Teacher-trainee Perceptions of Coeducation in a Microteaching Context in the Sultanate of Oman Submitted by Alison MacKenzie to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Education in the Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) July, 2016. This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Dedication This thesis is dedicated in loving memory of my amazing mother: for all that you are, for all that you were, for all that you were meant to be. 2 Acknowledgement As I stand on the threshold of fulfilling a dream and keeping a promise, I extend my thanks to my Omani male and female teacher trainees for entrusting me to be your voices. It has truly taken a village to raise this thesis and I thank you most of all for being my teachers on this journey! I also wish to thank my family, friends and fellow doctoral travellers, in Oman, South Africa and further afield for never giving up on me. Your gentle encouragement, love and support, in every sense of the word, over these many years has left me humbled and forever in your debt. Finally, I thank my supervisors, Professor Salah Troudi and Dr. Sarah Rich, for the critical guidance and care from Exeter to Dubai and here in Oman. Without you both this thesis would not have been possible. 3 Abstract Since 1970, the Sultanate of Oman has undergone rapid development, modernisation and educational reform within which a policy of coeducation has been introduced in grades 1 to 4, cycle 1, Basic Education schools and in most state-run and private higher education institutions. Situated within a coeducational tertiary college, a critical interpretive case study was conducted on 25 male and 85 female third-year English teacher trainees. Informed by a social-constructionist framework this study seeks to understand their perceptions of coeducation in the microteaching component of their initial teacher education programme. This study also provides a platform for the voices of these teacher trainees to be heard. Due to the accepted and practiced large-culture norms discouraging male and female interaction between non-family members in the Arabian Gulf, it was found that the coeducational microteaching classes are sites of struggle through which, drawing on the work of Barkhuizen (1998), six perceptions emerged: sustainments, emotions, predictions, reflections, evaluations and transformations, represented by the acronym, SEPRET. While there is only a slight difference in their perceptions of coeducational microteaching, the male and female trainees are both fostering stereotypical gender roles through which small cultures of ‘romance’ and ‘laddishness’ are being perpetuated. As a result of coeducation, they are experiencing a negative ‘mirror’-effect where they are masking, inhibiting, and repositioning aspects of their performance, participation and identities. The large- and small-culture constructs of Holliday (1999) are evidenced inside and outside the coeducational microteaching classroom walls and a new model of learner actions on their perceptions of coeducation is presented. The study ends with the voices of the teacher trainees calling upon the powers that be to understand their behaviour and recommends single-gender rather than coeducational microteaching spaces in this particular Omani initial teacher education context. 4 Contents Dedication ....................................................................................................................... 2 Acknowledgement ........................................................................................................... 3 Abstract ........................................................................................................................... 4 Contents .......................................................................................................................... 5 List of Figures ................................................................................................................ 14 Abbreviations ................................................................................................................ 15 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 16 1.1 Rationale and Purpose of the Study ........................................................................ 17 1.2 Research Aims ........................................................................................................ 19 1.3 Research Questions ................................................................................................ 20 1.4 Significance of the Study ......................................................................................... 20 1.5 Structure of the Thesis ............................................................................................ 22 CHAPTER TWO THE CONTEXT OF THE STUDY .................................................................................. 23 2.1 Overview of Modernisation and Development in Oman .......................................... 23 2.1.1 Ongoing educational reform .............................................................................. 24 2.2 The Policy and Rationale for Coeducation .............................................................. 25 2.2.1 Experiences of coeducation in tertiary institutions ............................................ 27 2.2.2 Opposition to coeducation ................................................................................. 28 2.3 Omanisation and Reform in English Teacher Education ......................................... 29 2.3.1 The English language teacher preparation programme .................................... 30 2.3.2 The importance of microteaching in the teacher preparation programme ......... 30 5 2.4 The Setting and Population of the Study ................................................................. 31 2.5 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 33 CHAPTER THREE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................... 34 3.1 Social Constructionism ............................................................................................ 34 3.1.1 A critical stance towards taken-for-granted assumptions .................................. 35 3.1.1.1 Critical reasons for adopting social constructionism ................................. 35 3.1.2 Historical and cultural specificity ....................................................................... 36 3.1.2.1 Understandings of culture ......................................................................... 36 3.1.2.1.1 Large culture and small culture ............................................................. 37 3.1.3 Knowledge is sustained by social processes .................................................... 38 3.1.3.1 The role of language in social constructionism ......................................... 38 3.1.3.2 Understandings of identity ........................................................................ 39 3.1.4 Knowledge and social action go together.......................................................... 40 3.1.5 Problematising social constructionism .............................................................. 41 3.1.6 Social constructivism versus social constructionism ......................................... 41 3.2 Perceptions ............................................................................................................. 42 3.2.1 The importance of seeking out perceptions ...................................................... 42 3.2.2 The importance of student voices ..................................................................... 42 3.2.3 Challenges investigating perceptions ................................................................ 44 3.2.4. An overview of perceptions in the literature ..................................................... 45 3.2.4.1 Differing conceptualisations of perceptions ............................................... 45 3.2.4.2 Concerns about conceptualisations of perceptions ................................... 46 3.2.4.3 Concerns about definitions of perceptions ................................................ 47 3.2.5 Barkhuizen’s conceptualisation of perceptions ................................................. 48 6 3.2.6 A social constructionist understanding of perceptions ...................................... 50 3.3 An Exploration of Coeducation in the Literature ...................................................... 50 3.3.1 Definitions of coeducation ................................................................................. 51 3.3.2 Global overview of coeducational studies ......................................................... 52 3.3.3 Studies on perceptions of coeducation ............................................................. 53 3.3.3.1 Perceptions of coeducation in Western settings ....................................... 54 3.3.3.2 Perceptions of coeducation in non-Western settings ................................ 54 3.3.3.2.1 Perceptions of coeducation in an Arabian