Students' Consent to a Teacher's Pedagogical Authority

Abstract

In this paper student comments are examined to identify a typology of demands for granting their consent to a teacher's pedagogical authority. The data for this study (136 written responses and 66 interviews) have been collected from students in a Finnish comprehensive school and examined by means of a theory-bounded content analysis. The results show that the students in this study expressed views which amounted to a typology of demands. If their demands are met, students will grant consent to their teacher's pedagogical authority and, consequently, allow the teaching, studying, and learning of the content under consideration. Securing students' consent to authority in the classroom will provide a new perspective on the phenomenon of a teacher's pedagogical authority. It is argued that a teacher's pedagogical authority and student consent to pedagogical authority are complementary ways of sharing power in the classroom and bringing about a pattern of empowerment.

Keywords:

• pedagogical authority
• techniques
• student demands
• consent to authority
• pattern of empowerment

Notes

¹The school had a population of 470 students at the time the data were collected.

² All names are pseudonyms. Merja was born in 1960 and Pentti in 1949. Both are teachers of Finnish (as a native language) and literature. They were participants in my earlier studies (Harjunen, 2002, 2009). Pentti has taught classes from the 7th grade onwards. Merja had been on maternity leave and had returned to work to teach her classes in the beginning of the school year, when the collection of the present data took place (September 2003).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elina Harjunen

Elina Harjunen, Department of Teacher Education, University of Helsinki.The author expresses her appreciation to the two teachers and to the students at the Finnish comprehensive school who participated in the survey and whose diligence made completion of this project possible.