Building whose capacities and capital, furthering whose fields and promoting whose interests?: interrogating identity, influence and innovation in and through publishing a research book about English teachers of travellers

Abstract

The publication of a research book about English teachers of Travellers (Danaher, Coombes & Kiddle, 2007) stimulates reflection about whose capacities are built and whose interests are promoted by such publication. In the fields of universities and publishing companies, the authors and publisher clearly benefit through the acquisition of economic and perhaps of cultural and/or symbolic capital. In the field of Traveller education, hopefully the distinctive issues of educational provision for mobile communities are brought to greater prominence. In the field of teachers’ work, teachers’ interests might be served by a book sympathetic to their multiple pressures and achievements. This paper deploys Bourdieu’s concepts of capital and field to interrogate the intended impact of the book’s writing and publication. Identity is examined through the dual foci of the research participants and the authors; influence is considered with reference to Traveller education scholarship; and innovation is interpreted through the teachers’ work in the Traveller Education Support Services. The paper presents the argument that capital and field highlight the fluid and mobile character of identity, influence and innovation in educational research. In particular, researchers who aspire to use their research to contribute to building the capacities and promoting the interests of research participants and their communities must recognise the multiple and competing currencies and exchange rates operating within and across forms of capital and fields of power. Reference Danaher, P. A., Coombes, P. N., & Kiddle, C. (2007). _Teaching Traveller children: Maximising learning outcomes_. Stoke on Trent, UK and Sterling, VA: Trentham Books.