CLASSROOM POWER RELATIONS

CLASSROOM POWER RELATIONS

Understanding Student-TeacherInteraction

Mary Phillips MankeMankato State University

LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS1997 Mahwah, New Jersey London

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Publication Information: Book Title: Classroom Power Relations: Understanding Student-Teacher Interaction. Contributors: Mary Phillips Manke - author. Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Place of Publication: Mahwah, NJ. Publication Year: 1997. Page Number: iii.

Chapter 1IntroductionWho has power in classrooms? Most people would say it is the teacher whohas power. Willard Waller, an early sociologist of education, wrote in 1932,"Children are certainly defenseless against the machinery with which theadult world is able to enforce its decisions: the result of the battle [betweenteachers and students] is foreordained" (p. 196).

Waller's statement expresses the understanding of classroom power thatprevails for most people--teachers, administrators, educational researchers--in our culture. It is an understanding that focuses on oppositionbetween teachers and students as well as one that assigns power to theteacher alone.

In this book, you will read about a much more complex conception ofclassroom power. It portrays students and teachers in power relationshipsthey build together and calls into question common assumptions about theworkings and results of power in the classroom.

Underlying Waller's statement is this belief: The teacher must have thepower in the classroom. Let us work out some of what this belief implies.First, it seems to mean that power is something you can have, an objectthat a person can own. In this book, the understanding of power is quitedifferent: Power is a structure of relationships--a structure in whichteachers and students can build or participate. Power is not an object andcannot be owned by anyone. The structure of relationships is calledpower because it, rather than the individuals who create it, is what shapespeople's actions.

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Publication Information: Book Title: Classroom Power Relations: Understanding Student-Teacher Interaction. Contributors: Mary Phillips Manke - author. Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Place of Publication: Mahwah, NJ. Publication Year: 1997. Page Number: 1.

Chapter 5Teachers' Organization of Timeand Space: One Aspectof Classroom Power RelationsIn almost any classroom, an observer can watch teachers engaged in directinteraction with students that is intended to control student behavior andpromote student learning. Yet, this is only one aspect of teachers' efforts topursue this agenda. Outside the students' view, teachers plan and carry outother actions before students even come into the classroom. Thus, theycontribute to the building of the structure called "What Teachers andStudents Can Do Here," building walls and creating living space, withoutthe possibility of immediate conflict with students. It is these "invisible"( Hustler & Payne, 1982) arrangements that are the focus of this chapter.

Teachers often consider the ways they organize time and space in theirclassrooms to be part of classroom management. Classroom managementauthorities call this proactive management, management that preventstrouble from happening, rather than dealing with it after it happens.Teachers arrange desks so they can see all the students, provide an activityfor students to start on as soon as they enter the room, and leave enoughspace near the door for students to stand in an uncrowded line. They arrangefurniture so that students have to move in a controlled manner from onearea to another; they make sure they have more than enough for studentsto do during each class period, thus, avoiding "dead time" when trouble canoccur. All these are tactics teachers use in pursuit of their agenda to controlstudent behavior so that students can learn.

Yet, teachers may also consider arrangements of time and space in termsof curriculum content and instructional methods. They may arrange desks



Chapter 7Defining Classroom Knowledge:The Part That Students PlayBecause schools are intended to be places where learning occurs, thequestion of what will count as knowledge is especially important. Whatcounts as knowledge is a determining factor in what students actually learn.That is why this aspect of classroom power relationships--how studentscontribute to the process of determining what will count as classroom

knowledge--is the focus of this chapter.

In traditional sociological and political analysis, the power to define whatwill count as knowledge is assigned to the teacher. The larger society--defined as the structure of the school, the expectations of administrators,parents, and community members, and all kinds of curriculum materials--isthought to influence the teacher's use of this defining power.

Although the actions of students described in this chapter are surelyaffected by the same larger society that influences teachers' actions, theanalysis I present here focuses on student actions exerting influence on whatwill be learned in a given classroom. I stress this point because so manywriters in education have focused on the influence of the teacher, or ofsociety through the teacher. Some view this influence as a primary instrument for the oppression or control of students, particularly those who areculturally different from the majority; others see it as a necessary part of thetransmission of the desirable aspects of an historic culture. Without denyingthat one of the ways teachers contribute to constructing classroom powerrelationships is to influence the definition of classroom knowledge, I lookin this chapter at how students also influence this definition. In doing so Iam opening up the possibility of looking at how the influence of the



Chapter 9How Is It Useful to Lookat Classrooms in This Way?The last four chapters of this book have explored several questions in thecontext of an interactive constructivist theory of power relations: • How do teacher choices about the physical organization of classrooms and

the kinds of activities that take place in them contribute to the constructionof power relations?

• Why and how do teachers cloak their contributions to power relations behindpoliteness formulas and indirect discourse strategies?

• What kinds of student and teacher actions contribute to defining what is tocount as classroom knowledge in a particular classroom at a particular time?

• What student actions can be understood as being in conflict with teachers'arrangements of classroom time and space?

• What student actions can be understood as seeking to make the teachers'sagenda visible so it can be challenged?

• What kinds of student actions can be understood as their efforts to createareas within power relations in which they can act freely?

The study on which this book is based makes a start at answering suchquestions, and suggests what kinds of analysis can produce more completeanswers. The individual qualities of the three classrooms, with their teachersand students, as described in chapters 2, 3, and 4, must be kept in mind inthinking about the details of the analysis. The study belongs to a researchgenre that calls on readers to make judgments about the validity of its

conclusions. By providing "thick description" ( Geertz, 1973) of the three



AppendixExploring Ideas About PowerRelations in ClassroomsFor readers who seek to add depth and context to the ideas in this book,here is a bibliography of books and articles relevant to many of the issuesthat have been raised.

I: WHAT IS POWER?

A. Definitions, Explorations, Critiques

• Barnes B. ( 1988). The nature of power. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.

Barnes believes that people use the concept of power to make moraljudgments of other's actions. We claim that people can control both theirown actions and those of others so that we can hold them responsible. Thisidea is exactly the one that saddles teachers with total responsibility for whathappens in their classrooms. Barnes considers it a convenient falsehood.

He suggests that our belief that power is real is based on our recognitionthat we can affect the actions of others. We connect power too closely withthe possession of coercive resources, and need to expand our understanding of the sources of power. Barnes holds that knowledge is a keysource of power.

• Bell R., & Harper L. ( 1977). Child effects on adults. Lincoln: University ofNebraska Press.


Publication Information: Book Title: Classroom Power Relations: Understanding Student-Teacher Interaction. Contributors: Mary Phillips Manke - author. Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Place of Publication: Mahwah, NJ.

Publication Year: 1997. Page Num

THE EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE OF LEARNING AND TEACHING

Chapter 1

Hopeful and fearful expectations

A new year, a new job, a new baby; the beginning of a new relationship, a book, a course of study-eagerly we turn to each new event with expectant hope. Untried, unsullied, it holds the promise of meeting some need as yet unmet, the fulfilment of desires as yet unfulfilled, the ideal we have never given up searching for. Unless, of course, past disillusionment has blunted our capacity for hope, made us fearful of risking disappointment yet again. But, however hopeful our anticipation, we also harbour fears about the future. 'Aller Anfang ist schwer' (every beginning is hard) says the wise German proverb, pointing to the uncertainty and doubts which tend to beset us. Will the new job be a failure, the course worthless, the new year bring disease and death, the journey end in disaster, the new baby be a monster? And in a less extreme vein: will they bring the same frustrations and difficulties that we have encountered before and had hoped to escape from? It is of the

nature of beginning that the path ahead is unknown, leaving us poised as we enter upon it between wondrous excitement and anxious dread.

As I begin to write this book, I am filled with some degree of expectant hope; yet I am mainly burdened by the weightiness of the task that lies ahead. Empty pages face me as my mind is alternately a blank and in a state of chaos. Will, out of this uncertainty and confusion, any thoughts emerge, ideas be clothed into meaningful phrases, will they form themselves into some order? Do I have anything worthwhile to contribute? But as I reflect upon this despair, I become aware that these doubts and agonies are part and parcel of beginning, are the essence of any creative work. And then a somewhat reassuring thought occurs: 'I do have a basis in experience, something to start this chapter with/I have recently been confronted with a group of teaching staff from primary, secondary and tertiary education beginnning a course at the Tavistock on Aspects of Counselling in Education.

A group of fifty strangers faced me this month

at the start of the


Publication Information: Book Title: The Emotional Experience of Learning and Teaching. Contributors: Isca Salzberger-Wittenberg - author, Gianna Williams - author, Elsie Osborne - author. Publisher: Karnac Books. Place of Publication: London. Publication Year: 1999. Page Number: 3.

Chapter 3Aspects of the teacher's relationship to the studentIntroduction

Once we realise the crucial role the teacher plays in the mental and emotional life of students, it becomes essential to examine the attitudes and expectations he brings to the relationship. The teacher will be aware of some of these and not at all aware of others, yet they will all deeply colour the way he views (a) the nature of his role, (b) the way he perceives, interprets and responds to the

students' behaviour, and (c) the way he expects to be regarded by them. His convictions will be based on his life experiences and what he has learnt from them. They will have developed on the basis of what he felt towards those responsible for his education (not only his teachers but members of his family and other mentors), the way he perceived their adult behaviour and how they set about the fulfilment of their task as educators. It will be of the utmost importance whether the teacher's attitudes are based primarily on an identification with the good qualities of parents and teachers and an appreciation of a child's difficulties and struggles; or alternatively, on the more unhelpful qualities of his parents and teachers and/or his own unsatisfied child-like desires. Let us consider the following statements made by student teachers in discussing their choice of career:

'I enjoyed school and liked my literature teacher in particular. He was enthusiastic about English, encouraged me to go on when I felt hopeless about my progress, but was strict when I was shirking work. I found him a

great help and would like to become like him.'

'I hated school. I couldn't bear all the rules and disciplines. When I become a teacher, I want to let the children do just what they like and I will help them to rebel against anyone in authority.'



Chapter 5

Idealised relationships

In this, and the subsequent two chapers, we shall look at examples which teachers brought from their work experience. Many

instances of idealisation were brought by teachers to our work discussion group. The problem of idealisation is so complex and has so many facets that it might be helpful to focus on one of them at a time. In some cases, the idealisation of the teacher-counsellor was particularly evident. In others, a child or young adult was exerting great pressure to be idealised by the teacher. Those two aspects are usually closely related, but I have tried to select examples where one or the other predominates.

Unreasonable demands on the teacher

It may be difficult to continue perceiving oneself as a useful and helpful person when the demands made are very excessive and out of proportion with what one could possibly offer. The pressure to overstep one's limits and to go 'out of one's way to be helpful' can in those cases be very strong.

One such example was presented by a teacher in Further Education. She was extremely worried about the extent of her commitment and responsibility for one of her

students. Mrs V prefaced her presentation by saying that she felt she had got very involved, perhaps over-involved with Sandy. This student of 22 years left school with no qualifications and had recently enrolled at college. She lived in a hostel and had no contact with her family. Mrs V had occasionally been meeting her after lessons, and at student gatherings at the pub. The first incident which caused Mrs V alarm occurred one day when she was leaving the college and Sandy, looking very dreamy and lost, informed her that she had taken an 'LSD trip', and was still under the drug's influence and frightened. Mrs V felt very alarmed, but was not sure that Sandy was so afraid herself as she seemed so 'switched off. Sandy related that she had taken what she knew to be a


Publication Information: Book Title: The Emotional Experience of Learning and Teaching. Contributors: Isca Salzberger-Wittenberg - author, Gianna Williams - author,

Elsie Osborne - author. Publisher: Karnac Books. Place of Publication: London. Publication Year: 1999. Page Number: 81

Chapter 10Different kinds of endingsIntroduction

The end of term, the end of a school year; the temporary or permanent end of an important relationship, the end of school, childhood, youth; bereavement and the end of our life-all these situations in varying degrees confront us with the experience of loss. We have to come to terms with losing what has sustained and supported us and those whom we have needed, loved and depended on. Will we be able to manage without the presence of parent, friend, partner, mentor? Have they abandoned us to our fate, left us to die, to feel lonely and bereft? Will they come back again, or will ill befall them in our absence? Will they remember us? Can we give up our demand that they be available to us endlessly? Can we cherish their memory and what they gave us? Can we let go of the comfort and privileges of babyhood,

childhood, youth-of life itself, without too much resentment? Even a conflict-laden situation may be hard to part from for it offers some sense of security by being familiar. We may in addition dread what might take its place; as the saying goes: 'better the devil you know than the one you don't know.' It is only if the past or present is disastrous that we contemplate the end with sheer relief.

We shall examine some of the ordinary ending situations in the lives of students and teachers. The anxieties and pain which accompany such situations are rarely faced, yet how these experiences are dealt with is of great importance in determining what of the past can be retained and used creatively in the present and future.

Transfer to another teacher

In most schools, children experience frequent staff changes. They are passed regularly from one teacher to another as lessons follow each other

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COMMUNICATIONA series of volumes edited by: Dolf Zillmann and Jennings BryantZillmann/ Bryant ∣ Selective Exposure to CommunicationBeville ∣ Audience Ratings: Radio, Television, Cable, Revised EditionBryant/ Zillmann ∣ Perspectives on Media EffectsEllis/ Donohue ∣ Contemporary Issues in Language and Discourse ProcessesWinett ∣ Information and Behavior: Systems of InfluenceHuesmann/ Eron ∣ Television and the Aggressive Child: A Cross-NationalComparison

Gunter ∣ Poor Reception: Misunderstanding and Forgetting Broadcast NewsOlasky ∣ Corporate Public Relations: A New Historical PerspectiveDonohew/ Sypher/ Higgins ∣ Communication, Social Cognition, and AffectVan Dijk ∣ News as DiscourseWober ∣ The Use andAbuse of Television: A Social Psychological Analysisof the Changing ScreenKraus ∣ Televised Presidential Debates and Public PolicyMasel Walters/ Wilkins/ Walters ∣ Bad Tidings: Communicationand CatastropheSalvaggio/ Bryant ∣ Media Use in the Information Age: Emerging Patternsof Adoption and Consumer UseSalvaggio ∣ The Information Society: Economic, Social, and Structural IssuesBotan/ Hazleton ∣ Public Relations TheoryZillmann/ Bryant ∣ Pornography: Research Advances and PolicyConsiderationsBecker/ Schoenbach ∣ Audience Responses to Media Diversification:Coping With Plenty

Richards ∣ Deceptive Advertising: Behavioral Study of a Legal ConceptFlagg ∣CHAPTER 8Affinity in the Classroom

John A. DalyPamela O. KreiserUniversity of Texas

Teachers gain power and influence in the classroom in a number of ways.They influence others by the rewards they give and the punishments theyuse. They are seen as experts and, as a consequence, have students engagein the behaviors they recommend. They depend on students' recognizingthat they, as teachers, hold a power position in the school different fromothers. And they bolster their interpersonal relationships with students,hoping that if students like them they will heed their instructions, pay moreattention, participate more actively, and, in the end, learn more. Thischapter is about this last strategy -- influencing students through enhancing

students' affinity for their teachers.

The observation that teachers who are liked by their students are moreeffective in classrooms than teachers who are disliked may seem obvious tomany. But surprisingly, until recently, there has been little systematicexamination of that presumption. In the past few years, however, scholarsprimarily in the field of communication have begun to carefully examinehow teachers try to get students to like them and the consequences of thoseattempts. Reflecting this research is a recent national project sponsored bythe Educational Testing Service (ETS). In its new national assessment forbeginning teachers (PRAXIS), ETS noted that one of the characteristics ofgood teaching is the establishment and maintenance of teacher rapport withstudents (ETS Policy Notes, 1991). Rapport, in many ways, representsaffinity.

This chapter reviews the recent literature on

affinity with special


Publication Information: Book Title: Power in the Classroom: Communication, Control, and Concern. Contributors: Virginia P. Richmond - editor, James C. McCroskey - editor. Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Place of Publication: Hillsdale, NJ. Publication Year: 1992. Page Number: 121.

Formative Evaluation for Educational TechnologiesNarula/ Pearce ∣ Cultures, Politics, and Research Programs: An InternationalAssessment of Practical Problems in Field Research

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Publication Information: Book Title: Power in the Classroom: Communication, Control, and Concern. Contributors: Virginia P. Richmond - editor, James C. McCroskey -

editor. Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Place of Publication: Hillsdale, NJ. Publication Year: 1992. Page Number: ii.

CHAPETER 4

Power in the Classroom:Seminal Studies

Virginia P. RichmondWest Virginia University

K. David RoachTexas Tech University

In this chapter we review the early research on power and communicationin the organizational environment and the early studies in the instructionalenvironment that were spawned from that work. After the previous studiesare reviewed, conclusions and explanations are drawn concerning thecommunication of power.

There are three conclusions that can be drawn from the previous chapterson power and communication. First, there is a certain amount of power

rooted in most relationships. That power can be established in anyrelationship (e. g., teacher-student, supervisor-employee, opinion leaderfollower, wife-husband, husband-wife). Second, power is a perception.One person grants the other power over her or him. If power is notperceived, power cannot be exerted by another. Third, power and communication are inextricably related. For example, in almost all relationshipsthere is a point when one person will try to exert power over anotherthrough communication.

INFORMAL INFLUENCE

Some of the earliest work on power and communication started withRichmond and her colleagues in the latter part of the 1970s. Richmond wasinterested in the use of informal power of opinion leaders on information

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CHAPTER 5

Teacher Power in the Classroom:Defining and Advancing aProgram of Research

Timothy G. PlaxPatricia KearneyCalifornia State University, Long Beach

Over the last decade we have been examining how teachers employ powerin the classroom to manage student on- and off-task behaviors and thus,student cognitive and affective learning. Our research team discovered early

on that these issues are both difficult to delineate conceptually and tountangle empirically. We are comfortable, however, that we have a betterunderstanding of these issues after a decade of investigation. That is, takingstock of our programmatic efforts after almost 10 years suggests that wehave made substantial progress in both the theoretical and the empiricalexplication of what has become a well-recognized area of instructionalcommunication research. We feel that from what our team has discoveredthus far we can comfortably draw several conclusions for teachers, researchers, and other interested consumers regarding teachers' communication of power and influence in the classroom and correspondingly, students'reactions to teachers' attempts at control.

Part of being able to utilize what is suggested to practitioners by a bodyof literature is that they understand the way the research was conceived andconducted. Unfortunately, practitioners are

not typically assisted by investigators to understand the origins, evolution, or the actual conduct ofinvestigations. In an effort to ameliorate this shortcoming, the primaryobjective of this chapter is to overview in general terms the origins and thecontinuing development of the program of research referred to in theinstructional communication literature as "Power in the Classroom."Emanating from this overview is our second and equally important



CHAPTER 10

Teacher and Student Concern andClassroom Power and Control

Ann Q. StatonUniversity of Washington

Insight into teacher and student perspectives is important in understandingthe teaching process, classroom communication, and power and control inthe classroom. One framework for understanding teacher and studentperspectives is that which has been labeled concern.

This chapter provides an examination of the concern framework andsuggests its usefulness in understanding classroom power and control. First,the origin of the teacher concern construct is explicated. Second, over twodecades of research on the concerns of teachers is reviewed. Third, thepotential relationship of teacher concern to teacher power and control isexplored. Fourth, the potential relationship of student concern to power

and control is examined. Finally, a view is presented of power and controlas dynamic processes negotiated in the classroom between teacher andstudents.

ORIGIN OF THE TEACHER CONCERN CONSTRUCT

In a landmark study, Fuller ( 1969) examined the developing concerns ofprospective teachers in order to discover the nature of the concerns andwhether they could be categorized into a conceptual framework or model.She defined concerns as:


Publication Information: Book Title: Power in the Classroom: Communication, Control, and Concern. Contributors: Virginia P. Richmond - editor, James C. McCroskey - editor. Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum

Associates. Place of Publication: Hillsdale, NJ. Publication Year: 1992. Page Number: 159.

OBSERVATION GUIDE: TEACHER-STUDENT INTERACTIONProfessional Methods Field Experiences

CLASSROOM POWER RELATIONS

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