‘Never mind children’s cognition, what about mine?’ Teachers’ perspectives of the enactment of policy: The case of metacognition

Heather E. Branigan*

*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

Educational policy in the UK and beyond increasingly focuses on promoting skills that encourage learners to be independent thinkers and to self-manage their own learning. While the educational benefits of metacognition (i.e., thinking about and managing one’s own thinking) are widely acknowledged, little attention has been paid to teachers’ perspectives about the enactment of such approaches within the educational setting. Thus, this interview study seeks to investigate Scottish primary schools teachers’ perspectives about the enactment of policy, using metacognition as an exemplar case. Analysis produced two broad themes that distinguished between ‘bottom-up’ implementation of metacognitive approaches, and more commonly described ‘top-down’ approaches promoted by local or national policy. The perceived ‘changing tide’ of externally set top-down initiatives was described as particularly challenging for teachers to negotiate, resulting in a perceived crowding of the curriculum and associated ‘tick-boxing’ practices. Results are discussed in relation to the process of enactment—arguing that the predominance of top-down policy initiatives acts to restrict teachers’ agency by diminishing professionalism and promoting performativity.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)402-420
Number of pages19
JournalCurriculum Journal
Volume32
Issue number3
Early online date1 Mar 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by a 42‐month Carnegie PhD Scholarship from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland

I wish to thank all the participants of this study. Thank you also to the Carnegie Trust for funding this research project through a Carnegie PhD Scholarship, and to my PhD supervisor David Donaldson. Thank you also, to Anna Teitz, who assisted in aspects of data collection.

Keywords

  • agency
  • ecological agency
  • impact
  • interview
  • metacognition
  • policy enactment
  • primary school
  • teachers

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