.5 De-motivating factors 52

5.6 Anwar Sarhan (British Council, Bahrain) 53

Chapter 6: Discussion 57




6.4 Other motives and de-motivating factors 57

Chapter 7: Conclusion 60

7.1 Methodological evaluation 60

7.2 Implications for further research 61

References 62

Appendices 75

Appendix A: Interview schedule, six initial questions

Appendix B: Interview task

Appendix C: Sample interview transcript

Appendix D: The Connecting Classrooms Conference (Kuwait, 2009) programme

Appendix E: Sample field notes

Appendix F: Sample of initial correspondence with interviewees

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List of tables

Table 2.1: Sample of writers, who have conducted international 11

comparative research in order to find strategies to help a

community they are connected to.

Table 5.1: The deductive frameworks used and how they evolved. 39

List of abbreviations

ARAB: Action Research Association of Bahrain

BERA: British Association of Educational Researchers

GASERC: Gulf Arab States Educational Research Centre

ICT: Information and communication technology

PISA: Programme for International Student Assessment

SUPER: Schools University Partnership in Educational Research (Cambridge

University)

TIMSS: Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study

UAE: The United Arab Emirates

UK: The United Kingdom

UNESCO: The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation

USA: The United States of America

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Chapter 1: Introduction

In this thesis I will be analysing the motives teachers from the Middle East have for

linking with schools and teachers in Britain to work together collaboratively. I will be

analysing this within the specific context of the ‘Connecting Classrooms with the

Middle East Programme’ run by the British Council.

1.1 The Connecting Classrooms with the Middle East Programme

The Connecting Classrooms Programme involves partnering schools in the Middle

East with schools in the United Kingdom. The Middle Eastern countries involved are:

Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, The United Arab Emirates and

Yemen. Each school involved in a partnership is required to appoint one teacher to be

an ‘international coordinator’. The international coordinator is responsible for

dademia.edueveloping the partnership. The schools and teachers involved are linked

for three years. Teachers travel once a year at most to visit their partner teacher and

school. The primary focus is on communicating across distance. The intended goals of

working together are as follows: to collaborate on lesson planning; to enhance

understanding of each others cultures and to share ideas on teaching practice. The

ideal result is for the two partnered teachers to enable the embedding of shared

content and strategies across the entire school they work in, thereby entwining

practice in a partially shared and fully internationalised curriculum. The students in

the partnered schools are also a significant part of the Connecting Classrooms

partnerships. However, as with the teachers the priority is not on travel. Most or even

all of the students may never visit the nation or school they are partnered with. The

emphasis is therefore once again on collaborative working across distance. There are

currently nearly 300 teachers in the UK partnered with teachers in the Middle East via

Connecting Classrooms. This programme has also been replicated by the British

Council in linking British schools with other regions of the world.

1.1.1 The Connecting Classrooms Conference

To date there has been one conference as part of this programme. The title of this was

‘the Connecting Classrooms, Middle East Regional Conference’. It took place in

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Kuwait City on 31 March and 1 April 2009. The programme for this is appendix d. It

is discussed extensively in this thesis. Throughout this thesis the phrases ‘the

Connecting Classrooms Conference’ or ‘the conference’ refer to this. No other

conference is mentioned in this thesis.

1.2 The British Council

The British Council is ‘the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and

educational opportunities’ (The British Council, 2009). It receives one third of its

funding from the Foreign Office. However, it is run as an entirely independent body.

The British Council is the single largest facilitator of international discussions about

education between teachers in the world at present (The British Council, 2009). This

emphasis on enabling dialogue between practising teachers across the world makes it

distinct from comparable organisations in other countries such as The Fulbright

Foundation or Goethe Institute, although both these run similar programmes on a

smaller scale.

1.3 My personal interest in this topic

I currently work as a consultant for the British Council and I have worked as a trainer

on the Connecting Classrooms Programme in both Yemen and Bahrain. Previously as

a teacher I was also involved in earlier linking programmes between India and Britain

run by the British Council. I have discovered that these links, to the teachers involved,

can have a tremendous significance personally and professionally. This was certainly

the case for me. In my case it had significance as I lived for a short while in India

when I was younger and it was in a sense a journey back. My impression is that,

although schools and head teachers are often supportive, involvement in such

programmes is usually driven by individual teachers who both become involved

themselves and encourage colleagues to do so. My initial interest in this area therefore

came from a desire to understand what motivates teachers to look abroad in this way.

Through my role in the British Council this thesis is intended to be disseminated

widely, audiences include: members of the Cambridge University Schools University

Partnership in Educational Research; The British Council in various forms and others.

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1.4 The Connecting Classrooms Programme as research partnerships

The British Council states that one aim of the Connecting Classrooms partnerships is

to give teachers the chance to understand teaching practices in another culture and to

use this to reflect upon their own teaching (The British Council, 2009). To this extent

they are the beginnings of research partnerships. Taking Hargreaves’ concept of ‘the

tinkering teacher’ (1999, p.130) as researcher as my lead, one premise of this thesis is

that the teachers involved in this programme (even if they do not acknowledge it to

themselves) are in some sense researchers and that their reflections are unprocessed

research. Bray, Adamson and Mason (2007, p. 365) have concerns that much

international comparative work and research is ‘dangerously amateurish’. However, I

would challenge what could be interpreted as a rejectionist stance. There is an

enormous variety of international small-scale linking between teachers and schools,

formally and informally arranged. Connecting Classrooms is the largest formal

programme of this kind. These connections are very important for the many teachers

world wide, who participate in them and also could potentially generate significant

research. Therefore the processes by which these links are maintained and developed

are worth understanding. In the case of this specific thesis the motives behind

participating in such links are worth exploring.

1.5 This thesis as part of SUPER

This research was conducted as part of the Cambridge University, Schools University

Partnership in Educational Research. In some ways because of its international nature

it is beyond the usual field of the Cambridge University SUPER. However, I believe

that as my focus is on teacher collaboration it does fit entirely with its ethos and

vision. This vision is described as to ‘support’ ‘teacher led, practice based, projects’

(Cambridge University SUPER, 2009). I see this study as part of a shared and related

knowledge base into these areas and I hope that this research will be relevant to other

members of SUPER. My professional role changed soon after I joined SUPER and

started studying for this master’s degree. As with other SUPER research this thesis

informs my current professional practice.

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1.6 The research questions and structure of the thesis

In designing my research questions I closely followed Cresswell’s (2003, pp.106-108)

model for conducting an exploratory study using a qualitative methodology. As he

suggests I started with a small number of questions, three, with the intention of

answering them progressively during the research process. I expected the answers to

these to generate a framework for responding in-depth to the third question. This

design is also influenced by Yin’s ‘iterative model’ for ‘exploratory case study’

research, (2003, p.111). For the research questions for this thesis I took my lead from

McLaughlin, Black-Hawkins and McIntyre (2007, p.16) ‘even the concept of the

researching school is relatively new and not necessarily clear. We need to consider,

because it is far from obvious, what such schools aim to achieve, and why’. I

interpreted this within the context of the Connecting Classrooms Programme. My

research questions follow a staged process of being increasingly concentrated in

focus, they are as follows:

1) What motives do people have for conducting comparative international

research in education?

2) What are the motives behind the creation of the Connecting Classrooms

Programme?

3) What motives do Middle Eastern teachers have for connecting with the UK via

the Connecting Classrooms Programme?

The structure of this thesis is as follows:

• this introduction, chapter one

• a review of literature, chapter two

• a discussion of my methodological choices, chapter three

• the findings from my research presented as two separate chapters, four

and five

• a discussion, chapter six

• a conclusion, chapter seven.

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Chapter 2: Literature Review

In this chapter I will be reviewing the reasons why people compare education

internationally. One challenge presented by preparing a literature review for this

thesis is that there are no other articles I am aware of evaluating the motives teachers

have for linking with other teachers internationally. However, a premise of this thesis

is that through international partnering teachers are conducting informal and

unstructured international comparative research. To this extent an initial analysis of

motives for international comparative research across a wide spectrum of types is

appropriate.

2.1 My approach to selecting the literature for review

I developed a systematic approach to building this literature review in order to

identify the motives people have for working in this field. Firstly, I took as my

starting point the journal Comparative Education Review. I read each article

published therein in the last three years with an emphasis on finding the motive given

for conducting the piece of research. I then took a longer time span of fifteen years,

searching for any common themes that emerged in terms of motive and field of study.

This larger time span was needed as this journal occasionally publishes themed

editions, which with a smaller time span could give a distorted perspective. I searched

for common themes in both omission and inclusion over this period. For example, I

discovered only one article on education in The Gulf States (Mazawi, 1999) and this

was on the history of education in the region. I perceived this as a significant pattern

of omission. Finally using the references sections of these articles I identified

significant writers and found their books and articles. This was supported by another

route into the literature in this area, which was to read each doctoral and master’s

thesis, comparing education internationally, written at Cambridge University in the

last three years. Once again I trailed references back to find commonly referred to

books and articles. Later in this thesis the motives I have identified are compared and

contrasted with the motives that the British Council has for creating the Connecting

Classrooms Programme and the motives four Bahraini teachers have for being

involved in it. In places within this literature review I have also referred to research

on teacher collaboration and action research. This is because the focus of this case

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study is the partnerships formed by teachers involved in the Connecting Classrooms

Programme, which I perceive as being collaborative action research partnerships even

if not fully developed. This is also appropriate as this study is being conducted as part

of the Cambridge University SUPER.

2.2 Defining comparative international research

Within the field of international comparative literature there is considerable debate

over how the term ‘comparative research’ should be defined. As Bray (2007a) writes

unless followed by a caveat the terms ‘comparative research’ are usually taken to

mean research which compares education between two different nations. However,

the ‘Bray and Thomas cube’ model of comparative research (Bray, Adamson &

Mason, 2007) emphasises that other comparisons on a smaller scale could be given

the same title. Bray et al. (2007) believe that a more useful term would be

‘international comparative research’ when this is what is meant. Cook, Hite and

Epstein (2004) are concerned that the term ‘comparative research’ is often used for

studies that are focussed on just one country and that a disproportionate number of

articles in journals on comparative education are of this type. As they go on to explain

with articles of this nature comparison is at most implicit, in that the researcher has

travelled to research the other culture or has travelled to study abroad. This is a

pattern I also found. Some examples of single location studies that were only

comparative by implication in the last four volumes of Comparative Education

Review include: Andrabi, Das and Khwaja (2008), Dejeaghere (2008), Fairbrother

(2008), Blasco (2009), Carney and Bista (2009). However, this debate is beyond the

scope of this thesis. In choosing literature for review I have selected literature

according to the following two criteria:

• if it is defined by the author as comparative either within the text or title

• if it is published in a journal or collection of articles specifically on

comparative education (largely Comparative Education Review).

Within this thesis I have used the term ‘international comparative’ when appropriate,

taking my lead from Bray et al. (2007), as like them I believe it is clearer.

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2.3 The deductive framework used to review this literature

From an initial reading into this area I created a deductive framework with which to

analyse the motives of international comparative researchers when reading further.

This framework is based on Arnove (2002, 2003) with a fourth motive added which is

based on Bray’s (2007a) modification of Arnove’s framework. According to these

authors there are four potential motives for comparing education internationally:

• Firstly, a reflective motive to understand other systems and practices as a way

of reflecting on our own systems. Researching others simply for the ‘value of

knowing both them and ourselves’ (Arnove, 2003, p.482).

• Secondly, a developmental motive, looking for new strategies and practices,

researching others ‘to borrow’ from them (Arnove, 2002 p.483).

• Thirdly, a motive of enabling global understanding or ‘contributing to

international understanding and peace’ (Arnove, 2003, p.10).

• Fourth and finally, a competitive motive to learn from others so as to compete

against them within a global economy. Bray (2007a) specifically attributes this

motive to large-scale government funded statistical research.

This outline for an initial framework is supported by Ross, Cave and Blair (1992, p.9-

10) who found that most researchers either wanted to ‘study other systems so that

they may be better placed to understand one’s own’ or ‘to revitalise and reform their

own systems’. It is also supported by Cook, Hite and Epstein (2004) who found that

the word most commonly used by researchers explaining their motives for research in

this field was ‘globalization’.

This framework provided the outline for the initial structure of this chapter. However

as I read further another issue emerged. This was a pattern of certain countries where

a large amount of research had been conducted by British and American researchers,

specifically the Far East and especially Japan. Conversely it emerged that there were

other nations where little comparative research seemed to have been conducted at all.

Exploring this led to the writing of an additional sub-section.

Using an evolving deductive framework, as I have chosen to, when comparing

internationally is emphasised as being valid and even the most appropriate approach

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by Holmes (1965); one of the most influential writers at the beginning of the modern

era of comparative studies. More recent authors (Rust, Soumare, Pescador & Shibaya,

1999) support this. They describe its strength as being that within a complex field,

without clear boundaries, it enables research to be focussed while remaining flexible.

The following sub-sections are structured according to the framework described

above.

2.4 The reflective motive

There are several writers who stress that reflection is a valid motive for teachers being

involved in collaborative action research within schools (Stenhouse 1979;

Liebermann & Miller, 1990; Little, 1990; Hargreaves, 1999; McIntyre, 2005).

Meanwhile Arnove (2002, 2003) identifies reflection as a common motive for those

conducting international comparative educational research. I was therefore interested

in exploring this motive within this literature review as I predicted that I would be

returning to it within the context of the Connecting Classrooms Programme.

The reflective goal has been present as a motive in international comparative

educational research since it first developed as a distinct area of study. Bereday (1964,

p.5) wrote that ‘we study education systems simply because we want to know’. More

recently Dimmock (2007, p.284) took a similar stance writing that there is something

‘compelling and attractive’ about studying for interests sake alone. This is a position

which is also supported by Dolby (2004). Many writers emphasise the validity of

reflection as a motive for international comparative research, partly on the basis of the

dangers implicit within any other. Mason, (2007) writes that the biggest differences

in practice are potentially between teachers in the same school rather than between

stereotypically representative teachers in different nations. He points out that trying to

learn from others can lead to simplistic stereotyping, as he writes, ‘it is a brave

researcher’ (p.177) who attempts to compare cultural differences in teaching practice.

Manzon (2007, p.95) supports this writing that it is easy and risky to assume a teacher

is representative of a school, a school representative of a country or a country

representative of a region. He is supported by Leung and Postlethwaite (2007) who

argue that comparing between nations is comparing the incomparable because the

differences are both so many and so subtle. To some extent this is also supported by

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‘the Bray and Thomas cube’ (Bray et al., 2007), which stresses the potential value of

comparing within smaller geographical areas including inter-classroom and inter-

school.

This caution is to some extent challenged by Givvins, Herbert, Jacobs, Hollings and

Gallimore (2005) who argue that teaching is distinctly different in different nations

for cultural reasons. They argue that a cultural ‘teaching script’ (p.313) is learnt as a

child and replicated as a teacher. However, even they accept that there are other

factors at play in any lesson. They also found that only in Japan was their strong

enough evidence for them to conclude that there is a ‘national teaching pattern’

(p.314). Li (2006) and Van Reis Saari (2008) in their research also looked for cultural

differences in classroom practice, in these cases in approaches to maths teaching.

However, in all the cases referred in this paragraph the primary goal was discussion

and reflection. Givvins et al. (2005) for example, were unsure whether cultural scripts

could be successfully exported.

In summary, reflection is seen by many working in the field of international

comparative education as being a valid motive for conducting research. I explore this

further, in this thesis, in terms of both the British Council’s motives for creating the

Connecting Classrooms Programme and teacher’s motives for participating in it.

2.5 The developmental motive

From this review of literature it seems possible to say that it is a significant minority

of writers working in the field of international comparative education who are content

with reflection alone. Most researchers find that at least some lesson can be learnt

from the comparison they have conducted even if they express it in cautious terms.

For some, pressure to discover concrete strategies by looking abroad comes from

others connected to their research. For example typically the institution researched

into may want more concrete results. This is an issue that appeared for Szelengi and

Rhodes (2007) in a study into how overseas students are shaped by their experiences

in the USA. There may also often be a difference between the desired outcome of

conversations between participants from different nations in different economic

circumstances and with different academic traditions. Potts (2007), for example,

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writes about how for him the primary goal for his research was initially, and

increasingly came to be, a process of reflection, However, he found that his Chinese

colleagues wanted to learn and transfer concrete practices.

Several writers such as Baker, Kohler and Stock (2007) openly acknowledge that they

found that they discovered within themselves, without outside pressure, a tension

between the goal of reflection alone and a temptation to discover practice that could

be transferred between nations. Others such as Law (2007) do not find this a problem.

She feels that although reflection is a valid reason for research it is equally valid to

accept that concrete lessons can be learnt from researching internationally even and

perhaps especially when the research is small in scale. She writes that there is a

‘dangerous paradox’ (p.370) with international comparison. This is that it is at its

most interesting when it involves trying to learn from the detail of pedagogy but this

is also when the risk of drawing erroneous conclusions or falling into stereotypes is at

its highest. However, to her this does not mean that this motive should be rejected just

that conclusions should be approached with caution. Bray (2007b) identifies a similar

problem but feels that in avoiding attempting to learn from the detail of classroom

practice there is a danger of simply ‘producing descriptive work of a very low calibre’

(p.359), which he believes is unfortunately more prevalent in international

comparative research than in any other field.

Mosselson (2007) is an interesting example of a researcher studying with the clearly

expressed motive of discovering concrete strategies. She had particularly strong

motives as she was analysing why her own Bosnian ethnic community, especially

young women, seemed to be under-achieving academically. This was a situation she

wanted to assist in remedying. This motive to compare to improve a community one

is part of or involved in is reflected in the work of many others researching in this

field. The table below shows a sample of writers who have conducted international

comparative research and who openly state that one motive for their research was to

find strategies to help a community they are connected to.

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Table 2.1: Sample of writers who have conducted international comparative research

in order to find strategies to help a community they are connected to.

Author and date Community they conducted research

into and which they were connected to

prior to the research.

Blasco (2009) The urban poor in Mexico.

Chinas (2008) Cypriot students

Cosic (2008) Croatian teachers

Llewellyn Smith (2008) American graduate students

Marshall, Tulio, Aguilar & Aguilar

(2008)

Rural Honduran children

Nordtveldt (2008) Senegalese children

Brown & Conrad (2007) Secondary school students from Trinidad

and Tobago

Hannum, Kao & Zhang (2007 The rural Chinese community

Heynemann, Johnson & Silova (2007) Azerbaijani university students

Mosselson (2007) Bosnian women living in the USA

Hinderlitter, Ortfloff & Fey (2007) Ethnic returnees to Japan and Germany

Stanisic (2007) Montenegrin students with special needs

Wang (2007) Chinese students studying abroad

Chang (2008) Chinese children attending school in the

UK.

Gaiyabu (2008) Children in Nauru

A significant number of these researchers used small-scale qualitative methods

(Brown and Conrad, 2007; Hinderlitter et al., 2007; Hannum et al., 2007; Stanisic

2007; Wang, 2007; Chinas, 2008; Blasco, 2009).

In summary it seems that there are considerable pressures both personal and

professional that leads researchers to want to be able to find practical strategies from

their research even when it is small scale and qualitative. From this pattern in the

literature it became clear that I would want to explore further the motive of using

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international partnering to learn and develop teaching strategies, in the context of the

Connecting Classrooms Programme.

2.6 The motive of enabling global understanding

2.6.1 Enabling global understanding

Bray (2007a) argues that the motive of enabling global understanding dominates

amongst the least formal kinds of international comparative research, that which

might not be conventionally defined as research at all. However, as by definition there

is very little written about research of this type, in this sub-section I will be analysing

the role this motive plays in academic research. I will later however, be comparing it

against the motives of those involved in the Connecting Classrooms Programme.

Arnove (2003) opens a series of collected articles with the statement that the aim of

the book is ‘global peace and justice’ (p.10). Post (2009, p.1) similarly writes that the

reason for the existence of the journal Comparative Education Review at all is that

such research is ‘essential for a peaceful world’. Spring (2007) attempts to create a

vision for how schools can learn from each other internationally based on a

hypothetical global curriculum. Spring defines himself as unusual by the standards of

the academic community in being driven by the motive of creating global

understanding. However, I would challenge this. This motive is not only mentioned

by both Arnove (2003) and Post (2009) but also by many others. Examples include:

• Myers (2007) who explores how a shared concept of citizenship could be

developed world wide;

• Suarez (2007 a and b) who focusses on developing political understanding in

South America and the Caribbean;

• Hasumi (2008) who explores how education can be used to improve civic

society and combat racial intolerance in Japan;

• Beckerman, Zembylas and McGlynn (2009) who compare citizenship

education in conflict areas of the world.

The motive of enabling global understanding is also mentioned in the literature of

large organisations, which fund international comparative research in education. The

first sentence of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural

Organisation’s constitution is ‘since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds

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of men that the defences of peace must be constructed’ (UNESCO, 2009). UNESCO

launched the first international human rights focused educational programme as far

back as 1953. The world’s three largest non governmental organisations: UNESCO,

the World Bank, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

all support universities in conducting research in international comparative education

under the banner of idealistic constitutions (Bray, 2007a)

University based international comparative research is not necessarily lacking in

idealism even though it has a higher level of academic rigour than other international

comparative connections. If this statement is turned around therefore: more informal

forms of international comparative work could be supported by universities to

produce action-research, which would be rigorous by academic standards, whilst still

maintaining the idealism, which created them. This perception that teachers can be

supported to produce rigorous research, in a way that enriches rather than detracts

from other aspects of their professional lives, is one mirrored by writers on teacher led

action research within the UK (McLaughlin & Taber, 2006).

2.6.2 Globalisation as a motive

A significant number of writers in the field of international comparative education

state that one motive for conducting their research is to provide a response to the

process of globalisation (Green 1997; Arnove & Torres, 2003; Chabbott & Elliot,

2003; Baker & LeTendre, 2005; Levy, 2006; Spring, 2007). At the Connecting

Classrooms Conference globalisation and ‘global citizenship’ were repeatedly

referred to as the primary reason for the British Council running such programmes.

For these reasons I decided to address the motive of globalisation within my review of

literature in preparation for my exploration of the Connecting Classrooms

Programme.

People who acknowledge that their writing is a direct response to globalisation can be

divided into two schools of thinking. Firstly, those who adhere to a set of assumptions

about the nature of globalisation as reflected in not only academic literature but also

much non-academic literature on this topic published today, including British Council

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literature. These assumptions, which could be described as mainstream thinking on

globalisation include the following:

• it is new

• it is accelerating

• it involves greater interaction between individuals across nations (socially,

politically, economically)

• it will effect the role of the nation state and national governments

• it is driven by changes in technology connected to computing and the internet.

To these writers (Arnove, 2003; Bray 2007 a and b; Kennedy, Hahn & Lee, 2008;

Carney, 2009) globalisation is a process, the nature of which is largely accepted and

research is needed to generate an educational response to it.

2.6.3 Using education as a lens

Secondly, there is another school of writers who challenge some of this mainstream

view of globalisation. These writers use education to act as a lens with which to

understand the process of globalisation and for questioning some aspect of the

mainstream view. To some extent these writers discussed below should not be

described as international comparative educational researchers at all. They are rather

sociologists, historians or political scientists who find education a useful vehicle and

others sit on a blurred boundary between two or more fields. However, articles of this

nature are frequently published in comparative educational journals. Below are some

examples:

• Green (1997), Popkewitz (2000) and Sidhu (2007) use an historical approach

to education to try to understand globalisation.

• Apple (2000), Burbules and Torres (2000), Lingard (2000), and McCarthy and

Dimitrades (2000), all writing at the start of the Bush era, argue that

globalisation within world education systems would lead to an increased

emphasis on decentralisation. They use the study of education to understand

larger economic and political changes as does Hanson (2008).

• Meyer (2006) analyses Japanese approaches to human rights via the lens of

textbooks.

• Keating (2007) explores how citizenship education reflects concepts of

democracy and citizenship in different European states.

15

• Toreiphi (2007) uses educational statistics to argue that among the most

globalised people are the world’s poorer communities including the Nagas.

• Fairbrother (2008) uses education to as a lens with which to tentatively

critique Chinese political systems.

• Ichilov (2008) analyses Arab-Israeli relations via educational policy.

• Tsvetkova (2008) does the same but in the context of Cold War relations.

In summary the motive of increasing global understanding is certainly prevalent in the

decision to conduct international comparative educational research. The temptation to

use education as a lens for understanding complex global processes is also

understandably strong. By definition comparative and international studies into

education have a large and fascinating space for the expansion of ideas. However, one

could argue as Arnove (2003) does that for comparative international research to be

relevant to teachers it should ideally be conducted at teacher, student and classroom

level. This is to some extent mirrored by concerns held by McClaughlin, Black-

Hawkins and McIntyre (2007) about the relevancy to teachers of some educational

research conducted within the UK. Following, this literature review it became clear

that both the motive of enabling global understanding and perceptions of the impact

of globalisation on teaching were areas I would wish to explore further in the context

of the Connecting Classrooms Programme.

2.7 The competitive motive

Cabbott and Elliott (2003) state that although most international comparative research

is small-scale and qualitative most funding in this area is directed towards large scale

quantitative surveys. Two of the most well known of these regularly conducted large

scale studies are the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) with a

sample of 250,000 students in 32 countries and the Trends in International

Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), which compares 500,000 students in 50

countries. The intention behind national involvement in these reports as stated by

Bray (2007a) is educational improvement so as to compete within a global economy.

They are not done for interest’s sake alone. The intention is that policy makers are

able to discover which countries are successful at what and then, it is presumed,

16

researchers will look further to find out why. These studies are not intended to be an

end in themselves. It is important therefore to distinguish between criticism of the

existence of these studies and criticism of how they are portrayed and used by

governments.

Many writers are critical of the use made of such studies. Chabbott and Elliott (2003)

describe them as leading to a lot of ‘national breast beating’ (p.15) but very little deep

understanding of different educational systems. They go on to write that ‘results

issued with much fanfare may dominate public debate long after smaller studies with

much smaller budgets call them into question.’ (p.17). They also state that the biggest

failing of governments in terms of funding comparative research has been to be

prepared to fund large scale data collection but not to fund further research into

establishing the meaning and relevance of this data. Baker and LeTendre (2005) see

the discrepancy in funding large scale data collection but not subsequent in-depth

research informed by this data as being due to politicians with ‘solutions already in

mind waiting to find a problem that justifies this policy.’ (p.154). Theirs is a long term

historical approach. They identify three moments of educational reform in American

post war politics each provoked by a sense of national crisis, the most recent of these

following the first publication of TIMSS in 1995. They argue that following this,

policies were brought in that the US government claimed were developed by learning

from other nations but that actually came from a domestic political agenda.

In summary however, this is not to criticise the motive behind the practice of

compiling large scale statistical reports that compare internationally. They are, as

Fairbrother (2007) points out fascinating, as a picture into the field of education

worldwide and a potentially valuable starting point for further research. However they

are in the eyes of some academics often simplified by politicians and the media

beyond all usefulness.

2.8 Western approaches to comparing with various nations

In this subsection I will be exploring the argument that there are nations which

historically Western educationalists have looked to for ideas, specifically the Far East,

and conversely others where this is not the case. The issue this then raises is: if

17

comparative studies and linked work with these countries is a learning experience

with other countries is it purely for interest; is it to learn ourselves in the West, is it

supportive expertise, and is there ever a danger that it can become preaching? Sugrue

(2009) spoke about westerners working in Africa, including educational advisors or

researchers as being either ‘mercenaries or missionaries’. Although very different

roles what they have in common is that both of these are experts bringing knowledge

into a culture rather than taking knowledge out.

2.8.1 Western approaches to comparing with Japan

From my review of literature it became clear that a disproportionately large number of

articles published in Comparative Education Review over the past fifteen years were

about the Far East and specifically, Japan (Gerbert, 1993; Lincicome, 1993; Sorenson,

1994; Robinson, 1994; Leng, 1996; Takahaza, 1998; Ban & Cummings, 1999;

LeTendre, 1999; Givvins et al. 2005; Meyer, 2006). This was especially the case from

1994-1999 but continues to this day. Bray (2007a) contextualises this perception of

mine by describing how comparative international educational research as a field of

study has two historical points of origin Japan and the West. Samoff (2003) takes this

even further arguing that schooling as it is commonly practised across the entire world

is a model which was exported via empire from Europe and Japan.

However, several writers (Baker & LeTendre,1995; Green, 1997; Chabbott & Elliott,

2003; Tamer, 2005; Watkins, 2007) are critical of many articles written about the Far

East and especially Japan. These writers describe some of these studies as simplistic

and stereotypical. This perception that Western researchers may sometimes idealise

the Japanese system is also reflected by some Japanese researchers such as Takayama

(2007, p.423), who writes that ‘in striking contrast to the international acclaim during

the 1980s and 90s for Japanese schools, the Japanese continued to perceive their

countries schooling as steeped in crisis.’ An extraordinary sentence by Mason (2007,

p.179) illustrates the complexity of the relationship Western researchers have with

Japan, ‘It is the cultural production of the ‘western’ centre (including of course

Japanese cultural capital) that dominates that of the periphery.’ The description of a

Far Eastern culture as Western and the use of the word periphery seem to show

something about Western approaches to both the Far East and to other nations.

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2.8.2 Western approaches to comparing with poorer nations

As Bray et al. (2007, p.18) write, poor countries try to learn from rich countries, rich

countries try to learn from rich countries but no-one tries to learn from poor countries.

Yang (2007, p.248) supports this with the blunt quote ‘it remains quite difficult for

those in poorer countries to argue with foreign consultants’. McCarthy and Dimitrades

(2000) take this a stage further asking whether the motives richer countries have for

participating in conversations about education with poorer countries may involve a

degree of cultural propaganda. They argue this particularly in the context of

textbooks. Luke and Luke (2000) feel that conversations about education are

important between all nations but that researchers and participants should reflect on

motive before any dialogue begins to ensure that it is equal and relevant.

Samoff (2007) and Kubow (2007) both write about how advice to poorer countries

can be tied to funds and how even when intentions are good this can lead to pressure

being put on the poorer country to modify its systems. An example of this is a booklet

of advice for those working in education in crisis areas (Arnhold, Bekker, Kersh,

Mcleish, & Phillips, 1998). In it the writers describe ‘emergency training to assist

teachers with new teaching and learning styles’ (p.23). The question needs to be asked

though of the motive behind introducing new presumably Western teaching styles into

a culture in crisis. Westerners working in these areas may feel uncomfortable with

local teaching strategies, but it may also be the case that a crisis is not a time for

change. The result of all this could be that countries outside the West, Japan and some

of Japan’s Asian neighbours are switched off from international discussions about

education. Bray (2003) for example points out that while India has dynamic internal

conversations about education its universities are hardly involved in international

comparative studies at all and when they are there seems to a sense that India has little

to teach the world, despite it now being one of the world’s fastest growing economies.

2.8.3 Western approaches to comparing with Islamic nations

There are very few articles written on education in Islamic nations compared to other

regions of the world. In Comparative Education Review’s themed edition on

education in Islamic nations in August 2006 the majority of articles were on the

history of education rather than on current practice (Bashkin, 2006; Gesiak, 2006;

Gunther 2006; Terc 2006). Only one involved any fieldwork (Boyle, 2006). None of

19

the articles were on the Gulf nations. In fact only one article has been published in

Comparative Education Review on education in the Gulf region in the last 15 years

and this was also an historical account (Mazawi, 1999).

One of the few articles about current educational conversations with the Islamic world

including the Gulf region is by Christina, Mehram and Mir (2003). They accept that

much of the form of most modern schooling worldwide is a Euro/Japanese creation.

However, they also write about the deep educational traditions in the Islamic world.

As they write ‘Islam’s regard for learning remains an integral component of

educational culture’ (p.357). However, they ask whether the West is prepared to

converse as equals and acknowledge the possibility of learning from this tradition of

education. They perceive Westerners as too often seeing Islamic cultures as

rejectionist cultures, which have little to teach the West. They particularly write

extensively about Western views on the education of women in Islamic countries. As

they point out Westerners often perceive this as monolithic across the Middle East,

while in fact the education of women varies enormously from nation to nation to the

extent that the provision of educational opportunities for women in Qatar and Egypt is

amongst the highest in the world. They are also concerned about the impact upon the

Middle East of trying to import Western educational methods wholesale. In some

large institutions of the Euro/Japanese model they find unorganized and incoherent

planning and low quality teaching by teachers who do not perceive their profession as

high status. They believe that by a process of historical reflection coupled with

learning from other nations that it is possible to create educational systems that reflect

local identity and are also successful. Their overall argument is that while it is

important that comparative conversations with the West happen it is equally important

that there is not an assumption that the West can provide models that can be simply

and entirely transferred into Middle Eastern countries.

In summary comparative international research between the Far East, especially

Japan, and the West has a long history. There are debates about the nature of this

dialogue but it is clear that many researchers believe there may be useful lessons to be

learnt from each others practice. However, this raises questions regarding the nature

of dialogue between the West and other nations including in the case of this thesis the

Gulf States. This is not to criticise the practice of comparative research between the

20

West and these nations, if anything more is needed. However, the motive for these

conversations is an area worthy of research and understanding.

2.9 Discussion

My intention was that through this literature review I would be able to respond to the

first of my research questions. I also intended that through it I would either be assured

that my other research questions were still appropriate or would be able to modify

them effectively (Cresswell, 2003). My initial research questions were as follows:




Programme?



2.9.1 Research question 1

In response to the first of my research questions: from this literature review it seems

that the reflective motive is certainly present in much research in this field. However,

it seems that many and perhaps a majority of researchers use international comparison

to try to discover transferable practices or policies. Looking for concrete strategies

can particularly dominate when the researcher is part of or is involved in one of the

communities researched into. There is also another powerful motive of using

educational research to increase global understanding and also to understand the

process of globalisation. However, while much of this research is fascinating to read

some of it may have little relevance for the day to day practice of teachers. In the last

two decades the use of large scale statistical research comparing nations

internationally has become established. However, while usually seen as valid in origin

and intention these programmes are widely criticised by academics (Baker &

LeTendre, 1995; Bray 2007a) who feel that they are too often misused in terms of

their public presentation by politicians and the media. As with research related to

globalisation these large scale statistical research programmes can also seem distant

from the day to day practice of teachers. A perceived gap between research and

practice has been identified by many writers writing about other areas of educational

21

research and is a reason some people call for more action research by practising

teachers (Hargreaves, 1999; McLaughlin et al., 2007). This gap is perhaps even

greater within the field of international comparative educational research (Bray,

2007a). In geographical terms there is a considerable amount of dialogue on education

between the West and the Far East, especially Japan, and a clear motive of learning

from each other, although aspects of the nature of this motive can be challenged. This

is interesting but it is also significant as it raises questions regarding the nature of the

dialogue the West has with other nations, in the case of this specific thesis the nature

of dialogue with the Gulf States.

2.9.2 Implications for this study

Although this literature review produced enough data to respond to my first research

question it did not for the remaining two. It was not my intention that it would

(Cresswell, 2003). However, it reinforced my confidence that this area of study and

my initial research questions were still appropriate for the next stages in the research

process. For most teachers their experience of comparative international work is likely

to be in the form of linking via programmes such as Connecting Classrooms. There is

a place for research in this area. It also confirmed my view that a small-scale case

study was the most appropriate method. This was for two reasons. Firstly, although a

wide variety of methods are used in the field of international comparative research,

case study has been used by a significant number of the researchers referred to in my

review of literature (Dolby, 2004; Boyle, 2006; Li, 2006; Baker, Kohler & Stock,

2007; Brown & Conrad, 2007; Hinderlitter et al., 2007; Hannum, Kao & Zhang, 2007;

Hasumi, 2008). To this extent therefore my approach is reflective of those who work

in the field I am researching into. Secondly, my literature review confirmed my

expectation that this area of study was a previously unresearched area and that I

should perceive this thesis as exploratory research. This is discussed further in the

next chapter.

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Chapter 3: Research methodology

In this section I will be discussing and justifying my choice of methodology for this

thesis. I begin by discussing my epistemological standpoint. I then discuss: the

research design; methods of data collection, methods of data analysis and my role as a

researcher. I conclude with a discussion of ethical issues that arose through this

research and the decisions I made in response to them.

3.1 My epistemological standpoint

As Yates (2003, p.5) writes, choice of both methodology and method for any piece of

research will be partly shaped by the epistemological standpoint of the person leading

the research. In this context it is worth stating that I find myself drawn to small-scale

qualitative methods, such as observation and interview and this undoubtedly

influenced the design of this study. This may relate to my background and first

degree, which is in history. Studying history, with its idiographic nature, involves

acknowledging that all situations are unique and specifically does not involve

searching for patterns and general rules (Smith, 1998, p.132). I find this a realistic

epistemological model. Arnove and Torres (2003) write, that many comparative

international researchers adopt a similar stance and that this is often reflected in the

choice of a qualitative methodology using small-scale methods. This may often be

financially and personally realistic. However, they argue that the epistemological

roots go deeper than this. There is also a semi-political appeal to such approaches as

they are the opposite to the enormous government funded statistical research projects

such as TIMSS and PISA that many academics (Baker & LeTendre 2005, Bray

2007a) are wary of. To this extent my position is reflective of others working in this

field.

3.2 Research design

3.2.1 Case study

This thesis is a case study in that it is a ‘small scale study’ set in clear ‘geographical,

temporal and organisational boundaries’ (Cohen, Manion & Morrison’s, 2007, p.5). In

23

this case the boundaries are that I focus on four Bahraini teachers currently linked

with British schools via the Connecting Classrooms Programme. It is more

specifically an ‘exploratory case study’ (Yin, 2003, p.12) in that my aim was not to

reach conclusions ‘representative of the broader context’ (p.12) but to explore a

‘particular contemporary phenomena’ (p.13) with the expectation of conducting

further research in the future.

3.2.2 A three stage process to answering my research questions

Taking my lead from (Cresswell, 2003) I designed a three stage process for the

collection of data. My intention was that each stage would gradually build a

framework for answering my third research question (ibid). I expected my first two

research questions to be answered at interim stages in the research (ibid). The first

question I expected to be answered via a review of literature and the second via

research at The Connecting Classrooms Conference. The research questions are on

page four. The three stages of data collection were as follows: Firstly, taking

extensive field notes at the Connecting Classrooms Conference. Secondly, five semi-

structured interviews: four of these with teachers, from Bahrain, who have

responsibility for coordinating this programme within their schools and the other an

interview with a member of the British Council, Bahrain. Thirdly, in July, once a final

draft had been completed, this thesis was sent to all those people quoted or

paraphrased in my findings, for further comment. This third stage is discussed in the

sub-section, ethics. However, it was also an epistemological decision based on Elliot

(1978, p.356) who believes that case study research ‘should be validated with the

participants.’

3.2.3 Other research designs that I considered

As Robson (2002) predicts the design for this exploratory piece of research evolved

during the research process and especially rapidly at the earliest stages. Originally my

intention had been to conduct a desk-based study into British Council literature, in the

context of comparative international research in education. Opportunity, partly

generated by enthusiasm from the British Council for an approach involving other

forms of data collection changed my plans. This enthusiasm especially came from the

British Council Bahrain, leading to the decision to focus this case study on Bahrain.

24

In some ways the decision to conduct a case study with the largest dataset collected in

the form of semi-structured interviews was counter-intuitive and therefore needs some

justification. The British Council have been enormously supportive and I feel

confident that they would have enabled other means of data collection. The number of

schools involved in the Connecting Classrooms Programme meant that I considered

using an internet based questionnaire to get a range of views from a range of

countries. This would have obviated the need to travel to conduct this research. It

would also have meant that the sample of data collected would have potentially been

statistically significant enough to enable general hypotheses to be reached.

I rejected this approach because I was concerned that the brevity of responses to

closed or multiple-choice questions may mean that I would receive largely a repetition

of the motives behind this programme as expressed at the conference. The British

Council vision for this programme in my opinion is a strong one that it is hard to

disagree with. I therefore felt that I needed an approach that would reveal subtle

differences (Denscombe, 2003, p.93) in motive. I decided that I wanted to have a set

of data in the form of transcripts manageable enough that I could through repeated

reading (Simpson & Tucson, 2003, p.79) code and analyse at word and sentence level

and therefore unpick this subtlety. In short, I needed ‘thick data’ (Marshall, 2002,

p.57). This perception of mine of case study as the most appropriate approach is

supported by Miles and Hubermann (2002, p.12) who write that case study is simply

‘often the best strategy for exploring a new area’.

3.3 Data collection methods, field notes

The first stage in the process of data collection was the collection of field notes at ‘the

Connecting Classrooms, Middle East Regional Conference’. I was offered the chance

to attend this conference to conduct research by the British Council. They also funded

my attendance. The only condition they had was that I share my research with them.

At the conference I made detailed notes on the following: the formal presentations

(speeches); workshops involving smaller groups, and from informal conversations

during the conference. The notes were collected in a narrative form in a journal. This

ethnographic approach was suitable for my research at this stage. My intention was

that the research into the conference should primarily be a method for enabling me to

25

design the structure of the next stage of the process. In Robson’s (2002) terms this

was the ‘emerging’ stage of using data collection to shape design. In describing my

approach, to collecting field notes at the conference as ethnographic I acknowledge

that there are ‘numerous debates about the nature and form of ethnographic work’ and

that this definition can ‘cover a wide range of practices’ (Yates, 2003, p.140). In

using this term I am following Yates (2003, p.172) who writes that any research,

which involves ‘direct observation of a social group or situation’ is at least ‘partially

ethnographic’ in design.

3.4 Data collection methods, interviews

3.4.1 Access and sampling

The next stage of data collection was five interviews. Four were with Bahraini

teachers involved in the Connecting Classrooms Programme and one was with a

member of the British Council, Bahrain. I was put in contact with the four teachers, a

number I requested, by the British Council, Bahrain. My only criteria for selection

were they must currently coordinate the Connecting Classrooms Programme in the

school they work in (they must hold the post of international coordinator) and they

must speak good enough English for me to be able to conduct the interview without a

translator. The British Council ensured a gender balance. The interviews all took

place in April 2009. They were one to one interviews and were held in private in a

classroom in the British Council building in Manama, Bahrain. The interviews lasted

on average for thirty minutes and were taped.

3.4.2 The interview schedule and task

The interviews consisted of a schedule of six open questions (appendix a) and a task

(appendix b). The task was designed because I was concerned that using a

conventional schedule of open questions could mean that it would ‘not just be the

questions asked’ but ‘the way they were posed’ that would in part ‘determine the

responses elicited’ (Taber, 2007, p.151). I was particularly concerned about this

because this was an ‘exploratory case study’ (Yin, 2003). I felt that this might mean

that I would find it difficult to contextualise this happening. I wanted therefore to

design an interview process that mitigated against this as far as possible. The task I

designed consisted of the interviewees ordering sixteen possible motives for

26

involvement in this programme in order of importance and then explaining their

reasoning for this order. Using an ordering task to enable discussion, but not to

generate statistical data, has academic precedent in the social sciences (Weekes, 1997;

Patel, 1999, Toreiphi, 2007). Similarly structured tasks, of ranking and sorting

discrete statements to provoke discussion, are also often used in History teaching

(Philips, 2002; Byram, Counsell, Riley, Stephens-Ward, 1997), a profession I have

done. I intended that all the motives expressed at the conference would be discussed

by the interviewees in such a way as ‘would not direct their views’ (Toreiphi, 2007,

p.27). Some of the statements on the task sheet have very similar wording. This was

to enable subtle differences in motive to come through. I want to clearly state here

that although the task involves numerical ordering resulting in some rudimentary

statistical data that this data cannot be seen as meaningful. Quite obviously a sample

of four is far too small for statistical analysis.

3.5 Data analysis

3.5.1 The field notes

The field notes from the conference, which were originally written in narrative form,

were copied out against a deductive framework adding new categories of motive as

they emerged. The use of successive evolving deductive frameworks (Holmes, 1965;

Rusk et al. 1999) in this research is similar to Yin’s ‘iterative model’ for ‘exploratory

case study’ research, (2003, p.111) and is also based on Miles and Hubermann’s

(2002, p.12) description of exploratory qualitative research as a ‘continuous iterative

process.’ The original deductive framework I used was based on the same four

motives for comparing internationally I had used to structure the literature review.

This is as follows:

• reflective motives

• developmental motives

• motives of developing global understanding

• competitive drive

I allowed new categories of motive to emerge and noted down all motives expressed

even if they did not fit with my framework. I then began on the basis of these notes to

re-shape it in preparation for analysing the interviews later.

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3.5.2 Considerations emerging from the field notes

On completion of this first stage in my data collection, collecting field notes at the

Connecting Classrooms Conference, the processes of further data collection and

analysis were re-designed in two ways. Firstly, the task, described above, was inserted

into the interview process. I had originally had in mind an extended schedule of

interview questions. Secondly, the deductive framework was modified (Holmes,

1965). Specifically: The motive of competitive drive was removed as no-one at the

conference had mentioned this. The remaining three motives were sub-divided as

follows and a further category, de-motivating factors, was added. The following

deductive categories were later used for the initial coding of the interviews:

1. Reflective motives

• reflecting upon practice

• researching practice

2. Developmental motives

• learning new teaching strategies

• improving student’s language skills

• whole school improvement

2. The motive of enabling global understanding

• enabling global citizenship

• enabling cultural understanding

3. Other motives

• friendships and relationships

• building relationships locally

• recognition

4. De-motivating factors

3.5.3 The interview transcripts

The interviews were transcribed verbatim by me. They were then colour coded by

hand using methods based on grounded theory. I used the categories identified above

as an initial deductive framework. However, I also allowed new categories to emerge.

As I coded one further category emerged which I called ‘personal history’

28

The term grounded theory in the context of this thesis needs to be used with some

caution. The reasons for this are as follows: firstly, in this research I did not intend to

try to reach hypotheses that are ‘saturated’ with data as defined by Glaser and Strauss

(1967) the innovators of grounded theory, as I felt that attempting to do this would in

this case lead to superficial and over generalised conclusions. Secondly, I was not

prepared to discard as ‘defunct’ (ibid) any anomalous comments made by the

interviewees, as the sample I wanted to use was too small and the amount of interview

data I intended to collect too limited for this level of confidence. Thirdly, I did not

intend representing the coding of the interviews statistically, even as part of my

thinking process, as again the sample would be too small for me to have confidence in

the significance of the data. To the extent that the method used reflects grounded

theory it is with the perception of a continuation of this research over a longer period

of time. In short the method of coding used is based on grounded theory but the

conclusions I have reached are only equivalent in tentativity to an early stage in a

fully realised grounded theory approach.

3.6 Researcher role

My role in this research took different forms at different stages. During the research at

the conference in terms of the speeches and presentations I could be defined as either

a ‘complete observer’ (Cohen et al., 2007, p.311) or a ‘marginal participant’ (Robson,

2002). I do not believe my presence effected the presentations in any sense. In terms

of the field notes I made from small group discussions at the conference I could be

better described as a ‘participant observer’ (Robson, 2002, p.197). My role was not

hidden and it is possible that my presence led to either ‘artificiality’ or ‘hesitancy’

(Robson, 2002, p.197) from those around me. I choose Robson’s term as I work for

the British Council, I knew many of the people at the conference well and I could

have attended simply in my role as a consultant rather than as a researcher from

Cambridge University. My role as interviewer was different again. My intention was

to be empathetic and uncritical. However, I have to acknowledge that it is impossible

to fully contextualise the impact my role may have had upon responses (Yates, 2003).

29

3.7 Reliability and validity

With a qualitative approach such as this it is not possible to make entirely confident

claims about the reliability of the data collected (Yates, 2003; Okeley, 1994).

However, it should be noted that:

• Detailed field notes were taken at the conference, which have been kept.

• All the interviews were conducted by me and were transcribed verbatim by me

with the transcriptions kept.

• Consistent procedures were applied to all those involved in this study;

including in terms of obtaining ‘informed’ and ‘continuing’ consent

(Denscombe, 2004) for their involvement.

A significant audit trail of data has therefore been retained by me.

In terms of validity it is important to note that there is no attempt in this thesis to

claim that the viewpoints expressed by the interviewees or my interpretation of them

can be generalised or in any sense taken as representative of the much wider cohort of

people involved in the Connecting Classrooms Programme. The sample of four

teachers and one representative of the British Council is simply far too small for this.

The interviewees also all come from just one of many nations involved in this

programme, Bahrain. The interplay of the personal, cultural and national in shaping

different teachers motives for participating in this programme is beyond the scope of

this thesis, although it would certainly be a valid area for further research. In taking

this stance regarding the generalisability of any conclusions reached in this thesis I

take my lead from Okeley (1994) and Smith (1998). They are prepared to accept that

a valid hypothesis can be based on as little as one quote, as long as the researcher

acknowledges that the research they have done is exploratory and will contribute to

debate rather than be treated as conclusive in any sense.

3.8 Ethics

This thesis has been written and the research for it conducted in reference to the

Cambridge University Faculty of Education Ethical checklist (2009) and the British

Educational Research Association Ethical Guidelines (BERA, 2004).

30

3.8.1 Dialogue with respondents and participants

As this thesis was prepared as part of SUPER I wanted to build into it some way that

it could be prepared in partnership and dialogue with the participants and respondents

despite geographical distance. There were three reasons why I wanted to do this.

• Firstly, I felt that this was appropriate with the vision of SUPER.

• Secondly, I was concerned that the interviewees may have consented to the

collection of data, via interview, but this would not necessarily mean they

would agree with the accompanying process of extraction, selection and

interpretation that has resulted in this thesis (Denscombe, 2002). This was

significant to me in the context of my third reason for doing this below.

• Thirdly, the intention is to disseminate this thesis quite widely. I felt that the

status of any work produced under the name of Cambridge University required

such sensitivity towards any possible ‘impact’ on the interviewees

(Denscombe, 2002, p.179). This was especially the case as all the interviewees

chose not to be anonymous.

I therefore inserted the third stage into the research process, which was asking the

respondents for their reflections on this thesis. However, this was only done once as

otherwise it could have become an infinitely circular process as responding to this

myself in terms of modifying this thesis in any way also involves a degree of selection

and interpretation. To some extent therefore this is an issue I was aware of but could

not fully resolve instead I could simply ask people to acknowledge my right as a

researcher to reach conclusions separate from the perceptions they may themselves

have (Meegan, Middleton, Power, Redman & Smith, 2003).

3.8.2 Anonymity and dialogue - specific participants and respondents

There were three different types of participant or respondents involved in this

research: conference speakers, conference delegates and interviewees. For each of

these a specific ethical approach has been adopted in terms of issues of maintaining

dialogue while writing this thesis and of anonymity. Firstly, quotes from formally

presented speeches at the conference have been attributed by name. This was a large

conference with several hundred delegates present including members of the press.

The speakers held recognised positions of authority. In this case I took my lead from

conventions in the reporting of political speeches and decided that anonymity was not

31

required (Yates, 2003). However, any speaker who has been quoted or paraphrased

has had sent to them a copy of this thesis and was offered the chance to respond if

they felt they had been misrepresented. Secondly, where I have referred to comments

made in informal settings by delegates at the Connecting Classrooms Conference

these have been anonymised but conversely there has been no attempt to include them

in dialogue around the constructing of this thesis as to do so would be too logistically

complicated (Denscombe, 2002, p.105). Finally, the five interviewees (four teachers

and one member of the British Council, Bahrain) were asked to provide consent

regarding the use of their interviews for this thesis and possible further publication on

three occasions: in writing prior to the interview; orally after the interview had been

completed and finally in writing again on receiving a draft of this thesis. In this way I

ensured I had ‘informed’ and ‘continuing’ consent (Denscombe, 2002; Alderson,

2004, p.107; BERA, 2004, p.6; Cambridge University Faculty Ethical Checklist,

2009). On all these occasions they were also informed that their names and the names

of the schools that they work in would be anonymised. All the interviewees were sent

a copy of this thesis in July 2009 and offered the chance to comment if they wished

to. The British partner teachers and partner schools are not identified.

3.8.3 Incentives

There are no significant incentives for the interviewees or the British Council in

cooperating with the research for this thesis. However, this will be presented to the

British Council in the form of workshops and I have informed them that the

Cambridge University SUPER produces a considerable amount of research that they

can access, in the same way that schools in the research partnership can, if they wish

to invite people to hold workshops. This potential future training could be perceived

as an incentive but I do not believe it is one, which interferes in any way with the

construction of this thesis (BERA, 2004).

32

Chapter 4: Findings from the Connecting Classrooms Conference

In this chapter I will be discussing the motives behind the Connecting Classrooms

programme as expressed at the ‘Connecting Classrooms, Middle East Regional

Conference’. The reasons for this are to respond to the second research question and

also to contextualise the design of the interview process, which followed as the final

stage in data collection. The conference was held in the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Kuwait

City on 31 March and 1 April 2009. It was the first conference to involve

representatives from all the nations involved. It included delegates who represented

every aspect of the programme. This included: political figures, teachers and members

of the British Council. The interview schedule and task sheet repeatedly referred to in

this chapter are appendix a and b. The conference programme is appendix d. This

section is largely written in a narrative order.

4.1 The Connecting Classrooms Conference

4.1.1 The opening speeches

The conference opened with a series of video clips. These connected to the motive of

enabling global understanding, for example one clip was the phrase ‘I am a global

citizen’ shouted by children from a wide variety of nations in succession. This was

followed by speeches by Michael Aron (Ambassador to Kuwait), Mona Hamad Al-

Loghani (Acting Assistant Undersecretary, The Ministry of Education Kuwait) and

Abdullatif Al–Baijin (Secretary General, Kuwait National Commission for

UNESCO). These speeches identified motives behind the programme as being:

because programmes linking schools are ‘fundamental in dealing with problems

across countries and peoples’ and that the programme would help create ‘tolerance

and multi-culturalism’. These speeches did not exclusively focus on the motive of

enabling global understanding, but it was the dominant theme. There were also

references to both reflective and developmental motives in terms of teacher’s practice.

It was specifically stated that Middle Eastern countries could ‘benefit from British

expertise’ in the area of ‘developing internationalism’ and also that one goal of this

programme is to support the ‘training of teachers’. The emphasis on global

understanding was to some extent to be expected as these speeches were being

33

delivered by political figures. However, they did even at this early stage lead to the

idea of using an interview task with choices of motive, rather than a schedule of

questions, in order to reveal subtle differences. It also became clear that within this

task there would need to be presented a series of options addressing concepts of

global understanding from a variety of angles. I decided though to avoid using the

term ‘global’ or any of its derivatives on the task to see if the teachers interviewed

would use this vocabulary themselves.

4.1.2 David Gardner

The next speaker, David Gardner (Programme Manager, Qualifications and

Curriculum Authority) identified that the primary motive behind this programme was

‘to develop a modern world class curriculum to inspire and challenge all learners and

prepare them for the future’. This reflects ideas put forward by Spring (2007) of a

global curriculum. Gardner accepted the mainstream view of globalisation and as with

Arnove (2002, 2003) and Bray (2007 a and b) saw the goal of international work in

education as responding to this process. He was coming from the perspective of

having worked on the internationalising of the English/Welsh curriculum. However,

he acknowledged both similarities and strengths in curricula of other nations

including India and Indonesia and he spoke about ‘sharing ideas’ and ‘learning from

each other’. When he spoke about dialogue between nations, the emphasis was on

students. From this speech, I realised that I would need to create, via the options

presented on the interview task, an opportunity to find out from the teachers the role

whole school development has for them as a motive for participating in this

programme. I also realised that I would need to create an opportunity to discuss the

motive of enabling dialogue between students internationally.

4.1.3 Dominic Register and David Matthias

The third session I attended was led by Dominic Register (British Council, Central

and South Asia) and David Matthias (British Council, East Asia). In both these

regions a version of the Connecting Classrooms programme is being developed. I

attended this session for two reasons: firstly, to see whether the motives expressed

would be different due to the different history in international comparative education

between Britain and the Far East; and secondly, because unlike earlier speakers they

worked directly for the British Council. The first motive they identified, for

34

introducing the programme in the region they work in, was similar to those expressed

earlier. This was to embed internationalism within the curriculum of schools for

reasons connected to enabling global understanding. However, it was identified that

achieving this goal was difficult when working with nations, which have more

centralised curricula than in the UK. A new motive was identified in the specific

context of introducing the programme to Afghanistan. Here the programme was being

used to build communities locally, as much as internationally, via clusters of schools

working together on common international projects. From conversations at the

conference I learnt that using this programme to develop relationships locally was

also a significant motive among teachers from the Gulf States although this had

evolved more informally. On the basis of this session, question five was added to the

interview schedule as I realised that the challenges presented in running this

programme within a school were so much intertwined with the issue of motive that to

fully understand motive this question needed to be asked.

4.1.4 Olga Stanojlovic and Amy Cottage

The next speech was given by Olga Stanojlovic (Director of Schools, British

Council). In this speech she emphasised the motive of creating global understanding.

She described the aim of the programme as being to create ‘a safer more connected

world for the future’. She identified three areas of importance for the British Council:

‘intercultural dialogue, climate change and creating a knowledge economy’. She

stressed that working with schools is a vital part of creating ‘inter-cultural dialogue’.

Her speech emphasised the importance of building personal relationships via this

programme to help achieve global understanding. She also made it clear that the scope

of the Connecting Classrooms Programme is ambitious. Specifically she described a

goal of involving 5.5 million learners within the next five years. Finally, she also

stressed the importance of recognition for the international work schools were

undertaking, explaining that the International School Award would be introduced in

the Middle East soon.

The slides she presented addressed motives of enabling global understanding, teacher

development and teacher reflection; with quotes such as ‘collaborative curriculum

projects enable learners to interact across geographical boundaries to enhance their

understanding of each others societies, languages and cultures’ but also ‘professional

35

development to enable teachers and school leaders to build capacity’. However, when

speaking about raising standards in schools, this was linked closely to ‘inter-cultural

understanding’, discussed while a slide relating to this was displayed. At the

conclusion of this speech Amy Cottage (Regional Manager, British Council) spoke

more briefly. As with earlier speeches the motive of enabling global understanding

dominated with the goal of the project described as being to ‘deepen understanding

between all of us: teachers, students, governments, families.’

From these two speeches, I realised that I would want to explore, in the interviews

with the teachers: firstly, their perceptions of global citizenship; and secondly,

friendship and personal development as motives for involvement in this programme.

These speeches also led to the inclusion of question six on the interview schedule

regarding the international school award.

4.1.5 Stephen Stapleton, Vicky Gough and nation based presentations

The second day of the conference opened with a presentation by Stephen Stapleton

(OffScreen). The organisation ‘OffScreen’ connects students and artists from the UK

and the Middle East. Its aim is the development of cultural understanding by ‘creating

an alternative vision of the Middle East’. Reflecting Stanojlovic’s earlier speech, there

was an emphasis on ambitious change via the building of personal relationships and

friendships. This was followed by presentations by teachers representing each nation

involved in the programme. These presentations had been prepared the previous day

during nation based workshops. This was chaired by Vicky Gough (Adviser to the

Connecting Classrooms Programme, British Council). In these speeches although the

motive of enabling global understanding still dominated other motives connected to

teacher development were increasingly interweaved with this. These included:

• improvement in the teaching of specific subjects, English and ICT - Qatar,

Yemen and Oman

• developing teaching practice - Saudi Arabia and the UAE

• developing discussion and presentational skills - Saudi Arabia and Yemen

• developing teacher’s research skills - Oman and Qatar

36

This reinforced my view that the task sheet needed to be designed so as to enable a

discussion on both research and reflective practice, as motives for participating in this

programme.

4.1.6 Ali Bubshait

This was followed by a presentation by Ali Bubshait (Gulf Arab States Educational

Research Centre) who stated that teacher based research could be a way of achieving

educational aspirations laid out in the 25 year plans of all the Gulf States, despite the

constraints he identified of a rigid curriculum and centralised education systems. He

also described a desire to ‘empower schools as a community of practice.’ This is a

theme that is reinforced by what I believe to be a particularly significant document by

Albaker (2009), which I came across by chance while interviewing, which sees

developing action research as fundamental to improving teaching practice in Bahrain.

4.2 Discussion

My intention was that the research at the conference would provide enough evidence

for a response to my second research question. I also intended that it would help shape

the next stage of research (Miles and Hubermann, 2002; Cresswell, 2003; Yin, 2003).

My research questions were as follows:




Programme?




From the conference it seems possible to say that with some confidence that the

primary motive behind the creation of the Connecting Classrooms with the Middle

East Programme is the creation of global understanding. Other motives are also

present including developing and improving teaching by sharing strategies. However,

from the perspective of the British Council even these are interlinked with the motives

of enabling global understanding and creating global citizens amongst students in the

schools involved. I would expect the teachers who are involved in this programme to

37

share this perspective and this is certainly my impression from informal conversations

during the conference. However, when teachers spoke at the conference although the

motive of enabling global understanding still dominated it was more closely linked to

teaching practice and to school improvement. One area for further research that

emerged, from this conference, would be into the meanings different people involved

in this programme attribute to terms used in the conference speeches such as:

‘globalisation’, ‘inter-cultural understanding’ and ‘multi-culturalism’. It would be

interesting to explore differences in interpretation and to what extent these are related

to a person’s: cultural background; nationality, profession as well as individual

perception. This is touched upon later in this study but a full exploration of this is

beyond the scope of this thesis.


The next stage in my research would be four interviews with Bahraini teacher

coordinators for the Connecting Classrooms Programme and one member of the

British Council, Bahrain. These were conducted in order to answer the third of my

research questions. As described in this chapter, I used my research from the

conference to design an interview schedule and a task to prompt discussion. At this

stage in my research I felt that my third research question was still appropriate. A

framework for a detailed response to this question was also emerging.

38

Chapter 5: Findings from the interviews

In this chapter I will be presenting my findings from the interviews I conducted. The

following teachers were interviewed:

• Amira (School type: Intermediate Girls School)

• Khulood (School type: Intermediate Girls School)

• Hameed (School type: Intermediate Boys School)

• Khalid (School type: Intermediate Boys School)

All the teachers teach in large secondary schools in Bahrain. Within their school’s all

hold the post of international coordinator and therefore have responsibility for

coordinating the Connecting Classrooms Programme. As part of this role all of them

have a partner school and teacher in the UK they work with. Three of the interviewees

are English teachers and one (Hameed) is a maths teacher. One further interview was

conducted with Bassam of the British Council, Bahrain. However, as the focus of this

research is on the teachers’ motives this is only referred to at the end of this chapter.

The interviews consisted of an interview schedule of six questions and a task, see

appendix a and b. The task involved the interviewees putting sixteen possible motives

for being part of this programme in order of importance and then explaining their

reasons for that order. This ordering task was used solely as a prompt for discussion.

No attempt was made to analyse the results statistically. Quotes are verbatim and have

not been corrected into the grammar of written English. All the interviewees chose not

to be anonymous and I accepted this request (Okeley, 1994; Meegan et al, 2003;

BERA, 2004). However, the British partner schools and teachers are not identified.

One presentational convention has been intentionally broken in this chapter. In

response to a request from one of the interviewees, which was then confirmed with

the others, names have been inserted before each quote. This was done as they simply

felt that it made it easier to follow. I present the quotations from the teachers in a

thematic order according to the categories that emerged from the coding of the

interviews. This is illustrated in the third column of the following table. This table

also illustrates how these categories emerged.

39

Table 5.1: The deductive frameworks used and how they evolved.

The original deductive

framework based on

Arnove (2002 and 2003)

and Bray (2007a). This

was used for the

literature review and at

the start of the analysis

of the field notes taken

at the Connecting

Classrooms Conference

(Kuwait 2009).

The second deductive

framework that emerged

from the field notes made

at the Connecting

Classrooms Conference

(Kuwait 2009). This was

used to guide the initial

coding of the interview

transcripts.

The final framework that

emerged from the coding

of the interview

transcripts. This was

used to structure

chapters 5 and 6.

Reflective motives Reflective motives

• Reflecting upon

practice

• Researching

practice

Reflective motives

• Reflecting upon

practice

• Researching

practice

Developmental motives Developmental motives

• Learning new

teaching strategies

• Improving

students’ language

skills

• Whole school

improvement

Developmental motives

• Learning new

teaching strategies

• Improving

students’ language

skills

• Whole school

improvement

Developing global

understanding

Developing global

understanding

• Enabling global

citizenship

• Enabling cultural

understanding

Developing global

understanding

• Enabling global

citizenship

• Enabling cultural

understanding

Competitive drive DISCARDED AS

IRRELEVANT

DISCARDED AS

IRRELEVANT

Other motives

• Friendships and

relationships

• Building

relationships

locally

• Recognition

Other motives

• Friendships and

relationships

• Building

relationships

locally

• Recognition

• Personal history

De-motivating factors De-motivating factors

40


When I began this thesis a premise I had was that the teachers involved in this

programme are involved in collaborative action research. However, when presented

with the word research Amira instantly chose the alternative word reflection:

Amira - Yes the whole project went into deeper work and more

effective work. I would use the word reflection. I would say I am

reflecting on every thing that we do and how it worked here in the

school.

Yet in the following sentence she explained how this reflection was a public process

therefore fulfilling one commonly accepted definition of research (Stenhouse, 1979).

Despite this she ended this sentence with an assertive final phrase stating her

perception that this was still not research:

Amira - You can explore others experiences on the internet as well

because the more you read that other schools are doing this project so

effectively …and you think to yourself and reflect on your experience

and then you start thinking trying to develop new ideas this is the way

it goes on… you have loads of questions but we won’t say like

research.

What was unexpected about this is that Amira is a member of an organisation called

The Action Research Association of Bahrain (ARAB), which is in some ways similar

to the SUPER model. Her response demonstrates how hard it is for teachers to

perceive their reflective thought processes as unprocessed research. One final

interesting aspect of Amira’s responses was that she placed the only prompt on the

task sheet which used the words reflection or research quite low in her order of

priority. However, as she marked it she pointed it out to me and said “this one is

important for me”. Two of the other interviewees also acknowledged that reflection

on practice was a motive for involvement in this programme but none saw themselves

as conducting research. Khulood spoke about “reflect[ing]” on “ways of teaching”

and Hameed spoke about using the programme “to evaluate and reflect on planning.”

41


5.2.1 Learning new teaching strategies

I was interested to find out from the interviews whether there was a perception that

English or Western teaching could provide a model of potential good practice and

whether this was a motive for involvement in the programme. Amira’s first response

confirmed my expectations that there would be:

Amira - I am not quite happy about teaching strategies or styles in

Bahrain…..I thought that in the UK teachers they use special kinds of

practice that make the students think more. I mean multiple

intelligence strategies of teaching using every student’s abilities or

intelligence.

However, in developing her answer she raised some interesting new issues:

Amira - I thought that it won’t add a lot to me because I have been

through this experience of being in British schools and exploring this

teaching and I have been practising this as well but I thought this will

help, a lot, my colleagues in my school.

She then went on to describe herself as “rebellious sometimes”, in fact each of the

other interviewees also described themselves in similar terms. For example, Khalid:

Khalid - but sometimes things just show up and you get interesting

ideas. My character is I am a spontaneous person.

All the interviewees had concerns that Bahraini teaching is unimaginative. However

all described themselves as innovative teachers and supported this with detailed

descriptions of innovative lessons. Hameed, for example, did not believe UK teachers

had anything to learn from Bahrain but described lessons he had taught that were

flexible and creative. Khalid said the following:

42

Khalid - When we meet someone to train us whether in England or

here they are always from England or America so there is always an

English person there so indirectly we have a notion that these schools

are superior so they don’t need to actually see our own strategies. That

was in the beginning but when I went there I saw the strategies of

English teachers. I thought the gap is not that much except … the

system is different rather than what is going on in the classroom.

Khulood’s response regarding her perception of English teaching strategies has a lot

contained within it:

Khulood - I don’t think that British teachers will want to see my

teaching strategies maybe they would but not necessarily. I don’t know

but I think some of the British teachers think we still teach in a tent

and we are sitting outside and they don’t understand that we are sitting

in classes. I know not most of them are like that but some of them are

...I was in the USA for nine months I was a foreign language teaching

assistant but I started teaching. I taught three courses. Each was for

three months and when I came back I taught at the American Cultural

Vocational Centre for about a year and a half … still using the

American, as they call it here the Western way of teaching and when I

taught for the Ministry of Education I was shocked because we have

no freedom of like giving extra stuff.

The first phrase could be interpreted as modesty but also as a lack of self-belief as a

Bahraini teacher; this is followed by concerns about British perceptions of the Middle

East, then descriptions of her personal experience in the Anglophone world and the

concluding phrase mentions the constraints of a rigid curriculum. However, most

telling of all is the phrase “Western teaching methods” to describe more flexible

approaches. Considering that I interviewed four Bahraini teachers who all described

innovative lessons they had taught, at this moment I remain unsure as to why such

methods are perceived as Western methods rather than good Bahraini practice.

43

5.2.2 Improving student’s language skills

Only one of those interviewed, Khulood, described, improving her students’ language

skills as the most important motivating factor for her in becoming involved in this

programme. However, all spoke about this in interview. To Khulood improving

students’ English has a potentially profound impact on their futures. It is therefore

although focused through English intertwined with the concept of global citizenship

mentioned above:

Khulood - Because English doesn’t just last through school but they

will go to university and will need English so badly. They don’t

believe me. All I do in class is say ‘believe me you are going to use it

when you go to college’ and they are ‘teacher I am not going to go to

college’ and I say ‘you are going to go’ so I mean these are the basis

the foundations for them to do whatever they want to do later on.

Some of them are really weak in English ... but since we have involved

them in this project they are actually very excited …. and the

motivation that they are getting out of knowing people abroad other

teachers are going to see their stuff ... so they try to make their

grammar neat, they try to make their writing neat, they try to use

things from class. So, I think it is helping them. That is what I am

actually looking for.

Interestingly she refers to the importance for the students of having an international

audience for their work in the form of the other school. This is something she raised

again later on in the interview. It is an area that would be worth further research.

Hameed took two meanings from the phrase on the task sheet ‘to improve the

language skills of my students’:

Hameed - I think that we have two meanings, how to know their

languages how to speak and how to listen well this is important thing

and the second thing how to know a lot of things about the English

language as they will use it when they are a graduate or go to work. I

understand this as learning language skills not just learning a specific

44

language, how to speak English also our language in Bahrain. It is also

about talking and listening well…..maybe we can give them English

skills, computer skills through this project but also self-confidence

skills.

This idea that the Connecting Classrooms Programme could potentially be a vehicle

for students’ personal development was also reflected in informal conversations

amongst the Bahraini teachers during the conference.

5.2.3 Whole school improvement

At several speeches in the conference it was stated that participation in this

programme could lead to whole school improvement. Khalid felt that it could

motivate across a range of subjects and impact upon school culture, as with Khulood

the significance of creating an audience for students work is touched upon:

Khalid - amongst boys school the percentage of successes doesn’t

exceed more than 40 or 50 per cent all around so that’s a problem. So

if they are motivated with linking with another school in the whole

process of learning .... then this will indirectly motivate them to do

well in all their subjects.

However, it was also acknowledged by all the interviewees that expanding the

programme across the whole-school is one of the most difficult things to do. Amira

addressed the issue by attempting to become an expert across a range of subjects:

Amira - I feel like I am not only an English language teacher I am also

an IT teacher and a science teacher. I have to know everything to make

this project work.

Khulood had built a strong team around her based on her English department and then

from this basis started to work with other departments. She had also tried to motivate

students to be interested in this project by linking it to the grading system of required

work that already existed within the school. Again, she saw it as significant that it

provided students with an audience for their work beyond just their teacher:

45

Khulood – they are required to do a project in general, so we are right

this project is going automatically to be your grades … so they were

happy about that and they were really excited that the other students

would see it to

She also found that by using Connecting Classrooms to create a culture of innovation

it enabled other ideas to be developed within the school that were not directly related

to the British council:

Khulood - now we have another project that has nothing to do with the

British Council, which one of the teachers in the English department

has called the Oscar Prize, the Oscar whatever. So they have to do a

short film … and I have one student she is really weak in English and I

know someone who is related to her and he is a director and she says ‘I

will start by doing this’ and I said ‘maybe in the future you will be an

actor and you will remember that you said you were doing this little

short movie at school when they come and interview you in the

future.’ You will be like, ‘I started at school when I was in ninth

grade’.

Achieving whole school improvement it seems is difficult to achieve, involves a

considerable amount of time and has results, which are often hard to specifically

attribute to one’s efforts. Creating an international ethos across the whole school is

certainly something teachers with the role of international coordinator work hard to

do. I am unsure however whether it is this that motivates them to be part of this

programme.


5.3.1 Global citizenship

My impression based on the conference was that the primary motive for the creation

of the Connecting Classrooms Programme is the enabling of global understanding.

This was specifically phrased in the language of creating ‘global citizens’. It seems

46

that this is a perspective shared by the teachers interviewed. This quote from Amira is

reflective of comments made in each of the interviews:

Amira – I mean a global citizen this is a very important thing in my

point of view … Even on a student’s level we can do loads of things

…. I think that to introduce my students to wider experiences this will

create these kind of students who are ready to be international or

global citizens aware of the world around them. We are no longer

living in a small country separated from the world. When we were kids

we were like working just you know in Bahrain and this was the only

area that we could work with. I mean the world is open to children

nowadays…. You will notice something though one, two, three, four

that my main focus is my students. This is number one. This is what I

am so interested in, in this programme.

Two interesting things stand out about this quote. Firstly, she relates the need for

students to be global citizens directly to the economy and structure as Bahrain as a

nation. The second interesting thing is the emphasis on putting the students first,

which was also reflected in the other interviews:

Hameed – we focus on the students because they are the future …. We

can I think give our students skills to create something new in their

lives.

5.3.2 Cultural understanding

At the conference it was emphasised that an important motivating factor for being

involved in this programme was to build ‘cultural understanding’ or ‘inter-cultural

understanding’. I was confident the teachers would agree with this. However, I was

interested to discover how this would be interpreted in a geographical area such as the

Gulf States. To a Bahraini teacher would cultural understanding be primarily about

understanding: Bahrain as an individual nation; the Middle East as a collection of

nations, or understanding Islamic culture. Enabling this discussion was the reason

behind the wording for prompts one, two and three on the task sheet. All the

interviewees except Khalid described understanding Bahraini culture as being less

47

important than creating understanding about Islamic and Middle Eastern culture. The

reasoning behind this was similar for both Amira and Hameed:

Amira – You know because in the Middle East we share the same

culture. If you go to Saudi Arabia or Kuwait you won’t feel a big

difference between all these Middle Eastern countries. So I am looking

at the big perspective of the Middle East, Bahrain is part of the Middle

East and we share the same history and I focussed on that. If you think

of a country as a country everybody can just click or type into google

and loads of things about Bahrain and its geographical features or the

weather or people would come up but understanding the culture of the

Middle East and Islamic part of the world is very important

Hameed – I think that there are a lot of similarities between the

countries of the Middle East.

All the teachers mentioned that they both try to avoid discussing Islam but also find it

is an important area to address in some way at some point. Amira’s quote illustrates

this duality:

Amira - you know we always try through the project not to talk about

Islamic things and to avoid just those things that create problems

between people … but when we do discuss these things we want to

find the similarities between us not the differences, that people are all

the same. Christianity and Islam have got almost exactly the same

values. It is amazing you know finding similarities between us instead

of finding differences

The enthusiasm within that last phrase is interesting. It indicates that this is an

important part of her teaching but also an area that she acknowledges needs to be

approached with skill and considerable reflection.

Khalid shared the same point of view but was more cautious. He thought that it was

positive to discuss festivals and traditions within Islam but he was wary of expanding

48

from this. He also felt that the area of religion was so large that it could potentially

derail the programme by becoming too dominant a theme. Interestingly Khalid was

also the only one of the interviewees to describe creating understanding about Bahrain

as a higher priority than teaching about The Middle East or Islamic Culture. However,

the stress on finding commonalities was consistent with the other interviewees.

Khalid – For me Bahrain is the most important. I put teaching about

Islamic culture at the end because religion is a very sensitive issue and

we just avoid that. Its good to know about the celebrations that we

have for example Christmas and we have Eid but I think if we restrict

our students to always thinking about religious issues it will end in

complete failure so Bahrain and then Islam because its good that they

know. Through the experience I have realised English people are not

what we had as a stereotype in mind, so it’s not like they are

completely different than us, no we have a lot of common things.

Khulood interestingly interpreted the issue of what teaching cultural understanding

means in a completely different way to the other interviewees. She saw all three

options she was presented with as important but saw each one as stepping stones to

understanding the next stage:

Khulood - In general I want them to learn about the Middle East first

because not all Middle Easterners are Arabs and not all Arabs are

Muslims then they should learn about Islam … and then we go and

talk about Bahrain because Bahrain is Middle Eastern and Muslim.

They learn the general case before they go to the specific. So it’s more

a time order than a kind of importancy order. All of them are

important.

5.4 Other motives

5.4.1 Personal history

One of the interesting aspects of the teachers’ motives for participating in this

programme was the importance of personal history. Amira saw involvement in the

49

programme as part of an ongoing journey of personal development connected to the

UK:

Amira –the UK is part of my heart my memories so I thought wow yes

this is going to be a great thing …. The UK was like a big change in

my life actually because I was a shy person. I was the kind of person

that just didn’t know how to communicate with people

Khulood had a similar experience in that she identified a transformative period in her

life, in terms of her approach to teaching, as being a year that she spent in the USA

teaching Arabic, sponsored by the Fulbright foundation. Interestingly, however she

was unique amongst the four interviewees in that she was approached to coordinate

the programme in her school rather than seeking out the role. Neither of the two male

teachers interviewed had been to the UK or USA before joining this programme.

However, one of them Khalid still connected his interest in this programme to his

personal history. He is by his own definition an anglophile and has been since

childhood. His description of how he taught himself to a very high standard of

English without visiting the country is illustrative of this:

Khalid - No, I hadn’t been to the UK. I overcame the problem by, I

have a very good imagination, so I sent letters and e mails to no-one. I

just imagined because I was having this problem that I needed to

communicate but I don’t have any English friends in Bahrain.

5.4.2 Friendships and relationships

For all of the interviewees, commitment to the programme was perceived as

connected to developing personal relationships either for themselves or their students:

Amira – One thing I really love is communicating or having this

kind of multi cultural idea and I love meeting with people from

different cultures. I feel that this has added a lot to my personality …

I have that kind of feeling that I can communicate easily with people

from different cultures … so I hope yes this is great I can help my

students develop this kind of thinking.

50

In that last phrase Amira shifts that love of working with different cultures on to her

students. To her this is not just an important part of who she is but is also something

that she believes it is important to pass on to others. These reasons of both personal

history and reflection upon one’s own personality provide in Amira’s case a profound

motive for participation and for the long term commitment in time and effort

international linking requires, Amira even described her ‘love’ for this programme:

Amira - Actually I am so loaded with work but because I love this

project that’s why I am giving it all the efforts I can do and I would

support it in different ways actually.

Similar feelings were expressed by Khalid who found the building of friendship with

a British partner teacher to be an ongoing motivating factor. Indeed, Khalid sees the

friendship he has built as meaning that for these two schools the project will last

beyond any potential limitations in formal support from the British Council:

Khalid – I have a wonderful relationship with my partner there …. its

not only professionally the school work but also as a friend …. When I

went there they treated me with hospitality very nice distinctive

hospitality. I was very, very welcomed there and I wanted to do more.

Now we have created our own website and we are working on it on a

daily basis. We have established a connection and it will go on and so

yes in the future we won’t have the support and meetings but we know

what to do you know. The pressure of schools is very, very high but

we can manage once there is a connection I mean he is the perfect

partner.

Again as with Amira he mentions the workload being involved in this programme

entails but also how personal commitment, in this case to building a relationship with

a colleague in the UK, enables him to overcome these issues. As with Amira, Khalid

also transfers what has been important for him, in terms of development - personally,

professionally and academically - via building relationships, onto his students. More

51

than any of the other interviewees the enabling of friendships had a particularly high

priority as a motive for Khalid:

Khalid – they know it is important but they think English is like

Geography they just memorise the thing. There is a connection outside

and there is something real and you will find that my priorities all

follow in order because: number one is to improve language skills;

number two is to enable students to make friends internationally and

on like that.

5.4.3 Building relationships locally

One motivating factor which was raised by two of the interviewees was the

importance of involvement in this programme in terms of building relationships

locally; whether that be with colleagues within the same school or other schools or

with their own students. Amira describes how being part of the programme helped her

build relationships with her students, thus:

Amira - so I thought my students are great. Why don’t I develop those

things into better things. So we started creating a blog and I wasn’t

really good with that so I just sat with my students and they told me

how to do this. I mean the relationship between me and my students

even gets deeper because we have got the space and time where we sit

together and we just do those projects have fun.

She also spoke about how this programme linked to her work with the action

research group ‘ARAB’ mentioned in section 5.1 above. Khalid, spoke

about the importance of the ‘networking’ between Bahraini school’s that

had developed through this programme.

5.4.4 Recognition

The final question in my interview schedule had been to find out the importance of

formal recognition. Specifically I wanted to know whether the British Council’s

‘International School Award’ was perceived as an important potential motivating

factor by the interviewees. This award is not yet available to schools in the Middle

52

East but will be soon and was discussed in the conference. Formal recognition was

perceived by all the interviewees as significant:

Amira – There is a thing for being honoured for something you are

doing, just makes you feel so happy that you want to give more and

more.

Khulood – Yes sure they have done lots of things. I mean it’s not just

me I mean the students they have done lots and lots of work. Some of

the students are even hoping to go to England now one day …. In

general the students are working really, really hard and the teachers as

well are working really, really hard so yes I’d like this.

Hameed perceived it as motivating but he also hoped it would present the school with

a potentially rigorous evaluation process that may enable them to improve their own

practice:

Hameed – I think for two reasons the first is that it will mean a lot of

things in our school, maybe the first school having this award in

Bahrain. That will encourage the staff and the students to work hard.

The second reason I see the processes for getting this award, I think it

will develop a lot of skills in our teachers. I think it will help us in our

objectives.

5.5 De-motivating factors

It is not the purpose of this thesis to evaluate the success of this programme.

However, both within the interviews and in informal discussions at the conference

concerns were raised by teachers regarding what de-motivated them within this

programme. Only to the extent that comments reflect motivating or de-motivating

factors are they included within this sub-section. The single biggest de-motivating

factor identified by two of the four teacher coordinators was a lack of equal

enthusiasm for the programme coming from their British partner schools. This

showed itself specifically in a lack of communication from the UK. The Bahraini

53

teachers found this particularly de-motivating when it impacted upon their student’s

perceptions of being part of the programme:

Amira – My students felt really disappointed with a lack of

communication from the other schools. We were preparing loads of

materials and we are producing everything that makes the whole

project so successful. But on the other side we don’t get any response

from them. ….. It is a major problem actually in the project if you

don’t have a very effective school which responds to your plans … I

do excuse my partner in the UK because I know I have been with him

for three or four days in school and I saw how busy he was.

It was sympathetically said but the frustration is evident:

Halil - the first problem is now in Bahrain we do a lot of things to

build the foundations of the project in our school. We have a student

team and a teacher team and they are working hard. They are putting a

lot of things on the website but they are always asking why don’t we

receive anything from the partner schools in the UK.

The only other significant de-motivating factor mentioned was a shared concern that

the amount of content within the Bahraini curriculum and pressure to complete this

content means that there is too little room for teachers to be creative in their planning.

This concern was also reflected in Ali Bubshait’s (GASERC) speech at the

conference. This was seen as especially a problem in terms of embedding the

Connecting Classrooms Programme across subjects. All four interviewees had found

creative ways of doing so but for each of them this had posed a challenge.

5.6 Bassam (British Council, Bahrain)

One further interview was conducted with Bassam of the British Council, Bahrain. As

expected the motives he identified were broadly similar. As with the teacher

coordinators he has a personal history connecting him with the UK and we discussed

the significance of this for him and for others. As he is not a teacher he is able to say

54

without fear of seeming immodest that Bahraini teaching is good and does have

lessons for the UK. From the evidence of the interviews I would agree with him. He

also believes that in Bahrain the International School Award will become a significant

motivating factor. Most significantly and to conclude this chapter however, from his

interview it became clear that the British Council Bahrain have the ability to choose

schools for this programme from a significant number that wish to be involved. Being

involved in the programme at all involves recognition. This presumably means that

the level of motivation for this programme amongst those chosen is high.

55

Chapter 6: Discussion

I have addressed the first two research questions earlier and in this final chapter will

be focussing only on question three. The research questions were as follows:




Programme?



In addressing the first two questions I have been able to develop a framework for

answering the third (Miles & Hubermann, 2002; Cresswell, 2003; Yin, 2003). This

discussion is structured according to the deductive framework that evolved through

this research. This is illustrated in the table on page 45.


My impression is that the idea of the ‘tinkering teacher’ as researcher (Hargreaves,

1999, p.130) has some credence in Britain but is not fully accepted with most teachers

feeling more comfortable with the term reflection rather than research (McClaughlin

& Taber, 2006). The interviewees were similarly reluctant to define themselves with

the term researcher although all saw being part of this programme as a chance to

develop as reflective practitioners. However, if the teachers involved in the

Connecting Classrooms Programme are perceived as action researchers, it is probably

already the largest international comparative research programme in the world. The

transition from self-perception as a reflective practitioner to self-perception as a

researcher is a difficult transition to make without support from people with the

confidence to guide teachers so that they can re-shape reflection into research (ibid)

The Connecting Classrooms Programme is large enough to be able to generate and

sustain its own ‘Schools University Partnership in Educational Research’. It will

certainly be interesting to see whether such an initiative develops between the British

Council and a British or Middle Eastern University (or universities) in the near future.

56

The cohort of schools involved in this programme in Bahrain, have informally formed

a distinct professional and reflective group. This also expands beyond the immediate

local area, across the Gulf region as a whole. This reflects descriptions of how a

similar British Council programme was used to create local links in Afghanistan. This

also reflects the Bray and Thomas cube (Bray et al., 2007) model of comparative

international work, which sees comparison internationally leading and being related to

comparison on a smaller geographical scale. One interpretation of Bray is that the

form of comparing is actually less significant than the process and that, teachers may

learn as much from a school next door as a school in another country. However, an

element of internationalism may be a motivating starting point for enabling teachers

to see their classroom ‘with a new understanding of its realities’ (McIntyre, 2005,

p.370). It is conceivable that the legacy of the Connecting Classrooms Programme

for the schools involved may be a culture of comparison and collaboration. This may

be of interest to British schools wanting to develop a collaborative research culture.


There was a strong shared belief amongst the interviewees that international

partnering could be part of the professional development of teachers. One of the

strengths of the links developed by the Connecting Classrooms Programme is that the

conversations generated between the partnered teachers are potentially ‘rich and

practically meaningful.’ (Little, 1990, p.177) focussing on day to day classroom

practice. Connected to this there is a shared perception amongst the Bahraini teachers

that there are lessons to be learnt from the British system. However, mirroring the

relationship Western international comparative researchers have historically had with

Japan, there is evidence that this perception of British teaching may sometimes be

simplistic and stereotypical. There is also excellent practice in Bahraini schools and it

is important that this is acknowledged by all teachers involved in these partnerships.

The four interviewees described themselves as reflective and innovative teachers. In

all cases this was evidenced by detailed descriptions of lessons. However, they were

also critical of teaching in Bahrain. It is possible that these four teachers are the

exception. However, it is also possible that there is more excellent teaching in

Bahraini schools than is realised in the country itself. If this is the case then there may

57

be a need for greater dialogue between teachers in Bahrain perhaps in the form of

collaborative action research. It may also be the case that one difference in motive

between teachers from the UK and from the Middle East is that those from the UK

may be more motivated by reflection than by developing new strategies, reflecting the

experience of Potts (2007). However, as Pott’s found it is possible to have a

conversation as equals while having different goals.


All the teachers saw the creation of global understanding and of global citizens as

important and used this language in interview. The concept of what global citizenship

specifically means was linked by the interviewees to the structure of Bahrain as a

society. Although very different Toreiphi’s (2007) work on Nagas as among the most

globalised peoples could have some echoes in Bahraini society which is similarly

multi-cultural and fluid in terms of a constant movement of population in and out to

work and study. A next stage in further research into this programme could be to

explore whether teachers from other nations perceive the nature of global citizenship

in a different way.

The interviewees all prioritised outcomes for students as their primary motive for

involving their school in this programme. They all did so in terms of creating global

citizens. A question that could be asked is whether this unselfishness could potentially

distract from focusing on personal development, which can also benefit students.

Amira’s pointing to the one prompt which prioritised teacher development via

reflection saying “this is important for me” but then placing it at the lower end of her

ordering was perhaps a telling moment. The British Council have certainly never said

it is not but perhaps they need to encourage more explicitly the idea that teacher-

centredness is as important as student-centredness as a goal for this programme.

6.4 Other motives and de-motivating factors

For three of the four interviewees involvement in this programme was connected to

personal attachment to the Anglophone world. For all the interviewees building

personal relationships with British people for themselves or their students was a

58

significant motive. This personalising of the programme reflects the motives

presented by the British Council, at the conference, for its creation. Stanojlovic

(Director of Schools, British Council), stressed the potential for achieving social

change via the relationships between individual students. This could also apply to

individual teachers. These personal reasons have given depth and commitment at the

early stage of the programme, which is as yet just three years old. However, it is

possible that this may be hard to replicate as the programme expands or in other

similar linking programmes. It also might explain why an ongoing difficulty has been

getting a similarly high level of commitment from British schools. It is simply the

case that many less British people have travelled to the Middle East to work or study

at some point in their lives. Therefore most British teachers involved have probably

not built up that deep attachment to the region that comes from personal experience

and friendship.

All four interviewees expected that the International School Award would be a

significant motivating factor for their school’s ongoing involvement in this

programme. An interesting issue raised by this however is whether it indicates

anything about why motivation for this programme seems to be lower in the UK.

Hameed’s response that it will be significant to be the first school in Bahrain to gain

the award may be of particular relevance in beginning to answer this question. The

British Government has suggested that every school in the UK should aim to become

an international school. The problem with this however is potentially as something

becomes more common its perceived value declines. Impressionistically I remember a

tremendous sense of pride in schools, which were amongst the first to gain the

international school award when it was first introduced into the UK. I do not know if

this is still the case. It is possible that alternative motivators for UK schools need to be

developed alongside those that already exist.

The lack of commitment from British partner schools detracted from the programme

for two of the interviewees. The answer to this problem cannot be simply demanding

more active involvement from UK schools, which may alienate them altogether. I

would suggest instead that there is room for a similar piece of exploratory research to

this thesis but focusing on British coordinators to find out what motivates and de-

motivates them. Then strategies could be put in place to positively ensure that their

59

motivation is equal to that of their Middle Eastern partners. Khalid saw the

programme as providing a chance to ‘break the bonds of time and space’ (Liebermann

and Miller, 1990, p.156) that make up the day to day life of teachers. More teachers of

all nationalities could potentially see the programme in this same way once the factors

that motivate them are understood.

60

Chapter 7: Conclusion

My intention with this research was to conduct an initial exploration into the motives

teachers from the Middle East have for connecting with British Schools via the

Connecting Classrooms Programme. I hoped through it to develop a foundation from

which to begin further research. I also hoped to generate evidence and ideas I could

present for discussion to the British Council and to others in the forms of workshops. I

did not expect to reach any conclusive hypotheses. I have achieved my original goals.

The findings from this research are rich and thought provoking as I hope are my

interpretations of them, both will be used to enable further discussions. I maintain my

stance regarding the generalisability of my findings and believe that I have been right

to exercise caution throughout. This caution will be reflected when presenting this

research. The motives of the four Bahraini teachers interviewed cannot be taken as

representative of the wider cohort of teachers involved in this or similar programmes.

Programmes such as Connecting Classrooms are a significant and well resourced part

of British foreign and educational policy and that of other nations. They are also

important personally and professionally for the large number of teachers world wide

who participate in them. This thesis is a beginning in an important area that deserves

to be researched further.

7.1 Methodological evaluation

This research design provided an effective way into this topic area. It was appropriate

specifically for an initial exploratory case study into an unresearched area. The field

notes and interviews provided enough ‘thick data’ (Marshall, 2002, p.57) that I could

analyse it in depth. In this context limiting the data collected was the correct

approach. The interview schedule and task allowed a fluid discussion to take place.

Analysing against evolving deductive frameworks was an effective analytical method

in this context. Maintaining dialogue with respondents and participants was important

in enabling me to approach this topic area with sensitivity and would be maintained as

practice with further related research. However, responses while positive were

universally short and simple. A method for enabling greater dialogue across distance

would be a positive next step in developing this research design. Although for this

61

particular study this design was effective, it would not be appropriate to use again

without modification. I would perceive subsequent research, into this programme as

retaining a qualitative aspect based on interviews. However, it would also ideally have

a quantitative aspect generating statistical data. As the Connecting Classrooms

Programme is growing so rapidly this could be practical and the data could be

meaningful.

7.2 Implications for further research

Specific areas for further research outlined in this thesis would be:

• research into the effect of having an international audience for work for both

teachers and students

• research into the perceived meanings of terms such as inter-cultural

understanding and globalisation

• research into perceptions of global citizenship amongst various nations

• research into the motives for participating in this programme for teachers from

countries other than Bahrain, including Britain

• research into the perceived successes and benefits of participating in this

programme for those teachers and schools that have participated for some time

• research that would track the programme over a number of years.

Such research should be of interest to those working in international education beyond

this programme.

19,980 words

62

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Appendices

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Appendix A

Interview schedule - 6 initial questions

1) How did you find out about the opportunity of linking with a British school

via the British Council (the connecting classrooms project)?

2) Why did you initially decide to become part of the ‘connecting classrooms

with the Middle East project’?

3) Has what you want to gain from this project changed over time?

4) Can you describe so far what you have done in partnership with your link

school?

5) Are there any problems that you have encountered in doing linked work with

your British partner school?

6) Will you be interested in gaining formal; recognition for your international

work (the international school award)? Why, why not?

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Appendix B

TASK-

Can you order these in order of importance in response to this question. Once

you have done this I will ask you why you put these in this order.

What do you hope to gain from linking with a British school?

1) For British people to understand more about the Middle East.

2) For British people to understand more about Islamic cultures.

3) For British people to understand more about my specific country

(Bahrain/Yemen)

4) To learn new teaching strategies

5) To enable British teachers to learn about teaching strategies in my country

6) To see another way of teaching so that I can reflect upon my own practice.

7) To bring additional funds into the school.

8) To improve results and attainment across the whole school

9) To work together with another school to counter-act prejudice and racism.

10) To introduce my students to wider experiences.

11) To enable students to make friends internationally

12) To make friends internationally myself.

13) To travel

14) To improve the language skills of my students

15) To improve my own English

16) To improve the ICT skills of my students

17) YOU CAN ADD YOUR OWN IF YOU WISH BUT YOU DO NOT HAVE

TO.

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Appendix C

Sample interview transcription

Italics = interviewer

Non italics = interviewee

Bahrain interview 4

OK so first question how did you find out about the opportunity of linking with a

British school through this project the connecting classrooms project?

It was through the ministry of education.

Did they approach you directly?

They approached the school and then the school asked I mean the minister of

education asked the school if they would nominate a teacher who would be able to

cooperate, who spoke good English was cooperative and stuff.

Can I ask you a question have you studied in England or America?

No but I have taught in America I was a Fulbright student I taught Arabic

OK OK because you have a slight American accent

Maybe, but I haven’t got it from there because I haven’t stayed there for a long time. I

had it before

OK so the ministry approached you?

Why did you decide to become part of it?

There was another teacher before I took over. There was another teacher then she

moved to the Ministry of Education and so I was a cooperative teacher because she

can’t do the whole thing by herself so she wanted someone who was there like the

whole time, if you know what I mean, so right now she left and I have another teacher

who is with me right now so we were like a team so they said because I was on her

team so they decided without asking my permission that I would be the head of the

project

Are you happy to be the head of the project?

Yes, its fine so far.

Do you have a team as well under you?

Yes, yes the whole English department is so cooperative.

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Is the team you have structured basically based around the English department?

Yes mostly because they told us whenever we are going to take other projects, I mean

the one that are not in English, like science projects or social studies projects then we

would have to take them so they decided to make the teacher who is responsible for

the whole thing is in the English department.

OK that makes sense.

I know of other schools where the teachers who are responsible are Maths teachers.

Yes, I know of one I did an interview.

Who is not that good in English but his English but he participates in the programme.

So different approaches, so how which cohort are you? How long have you been in

the project?

Since, like almost a year now cohort 2.

So cohort 2 you have been almost a year, the students haven’t yet travelled am I right

on that?

No, no.

Have you been to England?

No I was supposed to go at like the end of this month but another one is going my

friend because I am getting married soon so I told her to leave instead.

Congratulations.

Thank you

When are you getting married?

The 22nd May so I have a million things to do.

I can imagine. Since you joined, I know you have only been in it a year, have your

aims changed or what you want to get out of this project changed and can you explain

how?

Yes. since we met with them yes I remember the first teacher who was like in charge

she was so scared at the beginning when they gave us the post and she made us scared

as well she was like I don’t know what to do this is so difficult all of that. She was so

terrified and then when she went to the UAE and the picture was a little bit cleared for

her and then when I went in November it turned out that the whole things is so easy

and she was making a big fuss about something and right now we are not having any

problems.

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Can you tell me anything that you have done specifically, I mean you don’t have to

tell me absolutely everything, but with your British school?

Yes they have met the other teacher and the one from England they have met and they

decided to, on certain projects but we don’t need to stick like 100% to them but we

have a project for example the first project was introducing yourself, your school,

your neighbourhood and this was like the first project. We did it and the project was

done by the students and we had time like they needed to finish the project I think in a

month and a half something like that and the whole project we were doing was part of

the curriculum as well and we told them that whenever they finish a project it would

be the part because each and every project. They are required to do a project in

general so we are right ‘this project is going automatically to be your grades’ will be

for their own school project so they were happy about it and they were really excited

that the other students would see it to. So we had this and we had another one that was

about landscape so they had the same project to make so they would take it and

compare like how students are here like how the daily routine is and how their daily

routine over there is stuff like that we have done already and we are doing the fourth

right now of the projects

Are there any problems you have encountered in working with your link school in

England?

Like at the beginning she would be looking for me and I would be looking for her

understand like time difference and they had xmas and the new year and we were we

had exams and they had their exams and then I was looking for her she was looking

for me all the time and I was looking for her at the time they had their break she was

looking for me at the time we had our break but in general they are cooperative

But just practical issues

Yes, yes ok. e -mails are solving it

The international school award exists in some other parts of the world it is going to

come to the Middle East soon and the British Council supports it. Would you want

your school to get the international school award and why? Does it bother you to get

the award? Do you want it a little bit a lot? Tell me about it.

I don’t know exactly what it is

It’s a certificate to say that you are an international school

The teachers they would get stuff out of it I mean they would have links with other

schools stuff like that

It’s more recognition of what you have done so far.

Yes sure. They have done lots of thing, I mean its not just me, I mean the students

they have done lots and lots of work. Some of the students are even hoping to go to

England one day. Actually they say when are we going to go to England and we are

like we don’t know and one he said don’t tell them we are going to take them if they

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want to go they can go on their own we will support that he said but we are not going

to pay for that, you know. In general the students are working really, really hard and

the teachers as well are working really, really hard so yes I would like this

For motivation it would be good?

Yes it would be good so they would feel that all of their hard work has been like

worth it

That’s the shorter bit this is the longer bit and there will be a bit of silence while you

work this out. You went to no sorry. Did you go to the conference in Kuwait?

No

No you didn’t that’s fine basically from the conference in Kuwait there were lots of

speeches from people from the British Council and from other people giving their

reasons for why they set up the project why the project exists things like this and

through going to the conference I noted down these 16 reasons. Ok what I want you to

do is I want you to read them and then I want you to order them in order of

importance in for why you are doing this project so if so you put number one against

the most important number 2 the second most important. If there are any which you

think are irrelevant and you just think I don’t know why this is on there just cross

them out.

.

OK OK sure

There will be a bit of silence on the tape and that is fine

….

OK what I would like to do now is have a quick glance at this and ask you about your

ordering OK that’s interesting you have put that as I will start with the first one. Why

is that number 1?

Because to me those are the tools for them to learn because English doesn’t just last

through school but they will go to university and will need English so badly. They

don’t believe me. All I do in class is say ‘believe me you are going to use it when you

go to college’ and they are ‘teacher I am not going to go to college’ and I say ‘you are

going to go’. So, I mean this is like these are the basis the foundations for them to do

whatever they want to do later on because some of them are really weak in English

and I don’t know I feel like if they get involved in these projects, because our students

are so weak that they are repeating this year, but since we have involved them in this

project they are actually very excited they have done tremendously well I mean the

things that they have done you could tell that they have done by themselves and the

motivation that they are getting out of knowing people abroad other teachers are

going to see their stuff. So they try to make their grammar neat they try to make the

writing neat they try to use things from class. So I think it is helping them that is what

I am actually looking for .

82

I am going to skip this I am coming back to this but I want to go to 3 because that one

to me relates. To improve results and attainment across the whole school you have

spoken quite a lot about how this improves English and the English department but I

am interested in the whole school aspect

Umm, I just want them to understand that they don’t need to do it in English so they

appreciate other subjects like for example, what we have done we have talked to

students and we have said even projects that have to with maths can be done and they

are like ‘maths is boring we can’t do this with maths’ and we try to explain stuff I

don’t know to make other subjects a little bit more interesting maybe.

OK and you think it can do that

Yes, yes, because we have discussed this and we have told them about it.

Now I want to go back to number 2 to introduce my students to wider experiences can

you expand on that what does that mean to you why did you put that?

Because this is a motivation to them they later on some of my students and now we

have another project that has nothing to do with the British Council where one of the

teachers in the English department has called the Oscar Prize, the Oscar whatever, so

they have to do a short film and I keep telling my students like I want to do it and I

have one student she is really weak in English. She is like I know someone who is

related to her and he is a director and she says ‘I will start by doing this’ and I said

‘maybe in the future you will be an actor and you will remember that you said you

were doing this little short movie at school when they come and interview you in the

future’ you will be like ‘I started at school when I was in ninth grade’. She smiled and

she said ‘yes out of this small experience you don’t know what will happen’ so I mean

whatever they do because we have lots of students who just love working with

materials and they are not that good in English but they try to write whatever they

know in English just to make the picture really nice or whatever so they are using

stuff that they like to include other subjects so they are trying.

I think you kind of dealt with 4 in that last sentence there?

Yes

So I am going to move on to 5 because this really interests me you have got 5 and 12

to see another way of teaching so I can reflect on my own practice is quite high at 5

you seeing British teachers but to enable British teachers to learn about teaching

strategies in Bahrain is in the very much lower end at 12 why that difference between

those 2?

Because, I you know want to, I want teachers to see ways of teaching so they can

reflect you know think about teaching. I don’t think that British teachers will want to

see my teaching strategies maybe they would but not necessarily I don’t know if you

understand because some of the British teachers think we still teach in a tent and we

are sitting outside and they don’t understand that we are sitting in classes I know not

most of them are like that but some of them are. I know that most like the teacher that

83

I am the teacher that is in SCHOOL ANONYMISED. Actually she we used to

communicate with us she told me that she has been to Dubai so many times and she

has been to this part of the world so many times that she would like to come Bahrain

so she knows what’s going on here. She knows that we are not in tents but I don’t

know but I think its like its here with 7 and 6 that they don’t understand about the

Middle East and Islamic cultures in general I think most of them already know about

the Middle East

I am going to come on to those which you said are key but I am still curious about this

I am not sure are you. OK I am going to ask it really bluntly is Bahraini teaching

worse than in the UK is that the gap the reason for the gap?

But yes, yes it is.

The thing is we have a Ministry of Education that says this is how it is all over

Bahrain and we are teaching 3rd grade to 6th grade because that is how our schools are

constructed this is the primary and from 7th to 9th these are intermediate classes and

from 10th to 12th these are secondary all of them like whenever the teacher wants to go

out of the curriculum we are told ‘finish the curriculum first this is more important

than having’. So you need to rush and finish everything and whenever you are I don’t

know how to explain this but whenever you want to give them something extra or

something that would refresh their memories something that will make them feel you

know out of the context will motivate them they are like ‘you are wasting time you

are wasting time don’t do that you are wasting lots and lots of time’ and students

really actually like it when you give them different stuff. This is normal even we like

adults we get really bored if we do the same things every day they are like ‘don’t do

don’t do that you can’t do this.’

That‘s interesting then because it raises another one to me which is 9 because to see

ways of teaching to reflect on my practice but to learn new teaching strategies is

actually quite low down now I am going to give an interpretation of this and tell me

whether you agree with me. You saw things in British teaching which you liked and

made you reflect you have concerns about Bahraini teaching but actually as an

individual teacher despite your modesty you know good strategies and you could use

good strategies as long as you had the freedom to.

Because we are told not to expand but we have learnt stuff that we use I mean because

when I started teaching I didn’t start here I started abroad so I was like I mean I had a

different mindset like I had what we call here the western mind set

How long were you abroad by the way?

I was in the USA for 9 months I was a foreign language teaching assistant but I

started teaching I taught three courses. Each was for 3 months and when I came back I

taught at the American Cultural Vocational Centre for about a year and a half we were

there so still using the American as they call it here the western way of teaching and

when I taught for the ministry of education I was shocked because we have no

freedom of like giving extra stuff and I mean to give students a chance to think for

themselves. We don’t do this here because we are put in a box and are like you have

to do this now if you want to do something else take it out of your own time go to an

84

extra class and we only have a certain ability we can’t do more you know we have 4

classes per day we start from 7 until 1 and we are like ‘we can’t do all of this at the

same time’. They are like ‘then don’t.’

These 3 are very similar as we have already mentioned you have put them however in

a specific order is that order meaningful on the other hand they are very close just 6,

7, 8 is that order meaningful or are they to you roughly the same?

No because in general I want them to learn about the Middle East first because not all

Middle Easterners are Arabs and not all Arabs are Muslims then they should learn

about Islam because not all Middle Easterners are Muslims and not all the I mean

some like Iranians some are Muslims and then we go and talk about Bahrain because

Bahrain is Middle Eastern and Muslim they learn the general case before they go to

the specific

Bahrain the least important in this list. No its important but they need to be able top

placed it and stuff.

Ah, so they need to know the other 2 first.

Yes, so its more a time order than a kind of importancy order because they have a

wrong idea about the Middle East that’s how I see it and they have a wrong idea about

Islam as well so they need to know about this stuff first.

So anything key we have not looked at we have got these ones that are lower down we

are mostly dealing now with the ones lower down is there anything you think you have

not said that is important for me to understand for your motives and reasons for doing

this

In general the most important things are those we have talked about and those like to

improve my English and to travel.

These are the least important

Yes because when I took this I didn’t keep in mind travelling because I have done my

travelling in America and I don’t know I didn’t keep in mind improving my English

Because your English is very very good

Yes its ok so I didn’t keep that in mind.

OK that’s it thank you very very very much.

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Appendix D

The Connecting Classrooms, Middle East Regional Conference

Programme

86

Appendix E

Sample of field notes

87

Appendix F

Sample of initial correspondence with interviewees

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