Abstract:
A substantial body of literature discusses the complexity of integrating technology in
teachers’ pedagogical practices (Mishra & Koehler, 2006). The literature over the last two
decades, specifically suggests that teachers and teacher educators have shown limited
pedagogical changes regardless of their frequent use of technologies in their teaching.
However, the literature overlooks the impact teachers’ culture may have when
investigating their use of technologies in their practices. Bourdieu (1977) argues that
people’s practices are embodied within their cultures; hence they form habitus through
their past and present experiences, both consciously and unconsciously. I argue that
teachers’ pedagogical and technological practices cannot be fully understood without
considering the social and cultural norms of their specific cultures. My thesis aims to
explain the impact of Maldivian teacher educators’ culture and background on their
pedagogical and technological practices. The main research question therefore is: How do
teacher educators’ pedagogical and technological practices form in the Maldives? Subquestions
arising from this are:
1) What are the social and cultural learning norms that influenced teacher educators’
use of technologies in their pedagogy?
2) How does the institutional context influence teacher educators’ use of
technologies in their pedagogical practice?
3) How do teacher educators form their pedagogical and technological practice?
My research used an ethnographic methodology, linked with Bourdieu’s (1977) habitus
as a lens for exploring teacher educators’ practices in the Maldives. Data were gathered
from eleven teacher educators who work in a Maldivian university context: using
interviews, observations, focus groups and the hanging out approach. The findings were
generated through grounded theory for capturing an in-depth understanding of how these
teacher educators’ pedagogical and technological practices were formed. Key findings
demonstrated that teacher educators’ pedagogical and technological practices were
influenced by their own culture, early learning experiences in the Maldives, and their
workplace (institutional context). The study revealed that these teacher educators
selected and used specific digital technologies available in their workplace to deliver
content. As a result, they formed their pedagogical (content-oriented) and technological
(PowerPoint-assisted) cultural habitus that most often mirrored their existing pedagogical
thinking.
This study has contributed to the research field by recognising the impact of these teacher
educators’ culture and background on their pedagogical and technological practices. It
fills a critical gap (i.e. a connection between technology use, pedagogy, and culture)
which has been neglected in the technology integration research and models. My research
therefore, contributes a PATCH framework for understanding teacher educators’
pedagogical and technological habitus and an additional layer into the TPACK
framework to represent teacher’s PATCH. Through applying Bourdieu’s habitus lens, I
have devised a conceptual framework for investigating pedagogical contexts, an outline
of ethnographic process and an analysis model for understanding qualitative data using
various technological tools.
