{"id":23,"date":"2023-01-26T22:26:27","date_gmt":"2023-01-26T22:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.mscde.education.ed.ac.uk\/katemolloy\/?p=23"},"modified":"2023-01-27T14:03:32","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T14:03:32","slug":"structure-vs-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.mscde.education.ed.ac.uk\/katemolloy\/2023\/01\/26\/structure-vs-agency\/","title":{"rendered":"Structure vs. Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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On your blog, reflect on where you started and where you are now in your career. What have been the structural constraints or indeed privileges that have shaped your life? How, if at all, have they influenced your progress in your education or professional development?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflect on your own technical capital or lack of it. Has it enhanced your agency? Has anything else enhanced your agency<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

To begin with, this is quite a timely topic for me right now. I’ve been at my university for seven and a half years, and have just finished a national-level three-and-a-half-year project. Things in our T&L centre are tumultuous right now, and for the first time in a long time, I’m considering other options due to the uncertainty, and the ongoing precarity of my employment. I know I’ll have a lot to say here, so I will try my best to address the theory rather than ranting about the situation! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Structure and Its Impact<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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It is in fact impossible to account for the structure and functioning of the social world unless one reintroduces capital in all its forms and not solely in the one form recognized by economic theory. <\/p>\n(Bourdieu, 1986)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I began my career as a secondary teacher in 2005, and have not worked outside of education since I was a teenager. I am an educator. It’s part of my identity, and I care deeply about it. My move into higher education was an accident. I took a three-month summer contract at the university to cover someone that kept getting extended, and I obviously had the passion and skillset to do the job. In 2016, I secured a 0.5 permanent contract and have always been topped up with project funding and other creative uses of funding ever since. In the beginning, I felt as though I was being invested in, but as time has worn on, it’s become clear that our local management has decided to invest in more junior colleagues. This has come from a place of fickle favouritism. I’ve been told it’s because they have families ( I’m single with no children, so I don’t have the same responsibilities) though I do have caring and financial responsibilities for two relatives. And yes, I know this is unethical and bad practice, but reflecting on the situation will help me reflect on my own capital. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since my teaching career, my lack of cultural capital has often caused me to be passed over. In Ireland, having stature in the community trumps academic achievements. I would have been much more employable in a school if I had been involved in sport (GAA), music, or been a part of a prominent family. I actually had a principal ask me who my father was once, and it genuinely took me a minute to get my head around the question because it was so unexpected. At the time, the teacher who I was covering for was the daughter of a local builder, with brothers very active in sport and the community. I had initially thought I’d left this barrier behind in higher ed, but now I see it creeping back in as others are seen to ‘need’ the job more than I do due to family circumstances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am the only child of a single mother, I call her that because my parents divorced when I was young. She sacrificed a lot to ensure that I had an education, but when I wanted to pursue my PhD in my 20s, my precarious contracts and lack of family support proved to be a barrier. I couldn’t manage it financially and was overwhelmed with other responsibilities. I am attempting to self-fund this course because I don’t want to let my manager know I’m doing it, and I’m conscious that if I leave my job I won’t have to owe anything back to the university. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proving that history does repeat itself, my mother and I moved to the States when I was a teenager after she lost her teaching hours in the local school. They were given to a woman from a prominent local family, and because we had an American connection, the principal told my mother that she’d be better off, and the similarities to my current circumstances are eerily and infuriatingly familiar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet in being as open about all of those personal circumstances, I’m hyper-conscious that I have all of the privileges of a white woman with a decent education in a relatively well-paying job, and I’m also conscious that while I’ve struggled due to structural constraints, I also posses some cultural capital due to my education. That capital is what most removes me from the rural Ireland and the community where I live and elevates me toward the academic space, yet I’m also aware that I don’t posess quite<\/em> the cultural capital to truly ‘be’ an academic, and thus I occupy a third space like many in my field do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capital<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Maton comments<\/a>, \u2018This equation can be unpacked as stating: one\u2019s practice results from relations between one\u2019s dispositions (habitus) and one\u2019s position in a field (capital), within the current state of play of that social arena (field) (2014: 51).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Based on the readings this week, and my rushed attempt to put my critical hat back on, I’ve realised that much of my own capital, be it social, cultural, or symbolic has been cultivated and earned over time, and has certainly changed throughout my career. I’ve been labouring over this post more than necessary, and I think it’s because I’m trying to unpack everything into neat sections covering the terminology, when in reality, these concepts will eventually underpin the critical reflections in these blog posts and help me to analyse my practice with a new depth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But to return to the point, my technical capital is a bit complicated. I come from a background where I didn’t have access to a computer until I was nearly finished with school. In fact, when we moved to the States and all school projects and papers had to be typed, my mother would take me to the library where she would type my handwritten work while I wandered around. She taught typing, so it was quicker for her to type the work to make the best use of the limited computer time we had. When we finally got a home PC, it was because she paid on that 8GB IBM over monthly so I could have it. I also have very little formal training in technology, and have been largely self-taught since we got that PC. I know from experience that I am on par or even ahead of colleagues in relation to my skills, but it’s not always seen that way due to my teaching background. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agency\/Structure<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I find that the tension between agency and structure resonates with me, and while I’ve often focused my own work on nurturing and support the agency of the staff and students I work with, it’s useful to have to reflect on my own. While I’ve outlined many of the barriers I’ve faced in my own career in this post, I also have some affordances. I’m earned a certain amount of freedom because I simply do good work and work hard, and it’s understood that I’m truly interested and passionate about what I do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, some of the more operational work I do isn’t of my choosing, and certainly doesn’t align with my values. For instance, I was recently told I’d be leading our Learning Technologies team on the move from Blackboard to Canvas. I’m not particularly interested in any corporate VLE, and I’d love to do more critical research about Instructure, but at the end of the day, our T&L committee have made the decision, and it’s my role to support it. I’ve decided that a pragmatic approach is best, and that I can keep my crtical hat on while still supporting our staff during an uncertain time. <\/p>\n\n\n

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First Issue of Edupunk Magazine – coming to you through weekly posts and ramblings!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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\u201cThe issue with the VLE is that things go there to die\u201d @hey_km<\/a> #amen<\/a> #OER19<\/a><\/p>— Jim Groom (@jimgroom) April 11, 2019<\/a><\/blockquote>