The tension between ‘ought’ and ‘is’: teachers’ conceptions of the encounter between students and culturally valued texts

Summary

This study attempts to arrive at an understanding of the pedagogical content knowledge of teachers of culturally valued texts. It focuses on the teaching of the Bible in Israel and in Jewish schools outside Israel. The Bible is the central cultural text valued by the Jewish people. In‐depth interviews were conducted with 52 teachers of the Bible. The first two research questions examined the encounter between students and text as perceived by the teachers and reflected their views regarding students’ attitudes towards the text and the difficulties faced by them. The third research question attempted to assess the role of the text in the educational process from the teachers’ point of view. Our findings suggest that teachers’ conception of students and their conception of the educational subject‐matter are frequently inconsistent. We claim that teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge usually involves tensions between these two perspectives.

Keywords:

• teacher education
• teacher knowledge
• pedagogical content knowledge
• qualitative research
• teaching culturally valued texts
• teaching Bible