Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Lambert Academic Publishing, Beau Bassin-Rose Hill, 2017
This ethnographic
study investigated the process of empowerment in the context of Turkish higher
education. The participants of this study were teachers working at the
Department of Basic English, School of Foreign Languages, the Middle East
Technical University, Ankara where the researcher worked as a teacher and
teacher trainer. The clients worked with the trainer in a three-year
collaborative action research project.
Observational data, as
a result of participant observation of the clients over a period of three years,
along with interview and documentary data were coded and analyzed according to the
interactive model of qualitative data analysis and phenomenological interview
analysis. Following the coding of raw data, emerging themes were identified and
compared with data from the other two sources (interview and documentary) for
purposes of triangulation. Naturalistic criteria for reliability and validity
were used along with inter-coder reliability. Data were displayed and
conclusions drawn using three techniques from ethnographic data analysis: Characters,
Setting and Plot; Natural History and Thematic Organization.
The findings of the
study indicate the feasibility of teacher empowerment as Conversations with
Self. Among some of the competencies needed for Conversations with Self are consciousness raising, working with other people, knowing self better and listening and observing both self and others better in order to be able to
decide on what knowledge and values are beneficial for them. The findings of
the study do not reveal a feasibility of teacher empowerment in terms of the
political agenda of Conversations with Settings. Such conversations remained at
the level of job involvement. That is to say, the political agenda of
Conversations with Settings, was feasible in terms of autonomy and control in
the classrooms of individual teachers.