Researching pedagogy in high poverty contexts: implications of non-representational ontology

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe enduring nature of the problem of inequality in education suggests that new ways of understanding and ameliorating it are needed. Non-representational ontology is yielding new insights in other fields but is yet to gain traction in education. The requisite ontological shift would attend to inequality as a specific material effect of practices of knowing, rather than a social, natural, or discursive reality requiring representation. In this paper, we investigate the potential of such a shift to advance our fundamental commitment to social change through equity and justice. Drawing mainly upon the work of Karen Barad, we offer a reconceptualistion of educational inequality as a doing, not a thing, which becomes meaningful as it is defined by the circumstances required to measure it. We re-examine data collected during a recently completed longitudinal study of schools in the northern-rustbelt-suburbs of Adelaide, specifically the phenomenon of teaching literacy in the classrooms of two teachers in one school in our completed study.