Abstracts - Earli

This longitudinal study comes about with the foci put on first, investigating my professionaldevelopment journey as the panel head and curriculum planner of Personal Social and HumanitiesEducation Key Learning Area (PSHE KLA) in a local new school. Second, exploring how thegained experience can be explained by "professional learning community" (Myers & Simpson,1998) and "community of practice" (Wenger, 1998). This study used an autoethnographicapproach and was conducted under the framework of participatory action research. Criticalincidents were collected for interpretive analysis and triangulation of the research findings. As amatter of fact, local teachers are not encouraged to engage in systematic longitudinal research toenhance their professional development or satisfy their professional needs. The values of thisstudy, therefore, grounded on the belief that it can help myself and colleagues in the sameprofession to acquire propositional, procedural or disposition knowledge that are needed toimprove teaching practices; generate outcomes that can help improve students’ learning andteachers’ teaching; contribute to the establishment of the school "professional learningcommunity" and "community of practice"; help generate experiences for other practicing teachersto conduct reflective teaching and enkindle the local and collective professional understandings ofteacher practices in the local contexts. Since the collection of the interview data is still in progress,the interpretive data analysis, based on the written data collected, is at the preliminary stage only.The results to be presented are mainly narrative account derived from the initial understanding ofthe learning process that the researcher and her colleagues engaged in during the study period.Promoting spaces for professional subjectivities and personal agency in work organisations:Long-term influences of an empowerment programmeSalme Hanninen, University of Jyväskylä, FinlandAnneli Eteläpelto, University of Jyväskylä, FinlandLearning for and through work has been often reduced as the acquisition of skills and knowledge.However, novel demands and challenges at work often necessitate the promotion of worker’sprofessional identity and subjectivity. This is not always possible within the work organisations,where the organisational culture and narrow work roles may restrict wider dialogue needed forpersonal changes. We thus need procedures and programmes, which could promote individualempowerment outside the organisational constraints. However, the main question in suchprogrammes is their effectiveness and influence on subjects’ work orientations in authentic workcontexts. This study addresses the influences of a subject-driven empowerment programmeorganised outside the work organisation. The programme was aimed to increase subjects’ personalagency and professional subjectivities at work. Participants of the program were 19 middle-agednurses, physiotherapists, and secretaries of a central hospital. The programme consisted of 12 daysin one year working as a whole group and as sub-goups between. Subjects’ own competenies,work philosophy, and the culture of work organisation were analysed. The programme utilizedcreative methods, such as psychodrama and sociodrama, visual arts, and narrations. Multimethoddata collection used videotaping, questionnaires, and portfolios. Follow-up data were collected 6,12 and 48 months after the programme. Theoretical approach was informed by subject-centredtheories of identity. Becoming empowered was thus understood to manifest as subject’sexperience of his or her inner strength, as increased self-awareness and self-respect, and as anincreased capability to social interaction. This poster describes how the influences of theempowerment programme were manifested in the long run after participating the programme. Weespecially focus on subjects’ redefinition of their professional identities at their work contexts.– 450 –