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Rethinking Place in Rural Education
The project will explore how knowledge is produced in place and the way in which teachers recognise and use this knowledge within the performativity agenda. It is conceived within a broad concern for equity in rural and remote schools and the belief that inequity is produced by a lack of recognition of place in the hallmarks of the education profession - the curriculum, professional teaching standards and models of pedagogy. Specifically I argue that inequity is produced when place is not recognised and valued resulting in teachers experiencing a dissonance between their imagined professional ideals and the reality of their location.
Through the analysis of an online professional community of practice and the use of in-depth interviews, the way in which teachers construct knowledge and situate practice by redeveloping curriculum and reinterpreting standards and models of pedagogy within place will be explored. It is proposed that an understanding of situated practice and giving teachers greater permission to situate their practice may be an avenue to greater equity in education.