Students' Attitudes on the Boundaries of Teachers' Authority

Abstract

Educators in many countries are concerned about the decline in respect for authority by young people. The current study explores how children perceive their teachers' authority, what the `boundaries' (limits) to that authority are, and under what conditions they may decide to rebel. Over 200 Israeli elementary and middle school students were asked in semi-structured interviews how they conceive the norm of obedience to teachers; what kinds of illegitimate commands teachers issue; what pupils do in case of disagreement, and what is the jurisdiction of teachers and parents inside and outside school. The majority (81 percent) accepted the principle of teacher authority but qualified it with several conditions: authority was seen as limited to the school area, parents were accepted to intervene in cases of severe punishment and teachers should avoid committing aggressive and unethical acts. The discussion identifies circles of legitimate (agreed upon by both sides) and illegitimate (accepted by teachers but not by pupils) authority practices. It is argued that school psychologists can assist teachers and students identify this circle of disagreement and solve discipline problems.

High School Students’ Perceptions of and Attitudes towards Teacher Power in the Classroom

“…The questionnaire, originally written in Greek and then translated in English for the purposes of this paper, was self-administered because it was not possible to indentify an instrument from the literature that allowed researchers to capture all the variables involved in this study. For this reason, the synthesis of the questionnaire was mainly based on the research findings of Harjunen (2011), Turman and Schrodt (2006) and Yariv (2009) who firstly defined the notion and connotations of didactic and legitimate power, and, secondly, described high school students' reactions to their teachers' abuse of power in the classroom.…”

“…It is, therefore, rather apparent that, as Yariv (2009) highlights, teacher power has its own boundaries, namely a red line beyond which some teacher attitudes are not acceptable to the students; teacher power is governed by legislation, governmental rules, school norms and, also, by the boundaries the principal, colleagues and pupils have set. Yariv, represents the boundaries of teacher power with a three-circled figure, where the inner circle indicates the most established and legitimate teacher duties and rights, the middle one refers to teacher practices that could be characterized by the students as arrogant, insensitive and abusive, while the external circle represents the world outside school, where the teacher power's red line lies; beyond this line the teacher has not any legitimate right to get involved.…”

“Professional, approachable, and fair” – Students’ perceptions of the vocational education teacher’s authority

“…These factors can be further summoned into two dimensions: personal behavior and social skills (see also Yariv 2009). Figure 1 illustrates the dimensions and authority types created by the variation between these dimensions.…”

“…International Journal of Human Sciences, 11(2), 446-463. doi: 10.14687/ijhs.v11i2.2927 448 Teacher Authority A teacher's work can be described as an interaction relationship between a teacher and a student, tinged with authority imbalance. This relationship has been perceived especially complicated and vacillating, even susceptible to conflicts (e.g., Waller 1932Waller /1961Yariv 2009). The authority relationship has been viewed in various ways: Durkheim considered it through the core of education as socialization into the prevailing collective behaviors and thinking within each society.…”

“…According to a socio-constructivist viewpoint (e.g., Dewey 1998;Oyler 1996;Pace and Hemmings 2006;Yariv 2009), the teacher has the opportunity to construct a functional authority relationship that is based on the student's personality and supports the student's learning. The critical viewpoint focuses on the students' mutual relationships in teaching situations.…”