Sean Jackman Dissertation

October 4, 2011

Sean Jackman Dissertation Ed.D. Program Teachers College Columbia University Department of Music and Music Education October 2011

Positionality and the lives of elementary general music teachers

Dr. Lori Custodero, Sponsor Dr. Harold Abeles, Committee Member

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Background... The Lens: Positionality........... My Career........................................................................................ Very Different Jobs: Daily Routines, Responsibilities, Stress And Accountability.................................................................. Professional Development......................................................... Shifting Positions................................................................................... Problem Statement........ Purpose Statement......................................... Theoretical Framework.................................. Graphic Representation.... Plan of Research Research Questions.... 17 Overview of Method.................................................. Delimitations...... Plan for Remaining Chapters..... CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE Overview.... The Concept of Positionality......... Literature Using the Lens of Positionality...... Literature Using Lenses Related to Positionality..... Conclusion.... 21 21 27 31 37 17 19 19 .......................................... 4 4 4 6 9 10 11 12 12 15

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CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY Overview....... Purpose Statement....... Research Design..... Participants and Setting..... Role and Positionality as Researcher........ Data Collection.. Plan of Analysis. 38 39 40 40 41 42 43

REFERENCES..................

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APPENDICES A. Boomerang Survey Questions (Email)................... B. Interview Questions. ... 54 57

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Background The Lens: Positionality Positionality is a theoretical perspective that locates people and their practices in relation to others. It also refers to others perspectives and practices within constantly shifting contexts (Zhai, 2010). As the term suggests, positionality focuses less on the nature of the subject itself and more on the relationship of the subject to others. The three main components of positionality are: intersecting identities, power relations and social context (Lezar and Lester, 2010). This dissertation will investigate the relationship between positionality and the lives of elementary general music teachers. Like many dissertation projects, my interest in the lives of elementary music teachers comes from my own teaching experience as one of them. As a music teacher at the elementary level, I have become interested in the predicament of the elementary music educator and their relationship to other dimensions of school life. These dimensions include personal relationships among teachers, the curriculum that is taught, the financial resources available, the informal power of colleagues and the formal authority of the principal and other administrators. The breadth of the term positionality is flexible enough to describe a variety of teacher experiences and emotions in different situations over time and may include allied ideas such as connectedness or isolation. Additionally, this study will consider my position as the researcher. My Career

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Early in my career, from my vantage point today, I believe I ignored my feelings of isolation and feeling far from the center of power. I concentrated on working hard and behaving as a professional. Observing other classroom teachers over my career, I have noticed the camaraderie they share, in which I am often not included. Each grade level teacher usually has at least two colleagues who teach exactly what he or she teaches. If they are alone during the day with their students, at least they have someone to compare stories with before school, after school and at lunch. They have similar stories to share. As an elementary general music teacher, I am the only person in my school who teaches that subject. I have no one in my school with whom to share the stories of my daily life with students. Different Spaces and Connections Music teachers and classroom teachers usually do not have similar stories since they have very different jobs. A classroom teacher teaches all the subjects to a set number of students whom they get to know very well and teach for most of each school day for one year. The music teacher teaches all of the children in the school the same subject but sees each student for one or two class periods (usually 40 or 50 minutes) per week. Although the music teacher sees their students for short periods of time weekly, they may know their music teacher for as many as six years. Elementary teachers are generalists who have been trained to successfully teach all of the subjects of an elementary curriculum. Whether or not they have an emotional connection to the subject matter, it is the teachers job to teach these subjects. Music teachers are specialists who have been trained in specific ways to teach one subject. I believe music is a unique way of knowing and understanding the world. I know that, as a music teacher, I am very connected to the subject matter which I am teaching. I believe in the power of music to teach, to heal and to

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motivate. As a music teacher, I believe this perspective is a part of what I teach. I believe that students may have experiences an aesthetic experience with music that is unique to the discipline. They can only have this experience with music; it will probably not happen in other parts of the school day. It is one of the reasons why I believe that my job is an important one. Classroom teachers and music teachers can have very different relationships with their students. This is impacted by the amount of time the teacher and student spend in the same classroom together and how this time is distributed. Classroom teachers are large figures in the lives of students for one year; the music teacher may be part of the life of a child for many years. Perhaps, also, this relationship is influenced by the nature of the material which is being taught and learned. Classroom teachers view the children in many different settings - they see the whole child. The music teacher observes the child in one particular setting - the music classroom. In my experience, some children may behave very different in music than they do in the classroom because of their love or interest for the subject. The academic struggle for certain children can make the classroom a stressful place; the music room may be a source of relief where students are able to excel because it requires a different set of skills and strengths.

Very Different Jobs: Daily Routines, Responsibilities, Stress and Accountability Classroom teachers grade written work daily, give frequent assessments and communicate regularly with families to discuss student progress. In each day of the life of a classroom teacher, there are new lessons to teach. Each day has a flow of activities that is marked by a change of subject and activity, for example, Calendar Activities, then Math and then guided reading time. Occasionally, classes work together on projects or go on grade-level

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fieldtrips. Classroom teachers of the same grade level can compare strategies daily on how to teach a specific lesson, how to use a resource, or how to plan a classroom event. Music teachers typically have much less written work but more time in front of students teaching. Since there are often three to five classes of the same grade in a school, music lessons repeat. The flow of the day is marked by changes in grade level and sometimes musical activity. Music teachers organize school and grade-level public performances. Music teacher must connect with their music colleagues outside the building to compare content teaching strategies. With the exception of behavior management strategies, the music teacher and the classroom teacher have much less in common professionally than classroom teachers have with each other. Music, and several other subjects including visual art and physical education, are not part of the curriculum which undergo the rigor of high stakes testing. The tested areas are taught by classroom teachers - language arts, math, science and social studies. In many instances, music teachers find themselves in the position they are in because of the curriculum they teach. This position is further from the center of power and but also further from perceived stress. The classroom teachers who teach in the tested areas face standardized statewide assessments. This group of teachers is the focus of financial resources and professional development time since their success will be measured and reported publicly. There are real life consequences if the classroom teacher fails. Ranking of schools is published in the local newspaper and the scores with teachers names are reported to school districts and school principals. Teachers receive the scores of their students and use these scores to help them teach more carefully to the test the next year. The hope is that the teachers students will get higher scores the next year so that the school can meet the standards for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). AYP is an individual state's measure of student improvement one year over the next. Schools which do not meet AYP face

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serious consequences. After a number of years of not meeting AYP, schools can be subjected to on-site investigation, school closure and staff dismissal (Cochran-Smith, 2005). Music teachers that I have met do not face these kinds of consequences. Some might say that their work is very public in the form of concerts. However, there is not a systemic response to an ill-prepared concert or a performance where four or five students dont seem to know the words to the songs. Because of the pressure for measureable success in the general education classrooms, those classrooms are viewed as the trenches of the school where the important work is done. Funding is given to them first. Classroom teachers often have individual budgets, more space and textbooks for most subjects. Music teachers may or may not be given a specific amount of money by the school to spend on their classrooms. Often music teachers receive the funds that are left over or the gifts of the schools parent-teacher association. Before the adoption of a music textbook in the mid-1990s in my current district, music teachers gathered their own materials to teach their curriculum. When space is an issue in schools, often music and art rooms are re-purposed as general education classrooms. Music and art teachers are therefore relegated to a moving cart where they must travel to the classrooms of other teachers with whatever materials they can haul. Stability of school is another issue which affects music teachers differently than classroom teachers. In my district, music teachers are considered to work for their district, not for their school. They are not assigned to a specific school building but are part of a districtwide staff which form a cadre teachers to be used as needed to implement the music program across the school system. My school district uses the term departmentalized. Because music teachers are departmentalized across their school district, they can be moved or re-assigned to different schools each year. Classroom teachers own their building. Unless there is a

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fluctuation in student enrollment or an unsatisfactory teacher evaluation, the teacher can usually stay in their school and in their grade level as long as they chose. Their position is secure. This is guaranteed by the collectively bargained contract between the school district and the teachers union. An involuntary transfer of a teacher would be grieved by the teachers union which would entitle the teacher to a special hearing which would decide if the contract had been broken when the teacher was moved between schools without a just cause (School District and Teachers Association Master Agreement, 2010). Music teachers can be moved every year to any number of buildings (often two or three) because we are departmentalized. Music teachers are involuntary transferred every year - or not. Professional Development More recently in my current teaching position, I and the other specials teachers have experienced marginalization during semimonthly meetings of the schools Professional Learning Community (PLC). Specials teachers are those who teach library, physical education, art and music to students on a rotating schedule once a week. Specials teachers provide release time to classroom teachers for lesson preparation and collaboration. Students benefit by receiving instruction in each area from a teacher who is especially trained to teach that subject. Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) are the means by which all teacher professional development is provided in my current school district. Kanold, Toncheff, & Douglad (2008) define a PLC as creating a work environment where teachers improve their knowledge base with a results-oriented focus on student success. Hord (2009) explains that a PLC is defined by the three words in its name. It is professional people are reflective, passionate, committed and caring. It is focused on learning - teachers learn about teaching and how students learn. It is a community - a gathering of people who work together with shared meaning and purpose.

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Usually, specials teachers have no one in school to talk to during PLC time except each other. Unfortunately, each of the specials teachers has a unique curriculum. The focus of school PLCs is the curriculum of the state tested areas, student assessment and remediation. In my experience, the arts-related curriculum of the special area teachers is never discussed in school PLCs. Music teachers have their own PLC but these groups are not a PLC as experienced by classroom teachers. Music teacher PLCs meet much less frequently than school-based PLCs, have members who work in multiple buildings and lack the day-to-day contact that classroom teachers enjoy. I believe that the positioning of many music teachers and other specials teachers (art, physical education and media) as outsiders may be due to the structure of PLCs in our district. Shifting Places This said, the positionality of the music teacher shifts from time to time. Occasionally, music teachers may find themselves more connected to the other teachers in their school. One of the biggest issues that music teachers and classroom teachers share is the school wide Specials Schedule. The Specials Schedule determines when the students of each classroom teacher have art, music, physical education and library classes. Thus it determines when the classroom teachers are without students and have lesson preparation time. This schedule is developed by all four of the specials teachers at the beginning of the year. At this time, many classroom teachers advocate for the scheduled times they would like. There is much communication back and forth. The music teacher is placed at the center of the action. For this short time, the music teacher exercises some power since they have something which every teacher wants convenient specials times. Convenient times include last period on Friday, not all in the morning

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and not on Monday (because they are missed on Statutory Holidays), for example. Often these conveniences are personal preferences on behalf of the classroom teachers. Another situation when music teachers communicate with all of the staff is assembly and concert times which are hectic but exciting. Often these concerts have classroom themes and involve coordination with classroom teachers. The classroom teachers usually are present on the night of the concert, they assist with communication with families in the weeks leading up to the event and sometimes rehearse the music program with their students outside music class time. Beyond the benefit of public performance for students, these night-time performances are one of the few common projects for music teachers and their classroom colleagues. Outside these situations, however, classroom teachers often withdraw to their own classrooms and their grade level colleagues. The position of the music teacher changes and s/he is left to return to the music room. In my first years of teaching elementary music, I thought, Is this just the way it is? Are my students and their success enough? Can I do anything to change this situation as one teacher? I had an opportunity to teach first and second grade following several successful years as an elementary general music specialist and was able to experience first hand being a member of a teaching team. It was in stark contrast to my experience as the lone elementary music teacher. This issue was crystallized by one of my students upon hearing I was becoming a classroom teacher, Are you excited [Mr. Jackman] to become a real teacher?

Problem Statement Elementary music teachers often themselves in a unique position in their school given a variety of factors beyond their control. This can affect the types of communities they are able to

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construct as professionals and how they negotiate their varied identities within their school. There is need for a better understanding of music teachers positioning in their school and how it affects the quality of their professional life and ultimately the music teachers teaching in the classroom.

Purpose Statement The purpose of this study is to use the lens of positionality to investigate the professional lives of elementary general music teachers. I aim to do this through interviews with elementary general music teachers, classroom teachers, elementary administrators and the Visual and Performing Arts Coordinator (VPAC) in my current school district, a suburban district in the US Midwest. Other sources of data include music teacher reflection journals, drawings and a follow up focus group. I will also keep a researcher reflection journal and researcher field notes.

Theoretical Framework Positionality is a concept which seeks to understand people by their position in relation to one other and the world. It is rooted in feminist philosophical research on the nature of women developed during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Today, though, the term has broader uses and does not necessarily refer to issues of gender. Positionality is helpful in describing all aspects of the human experience. The feminist philosopher, Linda Alcoff explains that the concept of woman is firstly a term that is only understood in terms of the situation in which that person finds herself. Secondly, the place in which a women finds herself is where the sense of meaning of the word women is created. She does not merely discover what meaning but is a co-constructor (Alcoff,

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1988). In her collection of essays published in one volume entitled Teaching Positions, Elizabeth Ellsworth writes about positionality without using the term. The central idea of these essays is mode of address which is borrowed from film studies and asks the question: Who does the filmmaker think you are? It examines who the filmmaker perceives his/her films are being made for. Who does he/she perceives as the audience? Ellsworths metaphor is useful for my dissertation. In this case, the filmmaker can be compared with the elementary general music teacher. Who does the music teacher see as the consumer of music education? What do teacher colleagues and administrators think about the music instruction that is being provided in the school? Many of the interview questions during data collection for this dissertation will ask the interviewee to examine, Who do you think you are? Who do the other teachers think you are? Kezar and Lester (2010) clarify that positionality has three main components: 1) multiple, shifting overlapping identities, 2) power relations, and 3) context or situatedness. The encompassing nature of the construct of positionality is useful for my investigation of the lives of elementary general music teachers. My reading of the literature related to the lives of teachers, and more specifically elementary general music teachers, found constructs other than positionality which were the focus of the studies. Although the terminology is different (constructs other than positionality were used), the heart of the issues being explored is the same. Some of these keywords that surfaced included isolation, alienation, and their antonyms community and connection. Wittgenstein (1953/2001)s idea of families of resemblances is helpful here to illuminate the notion of positionality. Wittgenstein used this metaphor to explain how word categories are formed. Categories are understood by people when members of the category possess some of the same characteristics. All members of any given category never share all of the same

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characteristics with another member. Wittgenstein used the example of a game. Think of the many kinds of games there are board games, sporting games and playground games, for example. All games have some characteristics in common such as they involve more than one person or are recreational or athletic. But no two games are exactly the same. For my dissertation project, I am considering how families of resemblance, for example, insider/outsider, loner/team player and high/low might be useful in understanding positionality and the lives of elementary general music teachers. The associations that we usually have with some constructs (e.g. isolation and alienation are viewed as negative) were not always found. In some cases, people had the opposite feelings. People were happy when able to work alone. What others might call isolation, they described as autonomous. The term positionality, when first suggested, was unfamiliar to me but the richness of the term and all that it involves has served very useful as a way to thinking about my complex topic - the lives of a group of people, a subculture of music educators. Positionality allows for greater complexity than the duality of isolation or community and I believe will help me to uncover the realities of teaching elementary general music in todays schools.

Graphic Representation

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Figure 1: A game of chess: Taking a position

Figure 2: A second game of chess: Shifting positions My graphic representation is inspired by Alcoffs (1998) analogy of a chessboard to describe the external forces within which the concept of women is situated. The external situation determines the person's relative position, just as the position of a pawn on a chessboard is considered safe or dangerous, powerful or weak, according to its relation to the other chess pieces (p. 433). Figures 1 and 2 were created as a graphic representation of the positionality lens, which I will use in the investigation of the lives of elementary general music teachers. On

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the chess board there are eight very different figures: a sea captain, a Viking, a box, Eifel Tower 1, a child skier, a yellow sailor, a Christmas figure, and Eifel Tower 2. Each board has the same eight figures but they are in different positions. Imagine that the figures all move in unique ways like the pieces on a chessboard. The choice of a chessboard is one way to think about a school and how the different people and routines/rules within a school play out. The music teacher is on one square of the board while the other players are on theirs. When the figures start moving, what happens to the professional space of the elementary music teacher? A music teacher fulfilling his/her duties during a day at school is similar to a figure on a chessboard. All of the pieces of chess (e.g. the pawn, the Bishop, the Queen) move in their own way and are physically unique. They have different effects and are in different positions of power depending on their position on the chessboard. The figures in this model are different sizes, colors and with different associations (the red figure is a Christmas ornament, the child is skiing, for example) and represent the many differences that exist between individual teachers. I added non-life like figures (the Eifel towers and the box) to represent situations that the pieces (the people) interact with. If one imagines each of the model figures having rules of movement such as the captain can only takes two steps forward at a time (just as the pawn only moves one space forward, backwards or sideways), one could imagine how people in a school negotiate their day depending on their relationship with one another, the nature of the issue and who, of the people involved, exert the greatest authority. Two different photos of the same eight figures on the same chessboard allow one to think of how people feel and behave differently at different times. One snapshot or videotaping of the board could represent one day. On another day the movie could look quite different. Also, the

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figures look different to the viewer depending on where they are placed. Like people, the figures influence each other differently depending on their proximity to each other. Other games of chess could include one in which all of the elementary general music teachers are placed on one board. Given that they usually play on their school board as the lone music teacher, a game in which every figure represents an elementary music teacher could be a useful way to think of community among elementary general music teachers. In real life, such games happen about once a month during district-wide PLC meetings.

Plan of Research Research Questions 1. How is positionality defined in the professional spaces of elementary general music teachers? Sub questions: How does this play out in the music room? How does this play out in the school? How does this play out in the school district? How does this play out in the profession (outside the school district)? 2. How is perceived positionality defined in how elementary general music teachers go about their daily routines/yearly responsibilities? Sub questions: How does this play out during lesson planning? How does this play out during classroom instruction? How does this play out during performance times? 3. What negotiations are used by elementary general music teachers to navigate power and identity issues in their schools and school districts to create community? Sub question: How do these negotiations relate to professional spaces and daily routines/ yearly responsibilities? Overview of Method

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The design of this study is based on an intrinsic case study model (Stake, 1995). In this dissertation study, the school district is the case. The individual teachers surveyed and interviewed in my study will be elementary general music teachers, classroom teachers, elementary principals and the Visual and Performing Arts Coordinator. By interviewing these subjects I hope to answer the overarching question how positionality is defined in the professional spaces of elementary music teachers, how perceived positionality is defined in the daily/yearly routines of the music teacher and what negotiations are used by music teacher to navigate power and identity issues in their schools/school district to create community. The setting for this study in a public school district in a large metropolitan area in the US Midwest. All of the interviews will be with elementary general music teachers, classroom teacher, elementary principals and the Visual and Performing Arts Coordinator in my current school district where I also teach elementary general music. Data collection will occur between September 2011 and February of 2012. Selection of teachers will be selected based on response to an emailed Boomerang survey about teachers feeling and job conditions (See Appendix A). The potential pool of elementary general music teachers is ten. The potential pool of elementary classroom teachers is 300, and of administrators, is eighteen. The participants will be interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide (see Appendix B, C and D) which will be audiotaped. Interview questions are specifically related to the research questions outlined above. The interviews will be transcribed and a copy of the transcript sent to each participant to ensure that the interview has captured the teachers views and opinions accurately. Participations will be asked to confirm via email or regular US mail that the transcripts accurately portrayed their responses.

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Delimitations This study is an investigation of the lives of elementary general music teachers using interview data provided by elementary music teachers in one school district. It does not generalize to all elementary general music teachers or all music teachers in general.

Plan for Remaining Chapters Chapter II of this document is a review of related literature on positionality and the nature of the working lives of elementary music teachers. Chapter III is a detailed discussion of the research methodology. The second half of this dissertation will include a detailed description of themes found from working with all of the participants, a discussion of the research findings, conclusions, and implications for future research.

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Chapter II REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Overview This review of literature is divided into three sections. The first deals with the nature and meaning of the concept of positionality. Since it is a complex term, I have reviewed literature which explains this term and its origin in feminist writing. I have gone on to explain the construct as one which has come free of its feminist roots and is no longer tied to issues of gender. Positionality is a construct which explains multiple, shifting identities, power and contexts. It is a valuable lens for investigating the lives of all people. The second section reviews studies which use the lens of positionality as a way to understand the lives of teachers. The third section of this review will deal with literature which investigates the lives of teachers and others using a variety of approaches related to positionality. Although the articles do not use the term positionality, they focus on issues which are at the heart of the meaning of positionality - positioning, power, relationships, context and identity.

The Concept of Positionality Positionality is a concept which has been present in the literature since the late 1980s. It comes from feminist philosophical research on the nature of women beginning with the work of the feminist philosopher Linda Alcoff. Alcoff explains that the concept of woman cannot be narrowly defined and no one definition would apply to all women. The term woman can only be understood in relation to her surroundings and secondly, a women is able to co-construct the meaning of the term. It is not something inert, to be found. Alcoff views her discourse as a real

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world problem, not just one for academics, since millions of women have concerns which are not those of men. Examples of such concerns are those related to child rearing and physical health/safety. She calls for a new theory which would reinterpret the position of women and their political identity as women and feminists living together and in the world (Alcoff, 1988). Ellsworth (1997) writes about positionality although she does not use the word. Her thesis of mode of address is an extended metaphor about the perspectives of a filmmaker and the audience. She explains that the one way to analysis a film is to think about who the filmmakers think his/her audience is. Answers to these questions tell the audience member something about the filmmaker, the film and him/herself. Reflecting on these questions allows one to think of the many different positions in which people may find themselves. From her experience teaching undergraduate students, Ellsworth enlightens us that the teacher-student dialogue is not fixed. What the teacher wants the student to learn and what the student has learned is not always the same thing. Perhaps they are very similar or perhaps there is a deep caravan. Unexpected and exciting learning may have happened. The two teacher and student work together for the benefit of the student. Hopefully, the teacher is increasing his/her skills as they learn from the experiences of teaching different students. As an educator, Ellsworth reflects that she is not interested in a fixed answer or treatise from her students. She encourages to write a juxtaposed collection of essays which provides students with a ways to make connections between texts and to generate new meaning. The types of learning environments Ellsworth proposes are filled with performative pedagogy. Performative pedagogy makes claims not to fixed meaning and truth with a capital T but to understanding that makes sense to a particular audience and at in a particular time and place. Ellsworth uses the lens of positionality to understand media, people, their interactions with one another and social

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institutions and the contexts in which they find themselves. Although her context is media studies, this has helpful implications for my dissertation. She explores the shifting nature of peoples realities and the multiple meanings individuals can bring. A group of elementary music teachers could generate the same multiple responses to professional questions that occur in their practice. Perhaps discussions could be about teaching required lessons or appropriate ways to nurture student talent. All of these solutions could be found together during discussions at their school or during district wide PLCs. Kezar and Lester (2010) clarify that positionality has three main components: 1) multiple, shifting, overlapping identities, 2) power relations, and 3) context or situatedness. Identity is not singular and static but a combination of categories such as gender, race and social class. All people have many dimensions. A person, for example, is not only Black, college educated and a teacher but also a mother, Episcopalian and a Liberal. You are always your entire self - you do not stop identifying with one group or ideology when you are in one environment and remove yourself from that group or ideology in another. People, though, do tend to reveal only certain parts of themselves in certain situations. Power is typically or traditionally defined by leadership scholars as the ability to act or produce an effect (p.167). This notion of power spills over into all aspects of professional and personal life. Kezar and Lester (2010) go on to say that all people in all positions can access some form of power (p.167). They found in their study of a community college that leaders in administration had formal power but there were others among the staff, those in lesser positions, who also exerted power and had their own sphere of influence. The researchers believe that context must be addressed to understand someones experiences. As one moves around the chess board, or lives their life, their perspectives change depending on positioning.

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Understanding the term positionality can also come from a body of literature which is concerned with the role of the researcher in ethnographic research (Allen, 2005; Hopkins, 2007; Rose, 1997; Sultana, 2007). How does positionality affect the work of the researcher, the researched and the research setting? Issues of multiple identities, power and context abound in each of the studies I reviewed. In order to do ethical research which respects the rights of the researched, Hopkins (2007) calls on researchers to worry about the positionality of each party. He says that the biography, previous experience and multiple identities of the researcher affect how the study is constructed, how the questions are asked and how the data is presented. He draws on his own experiences in the field with two very different populations. Hopkins discusses one study among a group of asylum-seeking children and a second study with a group of young Muslim men. Since Hopkins, a young Scottish, white researcher, was very different from both groups, he had to negotiate his own difference as a researcher. Multiples identities were also a factor. In referring to the study with young Muslim men, he describes how he was very different from his subjects. Hopkins is not Muslim or South Asian by extraction. At the time of the data collection, however, he was approximately their age. His multiple identities, and recognizing difference and similarity allowed him to connect with his participants and build trust during interviewing. Hopkins difference from the children in his other study (being an adult, being much stronger and much taller) required him to think through ways that he could connect with his young subjects. He questioned what was similar, what was different and where could there be a meeting place in between. Sultana (2007) also writes about the positionality of the researcher and the ethical concerns of field research based on her experience as a researcher of women in Bangladesh. She

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is concerned with the clash between the daily lives of the people she wishes to interview which she honors and the culture of academia. As a native Bangladeshi who has studied in the US, she has the experience of an insider becoming an outsider upon returning home. Among the Bangladeshi women, there is suspicion as she attempts to interview people who do not see her as someone like them. Ironically, Sultana seems to view herself as someone like them. She reflects on her experience in American graduate school as it relates to her fieldwork. I was left with the feeling that Sultana was identifying as someone in between. She is not American in America. She is not Bangladeshi in Bangladeshi anymore, either. Her Western appearance and equipment (tools of the ethnographer - camera, notebook and pen) make her stand out. At times, Sultana recalls that her positionality would shift. Sometimes, she would be viewed as less of an outsider depending on the individuals involved and the setting. Sultana calls for greater sensitivity to the interplay between the position the researcher holds, the power relations between the researcher and researched and the politics of invading the personal lives of people a world away. Sultanas hope, it seems, is to tell the story of a group of Bangladeshi women as sensitively as possible. This story is also her story but she is mindful that while it is her research, it is their lives. Reflexivity involves being aware of ones position as researcher, the multiple identities one possesses, the power being held and the research setting. The term reflexivity is often used in the literature along with the concepts of power, identity and positionality. Rose (1997) focuses on reflexivity as a means by which the researcher ponders his/her own place in the research setting and how this relates to the researched and the research context. She points out there is much difficulty in trying to get a complete, transparent truth. She suggests that a more honest approach might be accepting that one person can only create his or her own snapshot of

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the setting. This snapshot is co-created with the researched and therefore the knowledge that goes with it is co-constructed. This snapshot is the story of the researched but it is the work of the researcher. The researcher has the power to bring it in published form to the world. The audience brings another layer of complexity. Just as in the reading of a text or the watching of a play, the meaning is changed by each reader or observer. Similarly, Ellsworth (1996) reflects on her teaching of writing to graduate education and the search for truth. Just as the researchers reviewed reflect on the power they hold, Ellsworth reflects on her position as an educator. He experiences with students, which is action research, have been documented and brought to the world through publication. She views the teaching and learning process as one that is continuous and shifting. The best thinking, reading of and writing about a topic comes when she allows students to write and re-write about them. She explains how, in her teaching, she has moved away from final term papers where it is too late to interact with the student and his/her ideas. For Ellsworth, assigning short, partial papers is more fruitful. The incompleteness of the students work invites deeper thinking and exploration of curiosity. Ellsworth believes she becomes a better teacher, her students become better students and the truth is more fully revealed. There is no final paper; there is no final truth. In his research on housing and urban environments with visually impaired children, Allen (2005) records and reflects on his own growth as a researcher. His research question in a study the previous year (Allen, 2004a; Allen, 2004b) was to explore the nature of visually impaired childrens difficulty in their housing and urban environments. His 2005 publication is a discussion of the process of his own reflexivity and how his own positionality was a factor in his production and interpretation of data in his previous work.

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The funding for his research project with visually impaired children was private. As a newly appointed teaching faculty, he felt required to continue to bring research money to his institution. Allen reports that he needed the contracts to collect the data, he needed the data to write the articles and he needed the articles to be successful. My self-identity and feeling of belonging and worth, as an academic, had therefore become contingent on my ability to produce articles in peer-reviewed journal (p. 997). Acts of his own reflexivity as a researcher allowed him to consider that perhaps he is only used to finding results which please his research donors. He realized that he was only looking for problems since it fit his social model view (and those of the funding organization) that visual impaired children must have at least some problems with the built environment (p. 1002). Later, his analysis of the data showed that many of his subjects did not have any problems. His realization of his own bias, this epiphany, brought him to contemplate the degree to which all social researchers lack of self-knowledge influences how they produce and interpret data. Allen is aware that the readers of the article being reviewed will also investigate his position. It follows that the analysis of positionality in this paper is similarly open to question even though, of course, I regard it as defensible in its own terms (p. 1005). Positionality is an aspect of the human condition that can be questioned and examined in all parts of living and scholarship. These researchers discussed above believe it leads to a greater sense of integrity in research.

Literature Using the Lens of Positionality Zhai (2010) used the lens of positionality to study eleven women faculty on the use of technology in their undergraduate classrooms. Zhais understanding of this term comes from

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Alcoffs (1988) work on positionality. Positionality is argued by Alcoff as a way to understand the concept of women that is neither cultural feminism (an understand of the nature of women shaped by the presence of feminine attributes) nor post-structural feminism (an acceptance of all the identities of women). Zhai uses the understanding of positionality which views women not from their biological or psychological attributes but from their multiple identities and the contexts they find themselves in. The purpose of Zhais study was to investigate the domains of teacher-student, studentstudent and student learning-real life connections and how the use of technology affects these connections. Zhai found that women assume multiple identities (for example, friend, mother, instructor) in different contexts. Similarly, I believe that most music teachers assume multiple identities. These identities could include: musician, teacher, performer, concert producer, fundraiser, counselor, social worker or arts advocate. Just as Zhai found these identities affected how participants in her study responded to students and different situations, I believe that my investigation of elementary general music teachers will be influenced by the many identities of the individual music teachers. In Zhais work, she reports there were a variety of responses that each faculty member took depending on the situation and the student. Technology was used effectively to increase the impact of course content and to foster connections in all three domains examined. For example, one professor was so committed to her students that she put a texting plan on her personal cell phone at her own expense so she could communicate more easily with students. Wales (2009) placed female secondary drama teachers at the center of her study which investigated teachers understanding of self (identity) and how it affected their practice. She used interviews to study teacher identity, teaching practices and teacher subjectivities. Wales

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found that teachers practices are diverse, shifting and often contradictory (p. 261). Teacher self-perception and understanding affects their work in the classroom with students. Kezar and Lester (2010) used the lenses of positionality to study faculty at a community college and their ideas about leadership. The researchers define positionality as a theory which understands individuals as having multiple identities which are shifting and overlapping. For them, positionality has three main components: intersecting identities, power relations and context. The site in their study had recently moved to a servant-leader model of leadership which means that all stakeholders - faculty, staff, administrators are involved in decisionmaking. For many institutions, and for the one studied by the researchers, this is a huge shift from a more traditional environment where decisions and policies are created by management and given to staff and a more progressive environment where decisions are made jointly by administration and staff. The main research question was, How does an individuals positionality relate to his or her construction of leadership? (p.169). Rainville & Jones (2008) examined the work of one literacy coach, Kate, in a rural elementary school. They focus on Kates ability to position herself in the school, her identity as a coach and how power played out in her role. The researchers combine the term positionality with power. Building on work of Davis and Harre (1990), Rainville and Jones (2008) see positionality as played out in conversation. It is constructed in the ways that people speak to each other. Positions change with context and are always shifting. The main research question was: How and for what purposes did literacy coaches negotiate their varied identities in ways they felt were most beneficial for the relationships they were cultivating as well as for their longterm goals for the teachers they worked with and the school as a whole? In addition, the study

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examined the various discourses operating within the coaches work in different con- texts across a four-month period of time (p. 441)? Kate is in a difficult position in her school. The previous school year she was a teacher and colleague of the staff members. The following year (the year of the study), she is assisting and mentoring but also is privy to the private lives of classroom teachers. Kate is responsible to assist every teacher with his or her literacy programs. Although she is not an evaluator in the school, she is in a position to learn deeply about their teaching practices, their strengths and weaknesses. All of the teachers are required to work with her. The researchers describe one situation where Kate skillfully and carefully navigates the complicated territory of being both collaborator and superior. The researchers describe a second relationship in which Kate and a first grade teacher struggle for power. Kate is seen as an intruder in the classroom. The teacher withdraws from the assistance offered by Kate which keeps Kate from doing her job. She must navigate this terrain with the first grade teacher to allow him to be helped its a measure of her success as a literacy coach. The researchers recommend that the training of literacy coaches needs to extend far beyond the specific knowledge of how to teach reading. The complex task of dealing with positioning and power and colleagues who might feel threatened is vital to success in the job. Rainville & Jones recommend that literacy coaches be trained to 1) continue to build informal relationships with teachers, 2) allow space for teachers to discuss professional issues by positioning oneself as a co-learner, and 3) make clear expectations for the role of the coach in each classroom.

Literature Using Lenses Related to Positionality

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Many studies investigate issues at the heart of positionality - positioning, power, relationships, context and identity. However, these studies do not use the term positionality. I believe they are important as in-depth investigations of one aspect of the lives of teachers. They will help in showing a more accurate picture of the positioning of teachers in general and elementary general music teachers specifically. Much work has been done on one particular position in which teachers find themselves, the position of being isolated and alone. The next section of this review will focus on teacher professional isolation. In my review of the current literature on teacher isolation, I found only one article specifically focusing on this issue for music teachers. Sindberg and Lipscomb (2005) surveyed 36 teachers in Illinois randomly selected from over 4000 public school music teachers. They reported that they found no pre-existing literature investigating professional isolation and music teachers. The researchers used the definition of professional isolation offered by Robert (1973) a feeling experienced by teachers that no one cares about them or what they do (p.4). The research questions for the project were whether public school music teachers experience professional isolation or not and what teachers thought were the causes of professional isolation. The survey comprised of a group of statements related to professional isolation. The researchers found that isolation is connected to other issues such as years of teaching experience and school principal. While collaboration was indicated as a possible remedy or comforter, it was not viewed as the magic solution for all. These researchers found that some teachers felt isolated and liked it that way. Others did not. Almost all teachers reported that they wanted the ability to make the choice - to choose to work with others or to work alone. Other findings included that music teachers feel isolated in their school partly because of their subject (music) which had a negative effective on teaching.

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Extensive work that has been done about teachers outside music education (Bakkenes et al., 1999; Brooks et al., 2008; Pomson, 2005), which could inform my future work on the position of the elementary general music teacher. This section of my literature review begins with the seminal work by Dan Lortie, Schoolteacher. Dan Lorties Schoolteacher published in 1975 is credited with coining the phrase teacher isolation. Although it is a sociological study of the many facets of teachers lives and is now more than thirty-five years old, Schoolteacher is consistently cited in writings on the topic of teacher isolation. Lortie suggests three types of teacher isolation: egg crate isolation which refers to the physical set up of a school. Each teacher works alone with many children in their own classroom. Information and feelings dont go out or come in. There is no adult human contact or communication between the classrooms. This is a situation which teachers have inherited and have no power to remedy. The second, psychological isolation, describes how teachers perceive their interactions with their fellow teachers. They might be in physical proximity to one another (on the chessboard) they are still alone. Their work and its rewards are solitary. The third type of teacher isolation Lortie describes is adaptive isolation. Adaptive isolation is the behavior teachers exhibit when isolating themselves as a time management strategy. Teachers avoid contact with other adults in their schools since they are too busy preparing for lessons to socialize and confer with colleagues. The context in which teachers find themselves is high-pressured. Time is always at a premium and they feel that they do not have time to build relationships with colleagues. Flinders (1988) explains teacher isolation as a barrier to school reform. Flinders finds teachers in this study who cite their position of isolation as a problem and a barrier to collegial relationships. He finds other teachers who employ Lorties adaptive isolation as a

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defense mechanism and purposely position themselves apart from others - they are simply too overworked to connect with other teachers in meaningful ways. He reports the findings from his own qualitative study done in two high schools with six teachers three from each school. Flinders observed each of these teachers in their work environment over a period of five days and conducted recorded interviews with each one over a period of several months. He found self-imposed isolation to be common among his subjects. The isolation Flinders observed was not just the physical and social isolation that Lortie explained as egg crate and psychological isolation. It was not only adaptive isolation. It was something virtuous which was preserved at all cost by the individuals. All six participating teacher used their classroom as sanctuary during breaks as well as before and after school, remaining alone in their rooms . . . (p. 23). In her reflection journals on her own teaching, Aiken (2001) is desperate. She is completely overwhelmed by the lack of interaction with adults (Lorties egg crate isolation concept) and the lack of teacher-led classroom improvements. As an individual classroom teacher, she wields no power over how and what she is teaching. Her perspective is that teachers only get to implement the strategies that someone above her has developed. Her teaching context is stifling where she feels that there is no place for experimentation; there is no place for her to bring her own creativity to the classroom. Aiken feels that she must assume the identity of a know-it-all. In order to survive, we must often pretend we know exactly what we are doing (Akin, 2001, p.10). Bakkenes et al. (1999) studied Dutch primary schools with children ages four to twelve. Survey data was collected from eleven primary schools sharing the same school board in a city of medium size in the western part of the Netherlands. The researchers used communication network analysis which studies the ways people communicate. According to this model, people

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are categorized as a group member (communicate within a small group only), group linker (communicate within one group and to other groups) or isolate (do not communicate or only communicate with one other staff member). However, people do not stay in one category and might move and in and out of each one depending on the context. There are several identities that each person might hold. The group linkers exert the most power in their school. The researchers found that isolation can have many meanings for different people. Also, the degree to which a teacher isolates himself or herself may have to do with the task and not other factors. The identity of the teacher shifts with the context. For example, an isolate might be willing to engage others in a topic that is really important to them (work in the classroom with children) but not something unimportant to them (e.g. developing school policy or writing a mission statement). These findings were consistent with other studies using the lens of positionality in which the position of the participants changed with the setting. Brooks et al. (2008) conducted a case study in one high school. They viewed teacher isolation as one of five subcontracts of teacher alienation building on the work of the sociologist Melvin Seeman. Seeman (1959) identified five distinct variants, or sub constructs, of alienation: powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation, and estrangement. Seeman described that isolation occurred when the individuals could not adopt the values and belief system of the culture in which they found themselves. In this study by Brooks et al. (2008), the researchers found teachers who used isolation as a coping mechanism to deal with the politics in the school and as a way to manage their own disappointment with what they perceived to be school failure This connects with Lorties adaptive isolation in which isolation is a self-imposed, coping mechanism - an anecdote to a larger different problem. They assume an isolated position they move themselves away from other pieces on the chessboard. Analysis of the teacher interviews

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found three reasons for teacher isolation: the size of the school, the physical structure of the building and the departmental structure of the staff. A research study conducted in a private school had similar findings about teachers experiences of isolation. Pomson (2005) studied Jewish day schools in metropolitan Toronto, Canada. Religiously affiliated day schools are unlike public schools since each teacher shares their class with another one teacher teaches Jewish heritage in Hebrew; the other teaches core academic subjects in English. As described by Pomson, there are often disagreements between the two teachers who are assigned by school administration. Through interviews with these teachers researchers found two different experiences: too much isolation and not enough isolation (forced community). This issue of degree of connectedness among staff was found to be important and was individual. Isolation created loneliness and lack of collegiality in some instances. Forced community was also seen as equally detrimental to teacher satisfaction in their professional lives. Teachers felt in a position of powerlessness with little or no autonomy. Some other participants explained that they felt the issue of connectedness as a staff (too much or too little autonomy) did not affect student success but affected them as people. The desire to be part of a collegial staff and have close personal relationships with their fellow teachers was destroyed by not being allowed to choose whom they collaborate with and not being left to function as autonomous professionals. Another study found that one subgroup of educators, first-year special education teachers, were not interested in the right to choose their colleagues or teacher autonomy. They were mostly concerned with having mentorship and a community from which to draw support. Schlichte, Yssel & Merbler (2005) studied five first year special education teachers and found isolation and loneliness to be common themes in the interviews. The attrition of first year special

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education teachers is high. Factors cited for this include the teaching demands of instruction, mounting paperwork, the lack of a supportive teacher community and mentorship. In one interview a teacher remarked, I dont feel supported. Ive just been placed here and dumped (p.38). There were positive moments in the lives of these new teachers but overall the workload, lack of administration support and lack of a professional community, caused many of them to feel helpless, stressed, powerless and alone. Teacher confidence and self-esteem was compromised throughout their first year and several had decided not to stay in the profession. The researchers recommend the following strategies be in place to support special education teachers new to the profession based on this study: 1) a teacher mentor, 2) a team to work with, 3) supportive administration and 4) positive student-teacher relationships. The primacy of relationships - between the teacher, their administrators, colleagues, students and families - was key to teacher success and retention. Similar recommendations to these were found in Rogers and Babinski (2002) who reported forming collegial groups as professional development to reduce isolation for new teachers. Blair (2008) found that forming a professional community of practice allowed first year teachers to deal with district evaluation procedures and class management issues. DiPietro & Pizam (2008) used the lens of alienation to study a non-teaching population 585 quick service restaurant workers in the US. The researchers defined alienated people as people who are unattached with their work and their environment and thus are normless and isolated individuals. Like Brooks et al. (2008), DiPietro & Pizam (2008) used the work of Melvin Seeman. Using Seemans (1967) work alienation scale, the researchers found that feelings of alienation were more common in hourly employees, males, those who were younger, those who were more educated and African Americans. Researchers suggest that level of work

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alienation related not to the nature of the job or use of technology but the management style of supervisors in each setting (restaurant).

Conclusion Positionality is a useful lens for viewing the lives of elementary general music teachers. The lens itself is very complex with many nuances such as power, place, shifting identities and context. This is appropriate given the complex life of any individual. My study of the lives of elementary general music teachers - a sub group of teachers and a sub group of music educators will benefit from such a lens. Elementary general music teachers hold elements of each group. Of course, each teacher is also an individual and brings his or her own strengths and weaknesses to the job. I believe this literature review has illuminated the position of professionals in a variety of settings. Once positionality is used to observe and understand the role of where you stand, it uncovers many realities of which people had been unaware. Positionality and its related ideas shed light on the situation of many of the individuals in the research projects reviewed. Issues of community continue to weave in and out of the stories of the participants through the presence of friend groups at school or formal and informal PLCs. The ways in which individuals negotiate these identities (sometimes making the best of it, learning how to come out on top or suffering alone) are important components of their professional lives. All of the other voices in the studies of this review are telling of the kinds of data that I may collect from my own colleagues during this research project.

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