In this presentation Dr Tom Richardson & Dr Natasa Pantic provide an overview of the ‘TEAMS’ project (Teaching that Matters for Migrant Students). In this 2020-2023 project, researchers gathered data from 7 schools in 3 countries (Scotland, Sweden and Finland) to map teachers’ and other school staff collaborative networks around supporting migrant students, both socially and academically, and fostering their ‘sense of belonging’ in the host schools, using data collected with multiple tools. These included:

• ‘TRAC’ log (Teacher reflections on their agency for change)
• TEAMS social networks questionnaire (Social Network Analysis)
• Student surveys
• PAM (Professional Agency Measure)

They discuss how the research was carried out across the 3 countries underpinned by the concept of ‘relational agency’ – teachers’ purposeful interactions around migrant support (Edwards, 2010).

The outputs include network visualisations which provide an engaging way of ‘seeing’ the collaborative interactions that look differently in different schools, indicating for example how specialist support is used as recourse for teachers themselves and for supporting migrant students.

The seminar can be viewed below:

References

Edwards, A. Relational agency: working with other practitioners. Being an Expert Professional Practitioner. (2010); Netherlands: Springer. 61–79.