‘This is a beautiful school.’ ‘This school is useless!!’ Explaining disengagement in a Greek vocational school through the examination of teacher ideologies

Abstract

This multi-method case study of a Greek vocational school explored teachers’ culture (including beliefs about education, teachers’ role, and students’ nature) using the concept of pupil control ideology to explain problems of disengagement and low morale among staff and students, as well as tensions in relationships. A prominent custodial culture was identified in the school using a functional/apolitical pedagogy to transmit ‘legitimate’ knowledge to students whose working-class background did not produce desired outcomes. This generated deficit views of students, teachers’ sympathy, and a seemingly caring school ethos which was, nevertheless, oppressive. Students’ failings were naturalised and vocational education misinterpreted as merely a streaming device in a system honouring academic achievement and middle-class ways. Teachers were blind to these cultural subtleties, believing they acted ‘rationally’ and altruistically. A humanistic subculture emphasising student empowerment and social transformation consisted of a minority of teachers and was rather marginalised. This disallowed meaningful dialogue and the identification of an alternative rationale for the sector, generating strong feelings of futility. Positive change in this school necessitated the deconstruction and (subsequent) reconstruction of custodial teachers’ world views as embedded in their practice.

Keywords:

• Educational beliefs
• pupil control ideology
• vocational education
• teachers
• school culture
• leadership

Notes

1. By ‘officially’ we mean ‘as defined by educational legislation’.

2. Exceptions are laboratory assistants holding lower-level qualifications.

3. 66% of parents in vocational lyceums have completed lower-secondary education or less, compared with 33% in general lyceums (Pedagogical Institute 2008).

4. Occupation protests consist of students entering in, and occupying, a school for an extended period, impeding the conduct of classes.

5. Cultural capital refers to non-financial assets individuals possess which create for them differential chances of succeeding within existing societal structures and achieving the upward social mobility (Bourdieu and Passeron 1990)

6. In Greece, external school evaluation was abolished in the 1980s.