Building Bridges and Constructing Walls: Subject Hierarchies as Reflected in Teachers' Perspectives Toward Student Influence

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Abstract

This study explores how teachers from various academic subjects and programs describe their pedagogic practice, regarding students’ opportunities to influence what and how they learn, and how it reflects subject hierarchies. Interviews were conducted with 16 upper secondary school teachers, representing different schools and subjects. Using Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic discourse, the study shows how the teachers’ perceptions of pedagogic practices in relation to student influence reflect the constructions of subject hierarchies in the school context. Mathematics was described as unalterable while other subjects within the field of languages, social sciences, and natural sciences seemed to involve pedagogic practices in which students could, to some extent, influence their learning. Those practices were even sometimes problematic as they resulted in non-learning.

Author

• Valgerdur S Bjarnadóttir, University of Iceland