(Re)Locating the Problem: Toward Classroom Management Theory That Foregrounds the Way Teachers Provoke Student Resistance

• In Event: 70.065 - Roundtable Session 27
  In Roundtable Session: 70.065-13 - Teacher–Student Influences on Classroom Management

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to frame a theory of classroom management that foregrounds the role of provocation in student behavioral decision making so that classical approaches that focus on prevention, intervention, punishment, and exclusion may be problematized. Drawing from hundreds of studies in educational research, this paper argues that many of the approaches learned and sustained by teachers in their efforts to manage their classrooms and motivate their students may actually provoke more than assuage student resistance, and that those who research and teach in the field need to play closer attention to that possibility as they prepare educators for the classroom and participate in school reform.

Author

• Eric Toshalis, EngagingResistance.com