Understanding Teacher Educators' Pedagogical and Technological Cultural Habitus (PATCH): An Ethnographic Study in the Maldives

Abstract

A substantial body of literature discusses the complexity of integrating technology in teachers’ pedagogical practices (Mishra & Koehler, 2006). The literature over the last two decades, specifically suggests that teachers and teacher educators have shown limited pedagogical changes regardless of their frequent use of technologies in their teaching. However, the literature overlooks the impact teachers’ culture may have when investigating their use of technologies in their practices. Bourdieu (1977) argues that people’s practices are embodied within their cultures; hence they form habitus through their past and present experiences, both consciously and unconsciously. I argue that teachers’ pedagogical and technological practices cannot be fully understood without considering the social and cultural norms of their specific cultures. My thesis aims to explain the impact of Maldivian teacher educators’ culture and background on their pedagogical and technological practices. The main research question therefore is: How do teacher educators’ pedagogical and technological practices form in the Maldives? Sub-questions arising from this are: 1) What are the social and cultural learning norms that influenced teacher educators’ use of technologies in their pedagogy? 2) How does the institutional context influence teacher educators’ use of technologies in their pedagogical practice? 3) How do teacher educators form their pedagogical and technological practice?

My research used an ethnographic methodology, linked with Bourdieu’s (1977) habitus as a lens for exploring teacher educators’ practices in the Maldives. Data were gathered from eleven teacher educators who work in a Maldivian university context: using interviews, observations, focus groups and the hanging out approach. The findings were generated through grounded theory for capturing an in-depth understanding of how these teacher educators’ pedagogical and technological practices were formed. Key findings demonstrated that teacher educators’ pedagogical and technological practices were influenced by their own culture, early learning experiences in the Maldives, and their workplace (institutional context). The study revealed that these teacher educators selected and used specific digital technologies available in their workplace to deliver content. As a result, they formed their pedagogical (content-oriented) and technological (PowerPoint-assisted) cultural habitus that most often mirrored their existing pedagogical thinking.

This study has contributed to the research field by recognising the impact of these teacher educators’ culture and background on their pedagogical and technological practices. It fills a critical gap (i.e. a connection between technology use, pedagogy, and culture) which has been neglected in the technology integration research and models. My research therefore, contributes a PATCH framework for understanding teacher educators’ pedagogical and technological habitus and an additional layer into the TPACK framework to represent teacher’s PATCH. Through applying Bourdieu’s habitus lens, I have devised a conceptual framework for investigating pedagogical contexts, an outline of ethnographic process and an analysis model for understanding qualitative data using various technological tools.