Pedagogy in practice: school pedagogy from students’ perspectives

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Pedagogy in practice: school pedagogy from students' perspectivesLinor Lea Hadara; Yotam Hotama

a Department of Learning, Curriculum and Teacher Education, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel,Haifa, Israel

First published on: 21 October 2010

To cite this Article Hadar, Linor Lea and Hotam, Yotam(2010) 'Pedagogy in practice: school pedagogy from students'perspectives', Research Papers in Education,, First published on: 21 October 2010 (iFirst)To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/02671522.2010.520331URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2010.520331

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Research Papers in Education2010, 1–22, iFirst Article

ISSN 0267-1522 print/ISSN 1470-1146 online© 2010 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/02671522.2010.520331http://www.informaworld.com

Pedagogy in practice: school pedagogy from students’ perspectives

Linor Lea Hadar* and Yotam Hotam

Department of Learning, Curriculum and Teacher Education, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, IsraelTaylor and FrancisRRED_A_520331.sgm(Received 31 March 2010; final version received 30 August 2010)10.1080/02671522.2010.520331Research Papers in Education0267-1522 (print)/1470-1146 (online)Original Article2010Taylor & Francis0000000002010Dr [email protected]

This paper introduces the concept of ‘pedagogy in practice’ (PiP), referring to theimmediate interaction between students’ learning experiences and school’spedagogy and distinct from the pedagogy advocated ‘from above’ by the school.We bring the concept of PiP into focus by analysing students’ open-endeddiscourse about their learning experiences in 24 open group conversations,comparing two holistically different learning environments (conventional and analternative arts and sciences (A&S) high school in Israel). The results show thatA&S students described their learning experiences as ones wherein they activelysteered and navigated their own learning process. Students’ experience of theconventional school’s pedagogy implies that the conventional school’s PiPconsiders its students as passengers joining a ride over which they have littlecontrol. Traditionally, research has looked into students’ perceived learningexperiences for the purpose of better understanding their learning processes. Wesuggest that students’ talk about their experiences is also informative forunderstanding their interaction with the schools’ pedagogy.

Keywords: pedagogy in practice; pedagogy in action; learning; students’experience

Introduction

Since Perry’s (1968, 1970) groundbreaking research on how college students describetheir learning experiences, ‘the differing ways in which learners experience, under-stand, and make sense of learning in general’ (Boulton-Lewis, Marton, and Wilss2001, 154) have become a familiar theme in the study of education (e.g. Berry andSahlberg 1996; Eklund-Myrskog 1998; Marton, Dall’Alba, and Beaty 1993; Saljo1979; Smith and Blake 2009; Vermunt and Vermetten 2004). Researchers have attrib-uted crucial importance to students’ first-order perspective on their experiences oflearning (i.e. how they experience and describe them) because of the vital role thatlearning experiences play in why students learn (motivations), how they learn (habits,approaches, self-regulation strategies), what they learn and so on (Ferla, Valcke, andSchuyten 2008; Klatter, Lodewijks, and Aarnoutse 2001; Law, Chan, and Sachs 2008).

A large body of studies has therefore examined the variety of ways in which learn-ers experience, understand and make sense of learning in order to connect experienceand learning. To scrutinise this connection, researchers have commonly focused onstudents’ conceptions and beliefs: their conceptions of learning (e.g. Lee, Johanson,

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Downloaded By: [Hadar, Linor Lea] At: 08:10 22 October 2010

2 L.L. Hadar and Y. Hotam

and Tsai 2008; Marton 1981; Marton, Dall’Alba, and Beaty 1993; Saljo 1979; Yangand Tsai 2010), differences between ‘shallow’ and ‘deep’ learning conceptions(Entwistle, McCune, and Walker 2001; Marton and Saljo 1976a, 1976b; Yang andTsai 2010), changes in conceptions of learning over time (Cano and Cardelle-Elawar2004), beliefs about the nature of knowledge (Hofer and Pintrich 1997), personalepistemologies (Hofer 2000; Schommer-Aikins and Easter 2008; Zhu, Valcke, andSchellens 2008), beliefs about how to acquire knowledge (Schommer 1994;Schommer-Aikins and Easter 2008) and the hierarchical order of learning conceptionsat different levels of education (Lonka and Lindblom-Ylänne 1996; Tynjala 1997).

To expand on the literature that has explored these issues, the present researchadopted two new approaches. First, we aimed to shift the focus from students’ concep-tions and beliefs about learning, which have generally been measured as structuredconstructs, to students’ actual discourse concerning their learning experiences, whichrefers to a more immediate descriptive level of discussing the learning experience. Themore structured, complex conceptions and beliefs about learning may or may not bepresented by students when they freely express thoughts verbally about learning.Second, and more important, we aimed to examine whether students’ experiences arelinked with their particular school’s pedagogy, or more specifically with what we termthe school’s ‘pedagogy in practice’ (PiP) as described below. Thus, in contrast to thecommon approach in prior researches, the current study investigated the connectionbetween students’ learning experiences and their school’s pedagogy, rather thanbetween their experiences and their actual learning.

The reason for focusing on the school’s pedagogy in this context lies in the notionthat students’ descriptions of learning do not develop arbitrarily; they are usuallyconceived and organised in relation to relatively coherent learning and pedagogicsystems. Such an assertion that points to pedagogic knowledge as a social constructionis a common denominator which characterises educational research since the emer-gence of the ‘new sociology of education’ in the 1960s and 1970s (Atkinson, Daviesand Delamont 1995; Sadovnik 1995; Wexler 1987). Extensive work, dealing with awide range of issues relating to learning in social contexts and the interactions thatoccur in them (Morais 2002), was conducted by a variety of sociologists of educationfollowing Benstein’s introduction of his original concepts of classification and fram-ing forty years ago (Bernstein 1971). In focusing on the different educational systemlevels, from National, through local education authority, school, individual classroom,to pupil experience, studies have shown the manner in which differences in schoolsassume social, semiotic and psychological significance. These studies have alsoshown the extent to which different contexts generate different criteria of ‘communi-cative competence’ in schools and different ‘regulative discourses’ which refer to theprinciples of social order, relation and identity (Daniels 1995, 519). Within this broadscholarly context, the relevant point to note here is the so called ‘relative autonomy’of the pedagogic discourse in schools (Apple 2002, 610; Bernstein 1990, 188–9).

Thus, notwithstanding other influential factors such as the personality or socioeco-nomic background of a particular student, which preoccupied much of the discussionregarding the construction of knowledge in school, the learning environment and moreparticularly the pedagogy in school should be recognised as an important factor affect-ing students’ experience of learning, and consequently affecting the formation ofstudents’ views about learning as expressed in open discourse. The importance of thelearning environment in the formation of students’ views about learning was indeedrecognised by a variety of studies. Trigwell and Ashwin (2006), for example, argued


Research Papers in Education 3

that ‘it is not so much conceptions of learning per se but those conceptions that areevoked by the students’ experience of their unique learning situation, that are likely tobe most strongly related to students’ approaches to learning, perceptions of their learn-ing environment and learning outcome’ (244). By arguing that conceptions of learningwere not stable traits of individuals but rather a type of awareness springing fromknowledge and experience, Morgan and Beaty (1997) also pointed out that students’perspectives were an upshot of the students’ experiences within a particular educa-tional and pedagogic environment. Likewise, Marton, Dall’Alba, and Beaty (1993)reported that students entering university brought with them learning orientationsinherited from their previous educational experiences, and Marton, Hounsell, andEntwistle (1997) found that teaching and departmental characteristics provided a vari-ety of different learning environments that influenced students’ approaches to learning.

This last point upholds the aim of the current study: If students’ experiences areconceived within a certain pedagogic context in school (Bernstein 1990), the study ofthis experience is consequently relevant for understanding not only students’ learningbut also the school’s pedagogy itself. To some extent, Fielding and Rudduck’s recentargument for attuning to ‘students’ voices’ in order to improve school pedagogy(Fielding and Rudduck 2006, 2007; McIntyre, Pedder, and Rudduck 2005; Rudduckand Fielding 2006; Rudduck and Flutter 2000) recommends that student experiencesshould be examined in relation to school pedagogy, and not only in connection withquestions relating to students’ eventual learning behaviours, motivations andacademic successes.

Though many scholars have recognised the connection between school pedagogyand students’ discourse about learning experiences (including their views, beliefs andconceptions), the possible interactions between the two (between schools’ pedagogyand students’ learning experiences) has remained largely understudied (Hadar 2009)in favour of research focusing on the different ways in which our knowledge of students’experiences informs us about learning. Consider, for example, Trigwell and Ashwin’s(2006) study of ‘situated conceptions of learning’, which were conceived as a resultof students’ responses to their perceived pedagogic context. Nonetheless, the studyfocused on these ‘situated’ learning conceptions themselves rather than on the possiblemanner in which the pedagogic context acted on the students’ learning conceptions.

We expected that this interaction between students’ experiences and their school’spedagogy would be central for students when talking about learning issues. Studentsin different pedagogic environments, for example, may very well speak differentlyabout what ‘an increase in knowledge’ (as presented by Saljo 1979; Marton,Dall’Alba, and Beaty 1993) actually means in their school. The same can be saidabout students’ meaning-making when discussing concepts like ‘memorizing orreproducing’, ‘application of knowledge’, ‘the abstraction of meaning’, as well as‘changing as a person’ (described by Marton, Dall’Alba, and Beaty [1993, 283–95]).The interaction of the students’ experiences with their school’s pedagogy was thusconsidered crucial for the examination of diverse student voices (Fielding andRudduck 2006, 2007; Flutter 2007; Rudduck 2006; Rudduck and Flutter 2000) andtheir implications for our understanding of pedagogy.

Pedagogy in practice

We argue that students’ first-order discourse about learning comprises authenticdisclosures about their learning experiences within a particular learning and pedagogic



environment. We then assert that the students’ learning experiences (disclosed by their‘talk’ about this experience) demonstrate the very pedagogy that actually acts on theirminds and hearts within the particular learning environment. We have termed thisschool-specific action PiP. Thus, we regarded PiP as the pedagogy of a learningsetting as students experience it and as students’ discourse reveals. In the presentstudy, to investigate whether PiP would be fleshed out differently in different learningenvironments, we compared the discourse of students attending two holistically differ-ent schools while discussing overall messages about learning, what learning meansand how learning happens specifically.

In defining PiP, we employed the general term ‘pedagogy’ (as introduced inBrunner, Conze, and Koselleck 1997) and not, for example, ‘teaching’ because wewere interested in the overall messages about learning that unfold in class via actualacts of teaching during daily school activity. The term ‘pedagogy’ may more fullycapture schooling as ‘a constellation of encounters, both planned and unplanned, thatpromote growth through the acquisition of knowledge, skills, understanding andappreciation’ (Noddings 2002, 283). However, inasmuch as PiP relates to the first-order perspective of pedagogic processes experienced and formulated verbally bystudents in open discussion, the concept of pedagogy that emerges from the currentstudy will not provide a coherent overall holistic vision of pedagogy as practised inschools (McLaughlin 2003).

We used the term ‘experience’ in a broad speculative sense to cover human intimateinteraction with the surrounding world (Dewey [1916] 1966, [1925] 1968, [1938]1963). By examining pedagogy as ‘experienced’ by students, gaps may emergebetween the pedagogic messages that teachers would like to convey (or think they areconveying) in class and the messages that students actually perceive and absorb. Inother words, PiP is not the pedagogy campaigned for by administrators and school lead-ers or even the pedagogy as teachers practise it, but rather, PiP is the pedagogy ‘as is’from the standpoint of the students. We suggest approaching PiP based on close inves-tigation of students’ experiences as a pedagogic subject matter independent of peda-gogy prescribed ‘from above’ by school leaders, although the two may certainlyconnect. It should also be emphasised that in the context of the current study PiP doesnot necessarily even reflect the objective pedagogy that actually unfolds in the realityof the classroom; instead, it reflects students’ subjective reality, which for the purposeof this study will be considered their ‘actual’ experience as reflected by their discourse.

We described this pedagogy as ‘in action’ because, to the extent that education isa socialising process, PiP comprises continuing actions played out cognitively,emotionally, socially and culturally on students within the context of their particularschooling environment. The term ‘in practice’ therefore points to the actual acting outof pedagogy, or else pedagogy as ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu 1977), referring to the internal-isation of patterns of thought, behaviour, and values through the experience of an indi-vidual or group. Here, it is important to compare PiP with Bernstein’s widely discussedconcept of ‘pedagogic practice’, since scholars such as Apple (2002), Harker and May(1993) and Bernstein (1990) himself juxtaposed the latter and Bourdieu’s concept of‘habitus’. To a large degree, Bernstein’s theory of ‘pedagogic practice’ dealt with theprocedures through which knowledge is transformed into classroom talk, curricula andonline communication (Singh 2002). In doing so it inevitably linked pedagogy andcurriculum as well as developed a theoretical account of the relations between socialstructure, the pedagogic device, cultural codes and (students’) consciousness (Atkinson1985; Bernstein 1990; Sadovnik 1995). Bernstein’s later work in particular, which was



directly interested in the transmission of knowledge through pedagogic communication(Sadovnik 1995, 11; Singh 2002, 571), defined the pedagogic discourse as a ‘symbolicruler of consciousness’ (Bernstein 1990, 188–9), thus connecting students’ experienceand pedagogy. To some extent then the concept of PiP could be seen as a particularexpansion on Bernstein’s interest in the transmission of knowledge and the connectionbetween students’ experience and pedagogy. However, it is also important to note thatPiP somewhat differs from Bernstein’s overall structure mainly in that it presents astudy of the ‘grammar of the pedagogic device’ (Apple 2002, 611) from the students’perspectives. Focusing particularly on what Bernstein termed ‘consciousness’ PiP isless interested in a study of the pedagogic ‘practice’, beyond the borders of thestudents’ interpretations. More particularly, rather than seeing in the so called students’‘consciousness’ as one, perhaps less significant, aspect of a larger framework of peda-gogic ‘practice’, PiP deduces the ‘practice’ from ‘consciousness’. It should be empha-sised that PiP refers to students’ interpretation and actual experience of the pedagogythat is enacted and communicated to students during their immediate engagement withtheir educational environment. It is the pedagogy that eventually endows students withtheir understanding of learning, self-image, knowledge, social behaviours andapproach toward their future lives in general.

Although the constructs are similar, PiP should nevertheless be differentiated fromthe celebrated and widely interpreted concept of ‘hidden curriculum’ (Jackson 1968;Snyder 1970), which may be conceived as the concealed moral, social, cultural orpolitical meanings that teachers tacitly (or indirectly) channel to students through thecurriculum. Hidden curriculum is generally measured in terms of the messagesconveyed by the school system, teachers, curricular choices and so on; whereas PiPmeasures the messages actually experienced, emphasising that pedagogic intentionsare not necessarily received or interpreted as intended, particularly when a school’shidden curriculum offers varied or contradictory messages, as is usually the case.Moreover, the study of PiP is not restricted to veiled or tacit connotations conveyedspecifically through curricula; rather, it relates to all types of messages, covert or overt,‘visible’ or ‘invisible’ (Bernstein 1990; Sadovnik 1995), experienced by studentswithin the school’s larger educational arena. The theoretical importance of this metic-ulous study of students’ engagement with the PiP as a form of subjective experiencelies in its disclosure of what students actually encounter, that is what actually happensin class from a first-order perspective, which eventually promotes their growth. Thistype of study differs from theoretical revisions of what teachers ‘should do’ or howteachers ‘should teach’, which preoccupy leading philosophers of education.

Present study design and objectives

In line with our conceptualisation of PiP, to examine school pedagogy in the presentstudy we needed to tap students’ actual subjective experiences rather than to investi-gate the school’s curriculum as promoted by school managers or the teachers’ educa-tional methods in action or even the students’ own learning. Therefore, the currentstudy utilised a qualitative methodology analysing students’ open-ended discourse toelicit the immediate interaction between experience and pedagogy. Research thatsystematically listens to ‘pupils’ voices’ has attained a high profile over the past decade(Flutter 2007). We undertook an empirical comparative study of PiP in two holisticallydifferent learning environments in Israel to determine whether PiP would be mirroreddifferently in each school by students’ voices during discourse about their learning



experiences. Thus, we selected this comparative qualitative research design to: (1)demonstrate the concept of PiP; and (2) suggest that different schooling environmentsinvite a different PiP. The comparison of two dissimilar PiPs can highlight differencesin student views across different learning environments, thereby emphasising theinteraction between the school’s pedagogy and the students’ learning experiences.

Method

The school settings

We selected two different pedagogical secondary school environments in the samegeneral area in Israel that both serve students of average socioeconomic status: aconventional public secular school and an alternative semi-private arts and sciences(A&S) school. Such a study of two clear alternatives also characterised the compara-tive works of such renowned scholars as Swidler (1977) and Walford (1986) and istherefore useful in our case as well.

The conventional public high school operating for more than 20 years is govern-ment-funded and employs a traditional learning environment comprising mostlyfrontal teaching (when the teacher stands in front of the class and teaches material tothe entire class; the students are passive, the teacher talks, shows or writes on theboard) and emphasising written tests as the major means for student evaluation. Thecurriculum is determined by the national Ministry of Education, with little room forschool-driven autonomous focal points or additional fields of study. Class size rangesbetween 35 and 40 students, and the student body in the secondary grades (10th–12th)is approximately 750 students.

The A&S school is a relative newcomer on the Israeli scene, operating for only adecade. To some extent it sprang out of a same feeling of ‘disappointment’ from thetraditional schooling that characterised, for example, the flourishing of open or freeschools in England of the 1970s such as that of Countesthorpe, Wyndham, andKensington schools (Kozol 1982; Richmond 1973; Swidler 1977) as much as the‘democratic’ notions which proliferate in the educational arena in the USA of the lastdecade (Apple and Beane 2007; Beane 2005). Thus, since ‘organisations do not existin a vacuum’ (Swidler 1977, 32), the A&S school could be seen as a somewhat lateupshot of the history of the so called alternative schools, which encompass a widevariety of pedagogic and institutional approaches – from open, free, democraticschools to magnet and charter schools (e.g. Apple and Beane 200; Estes, Levine, andWaldrip 1990; Kozol 1982; Richmond 1973; Swidler 1977). In this wide context theA&S school could be labelled as a form of a ‘charter’ school that is publicly fundedyet granted significant autonomy in curriculum and governance (Buckley andSchneider 20). Yet it is at the same time an outsourced, semi-privately funded school(i.e. ‘independent’) defined as specialising in the arts and in science subjects (Walford, 1990, 2003, 2006). Specific schemes were established, for example, in order to chan-nel government money to the school (Walford 2006, 7). Since excellence in an art orscience field is the central criterion for student admission, the A&S school then alsoshows some resemblance to the ‘magnet’ schools which are thematically organisedaround subject areas such as science and performing arts (Estes, Levine, and Waldrip199). As such, the school is designed to offer an alternative educational environment.However, it does not represent a ‘nonhierarchical, antibureaucratic organizationwithout authority’ (Swidler 1977, 2); rather, somewhat like an open school, it is madeof a compromise, content to work within the framework of the existing system



(Richmond 1973, 133). Thus, although the A&S school is fully accredited by thenational Ministry of Education and is subject to the government’s guidance, supervi-sion and national core curriculum, its A&S specialisation allows the school more flex-ibility and autonomy in curricular design, selection of subjects for instruction (e.g.providing extra hours in A&S) and methods for student evaluation (e.g. arts or scienceprojects, portfolios). Frontal teaching is frequent although other instruction methods(e.g. small groups or individual studio instruction) are also quite common. Class sizeis relatively small, with no more than 25 students per class, and the student body inthe secondary grades (10th–12th) is approximately 300 students.

Participants and procedures

A total of 120 students in Grades 10–12 participated in this study: 62 students fromthe conventional school (30 girls and 32 boys; 20 students in the 10th grade; 21 in the11th grade; and 21 in the 12th grade) and 58 students from the A&S school (30 girlsand 28 boys; 15 students in the 10th grade; 20 students in the 11th grade; and 23 inthe 12th grade). Students in both the schools come from the same religious andsocioeconomic background.

After obtaining permission from the Ministry of Education and the school princi-pals, one researcher, escorted by the school principal, entered classes in each schooland gave basic information about the study; its aims and procedures. The students weretold that the aim of the study was to understand how students construe learning andthat students will be asked to participate in group conversations. The students wereensured of confidentiality; while the conversations will be audio-recorded, only theresearchers will have access to the transcription of the conversations. In addition,students were ensured that the introduction part of the conversation (in which everystudent introduces himself) will not be recorded and that there will be no recollectionof their names in the transcriptions. Students were asked to raise their hands if theywish to participate. The participating students were voluntary recruited during the classvisits. Each chosen student participated in one conversation. The conversations wereheld in a special room allocated by the school. Most conversations were held duringschool hours, only three conversations were held immediately after the school ended.One researcher led all of the conversations. No one other than this one researcher andthe participating students was present in the room during the conversations.

It should be noted that in order to deepen our understanding of the differencesbetween these two contexts in which students’ learning occurred, we conducted anextensive ethnographic study in both schools prior to the group conversations thatcomprised the current study (see below). This ethnographic phase, which lasted forapproximately one year and included teacher and principal interviews and classroomobservations, is beyond the scope of the present study and will not be reported here.

Measure

Drawing on methodological literature concerning organisation and execution of focusgroups (Barbour and Kitzinger 1999; Bloor et al. 2002; Edmunds 1999; Fern 2001;Krueger 1998; Litosseliti 2003; Morgan 1993, 1997; Stewart and Shamdasani 1990;Stewart, Shamdasani, and Rook 2007; Vaughn, Schumm, and Sinagub 1996) and inline with a bottom-up approach that asks students to provide information concerningtheir learning experiences, thus serving as a mirror for the PiP at their school, a total



of 24 open group conversations (12 per school) were conducted, with four to sixstudents participating in each conversation. The conversations were held at each gradelevel (10th–12th) separately. Thus, three focus group conversations were held in eachschool in each grade level.

Focus group interviewing is a specialised form of qualitative interviewing toexplore issues and experiences in depth. In this open-ended qualitative data collectionmethod, data are generated by the study participants, who collectively communicateon a given theme (Litosseliti 2003) and whose responses are unaided. According toKrueger (1994), a researcher creates a nonthreatening environment for a somewhathomogeneous group of seven to 10 individuals to nurture different perceptions andpoints of view, without intending to reach consensus. Several groups are conductedwith different people to identify trends and patterns. Results are aggregated by themesacross groups rather than by individual participants.

These open conversations offer advantages over quantitative methods by enablingunmediated free self-expression without any guided or aided questions that mightlimit their descriptions, and by encouraging students to provide explanations for theirviews and to convey the meanings that they attribute to their experiences. Based onour unaided method, the focus group interview guide was designed to encourageconversation related to students’ experience of learning. Using Krueger’s (1994) ques-tion design principles – to be open-ended, facilitate probing and have a logicalsequence – the interview guide was structured with uncued open-ended questions,followed by cued questions for greater, more systemic probing. Thus we initiallyposed a broad general question to the group (‘What is learning for you?’), whichinvited students to reflect on the topic of learning in general, rather than posing a morefocused question about ‘learning in school’, which might have induced students to talkwhile keeping their specific schooling environment in mind. This general questionallowed us to demonstrate that coherent student reflections within each schoolreflected the dissimilar schooling environments, thereby mirroring the interactionbetween students’ experiences and the school’s pedagogy. After the initial question,some more specific questions relating to their definition of ‘good learning’ and ‘goodlearner’ were introduced. Later questions were driven by the student-led conversation.

All focus group interviews were conducted in a similar manner using Krueger’s(1994) method. One of the researchers led each group discussion. For one to one anda half hours, each group engaged in a lively discussion of their experiences. Accordingto Krueger, focus group generated data are valid if collected to address an appropriatequestion (to gain perceptions about experiences), as was done in this study.

Data analysis

The audio-recorded conversations were transcribed for analysis. The transcripts werereviewed for content analysis using Krueger’s (1994) analytic strategies to identifythemes within each group’s discussions, and comparing these across groups forcommonalities and unique themes. This process begins with grounded theory strate-gies of axial coding (Grove 1988; Shkedi 2004a, 2004b; Strauss and Corbin 1990) byidentifying themes for coding data and then comparing and relating within and acrossinterviews. Subjectivity in the initial selection of categories was avoided and trustwor-thiness was obtained by a dual method in which these categories were abstractedseparately by each of the two researchers. Each author independently examined thetranscripts, identifying similarities, differences and complementarities across and



within schools individual students. The second phase included comparing and revisingthese lists to achieve agreement upon a list of preliminary categories of responses. Wealso used Krueger’s (1994) data analysis strategies to focus on the words used byparticipants and their imbedded meaning; the context of what was said; the internalconsistency of groups; the frequency and extensiveness of comments; the intensity ofcomments; specificity; and stepping back to find the big ideas.

Next, the researchers abstracted the final scheme for categorising the students’views by grouping the students’ discourse into four main issues that characterisedtheir responses: (1) the purpose of learning; (2) the learning outcomes; (3) the moti-vations for learning; and (4) emotional experiences.

Results

To highlight the differences in PiP that students experienced in the two schoolingenvironments, we analysed each of the four final categories of student responses(purpose of learning, learning outcomes, motivations for learning and emotional expe-riences) using four pairs of contrasting concepts. Purpose of learning was analysedusing the contrasting concepts of substance versus growth; learning outcomes wereanalysed using the concepts of quantitative understanding versus a transformativeapproach (learning changes the learner) toward learning; motivations for learningwere analysed using the concepts of internal versus external experience; andemotional experiences were analysed using utility versus affect. The followingpresents the students’ first-order perspective on learning in relation to these four cate-gories, for each school separately, and the ensuing conclusions that can be drawnabout each school’s PiP as conveyed by these student discussions. The differingresults found for the two schools support the notion that assumptions about theschool’s PiP may be drawn from the discourse data. Comparisons between the twoschools will follow in the subsequent section.

Findings for the conventional school

In all 12 of the open conversations held in the conventional high school in response tothe question ‘What is learning for you?’, the discussion quickly moved to the issue ofgrades. The following excerpts reflect the types of statements made by students:

Learning is when a student gets good grades. Then the student has most likely experi-enced good learning. A student who gets good grades has most probably achieved hislearning potential. Grades are important for me. It’s not that someone told me, ‘Listen,grades are important’, but that you know the facts of life, that grades are important.

Good learning ends with good grades and new knowledge, learning that you benefitfrom, a good job from in the future, etc.

Sometimes you think you can understand what you learned, but then you get a C. Butyou can memorise everything and remember it for the hour of the test and then get an Aor even an A+ and then after two hours you forget everything. But you’ve got your A.And you can get accepted to wherever you wish to go. Or you can do whatever you wantwith it … If you want to succeed you have to have good grades, you can’t just understandand enjoy what you learn.

Further evidence for this utter emphasis on grades and exams emerged in oneopen conversation where students discussed a nearby alternative school where



grades were not considered first priority, describing that school’s students asfollows:

They don’t know how to learn. I’m positive that a very low percentage of them willcontinue to higher education. What kind of a thing is that? How can they pass their finalexams, if they didn’t even experience one exam during their 12 years of schooling?Students with no interest in grades are dumb … Why would somebody want to apply tosuch a school? Obviously, it’s a school of dumb kids.

As these excerpts suggest, students in the conventional school generally appearedto approach the purpose of learning (Category 1) exclusively in terms of substance.They perceived their teachers and their school and society at large as appreciating onlytheir grades, especially their final examination scores. Thus, substances like gradesthat can be ‘objectively’ evaluated by the school constituted these students’ viewsabout learning, understanding, success and future professional status. These viewsoffered a window into the PiP practised in the conventional school regarding thepurpose of learning, with almost exclusive emphasis placed on substance and almostnone on growth.

An important, albeit derivative, aspect to note is what learning outcomes(Category 2) meant for students in the conventional school. The central criterion forlearning outcomes or achievements appeared to be quantitative understanding.Through objectively measurable grades, students defined whether they had succeededin learning or not, eventually even defining themselves as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ studentsaccording to this quantitative criterion. In the same vein, students articulated theirunderstanding of a particular subject matter by evaluating whether they had ‘acquired’a certain object of knowledge or had attained specific data. Very little or no discussionfocused on the transformative quality of academic learning, with its potential forchanging existing knowledge in any dynamic or meaningful way.

These student responses also inform us about students’ motivations for learning(Category 3). When relating to their duties as students and to the notion of being agood learner, students said:

If you want to be a good learner it’s always better to show that you are studying hard.The teachers like that … It’s not always enough to be smart because the teacher wantsattendance, and homework. So you need to do all that, and mostly you need to flatter theteachers.

Right, you don’t think when you are learning but you repeat exactly what the teachersays. That’s what they like to hear on the tests.

Learning to me is doing the things that the teachers ask you to do. I mean, I reached theconclusion that if you do all that you are told to do by the teachers then you get goodresults.

Thus, beyond their judgement of grades and exams as pivotal, students appearedinterested wholly in ‘satisficing’ (satisfying + sufficing; Hadar 2009) what theyconsidered to be the school’s requirements or the teachers’ expectations; that is, theysought the minimal compliance behaviours necessary to keep up in school (e.g. taskcompletion, class participation, regurgitating material on tests). These students in theconventional school did not seem motivated by their own desire to learn, curiosity andself-interest; rather, they were motivated by what could be labelled as external reasons



for learning: what the teacher told them to do, what the school asked from them, theirfuture social compatibility and in particular the ability to later obtain a ‘good job’ onthe job market. In complying with such external reasons for learning, one could argue,these students communicated no inclination toward self-management and also demon-strated a shallow approach to learning (an ‘either you get it or you don’t’ mindset;Perkins 2009).

Further support for the external motivations experienced for learning emergedduring one conversation about why the school wanted students to succeed:

The school tells you: ‘I have two tickets. One is yours, the other is mine. I give youthe ticket to enter higher education … whether you want to or not. Everybody wants itat a certain point in their lives. I want to give you the best possible ticket so that youcan say: “It was worth it, I worked hard as an ass, they literally killed me, but … Imade it to the university. I don’t need to redo my exams”’. That’s on the one hand.That’s why school expects so much. But then the school also says: ‘I want my ticket.I want this school to be at the top of the list [of best schools in the country]’. There isa competition.

Finally, from the perspective of their emotional experience (Category 4), thesestudents demonstrated what could be labelled a utilitarian approach to learning.Simply put, they learned to ‘gain’ something that might be useful or practical, or elseto obtain something of substance (practical) that could serve them in the future (inthe job market or by entering higher education). Interestingly, none of the studentswho attended the conventional school related in their open discussions to otheraspects of personal emotions during the process of studying. None referred to affectssuch as ‘fun’, ‘excitement’, ‘inspiration’, ‘gratification’, ‘challenge’, ‘satisfaction’,‘desire to learn’, ‘personal growth’, ‘self-interest’ or ‘love’ of the subject matter.Instead, all of them related extensively to practical (of substance) gains such asgetting ‘an A on an exam’, getting a ‘good job’ in the future, a ‘ticket’ to highereducation and so on.

PiP in the conventional school

These findings elicited in the conventional school by the open-ended discussionsuggest some factors that may be acting upon and communicated to these students, intheir immediate engagement with this educational environment, forming the school’sPiP. The practised educational atmosphere in this school as it interacts with thestudents’ experience seems to nurture passive students who submissively ‘acquire’knowledge that is ‘fed’ or ‘given’ to them by the teachers and who let themselves becontrolled by the school’s needs and requirements. Apparently, within the context ofthis conventional PiP, students find themselves pursuing substance (i.e. good grades,utility, ‘a job’, ‘tickets’ to higher education) in the learning process. It is probable thatthe school’s pedagogy did not intend to put extensive emphasis on external motiva-tions for learning; however, students’ discourse indicates this to be their experience ofthe school’s pedagogy. Somehow these students perceived the message from theteachers in the conventional school that learning is an external process to be masteredand that good grades provide proof that learning has been achieved. The teachers mayhave put across expectations that learning is a matter of a business deal (Perkins2009), and students’ motivations for learning can be thus characterised as non-reflective engagement with teachers’ expectations.



Findings for the A&S school

Unlike in the conventional school, in all 12 of the open discussions conducted in theA&S high school, the question posed, ‘What is learning for you?’, frequently evokedconversations that centred on personal growth and minimised the importance ofgrades. In summarising what such growth meant for them, students described:

It’s like when you go to the gym and you slowly develop yourself.

Doing your best is what the school regards as good learning. They won’t back off untilyou put in your maximum effort. Maximum is relative to your own abilities. It’spersonal. The teacher can say that a student is a great student, when that’s all he can do.So progress is important … It’s very individual … Generally I can say that it’s not aboutgrades but about progress in relation to yourself. I am not going to compete with otherstudents in my class (‘Who got the best grade?’), but I will, however, try to competeagainst myself … As far as I’m concerned, if I get a B on a test, but it’s in a field I havesome troubles with, and before that B, I only got a C, then I’ll be really happy. It’s notabout the grade.

Learning derives from active research, critical thinking, meaning that it’s not enough toreceive information that’s already been processed and worked out. Instead, you need togo to the sources and perform your research from square one. I’m sure that people withpreliminary knowledge in any particular field of studies, who have already been throughthis process themselves, can help you in the process. However, independent researchrequires you to use many more tools for learning than just acquiring data for its ownsake. So I think learning, it’s not all about acquiring knowledge, but it is about develop-ing tools to enable future learning, which would also enable more complex thinking andpositive critique … The good learner looks beyond the given information; he thinks crit-ically about the information and ideas that he comes across.

Learning, but mostly good learning, concerns deep understanding of the structures ofknowledge that are under study, and how every subject is related to the other, and theability to use what you have learned in a rich and productive way.

Of course learning needs to be based on knowledge and an ability to submit a good paperor succeed in tests. But this is only the basic level of what learning is really all about.Learning is when a student understands what is learned, knows what general rules createhis knowledge and knows how to get the best out of learning. This learning is not aimedat good grades or better final examinations but toward making the best out of learningfor yourself as a person.

As these excerpts indicate, students in the A&S school did discuss grades, examsand external demands and requirements as part of their discourse about the purpose oflearning (Category 1). However, these issues comprised only a small part of students’talk about learning. Learning for these students involved much more than getting goodgrades, entailing the pursuit of personal growth. These students’ learning goal was to‘develop’ their own talents and facilities as learners, to learn better how to learn andinterpret information, rather than to merely accumulate data and facts. Moreover,improvement for these students was a subjective criterion, evaluated only in relationto the students’ own past personal achievements and not for example in terms of‘objective’ grades.

These excerpts provide information, too, on learning outcomes (Category 2) in thatthese A&S students’ discourse about learning referred to the centrality of processesrather than end results. Even when discussing outcomes, the emphasis was on thequality of learning, not the quantity:



I think that learning could be defined mostly according to the results. When the result iswhether there is still a desire to keep on learning.

It’s important for the system to enable creativity in all fields and as a result it will createbetter thinkers and more talented people in the future.

My goal for learning, what I expect of myself as a result of learning is to be able to dosomething valuable, to really contribute to the society that I am a part of. I don’t knowyet what it could be, but I really think that good learning is about enabling a person todo something, to change something.

Thus, in contrast to the conventional school, the learning outcomes for the A&Sstudents were essentially qualitative. Students experienced the learning process as oneof self-development, improvement, perfection, and the gaining of internal satisfaction,constituting a transformative approach toward learning.

Students’ open discussions also revealed considerable talk about their variousmotivations to learn (Category 3), as articulated in the following excerpts:

Learning influences you – and not only the narrow aspect of learning in school. Learningcomes out of interest, and interest comes out of learning … [Learning means] takingaction to satisfy your own curiosity.

Learning stems from interest and not because somebody told you to learn. I think thatgood learning is an ongoing process, rather than a onetime occasion; therefore, memo-rising for a test is not effective because most of the material is lost. Learning out of deepmotivation for learning makes learning go deeper and deeper inside you.

So, if you want to be a good student you need to act out of interest and not out of anexternal duty to learn.

A quite significant factor in learning is independent learning. I mean that you are aphilosopher in what you learn, in what you learn in class; you continue regardless of thestudies in class. I mean that you keep on, and you are interested in what you learn alone.You read stuff … beyond what you are taught or learn in school, and you learn ingeneral. I mean, independent learning it is very important.

You are responsible for what you learn. You and only you know when you understandthings and what you want to continue and expand on.

Desire, interest and curiosity emerged as the most common motivations forlearning for these A&S students. They described learning as an internally drivenprocess stemming mainly from students’ personal interest, but which does not disre-gard external demands such as the requirements presented by the teacher or by one’sfuture ability to enter the job market. Consequently, these students convey a model ofan independent approach to learning; they express what could be seen as a deepapproach to knowledge and skill attainment.

Finally, regarding their emotional experience (Category 4), these students of theA&S school seemed to exhibit an affective approach to learning that contrasted withthe other school’s utilitarian approach. The following excerpts reveal some of theemotional experiences in learning evoked by the open discussion:

… feeling an inner connection to what you learn. You get more interested and then youreally want to keep on learning. And you feel that you want to continue with that after



you graduate because you have more tools, and you feel more connected to the materialand you know how to get [relevant] books and to continue.

… enjoyment out of learning, and a feeling of enrichment and satisfaction.

You need to love and connect to what you are learning.

Learning also needs to be enjoying and satisfying and not only for the sake of grades.

Some positive feelings that educators may hope to inspire in their students, suchas love of learning or desire to learn and a sense of enrichment, seemed to peppermany of these students’ verbal descriptions of their learning experiences in the A&Sschool. ‘Connection to’, ‘enjoyment of’ or ‘satisfaction from’ the learning practicewere among the most common emotions expressed (mentioned in all 12 conversationsby over 65% of the students during discourse). Furthermore, students defined theseemotions as prerequisites for ‘good’ learning and articulated themselves as learningfor themselves, for their own well-being, growth and self-improvement. Simply put,they learn in order ‘to be’.

PiP in the A&S school

The discourse data indicate some aspects of this alternative school’s PiP that are enactedand communicated to these students as they interact with their educational environment.The school’s educational atmosphere in practice seems to nurture active, albeit reflec-tive, learners who take control over their own learning processes. These students appearto articulate an important difference between ‘real’ learning – a self-derived processof qualitative gain – and ‘externally’ derived learning, which is learning for the sakeof others, grades and utilitarian considerations. Thus, as a form of general educationalatmosphere that translates itself in the classroom, the PiP of the A&S school appearsto succeed in telling its students that learning consists of much more than grades andexams. Learning, the A&S school conveys, is considered to be a process and, althoughtarget oriented, is not measured by its end result. Moreover, in students’ experience,learning is also oriented toward personal development and growth. Thus, students’ viewof learning is broad, deeply personal, independent and intentional in character.

Interestingly, students’ discourse pointed to a somewhat complex role for theteacher. On the one hand, students did not talk directly of the teacher as playing a centralpart in their learning. However, we suggest that this underrepresentation of the teachers’role in the learning process fleshes out the A&S school’s messages about student-centred learning, where students’ own progress, development, growth and emotionalworld constitute the hub of the learning process and where learners are encouraged totake charge of their own motivations, and thus develop autonomy as learners. Thus,the complex role of the teacher in this alternative school lies in the teacher’s availability,guidance and facilitation for the students, in order to promote the development ofproactive learners who can eventually function without the teacher’s involvement.

Discussion

We defined PiP as the pedagogy experienced by students during daily school activityin practice, meaning the pedagogy as ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu 1977); that is, students’



internalisation of patterns of thought, behaviour, views and values experienced ‘as is’rather than ‘as ought to be’, subjectively rather than objectively. We presumed thatstudents’ disclosure of their learning experiences would also supply a reliable accountof how learning works in their particular school because meanings given by studentsto learning are not static, but are influenced by students’ experiences in a learningenvironment, thus mirroring these schools’ PiP. Our comparison of the two holisti-cally different learning environments aimed to elucidate how different PiPs mightgenerate different experiences of learning. The following discussion first comparesthe two schools’ distinctive PiPs and then analyses the significance and practicalimplications of this concept.

Comparing PiPs

It is important to note that the intention of this paper was not to pass judgement on theagendas promoted by each of the schools, but rather to analyse the differencesbetween schools’ PiPs. Furthermore, certain aspects of the PiP of both schools hadmuch in common. For example, students in the A&S school did express the value ofexcellence in exams, and students in the conventional school were not ignorant ofdeep understanding of learning. However, our goal was to emphasise the differencesbetween the schools’ PiPs, as mirrored through the students’ discourse about theirlearning experiences.

David Perkins’s well-recognised work on learning and thinking (e.g. Baron 2001;Costa 2001; Ritchhart 2002; Stenberg 1999; Swartz 2001; Talaska 2002; Tishman2001) can help us elaborate on our goal to emphasise the differences between theschools’ PiPs. In his recent work relating to students’ stances toward learning, Perkins(2009) used the driver versus passenger seat metaphor, which is useful in the presentcomparison between the two schools. A ‘taking the driver’s seat’ mindset towardlearning refers to an active, autonomous, self-managing approach, which the A&Sschool seemed to encourage among its students. A ‘passenger seat’ mindset refers toa compliant approach toward learning that pursues conventional mastery ofknowledge and grades, which the conventional school appeared to encourage amongits students.

Applying this metaphor, A&S students described their learning experiences asones wherein they actively steered and navigated their own learning process. In thissense, the A&S school likely promoted dispositions of learning how to learn. Itappears that the PiP of this alternative school, with its autonomy in curriculardevelopment, its small classes, student-centred instructional methods and alternativeways of assessment, essentially communicated to the students the value of driving,taking charge and navigating the journey, with much less emphasis on the destina-tion. Apple and Beane (2007) for example labelled such an approach ‘democraticway of life’ (17). The school conveyed that beyond being a means to an end, learn-ing is an ongoing, internally driven process of personal evolution involvingstudents’ own learning-related emotions. This pedagogic message called for learn-ers to share considerable responsibility for making independent decisions, definingtheir identity as learners and evaluating their progress in learning – in other words,to take the driver’s seat. At first the road is rocky, but with time, students gainmore autonomous learning habits and skills; the objective is for teachers to providethe support conducive to creating a learning environment in which learners drivethemselves.



In contrast, it appears that the conventional school’s PiP considers its students aspassengers joining a ride over which they have little control, as radical as it maysound. Students’ experience of the school’s pedagogy suggests that learning is a ride,mapped out and driven by the school through its structured frontal instruction, stan-dard curriculum and methods of assessment. As passengers along for the ride, studentsexpress little motivation to take control of their own learning; they are more preoccu-pied with complying passively with what the school and the teachers – who are in thedriver’s seat – convey as their agenda. The teachers’ central role as drivers in thisenvironment is, in the simplest sense, that of a pedagogic authority. One of the resultsof this PiP is that the students evaluate learning outcomes quantitatively, in a mannerresembling a product’s evaluation on the economic market, and are taught to be highlycompetitive regarding these products of education (mainly grades). According to thesestudents’ discourse, it is questionable whether this school’s PiP leaves room forstudents to actively define their learning processes, goals or identity as a learner.

Hence, in the passenger’s seat PiP, students often fall into shallow patterns oflearning, whereas in the driver’s seat PiP, students are somewhat encouraged todevelop a deep approach to learning. A ‘surface’ or ‘shallow’ conception of learningdeals more with outcomes than with processes, upholds a materialistic approach tolearning and underscores tasks such as assignment completion, material absorptionfrom the teacher and repetition. In contrast, a ‘deep’ conception of learning focuses onthe learning process as a more active, self-driven process of deep thought and self-structuring of knowledge and understanding (e.g. Entwistle, McCune, and Walker2001; Marton and Saljo 1976a, 1976b). Furthermore, the PiP of the A&S schoolappears to convey the message that you can and should take control of your ownlearning process, whereas the conventional school’s PiP appears to convey themessage that you can rely on someone else (the teachers, system, curriculum), whoknows more than you do, to plan your learning for you. This may explain whystudents of the A&S school learn in order ‘to be’ while students of the conventionalschool learn in order to ‘gain’.

Importance and implications of PiP

We promote the concept of PiP and suggest that any attempt to understand, evaluate,make sense and eventually improve pedagogy or curriculum in general must examinePiP in particular. Consider the following example: A major change was recently intro-duced into the national curriculum and pedagogy for the social studies subject of ‘civileducation’ in Israeli high schools. This change was motivated by students’ poorresults on final exams in the subject, which the teachers attributed to deficiencies instudents’ higher order thinking skills (Zohar 2007). In the following year, radicallynew pedagogic methods were launched, along with suggestions for new directions ofteaching. Yet students’ higher order thinking skills were reported by teachers andeducators as unaffected by this change. Many explanations are possible, but we wouldlike to suggest that a satisfying change in pedagogy might have occurred while the PiPnonetheless remained the same. Though school pedagogy was taken into consider-ation, the immediate interaction between this pedagogy and students’ experience of itwas not addressed; therefore, what acted upon the students’ hearts and minds in prac-tice may have been left unchanged. PiP lies in this immediate sphere of interaction;hence, modifying schools’ overall pedagogy may not necessarily stimulate any changein this sphere of interaction.



It is important to note some of the limitations of this study. This study assumedthat students’ talk about learning discloses their actual experience of learning. Thenotion that language plays a crucial role by categorising and codifying people’s under-standing and organising them in useful ways is not new (e.g. Wallace 1994). However,whether their talk about learning is an expression of their experience of learning hasnot been examined in this paper. Within the context of PiP the connection betweenstudents’ talk and experience, should be further explored. Further, in focusing on PiPthis study left some additional factors, that could have influenced students’ discourseabout learning, somewhat underrepresented. Factors such as prior self selection ofschool according to previous beliefs or a range of home influences might have predis-posed students’ to experience learning or to discuss learning in a certain way.Additional research ought to explore such influences, for example by conducting acomparative longitudinal study of changes in students’ talk about learning due toexposure to different learning environments over time.

Nonetheless, the practical implications of characterising PiP as the actual peda-gogy that holds significance, as far as the students are concerned, lies first in theunderstanding that PiP is independent from the pedagogy as conceived and promotedby curriculum planners, school management and the like. Focusing on this indepen-dent sphere of interaction is a key to improving teaching and learning in schools andshould occupy future pedagogic researchers aiming to improve pedagogy, schooling,education, teaching and curriculum. Concentrating solely on pedagogy (in the generalsense) or solely on the relations between experience and students’ learning overlooksthe independent sphere of interaction between a school’s pedagogy and its students’experiences, which could be labelled a ‘black hole’ in the study of pedagogy. Fieldingand Rudduck’s (2006, 2007) unique approach is a case in point. Their approach wasinnovative in that it related to students’ ‘voices’ as a means for understanding andeventually improving pedagogy. However, in connecting students’ experiences withschool pedagogy, they adhered mostly to the traditional conceptualisation of peda-gogy (relating to the school’s programme of study, the teachers’ concepts and meth-ods, and the curriculum as such), thus overlooking the distinction between pedagogyand PiP, as well as the importance of PiP for characterising the very innovations inteaching and learning they sought. Actually changing a school’s PiP, rather than trans-forming what the school thinks, campaigns for or plans, bears more profoundly onFielding’s and Rudduck’s persuasive pedagogic mission.

Further, in a broader sociocultural perspective, the difference between the two PiPswhich were discussed in this paper, may illuminate the conflict between two forms ofpedagogy – autonomous pedagogy and market-depended pedagogy, which accordingto Bernstein and others – in drawing upon Durkheimian concepts of the sacred and theprofane (Beck 2002, 618) – stand at the centre of the educational debates of the past15 years (Sadovnik 1995, 16). Yet, it may also demonstrate in conclusion the similaritybetween the two. Undeniably, the PiP of the conventional schooling system constitutesour general image of what we all know as ‘public schooling’. This is an image ofsubduing students’ voices while they learn, in favour of market conceptions of compe-tition, such as schools’ competition against other schools or students’ competition overgood jobs. Such a PiP characterises what contemporaneous critical pedagogues suchas McLaren (2005), Giroux (2004), Gur-Ze’ev (2007) and others term as the quintes-sence of the current neo-liberal society. The citizen who graduates from our conven-tional schooling system is encouraged to be a kind of a submissive and sociallycompatible person who succumbs to the concepts of competition endowed by such a



neo-liberal social system. In a way, this type of citizen is exactly the opposite of whatSalomon and Almog (2004) characterised as the future desired citizen who is innova-tive, engaged, flexible, reflective and a critical thinker. Yet, is such a citizen morelikely to graduate from non-conventional schooling, as seen through the A&S schoolexample? Indeed the image of the non-conventional PiP is one of encouraging anautonomous, engaged, reflective and critical learner. Against the image of ‘market-depended pedagogy’, the A&S school presents an image of ‘autonomous pedagogy’.However, this stark distinction may be somewhat misleading. The schools’ PiPpresents more of a balance between the so called ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ classification andframing (Bernstein 1971, 49–50), trying to educate the ‘whole person’ yet withoutneglecting narrow academic success (Walford 2006, 72). In this respect, it is alsoimportant to note that the A&S school’s PiP is not less commanding than the conven-tional one; as a form of ‘habitus’, it shapes the minds and hearts of its addressees, thus,for example, conveying what such concepts as autonomous, reflective and criticalthinking should mean, as well as inviting students to adopt these concepts as their own.Perhaps the PiP of the A&S school may be conceived as a paradox: the non-autonomous creation of autonomous thinkers and the dependent call for independence.This paradox may explain how this type of schooling ‘celebrates the autonomy ofknowledge and elevates the intrinsic value of knowledge back to the position of thesacred while actually presenting another more secular form of reproducing the oldinequalities’ (Sadovnik 1995, 16).

Thus, to the extent that most of the students who graduate from the A&S alterna-tive schooling eventually conform to social and cultural demands (such as gettinggood grades, entering higher education, finding a good job in the future), it is furtherpossible that the alternative PiP ultimately ends up rendering little or no effect onstudents’ actions. Future study would do well to follow up on these links among youngadults beyond secondary school, comparing those who attended conventional andnon-conventional settings.

Within this broad context, the introduction of PiP in this paper invites futureresearch that should continue to explore this concept in relation to other concepts inthe field of pedagogy like hidden curriculum, teaching and conceptions of learning.Moreover, researchers should continue to investigate the concept’s implications forthe study of pedagogy and learning environments. Of particular significance is thefurther unravelling of the compound relations between the teachers’ experience ofwhat and how they teach (pedagogy as conceived by teachers) and the pedagogy inaction experienced by the students (as is). Similar investigations should address peda-gogy as ought to be (the pedagogy that the school ‘wants’ to transmit to its students)versus the pedagogy as is (in practice).

AcknowledgementThe authors would like to thank David Perkins and Lily Orland Barak for their valuablecomments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Notes on contributorsLinor Lea Hadar teaches at the Department of Learning, Instruction and Teacher Education,University of Haifa. Her research interests involve professional development communities,students first-order perspective of learning, and pedagogical, practical aspects of educationalalternatives.



Yotam Hotam teaches at the Department of Learning, Instruction and Teacher Education,University of Haifa. His research interests involve theoretical, practical and philosophicalaspects of educational alternatives.

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