Chapter 1
Embracing âthe strangerâ in us
Heterogeneity and ambivalent ways of being in classrooms
Anna P. Rainio, Kaisu Mälkki and Marita Mäkinen
DOI: 10.4324/9781003093053-11
Introduction
Since World Declaration on Education for All (UNESCO, 1990), there have been both policy-driven and educational efforts to ensure equal access, participation and learning for all students in inclusive settings (e.g., Ainscow, 2020; Mittler, 2006; Sharma, Loreman, & Forlin, 2012). However, implementing inclusive education is not an easy task and requires schools to develop ways of teaching that respond to the needs of all students (e.g., Ainscow, 2020). Another critical issue concerning inclusive teaching is the experiences of increasingly demanding workloads for teachers (e.g., Gray, Wilcox, & Nordstokke, 2017; Forlin & Chambers, 2011). Therefore, as schools should provide a place for social and emotional learning and well-being for all students and teachers, there is a serious call for recognising students and teachers as heterogeneous and diverse individuals with different individual needs, emotions and ways of being (see i.e., Rosebery, Ogonowski, DiSchino, & Warren, 2010; Waitoller & Artiles, 2013).
Such orientation is not, however, easily taken into practice. Research shows that schools and classrooms struggle with issues like student disengagement (Bronkhorst & Akkerman, 2016), lack of school resources (e.g., Chiner & Cardona, 2013) and teacher competence and efficacy beliefs (e.g., Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2007). If we are to support teachers and children to tackle these issues and embrace the heterogeneity so central for learning, we need to take a deeper look into the actual processes and challenges that both the teachers and students face when they try to sustain and support these heterogeneous, diverse ways of participation in regulative institutions such as schools.
Sociocultural studies that build on Lev Vygotskyâs legacy have noted for the last 20 years that emotions and interpersonal relationships are central in understanding learning (see, e.g., Ferholt, 2018; Morcom, 2014; Goldstein, 1999). Yet, we have only little knowledge of how to develop teacher capacity to be responsive to studentsâ social and emotional needs as part of their pedagogic activities. Previous research has suggested that the way teachers consciously approach (that is, reflect) their work and pedagogy bears relevance to the quality of teaching in heterogeneous classrooms (e.g., Darling-Hammond, 2006, 2016; Talvio & Lonka, 2019). A sociocultural frame has been seen as fruitful in supporting not only teacher ability to embrace heterogeneity but also teachersâ work-related well-being in inclusive settings (e.g., Liu, Song, & Miao, 2018; Mäkinen, 2013).
Mäkinen (2013) empirically analysed teachersâ âpedagogical teaching stancesâ in inclusive classrooms and she found that teachers who emphasised what she calls a âtransformative teaching stanceâ were better off in terms of constructively drawing on the challenges faced particularly in inclusive, diverse and demanding school contexts. This transformative teaching stance involved that the teachers saw their professionalism in a broader sociocultural frame, considering both the object and subject of their work as well as the pedagogy itself. The object of their work was not restricted only to subject matter and didactic-pedagogical perspectives that are commonly seen as the core of teachersâ work. They saw the core of their work in relation to societal issues such as advancing equality, collaboration and childrenâs well-being for example. These teachers saw themselves as agentive subjects, part of a collective of professionals working towards transforming school as a professional learning community (Mäkinen, 2013; see also DuFour, 2007; Bandura, 1997). Pedagogically, the transformative teaching stance could be illustrated by the sociocultural notion âwe can, we help, we learn and teach togetherâ as opposed to a âyou can, I help, you succeed and learnâ approach that focuses on the individual (Mäkinen & Mäkinen, 2011; Sharma et al., 2012). Mäkinen (2013) indicated that teachers who had embodied this kind of transformative orientation to their work that notedly draw on values and reflexivity seemed better off in terms of their work-related well-being (see, also, Behizadeh, Thomas, & Cross, 2019; Berghoff, Blackwell, & Wisehart, 2011; Rainio & Hofmann, 2021).
Teacher responses in heterogeneous pedagogical settings have been researched also from the perspective of ambivalence by looking at situations in which the student is hesitating between involvement in classroom practices and withdrawal from them, which often are by the teacher experienced as disturbance or challenging behaviour. What is central is being able to embrace and draw on ambivalence instead of aiming to close it down. Different play- and art-based approaches have been proved productive for creating a shared imaginary space for the teacher and children where they are able to work with ambivalence as a source of agency for both (see Rainio & Marjanovic-Shane, 2013; Ferholt & Rainio, 2016). Furthermore, to work with ambivalence, teacher reflection and especially work on the experienced edge-emotions (Mälkki, 2011; Mälkki, Mälkki, & Rainio, 2016; Rainio & Mälkki, 2018) arising when teachersâ given ways of thinking and action become challenged is crucial in order to support heterogeneous participation. Furthermore, this kind of working with ambivalence has been noted to be a demanding process and more research is needed to provide support for teachers in adopting this kind of working method.
In this study we examine a real-life case from a Finnish early primary school classroom that illuminates embracing heterogeneity in classroom interaction: how the teacher and student(s) together create space for ambivalent and heterogeneous ways of being in the classroom that support their emotional and social well-being. We aim to bring out the essential moments of choice, challenge and support involved in this delicate dynamic of harnessing heterogeneity â of embracing the stranger (cf. Bauman, 1991) â in both the student and the teacher. Our study aims at providing teachers with new tools and understandings that help in the complex task of embracing heterogeneity and ambivalence in classroom settings.
Expressing ambivalence â the student struggle to belong in challenging classroom contexts
The sociocultural view of the concept of ambivalence focuses on how individuals may gain agency within structural circumstances. That is, the moments of ambivalence â for example a studentâs hesitance or withdrawal from contact and simultaneous willingness to participate, belong and seek contact through unconventional ways â are not seen only as a challenge, but on the contrary, pivotal from the viewpoint of more heterogeneous forms of student engagement and inclusion (Rainio & Marjanovic-Shane, 2013; Ferholt & Rainio, 2016; Rainio & Mälkki, 2018). The ability to embrace ambivalence, to learn from it, is seen as key to understanding how to support heterogeneity in classrooms productively and constructively. In this way the sociocultural reading of ambivalence moves beyond the individualâs psychological state or personal history (psychological view on ambivalence) and avoids the purely structural analysis of social conditions outside of individual control (sociological reading on ambivalence). Instead, ambivalent actions are situated at the concrete local, sociocultural situation in which the individuals interact that both constrains and enables their possibilities.
A sociocultural reading of ambivalence can be seen to bridge the psychological and sociological literature on ambivalence. A psychological viewpoint considers ambivalence as an individual state of mind that involves having two minds or being torn between opposing feelings (such as love and hate) towards a person, an object or an idea. From the perspective of social and emotional learning, ambivalence has been seen as a phenomenon in the area of human self-awareness. People recognise simultaneously various kinds of sometimes opposing feelings built on layered structures like iceberg, of which some are recognisable and visible and some are hidden (Gordon, 2003).
The sociological framing on the other hand focuses on ambivalence as arising from contradicting social structures: when an actor is faced with a specific situation that âsimultaneously values opposing courses of action that are rooted within the social structureâ (Connidis & McMullin, 2002, p. 563). Sigmund Bauman (1991) sees ambivalence as a product or a consequence of modernity, âas a condition of our modern beingâ following from an (impossible) effort to remove uncertainty and turn the chaotic in human lives into well-ordered and controlled behaviour, for example, by rules and regulations. With regard to education, he offers an analysis of how our school system, in its effort for homogeneity and control of individual behaviour, represents this modern effort and produces ambivalence. Several educational researchers since Bauman have then further discussed how this long for homogeneity and order turns into challenges of engagement, following with disengagement and even dropout (see, i.e., Kramer Schlosser, 1992; Bronkhorst & Akkerman, 2016). These challenges can be traced back to the contradictory but simultaneously existing tasks of the school as a regulative and selective system that both aims to control masses and support individuals to reach their fullest potential (McNeil, 1986; Bourdieu & Passeron, 2000; Rainio, 2010). This discrepancy continues to cause certain ambivalence within a Western school, a system that has challenges of accepting what Bauman (1991) calls the existence of âthe stranger in usâ.
In our sociocultural reading of the concept, we move beyond the previously described divide between the individual-psychological and structural-sociological frame and instead examine how the individuals gain agency within these structural circumstances. In this way, it becomes possible to study and develop ways to support heterogeneity in classrooms productively and constructively by embracing ambivalence and learning from it.
If we recognise that a school system itself partly produces this ambivalence for individuals through its contradictory efforts, functions and desires (for both control and homogeneity as well as for inclusion of multiple lifeworlds), the expressions of ambivalence by individuals become sensible. They can even become fruitful starting points for promoting inclusion and engagement that recognises and accepts ambivalence instead of trying to avoid it. For example, play-based methods that utilise childrensâ skillful use of their embodied imagination is proved as promising for promoting engagement that is ambivalent and heterogeneous (Ferholt & Rainio, 2016). The challenge is that at the individual level the experience of this kind of ambivalence is often expressed by students through behaviours that may seem or often even are disruptive, resistant and disrespectful to adults (Ferholt & Rainio, 2016). This may easily lead to exclusive practices with further disengagement (also see Mälkki et al., 2016) and make it difficult for teachers to recognise the potential of ambivalent behaviour for heterogeneity. In order to work with ambivalence constructively, teachers need concrete pedagogical support and tools. We will next introduce the theory of teacher reflection to develop such tools in this paper.
Validating edge-emotions â the teacherâs pedagogical struggle in challenging classroom contexts
To consider the student expressions of ambivalence as resulting partially from the structural discrepancies of school and society (as opposed to viewing them, for example, as intentional acts of disrespect from the part of the student), may sound easy on paper but can be difficult to apply in the midst of the daily hassles of classroom practice. From the viewpoint of the teacher, the ambivalent situations often are indications of the teacherâs plans or expectations becoming challenged: disruptive, resistant or disrespectful behaviours may represent the opposite to what the teacher wished to happen in a classroom situation. They often represent disturbances to the plans and to what was expected to happen in the class (Mälkki et al., 2016).
The situation of emergent pedagogical challenge may evoke unpleasant emotions in the teacher that bring about innate resistance towards reflection. These edge-emotions (Mälkki, 2011)1 represent an innate human response to situations where we experience our assumptions â e.g., taken-for-granted ways of thinking, feeling and doing, values or sense of acceptance âchallenged. They stem from the biological life-support system (e.g., Damasio, 1999) that protects the structures of our minds by which our thinking operates. That is, the edge-emotions â e.g., frustration, fear, anger, shame, guilt, anxiety â tend to orient us to avoid dealing with issues that would undermine our worldview, identities and sense of coherence, as opposed to deepening understanding of the internal or external situational context. Consequently, our thinking tends to orient towards returning to our âcomfort zonesâ where we no longer experience our assumptions being questioned by avoiding embracing the edge-emotions (Mälkki, 2...
