Proquest Dissertations

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Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9* black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. Bell & Howell Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 UMÏ BETWEEN DEFICIENCY AND EXCESS: REPRESENTATIONS OF SUBSTITUTE TEACHERS AND THE PARADOXES OF PROFESSIONALISM DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Lisa D. Weems, M A . ***** The Ohio State University 2000 Dissertation Committee: Approved by: Professor Patti Lather, Co-Advisor Professor Mary Leach, Co-Advisor Professor Cynthia Dillard Educational Policy & Leadership Graduate Program College of Education UMI Number 9971658 UMI UMI Microform9971658 Copyright 2000 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and Leaming Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 Copyright by Lisa Diane Weems 1000 ABSTRACT This research utilizes Jennifer Terry's notion of "deviant historiography" to investigate the representation of substitute teachers within discourses of professionalism as a practice of reading-against-the-grain. Using ethnographic and archival data collected with and about substitute teachers, this project investigates the representation of substitute teachers as a way to interrogate the possibilities and limitations of a model of "professionalism" for thinking about the work of teachers. Three questions organized the research project: 1) How do substitute teachers, most of whom are certificated teachers, come to be labeled "ineffective outsiders" within their own professional field? 2) What are the effects of such representations and what will this mean, given the rising demand for and use of substitute teachers in the K-12 classroom? 3) Moreover, how can analysis of the position of substitute teachers as "in-between teachers" help us to understand the contemporary educational reform movement towards professionalization? Educational theorists have documented how professionalism serves as an authoritative discourse that drives educational reform. While the trend within educational policy is to identify and explicate the components of professionalism, this study takes a different strategy in reconceptualizing professionalism. In this treatment, professionalism is unraveled as a constellation of images and ideas that are historically and sodo-culturally situated. Specifically, this study follows the tradition in cultural studies of investigating the boundaries and epistemic logic of a particular discourse by focusing on a category that is constitutionally deviant. A hybrid methodology combining elements of genealogical discourse analysis and ethnography was utilized to construct an archive of data sources on the representation of substitute teachers including individual and focus group transcripts, observation tieldnotes, newspaper articles and film clips. Three "analytic re-constructions" are presented to illustrate how representations of substitute teachers signal a shift in educational reform in theory and practice. The position of substitute teachers as a deviant case highlights some of the paradoxes and tensions around issues of "professionalism" within educational policy reform, popular media and local school contexts. Positioned at the margins of the discourse-practices of professionalism, representations of substitute teachers allow us to see the material and discursive limits of contemporary educational reform. Ill ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A project such as the dissertation requires the support of many generous colleagues and friends. I wish to thank my co-advisors, Drs. Patti Lather and Mary Leach for reading numerous drafts of this writing as well as providing a rigorous intellectual environment in which to grow. It was both a pleasure and an honor to leam under the direction of such exceptional scholars. Dr. Cynthia Dillard provided insight, both professional and personal, at critical points throughout my graduate career. These women, with the addition of Laurel Richardson and the many feminist feculty at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, created an intellectual space for my scholarship to be produced and intelligible in an academic context I owe much gratitude to Randy Donelson, Beth Marshall, Diana Moyer and Pam Weems for ofrering invaluable feedback on the writing and conceptualization of the project. Thank you for encouraging my thoughts to wander yet requiring me to articulate central themes and issues. I am particularly indebted to the teachers that participated in this research for sharing their time and stories. To participate in empirical research is to IV engage in practices that are both comforting and unsettling. This is precisely the challenge of doing and critiquing ethnography given the crisis of representation. I also wish to thank the many friends and family members, Lori Andrews, Rhonda Burke-Spero, John Qiovan, Lisa Giddings, Lu Lansman, Sarah Murphy, Janet Russell and Amy Weems - whose encouragement kept me focused during those early morning hours of cigarettes and writing. Frandne Klakos maintained a strong shelter for my thoughts and my heart throughout this project. Thank you. Finally, completion of this project hinged on the intellectual and social support from my sister, Pam Weems. To locate in one relationship the capacity for intellectual and personal development is to create a space for collaboration and stability amidst the ruins of academia, community and frmily. As Mary Leach notes, such practices inhabit "an alternative terrain in which to find the actual conditions of possibility for both the creation and examination of differences..." VTTA December 30,1969.............Bom — Ord, Nebraska, USA 1993...................................B. A. Integrated Studies, University of Nebraska 1995...................................MA. Sociology, The Ohio Statue University 1993-1999.......... ..Graduate Teaching and Research Associate The Ohio State University 2000................................. Ethnographic and Curriculum Consultant Center for the Study of Teaching Writing, OSU PUBLICATIONS Research Publication 1. L. Weems and P. Lather, "A Psychoanalysis We Can Bear to Leam From." A Review of Lost Subjects, Contested Obfects by D. Britzman. Educational Researcher, (hi press). 2. S. Brem, J. Russell and L. Weems "Girls Reasoning of Scientific Sources on the Intemet." Discourse Processes tin press). 3. L. Weems. "Pestalozzi, Perversity and the Pedagogy of Love." hi J. Sears and W. Letts (Eds). Oueering Elementary Education: Advancing the Dialogue about Sexualities and Schooling. Boulder, CO: Rowman, Littlefield (1999) 4. L. Weems. "Violence, Pedagogy and the Post-Colonial Classroom." hi A. Bringas and B. Martin (Eds.) Cultural Discourses at the Birth of the New Millenium: Postcolonial Multiculturalism. Vigo, Spain: University of Vigo (1999). 5. L. Weems. "Rerthinking Academic Community: Power and Subjectivity in Envisioning Transformative Pedagogies." Philosophical Studies in Education, Terre Haute, IN: Ohio Valley Philosophy of Education Society (1998). Major Field: Education. Vt TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Copyrighl:........................................................................................................................... i A bstract............................................................................................................................ü Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................... iv Vita.....................................................................................................................................vi Chapters: L Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1 2. Framing the Frames: Discourse Analysis, Professionalism and Substitute Teachers..................................................................................................................... 35 2.1 Foucault and Discourse Analysis .............................................................. 37 2.2 The Problematic of Professionalism ..........................................................46 2.3 Framing

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