Thesis-1986-Suggett.pdf (9.48 MB)
A view from the inside : an ethnographic study of three years in the life of a primary school
thesis
posted on 2017-06-29, 13:39 authored by Ernest N. Suggett"A view from the inside" is based upon my three years as headteacher of
Redland Primary School. A participant-observational, ethnographic
methodology is employed to communicate the richness, complexity and
reality of the headteacher's existence and my overarching aim is to "tell
it like it really is". Chapter One introduces the principal actors
involved in the ensuing social drama and describes the nature of the
stage and the props. In short, the human and non-human components of the
situation. Chapter Two maps the positive interaction of
intra-institutional participants, providing an account of curriculum
change and staff development. The headteacher's evolving management
style is also catalogued. The negative aspects of these social processes
are examined in Chapter Three and a number of conflict biographies are
considered in some detail. A discussion of the headteacher's conflict
management strategies provides a natural postscript to this section.
Chapter Four marks a change of focus, moving from analysis of Redland
School as a self-contained microcosm to a consideration of its location
within its broader social context. The influence of extra-institutional
personnel upon the school is rehearsed. Chapter Five involves a reversal
of the same telescope, analysing how intra-institutional actors influence
significant others within the supporting social network, by creating an
"image". The disparate threads of the study are drawn together in
Chapter Six and the headteacher's view from the inside is presented. A
natural history of my research and an overview of ethnographic
methodology is provided in Chapter Seven. Finally, the Conclusion
summarises the main findings of the study and identifies fruitful
directions for future research.
History
School
- Social Sciences
Department
- Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies
Publisher
© Ernest Neil SuggettPublisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Publication date
1986Notes
A Doctoral Thesis. Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University.Language
- en