Researcher-identified and emergent predictors of pupil control ideologies: a Canadian beginning teacher perspective

Abstract

The objectives of this study were (a) to identify the direction of pupil control ideology (PCI) shifts during participants’ beginning teaching years, and (b) to identify a broader range of emergent (participant-identified) predictors of PCI that beginning teachers saw as accounting for the tendency for their classroom learning environments to become more or less humanistic or custodial. The study builds on a pilot study by extending its geographical scope to include beginning teachers from three Canadian provinces, and its theoretical underpinnings to a potentially more comprehensive social cognitive theory framework. Data was collected during semi-structured interviews with 27 elementary teachers, and analyzed using open coding, intentional coding (process and strategic), and thematic analysis. Fifteen predictive variables were identified. Nine of these variables were ‘emergent’ and six were researcher selected and confirmed by participants. The study concluded that relationships with students were foundational to effective classroom management. Additionally, a ‘custodial’ pupil control ideology was seen not as an end in itself nor as a static reality, but as a preliminary phase of an increasingly ‘humanistic’ approach that emerged as relationships with students developed.

Keywords:

• beginning teachers
• beliefs about education
• pupil control ideology
• teacher change
• classroom experience

Acknowledgement

This research has received funding support from Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Canada.