Making Sense of No: A Taxonomy of Adolescent Resistance in the Classroom

• In Event: Youth Development in the Classroom

Abstract

Educational researchers have long explored the causes, expressions, and impact of adolescent student resistance in the classroom. Likewise, teachers have long struggled to understand their students’ resistance and respond to it productively. The trouble is, the research literature that examines and offers solutions for student resistance is scattered across multiple fields with no single source or theoretical tradition to provide coherence. This paper seeks a remedy to this situation by supplying a much-needed multidisciplinary taxonomy of classroom resistance. Synthesizing hundreds of articles, chapters, and books, this paper charts a path through the maze of scholarship to suggest concrete practices that target the developmental, theoretical, political, and pedagogical aspects of student resistance in middle and high school settings.

Author

• Eric Toshalis, Lewis & Clark