Understanding teachers' habitus in the context of curriculum reform

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the rise of neoliberal management ideologies amidst proliferation of education reforms. New curriculum and accountability measures are accompanied by high expectation of teachers in their changing practices. This study examines these changes by analyzing teachers’ ‘habitus’, which is a concept proposed by Pierre Bourdieu, meaning a set of dispositions that construct people’s behavior and strategies for dealing with unpredictable social situations.

The study examines Hong Kong English teachers’ professional development when implementing the New Senior Secondary (NSS) curriculum. The research questions focus on the extent to which teachers’ habitus enables or hinders them from adapting to the changes in their field of work, and to carry out reform measures. The first research question is: How is secondary school English teachers’ habitus evolving through training for the implementation of New Senior Secondary curriculum? The second research question is: How are the tensions between the discourses of the managerial and democratic models of professionalism manifested in the evolving process of teachers’ habitus? A questionnaire survey was conducted with 560 secondary school English teachers in Tai Po and the North District of Hong Kong. In addition, three rounds of in-depth interviews were conducted with six teachers selected from the survey, based on the inclusion of a variety of qualifications, experiences and other backgrounds.

The findings reveal that the various modes of NSS teacher training carried little impact on the majority of teachers, who were still trapped in the routine of examination orientation to teaching and learning. The study also found that managerialism was a dominant discourse over English teachers' professional development. With the top-down transfer of information, the existing training models tended to ignore the habitus of both trainers and trainees, leaving limited attention to the space that teachers needed for adaptation to curriculum changes. However, from a minority of teachers among whom contrastive findings of active collaborative learning were discovered, the study concludes with a proposal of a democratic model of teacher training in which teachers can be empowered to learn through partnering relationship between trainers and other education stakeholders in order for a culture of community learning to be cultivated in the light of the advocacy of the NSS curriculum.