Primary Teaching and the Negotiation of Power

In today's environment of rapid change, the issue of how primary teachers really teach has never been more important. Every experienced teacher knows that no teacher can make a pupil learn. Teaching and learning can only take place with the co-operation of the teacher and the learner. It is therefore a negotiated process, but what is it that the teacher and pupil actually negotiate?



Observations of classrooms suggest that teachers and pupils negotiate a power relationship. This power relationship has nothing to do with institutions, or the power and authority of the teacher. This power is simply the power generated between two or more people when they communicate with each other. However, when we observe this process of negotiation in the classroom, it soon becomes clear that it is crucial to teaching and learning. It determines how much or how little can be learnt, and it affects the quality of learning.





The author examines the range of dominant, and less dominant, power strategies used by teachers and pupils to limit or facilitate what can happen in the classroom. She explores the concept of leadership in a power situation. She takes the view that 'what a teacher does' is increasingly affected by a far wider power context than that of the school or community. In this book, she attempts to expose something of the complex power tapestry which structures the professional context of a teacher's work.