almost there....

printed the bloomin thing

Methodology

Just finished going through a friend's draft methodology chapter to get some idea of layout and things I should include. Raised a few questions, mainly about paradigms and approaches to data analysis that I'm still unclear on.

Constructivism as a research paradigm - multiple realities acknowleged and valued rather than seeking one absolute truth
Adapted Grounded Theory - theories arising from the data, rather that using data to test hypotheses. Analysis based on categories and the relationships between them. Does this fit with Discourse Analysis?
Some ideas to discuss with Em I guess.

Been struggling to find the time and energy to do much PhD work recently. Motivation goes in phases, and a low has combined with a very busy end of term at school.

Meeting

Good meeting on Wednesday, much better than the previous one. Discussed the work on the Discourses of health, and set targets for this month. Sent the first draft of the Lit Review and the outline for it to Jo on Thurs eve. Now going to start some reading for the methodology chapter.

linking power to discourses

A lot of deliberation last night trying to finish the section on power and pedagogy. the last part was linking power to the expression of discourses in the NCPE. In the end it became less explicitly about discourse. It depends where the Discourses of health section goes as to how I link the two together. I might also go better with the methodology bit on discourse, or in the policy legacy section.
As for the last part of the lit review I am unsure how much Bernstein I will need to put in. Discussed this with Emma and she agrees that it will mainly be the recontexualisation stuff that I will actually use, but I will need to put in some of the stuff on codes as intro/explanation. Vertical and horizontal discourse and classification and framing may not be so relevant.

Lit Review

Just sent lit review part 4 off to Jo, Mike and Em. Spent all evening filling in holes. 'Little' fiddly bits always take 10 times longer than you think. There are still some gaps to tackle but that should keep me busy from wed/thurs evening onwards. Bits left to do in that are to complete the section on NCPE 1992 (mostly from my notes from Penney and Evans 99, when I find them) and to finish the section on Health in 1999 NCPE.

I will need also to add somewhere sections covering the development of the 99 NC revisions and particularly the Welsh NC. I need help with references for that.

Discourses of Health

Done some work with Dr Em. She kindly looked through what I had done on this area and is helping me to restructure it all. From our quick discussion I remember this:
Introduction:
- Various discourses provide different ways of making sense of health and as such provide alternative ways in which we might structure policy and practice in PE.
- beliefs about health influence policy. They are recontextualised and interpreted by teachers.
- Why this matters: embodied identities, children's interpretation of discourses and effect on how they view their body and activity.
- Different discourses find expression in different forms of PE

Sections: outlining various discourses, then describing the form of PE they produce
- individualism
- Lifestyles
- socio-ecological perspective
- healthy eating
- gender issues
- Overweight/fat
- body image
- biomedical
- heart health
- physical activity (levels and for life)

We're going to meet again and come up with an outline, so we get these ideas straight before tackling this chapter again. Also found lots of gaps that need filling in.

Wed - Power and Politics

Today I've written a couple of pages on the pedagogy and power of the teacher. I know this is important to the thesis, but not sure where it should go. I need to link it to stuff about recontextualising. Also started this blog today, but other than that not a particularly good day for work. Concentration poor.

Backtrack to Mon/Tues

I was really struggling with the section on the discourses of health in PE. I was writing up research done on each area, but this was often overlapping what I had said earlier in the 'rationale for health in PE. I also wanted to make this section more of an outline of each discourse, what can or can't be said about it. My writing was getting really confused so I mailed what I had done to Emma so we can have a chat about it this week. Today she gave me a Jan Wright paper, which looks to be very helpful. I will read this more thoroughly and get back to this bit tomorrow(?) after completing the section I am currently on.
So, being in a confused rut I moved on to the next section. The policy legacy of the NCPE. Over the last two days I have written about 6 pages on this. Unfortunately I also have a long list of this to be added to it. Feel free to direct my lit review regarding the following - online links/papers are great :) ...
The ERA 88 (particularly changes to school management)
The 1992 NC Orders
Who runs the SSCO programme? how many schools does this affect now (incl partnership primaries)
Healthy Schools initiative/Health Promoting Schools
the change in the role of LEAs due to ERA, are there stats for numbers of advisers before and after?
NQT competencies (references)
gov white paper excellence in schools
background on SCAA
other definitons of pedagogy

Quite a few gaps to fill in. Oh well.

Starting Point

I wanted to get this Blog started on Monday, but I've been actually writing stuff. Just to explain this is intended to be kind of an online research diary. I hope it will help me to keep track of what I am managing to get done, and also be a place where I can put ideas and questions. If all goes well then all those helping me to finish this thesis will be able to see how I'm doing, and will be able to comment on ideas and will hopefully be able to help out with my questions.
Any suggestions willingly entertained.