2021 Volume 88 Issue 2 Pages 259-272
This study examines issues in pedagogic transfer by exploring the "recontextualization" of lesson study (LS) in an Indonesian junior high school. While LS was introduced as a best practice motivated by global educational reform, foreign implementation faced challenges. Teachers interpret educational innovations in the local context; thus, their meanings fluctuate from setting to setting. Therefore, the study problematizes the issues of education transfer and examines gaps in policy and practice as an issue of “recontextualization.” Based on fieldwork and data analysis using the grounded theory approach, the study provides sociological analysis on the institutional regulation of teachers' practice.
First, the study examined the professional accountabilities of teachers at SMP Sari and presented how they prioritized the collective interest of the teacher community. Teachers were collectively held accountable for the bureaucratic responsibility of carrying out school programs and the social responsibility of protecting social harmony. Both responsibilities encouraged teachers to conform to the social norms and discouraged them from acting autonomously.
Then, using Bernstein's theory of pedagogic discourse, the study analyzed the institutional regulation of teachers' pedagogic choices. In pedagogic discourse, instructional discourse (ID), which concerns the content of instruction, is embedded in regulative discourse (RD), which concerns the social order of classrooms. Javanese teachers identified their teaching responsibility as the transmission of the state-designated curriculum for exam preparation. Thus, they used didactic methods and intervened minimally in student learning. This suggests that bureaucratic accountability strongly regulated teachers' practice in terms of ID (what to teach) but not RD (how to teach).
Finally, the study examined two issues of the recontextualization of lesson study. The continuities/discontinuities between daily teaching and teaching in LS at SMP Sari were examined as the first issue of recontextualization. While the purpose, methods, and activities differed in LS from those of daily practice, there was consistency in how teachers interacted with students. Although teachers introduced group activities, they instructed in one way and did not provide scaffolding. The content of the post-lesson discussion concentrated on the effectiveness of teacher instruction, and there was no discussion on how students learned. A comparison of educational settings in Japan and Java was analyzed as the second issue of recontextualization. The study examined different understandings in professional accountabilities, teachers' responsibilities for students' learning, and the nature of collegiality in Java and Japan. In the Javanese setting, LS functioned as a teacher evaluation, whereas in Japan, it functioned as a place to share and understand student learning.
These issues of recontextualization raised an important point: professional accountabilities are socially constructed, and teachers' pedagogic concerns and choices were influenced by a shared understanding of what constitutes their professional responsibilities. In introducing LS, efforts to fill contextual gaps and to hold teachers accountable for how to teach (RD)—especially to motivate teachers for scaffolding—were needed. The discussion also includes the implications of recontextualization in pedagogic transfer for Japanese schools.
