Developing an ecological sensitivity in searching for evidence about professionals' agency in educational practices. Reflections from a case study

This contribution proposes a reflection upon the development of ecological sensitivity in inquiring the educators' agency in two Municipality-led after-school programmes in NE Italy. Ecological sensitivity is a researcher's disposition to maintain an encompassing perspective during the fieldwork, in order to highlight the 'gravitational world' [1] that impacts over the educators' agency in their daily practice. As a consequence, ecological sensitivity is the researcher's constant attitude of critical inspection on the relevance of context in analysing human activity. In developing an ecological sensitivity during the fieldwork, the researcher keeps an enlarged focus   of   observation   to   connect   the   educators’   agency   to   their   past   experience and motives in practice, the complex texture of the situation at hand, the tools and the events in the setting. In this proposal, I discuss the recognition of the gravitational forces that affect the educators' agency in a case study research, by focussing on two interactional situations emerging in the context of a Municipality-led "Schooling Integrative Support",   which   are   specifically   designed   services   to   support   the   children’s homework duties. I select situations as the relevant units of analysis to support ecological sensitivity because they contain all the characterising elements of a given activity and the specific contingencies in which the educators' agency unfolds. Situations are interactions that are nested within institutional activities and are based   on   children’s   emergent   interests   and   improvisations.   The   educators   interpret   the ongoing situation and intentionally act in order to achieve educational objectives by recognising constraints and resources in the setting, through the use of specific repertoires of practice. In the two different situations presented in this contribution, the different paths of the  educators’  agency  are  analysed  in  terms  of  their  relations  with the repertoires of practice,  the  nature  of  the  school  tasks  and  the  educators’  positionality  in  relation  to   their institutional mandate, as well as to the schoolteachers. The development of an ecological sensitivity in the case study research can improve the analysis of professional agency by highlighting: - the different paths that professional agency can follow in a single institutional practice; - the complex and conflicting relationships among different educational practices and the overwhelming role of schooling in other activities; - the potential directions for participatory action research, based upon ecologically valid  evidence  of  the  practitioners’  professional  experience.