Supporting the development of positive dispositions and learner identities: an action research study into the impact and potential of developing photographic learning stories in the Early Years

Abstract

This discussion presents the author/classroom teacher's findings during an action research study evaluating the impact of photographic learning stories with young children. This is placed in the context of recent policy documentation that asserts the learner as a unique individual and literature promoting the need to support the development of positive learning dispositions and learner identity. The ethnographic study examines how learning stories can be developed as a tool to promote positive learning dispositions and support the mediation of home and school culture, suggesting that their potential lies in how they create an accessible and mutually constructed document that is accessed by children, parents and the teacher. The discussion supports reservations about the production of a definitive ‘list’ of dispositions and describes tensions between the aim of supporting positive dispositions and the unique learner in an education culture where effectiveness is measured by the statutory assessment of hierarchical goals.