The first step in education's long road to respectability lay in the ability of its proponents to demonstrate that it was worthy of collaborating with traditional disciplines in the syllabus of higher learning. The universities where the infant discipline of education was promoted benefited from scholars who engaged in teaching and research with enthusiasm and preached the gospel of scientific education. These schools-Teachers College/Columbia University, the University of Chicago, and Stanford University-gained a reputation as oases of pedagogical knowledge. Soon, public (...) and private colleges alike introduced professional academic programs for the preparation of teachers. Foremost among the subjects for these programs was education philosophy, with its long history and the impeccable credentials of its ancient and modern expositors. Although the principal focus of this study is the history of educational philosophy in colleges and universities, it also recognizes educational philosophy's antecedents. Chapters cover ancient roots, Christian educational theory, educational theory and the modern world, philosophy and education in early America, development of philosophies of education, disciplinary maturity for educational philosophy, and prospects. There is a bibliography and an index. (shrink)

Lawrence Kohlberg's Approach to Moral Education presents what the late Lawrence Kohlberg regarded as the definitive statement of his educational theory. Addressing the sociology and social psychology of schooling, the authors propose that school culture become the center of moral education and research. They discuss how schools can develop as just and cohesive communities by involving students in democracy, and they focus on the moral decisions teachers and students face as they democratically resolve problems. As the authors put it: "...we (...) propose an educational renewal of our democratic society.... We have attempted to establish schools that do more than just teach about democratic citizenship, that are themselves democratic societies.". (shrink)

Since public schooling was introduced in the nineteenth century, teachers in many western countries have endeavoured to achieve professional recognition. For a short period in the latter part of the twentieth century, professionalism was seen as a discourse of resistance or the ‘enemy’ of economic rationalism and performativity. However, more recently, governments have responded by ‘colonizing’ professionalism and imposing ‘standards’ whereby the concept is redefined. In this study, we analyse transcripts of interviews with 20 Queensland teachers and conclude that teachers’ (...) notions of professionalism in this second decade of the twenty-first century are effectively reiterations of nineteenth century disciplinary technologies (as proposed by Michel Foucault) yet are enacted in new ways. (shrink)

Teacher emotion, an important aspect of language teacher psychology, has recently drawn growing attention in language teacher development studies. Previous research has shown that language teachers, typically pressured by heavy workloads, may face emotional challenges from multiplied sources, especially in the context of educational changes such as curriculum reform and the COVID-19 emergency. Current literature on teachers’ emotions largely centers around ordinary language teachers, with teacher leaders whose agentic actions often exert greater influence on the effectiveness (...) of educational changes rarely examined. Situated in a top-tier research university that has been promoting an English for Academic Purposes reform to enhance its science students’ multilingual competence in academic contexts, this longitudinal case study tracked the emotional trajectory of an English teacher, Lea, for 5 years. Adopting an ecological perspective, our study confirms that language teachers’ emotions vary across the reform ecosystems and extends the current inquiry by conceptualizing the intricately interrelated teacher emotion, agency, power, and identity as dynamic constructs. This study also reveals how the reform-inflected emotional changes were associated with Lea’s EAP teacher and teacher leader identity construction, with both identities reinforcing each other, which to some extent reconciled Lea’s emotional tensions. Our study bears significant implications for language teachers involved in educational reform, teacher leaders, and school administrators. (shrink)

Teacher action and change is a complex and nuanced phenomenon that has been theorized across diverse literature in terms of identity, agency, and power. Drawing on this literature, this article offers specific articulations of teacher identity as interpretive framework, power as legitimate action, and agency as moral coherence. We posit a model of teacher agency understood in the interplay of individual beliefs, values, and ideals with institutional roles, authority, and institutional action, producing (or not producing) (...) authentic action. This model draws a distinction between agency and power, and highlights dynamics of equilibrium and discord that may emerge between who teachers are and what they do. The agentive triad model serves as a theoretical tool for guiding or supporting teacher growth and agentive action, and for understanding the dynamics between institutionally legitimized roles and teacher identities. (shrink)

Essays on The Soul's Logical Life in the Work of Wolfgang Giegerich: Psychology as the Discipline of Interiority is the second collection of essays dedicated to the study and application of Psychology as the Discipline of Interiority - a new 'wave' within Analytical Psychology which pushes off from the work of C. G. Jung and James Hillman. Reflecting upon the notion of psychology developed by German psychoanalyst Wolfgang Giegerich, whose Hegelian turn sheds light on the notion of soul, or the (...) objective psyche, and its inner logic and 'thought', forming a radical new basis from which to ground a modern psychology with soul. The book explores the theme of "the soul's logical life" as it displays itself in various modern phenomena, from overwhelming anxiety, cryptocurrency, the dreams of Japanese college students, and contemporary psychoanalysis, to myth, music, social movements, and the question and relevance of truth in psychology and consciousness. The authors, comprising clinical psychologists, teachers, Jungian analysts, and international scholars, aim to reveal and convey the dialectical inner workings and speculative logic of the modern soul. Essays on The Soul's Logical Life in the Work of Wolfgang Giegerich: Psychology as the Discipline of Interiority will be essential reading for depth and clinical psychologists, Jungian psychoanalysts, and academics and students of post-Jungian studies, and for all those interested in what it means to think in the highly sophisticated and technological world of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Whilst care imperatives have arisen across the breadth of Western societies, within the education sector they appear both prolific and urgent. This paper explores the deployment of care discourses within education generally and draws upon the case of Australian Health and Physical Education (HPE) more specifically, to undertake a Foucauldian interrogation of care. In so doing I demonstrate the usefulness of Foucault's pastoral power lens and its capacity to provide insight into the moral and ethical work conducted by caring (...) teachers on behalf of the state (Acker, 1995). Following a brief overview of the advocacy, challenges and debates surrounding the issue of caring teaching within education, I draw on the work of Hunter (1994) and three case studies from a genealogical interrogation of HPE that employed Foucualt's ethical fourfold as a heuristic device to reveal the ethical practices and objectives of the good HPE teacher. Drawing on this genealogical work, I argue that HPE teachers and their colleagues have been purposefully incited to constitute themselves as agents of pastoral power. From this Foucauldian perspective, I conclude with an exploration of the unintended and possibly ‘dangerous’ practices of caring teaching that may emerge within the complex and messy nexus of contemporary self‐constitution. (shrink)

During the preschool years, the socio-emotional responses children receive from interactions with teachers are incorporated into their own social behaviors. This is one of the key ways in which children acquire social and emotional skills. Based on field studies, it can be found that this learning process is not simple imitation of children, but of a more complex context of group interaction. To further clarify the impact of kindergarten teachers’ emotion on the sociometric status and behavior of 3–5 year-old children (...) in their classes, the researchers chose a Montessori mixed-age kindergarten in Beijing as the field site and observed five classes within the kindergarten over a 2-month period in this ethnographic case study. The study found that the power gap between teacher and pupil spreads rapidly to all children in the classroom as a result of the teacher’s emotions, and even stimulates power stratification within the children. In addition, there are differences in the social behaviors between the children of different levels of power. As preschool children are in a critical developmental window when social knowledge is being accumulated and social skills are being acquired, using power relations within the kindergarten classroom as an entry point to analyze the impact of teachers’ emotions on children’s social behavior provides a new breakthrough for the professional development of early childhood education and the better achievement of educational goals. (shrink)

The “dynamic turn” in the field of second language acquisition catalyzed scholarly devotion to the complex dynamic relationships between learner and teacher variables and various academic emotions. As such, the present study examined the varying effects of the aforementioned variables on the constructs of positive and negative flow, and determined their strongest predictors, respectively. This study used a mixed-method approach to collect data from 607 Chinese English-as-a-Foreign-Language learners. In stage one of the research, the researcher first assessed the participants’ (...) levels of positive flow and negative flow in a blended learning context, then performed Pearson correlation analysis to confirm a significant, but weak positive relationship between positive flow and negative flow. Then, significant difference tests were run to determine the varied effects of those variables on flow. Finally, two multiple regression analyses were conducted to identify five predictors of positive flow, with the biggest contribution coming from learners’ attitudes toward the foreign language, and three predictors of negative flow, with the learners’ major accounting for the majority of variance. In the second stage of the research, a qualitative corpus was constructed, based on accounts of classroom experiences from 71 participants of the total sample, and further illustrated the quantitative findings. Pedagogical implications for educational psychologists and teachers of second and/or foreign languages are addressed. (shrink)

The educational design research movement asserts that the use of new tools or innovative devices is a powerful vector for the professional development of teachers, to the benefit of pupils' learning. It recommends that these tools be designed using a participatory approach that translates the knowledge gained from research into resources for action. The design-in-use approach shares the same presupposition. As part of our thesis work, we adopted this approach to co-design a teaching aid. With the help of a student (...) in training practice and engineering, we studied the effects of this participatory approach on the professional development of the sixteen co-designing teachers. This study enabled us to identify and categorize the professional contributions perceived by the practitioners. This work encouraged reflection on the "meta" processes used by teacher-designers to self-evaluate their professional development. (shrink)

Tarekat teaches its followers not to glorify conglomerates, to keep their distance from leader, and to live in a way of zuhud, including in the matters of politics. But the Tarekat Qadiriyah wa Naqsyabandiyah in Cukir Jombang was actually involved in practical politics as a supporter of Partai Persatuan Pembangunan. This paper, which was written in the form of ethnographic design according to the concept of the power relations of Foucault to find new perspectives about the actions of Tarekat (...) communities in politics, in this case explaining the pattern of relations that occurred between the Tarekat Cukir and PPP and discovering the factors causing Tarekat Cukir to support PPP. This paper concludes that between Tarekat Cukir and PPP, there is a mutually beneficial pattern of relations in terms of proximity, but in terms of economic politics, the Tarekat Cukir feels disadvantaged. The dominant reason the Tarekat Cukir supports PPP is because of the dependence of Santri on their Mursyid who is a PPP politician. This is reinforced by the history between the two parties and the spiritual ties that connect the teachers who are both PPP politicians and Santris. (shrink)

The Power of Teaching: Readings on the Philosophical, Theoretical, and Practical Issues Associated with Teaching and Learning provides preservice K-12 teachers with a collection of curated readings that help them prepare for their future in teaching. The reader is divided into five units, each addressing one broadly defined topic in education. The first unit introduces readers to the multiple complexities associated with learning to teach effectively. The second unit contains four articles that explore a variety of pedagogical perspectives. In (...) the third unit, readers are provided with a brief survey of a variety of purposes that shape the overarching mission of schools. The fourth unit features five readings that address the importance of creating a safe and nurturing learning environment for all students. The final unit posits a successful multicultural approach involves self-reflection, a deep understanding of culture, and respect for culturally and linguistically diverse families. Designed to educate and empower, The Power of Teaching is an ideal anthology for courses and programs in K-12 education. (shrink)

_2020 PROSE Award Winner, Education Theory Category 2019 Outstanding Academic Title, _Choice_ In _Where Teachers Thrive_, Susan Moore Johnson outlines a powerful argument about the importance of the school as an organization in nurturing high‐quality teaching._ Based on case studies conducted in fourteen high-poverty, urban schools, the book examines why some schools failed to make progress, while others achieved remarkable results. It explores the challenges that administrators and teachers faced and describes what worked, what didn’t work, and why. Johnson draws (...) on vivid portraits of schools to highlight an array of school‐based systems and practices that support teachers’ professional growth and effectiveness. These include a rich and interactive hiring process; team‐based curriculum planning and assessment; and informative feedback and ongoing professional learning. Critical to all of these is the role of the principal as an essential agent in a school’s success. Although these elements may vary from school to school, Johnson argues that together these systems provide a comprehensive, mutually reinforcing set of well-orchestrated strategies that can help schools deliver results that exceed the sum of teachers’ individual efforts. Since 2000, policy makers and education officials have diligently sought to improve schools by improving the quality of individual teachers. However, even if those teachers are skilled and committed, the schools where they work are all too often disjointed, dysfunctional organizations that serve no one well. _Where Teachers Thrive _explains clearly how educators within a school can join together to adopt systems of practice that ensure growth and success by all teachers and their students. (shrink)

Existing research on developing countries emphasizes the decisive power of teacher unions in education politics. Yet that power varies, and a full understanding of the roots of union power and the sources of cross-national variation requires deeper analysis of organizational dynamics within unions. This analysis supports four arguments. First, teachers have a range of advantages in overcoming obstacles to collective action. Second, unions are not all alike; they vary widely, from interest groups to powerful political machines. (...) Third, the source of this variation lies in factors that shift power within unions from members to leaders in political-machine unions. Fourth, analyzing the dimensions of variation helps explain the different outcomes of recent reforms to teacher careers in Latin America, especially in highlighting the staunch opposition from political-machine unions. (shrink)

A classroom Community of Inquiry depends on the deliberation skills of its members and their willingness to share ideas, time and power, despite conflicting interests, in the process of social inquiry. This vision of sharing power is not without challenges to both P4C and other theoretical movements within the discourse of democratic education. The kind of theorizing that is missing should explore students’ perceptions, judgment, decision making, agency and the like, through meaning making in particular contexts of democratic (...) education. To explore such challenges, I designed a qualitative study to unfold the meanings of power that middle school students constructed within a learning environment, which was influenced by democratic education principles. In explaining their meanings of power in democratic education, the participants explicitly challenged the pre-set notion of power equality between teachers and students, and between the members of a CI, and also the foundational concept of power that is based on redistribution of time and ideas. Arendt’s view of power mirrors the students’ perspectives. This notion of power in education explains why the students supported the teachers’ ‘power’, and why students used their power to different degrees. It is the way Arendt “stylized the image of the Greek polis to the essence of politics as such” (Habermas, 1986, p.82; Arendt, 1986, p.62) that explains how power should support democratic education according to the youths’ view. (shrink)

Pedagogy, power and practice ethics: clinical teaching in psychiatric/mental health settings Often, baccalaureate nursing students initially approach a psychiatric mental health practicum with uncertainty, and even fear. They may feel unprepared for the myriad complex practice situations encountered. In addition, memories of personal painful life events may be vicariously evoked through learning about and listening to the experiences of those diagnosed with mental disorders. When faced with such challenging situations, nursing students often seek counsel from the clinical and/or classroom (...) faculty. Pedagogic boundaries may begin to blur in the face of student distress. For the nurse educator, several questions arise: Should a nurse educator provide counseling to students? How does one best negotiate the boundaries between ‘counselor’, and ‘caring educator’? What are the limits of a caring and professional pedagogic relation? What different knowledges provide guidance and to what differential consequences for ethical pedagogic relationships? This paper offers a comparative analysis of three philosophical stances to examine differences in key assumptions, pedagogic positioning, relationships of power/knowledge, and consequences for professional ethical pedagogic practices. While definitive answers are difficult, the authors pose several questions for consideration in discerning how best to proceed and under what particular conditions. (shrink)

Teacher Subject Identity in Professional Practicefocuses on a key, but neglected, element of a teacher's identity: that of their subject expertise.Studies of teachers' professional practice have shown the importance of a teacher's identity and the extent to which it can affect their resilience, commitment and ultimately their effectiveness. Drawing upon narrative research undertaken with a range of teachers over a period of 14 years, the book explores how subject expertise can play a significant role in teacher (...) identity, acting as a professional compass guiding teachers at all levels of their professional practice. It reveals powerful individual stories of meaning-making which highlight the dynamic importance of teachers' subject expertise The book's metaphor of a professional compass goes to the heart of teacher professionalism, and provides a valuable mechanism to enable teachers to respond to challenges they face in their daily practice. It enables teachers to consider the moral dimensions of their practice, and can constitute a significant component in professional formation and identity. Throughout the book the importance of subject expertise for teachers' professional practice is explored at a range of scales: from the classroom to broad education policy, and at different stages of a teacher's career which offers readers a deeper understanding of the importance of subject expertise for teachers. Teacher Subject Identity in Professional Practicemakes a significant contribution to an under-researched area. It identifies the role and significance of teachers' subject expertise as a dimension of their teacher identity. The book is key reading for teacher educators, policy makers and researchers with an interest in teachers' professional development and practice. (shrink)

Over a decade after publication of Thinking Again: Education After Postmodernism (1998) contention still emerges among Foucaultians over whether discursively made‐up things really exist, and whether removal of the constituent subject leaves room for agency within techniques of caring for the self. That these questions are kept alive shows that some readers have not rethought Foucault, finding what possibly comes after postmodernism. Using Wittgenstein to ‘reciprocally illuminate’ Foucault (after Tully and Marshall), I open teacher inspection and reforms to problematization, (...) as relations to bedrock rules governing games of truth. ‘How, upon entering classrooms, do inspectors know “teaching” is taking place and not crazy and fuzzy things in its name?’ Taking up Hirst's vexing question, I move beyond liberal‐analytic concept‐mapping and neo‐liberal individualism to more fully assay the political ground for judging teaching practices through genealogy. Epistemological, political and ethical concerns intersect as we approach the problem through Foucault's three axes of an historical‐ontology of the present: knowledge(s), power relations, and arts of the self. Drawing on recent Governmentality Studies in Education (Peters., 2009), we aver the impasses of postmodern relativism while finding limited ranges of agency along each axis, as teachers practice freedoms by critiquing and renegotiating rules. (shrink)

This article is concerned with the downsides of using the language of professionalism in educational discourse. It suggests that the language of professionalization can be a powerful rhetorical device for promoting welcome and necessary changes in the field of teaching but that, in doing so, it can unintentionally misrepresent the work that teachers do. Taking as a theoretical framework Lakoff and Johnson's metaphor theory, the article argues that ‘teacher as professional’ should be seen as a metaphor of teaching on (...) par with other metaphors familiar from the history of educational thought. What metaphors of teaching have in common, the article advances, is that they systematically highlight certain aspects of teaching while hiding others. The significance of this conclusion is twofold. Appreciating the limits of the ‘teacher as professional’ metaphor provides guidance about how to use more effectively ‘professionalism’ as a normative standard for promoting change in teaching and teacher education. Second, appreciating the metaphorical character of ‘teacher as professional’ has heuristic value in that it offers a novel explanation for the controversial trend towards conceptualising teaching in narrowly instructional terms. (shrink)

Against a backdrop of an international trend to shift from a teacher-centred to a learner-centred education, this article explores a Confucian conception of education. Focusing on an ancient Chinese text Xueji, the essay examines its educational ideals and practices based on the principles of ‘choice’, ‘doing’ and ‘power relationship’. It is argued that the educational model in the Xueji does not fit the description of a learner-centred education as commonly understood in the Western literature. Rather, the Xueji advocates (...) a ‘teacher-directed and learner-engaged’ approach by giving the teacher control over the curriculum and authority over the learners while encouraging the learners to participate actively in the learning process. In proposing a conception that is not exactly learner-centred, the Xueji challenges the assumption that ‘good’ education must necessarily be learner-centred. (shrink)

This paper examines the outcomes of four Australian schools' efforts to promote greater collaboration between teachers in each school. Teachers' responses to questions about the nature and extent of collaboration they experienced at school revealed that teaming arrangements were in place in the four schools studied. Collaborative ways of working helped most teachers feel better about themselves and their work, and provided them with opportunities to learn from each other. However, a minority of teachers were negative about the new teaming (...) arrangements claiming that the changes had led to an increase in their workloads, a loss of professional autonomy, and the emergence of damaging competition between teams for resources, recognition and power. The paper concludes with a call for further micropolitical work that problematises apparently self evident ?goods? like teacher collaboration. (shrink)

Avi Mintz (2008) has recently argued that Anglo-American educators have a tendency to alleviate student suffering in the classroom. According to Mintz, this tendency can be detrimental because certain kinds of suffering actually enhance student learning. While Mintz compellingly describes the effects of educator’s desires to alleviate suffering in students, he does not examine one of the roots of the desire: the feeling of compassion or pity (used as synonyms here). Compassion leads many teachers to unreflectively alleviate student struggles. While (...) there are certainly times when compassion is necessary to help students learn, there are other times when it must be overcome. Compassion in the classroom is a two-edged sword that must be carefully employed; and yet it is often assumed that it is an unequivocal good that ought to trump all other impulses. In this article I hope to raise awareness concerning the promises and pitfalls of compassion in education by examining the theories of two historical figures who famously emphasised compassion in their philosophical writings: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Friedrich Nietzsche. Rousseau and Nietzsche argue that compassion is a powerful educational force but that it must be properly employed. For Rousseau and Nietzsche, compassion is necessary to develop self-mastery in human beings—the ultimate goal of education—but it is a compassion that must hurt in order to help. My hope is that Rousseau’s and Nietzsche’s ideas on compassion will encourage thoughtful reflection on the uses and abuses of compassion in education. (shrink)

Over the past century, the tremendous concentration of power in the modern state has frequently been a threat to the life and liberty of individuals and social groups. Liberal democracy seeks to harness state power to the causes of individual freedom and public benefit - through such means as constitutional limits on and separation of powers, free and regular elections, and the vigilance of citizens, parliaments and media. This collection of essays offers perspectives on the difficulties of establishing (...) and sustaining a modern liberal democratic state. These themes are pursued through subjects ranging from the extreme abuses of power by Nazi regime to the misuse of power by executive government in the "WA Inc" years, from the quest for a genuinely republican Australia to the role of trust and suspicion in liberal democracy, from the alleged decline of the state in a globalizing world to the construction of a new state in East Timor, and from the importance of free scholarship to the role of deliberative polling in enhancing the democratic process. The late Patrick O'Brien, scholar, teacher, public intellectual and political activist, believed passionately in the importance of personal liberty and in the firm and transparent regulation of the exercise of power. This book celebrates O'Brien's life and intellectual engagements, and demonstrates the enduring importance of the key themes of his work. (shrink)

The recent expansion of the English academies programme has initiated a period of significant change within the state education system. As established administration has been disrupted, new providers from business and philanthropy have entered the sector with a range of approaches to transform schools. This paper examines the development of co-operative schools, which are positioned as an ‘ethical alternative’ within the system and have proved popular with teachers and parents. Using a theory of co-operative power drawn from the philosophy (...) of Spinoza, the author explores how co-operative schools have emerged, with and against the reforming agenda, using narratives of hope and resistance. Spinoza provides theoretical resources to critique this positioning and to project beyond the limiting narratives to an affirmative vision for co-operative schools. (shrink)

One of the concepts with unclear definitions is teacher leadership. Teachers must be inclined to take various risks to become leaders. In fact, in practice, most teachers are not taught leadership skills in career preparation programs. Teachers' success in decision-making processes and school leadership efforts is sometimes limited. Teachers who achieve control in their classrooms have much more power to make suggestions to other adults in the school and can bring valuable qualities to the school as teacher (...) leaders. In addition to aiming to organize effective classroom activities, teacher leadership also requires taking part in school activities. This research was conducted to discuss the roles and strategies of principals and teachers in developing teacher leadership in Azerbaijan. To achieve the purpose of the research, the scanning method was followed and a theoretical analysis was made. Leadership is the ability to motivate a group, gather them around certain goals, and achieve these goals together. As an effective leader, the teacher has the responsibility of developing a vision, sharing his vision, and organizing learning experiences appropriate to the development and individual differences of all students. (shrink)

The notion of a community of inquiry has been treated by many of its proponents as being an exemplar of democracy in action. We argue that the assumptions underlying this view present some practical and theoretical difficulties, particularly in relation to distribution of power among the members of a community of inquiry. We identify two presuppositions in relation to distribution of power that require attention in developing an educational model that is committed to deliberative democracy: (1) openness to (...) inquiry and readiness to reason, and (2) mutual respect of students and teachers towards one another. Our contention is that these presuppositions, presented as preconditions necessary to the creation of a community of inquiry, are not without ideological commitments and dependent upon the ability of participants to share power. Using group dynamic theories and the ideas of Hannah Arendt, we argue that behaviours commonly interpreted as obstacles to dialogue or reflective inquiry could provide opportunities for growth. (shrink)

Considerable ferment exists around the changing nature of children’s play and its place in contemporary childhood. Traditional perspectives on early childhood research have tended to trivialize and obscure the possibilities inherent in children’s ways of knowing. Researchers seldom ask children what play means to them. This article proffers a relatively new image of childhood, one that presents young children as collaborators in research, as competent interpreters of their lived experience. This study investigates children’s knowledge: their knowledge about what play is, (...) how it is experienced, and its role in their lives, at school and at home. Interviews conducted with primary school students reveal how they perceive their lives in relation to the mainstream world of adults. Teachers and parents are seen as those who define, control, and sanction play. These children rely on the particularities and situatedness of everyday events to describe the meaning of play in their lives. Play emerges, to some degree, akin to a state of mind, invariably related to issues of autonomy, agency, and power. (shrink)

This book offers an original and challenging theoretical and empirical approach to mapping the changing nature of teachers' work historically and in the contemporary period. It is an attempt to understand how and in what ways teachers' work has changed following the demise of the post-war settlement and the imminent collapse of teachers' project of professionalism secured through solidaristic strategies such as unionism. Dr. Robertson argues that in order to understand these issues, a more rigorous set of conceptual tools around (...) social class, occupational power and worker control is needed. The first two sections of the book set out to address that problem. The final section elaborates on the changing contexts and conditions for contemporary teachers more generally, and argues that structural and ideological changes within educational provision have led to differing capacities in the realization of class assets. (shrink)

Teacher emotion has become an important issue in English language teaching as it is a crucial construct in understanding teachers' responses to institutional policies. The study explored teachers' emotion labor and its impact on teachers' pedagogical decision-making in English for Specific Purposes teaching in a university of Traditional Chinese Medicine in China. Drawing on a poststructural perspective, the study examined data from two rounds of semi-structured interviews, policy documents and teaching artifacts. The analysis of data revealed that the major (...) emotion labor facing the participants revolved around students' disengagement in class. Teachers experienced mixed feelings of anticipation, disappointment, anger, and empathy toward students and distanced themselves from institutional feeling rules enforcing objective assessment of students' performance and punishing students for lack of engagement in class. The study found that teacher emotion labor served as the site for their pedagogical modifications. ESP teachers' beliefs in the importance of attending to students' needs become a powerful discourse in supporting teachers to strategically subvert institutional feeling rules and critically reflect on the dysfunctions of curriculum, orienting teachers' agentic actions in modifying pedagogical practices. We thus underscore this empowering discourse as the bridge to connect teachers' policy negotiation and their actual classroom practices. We also highlight teachers' pedagogical decision-making as a process of the interactions of teacher emotion, teachers' reflexive practices, and power relations. The study ended by suggesting more longitudinal research where teachers' beliefs as previously appropriated discourses could be examined comprehensively as they were both the construct of emotion labor and the potential subverting power in supporting teachers' pedagogical decision-making in policy negotiation. (shrink)

Educational assessment and marking, in particular, give teachers considerable power over students and their future possibilities. Analysing a teachers' meeting discussing school reports in a secondary school showed that marking involves teachers' accountability to colleagues. An examination of the situated interpretations and explanations of unsatisfactory school marks also showed how various discursive devices were used for building a factual account. Confirmed expectations, extreme case formulations, introducing corroborating witnesses, the deployment of cited others, defining exceptional cases, detailed descriptions and narratives, (...) and the use of different accounts all served to emphasize the role of the students and hide the teachers from view. In addition, teachers' joint constructions had practical consequences for remedial interventions. Decisions for intervention were dependent on the accounts given. (shrink)

Drawing on respective ideas from within both liberal political philosophy and Frankfurt School critical theory, this paper seeks to examine claims about autonomy and empowerment made on behalf of educational policies such as teacher-led codeswitching; a policy that seeks to empower students from racially marginalised groups by facilitating their proficiency in the language and cultural expressions of societally dominant groups. I set out to evaluate such claims by first sketching two competing formulations of autonomy; namely, liberal autonomy concomitant to (...) political power, and autonomy that arises out of the practice of critical self-reflection. I proceed by testing codeswitching within each formulation to reveal how – in this case – these two conceptualisations of autonomy are educationally incompatible with each other. I conclude by suggesting that educational interventions such as codeswitching may ultimately be complicit in the longer term processes of racialisation and marginalisation that they seek to diminish, not only because they carry the potential to damage minority students’ self-integrity, but also because they limit possibilities for both majority and minority students to engage in dialectical encounters that may open avenues to new principles of social and political organisation. (shrink)

Based on an analysis of 137 texts written by pupils, this paper examines pupils? humour directed at teachers, its types and social functions. The collected data are divided into three categories that describe different modes of teachers as targets of pupils? humour. The first mode describes teachers as unintentionally comical, the second as duped by their pupils and the third as intentional users of humour. The analysis focuses on different functions that pupils? humour directed at teachers fulfils in the social (...) life of the classroom. The paper concludes by showing how key functions of social humour (such as creation of solidarity, negotiation of power and realisation of personal needs) are connected to the three modes of pupils? humour directed at teachers. (shrink)

This paper describes three social studies teachers’ participation in an approximately 50-h, 13-month, Lesson Study-type professional development program called Beyond Words. The program centered around promoting teachers’ understanding of historical domain knowledge through experiences with innovative visual curriculum materials and sustained collaboration. This qualitative investigation answers: To what degree can Beyond Words help in-service geography teachers design and implement powerful instruction centered around historical photographs? Throughout Beyond Words the teachers demonstrated a spirit of open-mindedness and a willingness to experiment with (...) unfamiliar ideas; they planned and implemented a lesson that featured engaging historical photographs, thinking critically about the past, and making claims about a public issue. At the end of the program, however, they demonstrated conventional approaches toward social studies instruction, especially regarding curriculum and assessment. The work shared here suggests that helping teachers craft high-quality questions to anchor student-inquiry and scaffolding teachers’ sensemaking of student-outcome data should be high priorities for professional development providers. (shrink)

Volatile Knowing refers to the positive change that can result when parents and teachers talk together about the politics of school reform. Based on a study of teachers and parents who researched aspects of the accountability movement typically censored in mainstream media, Volatile Knowing reveals the hidden power behind current reform efforts that serve private, not public interests. It is aimed at provoking a new, child-centered movement for accountability and creativity in the nation's schools.

Elizabeth Green’s Building a Better Teacher: How Teaching Works is an excellent book that deserves the widest possible audience. It is a tremendously insightful and engaging look at teacher education, and I believe it has the power to change public discussions of teacher education for the better. Though it is written for a popular—and not a scholarly—audience, Green’s book raises a number of questions that will be of particular interest to philosophers of education. I turn to (...) those questions at the end of this review after describing Green’s project and what it accomplishes.To begin, Green finds a way to make educational research interesting—even intriguing—to a general audience... (shrink)

Taking up the case of Jane Gallop, this paper explores whether an eroticized pedagogical style can be truly effective for teaching feminist philosophy and to what extent there exists the possibility of consensual romantic relationships between teachers and students. In a book published five years after accusations of discriminatory sexual harassment, Gallop argues that an eroticized pedagogy more effectively delivers a feminist message than non-eroticized pedagogies because it provides a context in which sexual norms can be foregrounded, challenged, and even (...) broken. By extension, Gallop argues that if any relationship between a student and a teacher can be consensual, it is one that takes place between a student and teacher who both identify as feminists since their studies so often focus on sexual norms. The author challenges this view, arguing that the vulnerability which attends being subject to evaluation structures the initial terms of engagement such that students can’t possibly enter into a romantic relationship on equal terms with their professor. In light of this imbalance of power, the author argues that eroticized pedagogies may also threaten students, giving the impression that their evaluations depend on their responses to the erotic element of their professor’s pedagogical style. (shrink)

Critical pedagogy is an optimistic approach for achieving transformative agency, which remains an elusive and vital aspect of civic education. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the pedagogical approach of three critically identifying teachers. Specifically, this study was interested in understanding participant teacher critically civic ontological postures. The posture implies an understanding of the power inherent to civic relation and pedagogy. Participant teachers uniquely demonstrated postures that allowed them to address conceptual, personal, and material aspects (...) of civics education. Participants achieved this first by making clear temporal connections between citizenship and disciplines; second, by incorporating student experiences; and lastly by utilizing a range of instructional approaches to negate traditional civic archetypes. Findings suggest that critical civic ontological postures are dynamic, contextual, and disciplinarily situated. Authentically critically civic ontological postures include developing intellectual solidarity with students and those in educational communities. (shrink)

Elie Wiesel, plucked from the ashes of the Holocaust, became a Nobel Peace laureate, an activist on behalf of the oppressed, a teacher, an award-winning novelist, and a renowned humanist. He moved easily among world leaders but was equally at home among the disenfranchised. Following his Nobel Prize, Wiesel established the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity; one of their early initiatives was the founding of the Elie Wiesel Ethics Essay Contest. The reflections in this volume come from judges of (...) the contest. They share their personal and professional experiences working with and learning from Wiesel, providing a glimpse of the person behind the public figure. At a time when the future seems ominous and chaotic at best, these reflections hold on to the promise of an ethically and morally robust possibility. The students whose essays prompt this sense of hope are remarkable for their insight and dedication. The messages embedded in the judges’ reflections mirror Wiesel’s convictions about the importance of friendship, the need to interrogate (without abandoning) God, and the power of remembrance in order to fight indifference. (shrink)

Teachers' work engagement is regarded as a critical issue in educational contexts, so the emotional factors and personality traits, and their effects on teacher engagement have drawn the attention of investigators. This study seeks to investigate the relationship between teachers' emotional intelligence, ambiguity tolerance, and work engagement. Moreover, this study tries to investigate the contribution of emotional intelligence and ambiguity tolerance to teachers' work engagement. To do so, 322 teachers (96 males and 226 females) participated in this study. Schutte's (...) Self Report Emotional Intelligence Test (SSEIT), Multiple Stimulus Types Ambiguity Tolerance Scale-II (MSTAT-II), and Self-report engagement Questionnaire were used in this study. The statistical techniques used in this study are the Spearman Rho test and ANOVA. The findings showed that there are significant correlations between work engagement, emotional intelligence, and ambiguity tolerance. Comparing the predictability power, teachers' emotional intelligence (B= 0.611) proved to have a higher index compared to their index of ambiguity tolerance (B= 0.2). This study concluded that emotionally intelligent teachers and teachers with higher levels of ambiguity tolerance are more engaged in the EFL contexts. Moreover, the study has some pedagogical implications and suggestions for different teacher educators, policy-makers, and advisors. The ideas can improve their awareness of teachers' emotional intelligence, ambiguity tolerance, and work engagement in educational environments. (shrink)

Wellbeing in schools is often focused at the individual level, exploring students’ or teachers’ individual traits, habits, or actions that influence wellbeing. However, studies rarely take a whole-school approach that includes staff wellbeing, and frequently ignore relational and organizational level variables. We take a systems informed positive psychology approach and argue that it is essential to build greater understanding about organizational and relational influences on wellbeing in order for schools to support educator wellbeing. Our study evaluated the relative contributions of (...) individual, relational, and organizational factors to educator wellbeing. Our measure of wellbeing focused on the life satisfaction and flourishing of 559 educators in 12 New Zealand schools. We used a social network analysis approach to capture educators’ relational ties, and demographic data and psychometric scales to capture individual and organizational level variables. Results of hierarchical blockwise regressions showed that individual, relational, and organizational factors were all significantly associated with educator wellbeing; however, it was educators’ perceptions of trusting and collaborative school conditions that were most strongly associated with their wellbeing. The number of relational ties educators had explained the least amount of variance in wellbeing. Educators were more likely to experience high levels of support when their close contacts also experienced high levels of support. However, for many educators, there was a negative association between their most frequent relational ties and their reported levels of support. Our results suggest that attending to the organizational factors that influence wellbeing, through creating trusting and collaborative school conditions, may be one of the most influential approaches to enhancing educator wellbeing. We call for whole-school approaches to wellbeing that not only consider how to support and enhance the wellbeing of school staff as well as students, but also view the conditions created within a school as a key driver of wellbeing within schools. (shrink)

The impact of teacher discipline on student outcomes is a critical area in educational research. However, limited studies have explored how specific discipline styles affect students' problem-solving abilities, particularly in Grade Six classrooms. This study investigates the relationship between classroom discipline styles of Grade Six teachers and students' problem-solving skills in schools within District III and IV of Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental Philippines. Using a descriptive-correlational design, the study involved 34 Grade Six teachers and 170 students selected through purposive (...) and quota sampling methods, respectively. Teachers' discipline styles were assessed using a standardized questionnaire while students' problem-solving skills were evaluated using a 50-item test comprising logical thinking and abstract reasoning sections sourced from online resources. Statistical analyses included mean calculations for identifying predominant discipline styles among teachers, revealing that Autocratic or Authoritarian styles (M = 3.63) were most frequently employed. Significant correlations (p < 0.05) were found between the Democratic Discipline style (M = 3.29) and students' problem-solving skills, suggesting that participatory classroom practices enhance student outcomes in this regard. Recommendations include promoting participatory learning environments to strengthen problem-solving skills, providing professional development for teachers in democratic classroom management, and integrating technology for collaborative learning experiences. These findings contribute to understanding the impact of teacher discipline styles on student competencies and inform strategies for fostering effective educational practices. (shrink)

Living Dangerously: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Difference, Henry Giroux critically examines the emphasis on “clarity” in educational discourse, the best known advocate for which is Michael Apple. Giroux points out that a new generation of social critics, particularly in feminist theory, literary studies, post-colonial analysis, and Afro-American cultural criticism, has broken with traditional conventions that call for writing in a clear, unambiguous discourse. In contrast to Apple’s interpretation of “clarity” in language, the present paper will emphasize Giroux’s claim that (...) educators need to center their discussion of language around a politics of difference that allows teachers and students to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to govern and shape society rather than be relegated to society’s margins. This paper will argue for the development of methods of articulating how social locations shape various social and intellectual perspectives. Education for critical consciousness should focus on the links between the historical configuration of social forms and how these links work subjectively. (shrink)