Society And The Teacher S Role Rle Edu N

This study describes research into teachers’ role conceptions and uncertainties in different types of school and neighbourhood. The authors examine in particular pupils’ and parents’ conceptions of the teacher’s role, and the conflicts which teachers experience when they are exposed to different expectations and demands in a rapidly changing educational and social scene.

The educational implications of cultural pluralism attracted a good deal of attention in Western societies in the 1970s and 1980s, on the grounds of equality and human rights, maximising national talent, and maintaining social cohesion. Maurice Craft and the international contributors to this book highlight the potential of teacher education, and in this wide-ranging analytical review for its key role in providing for ethnic minority children, in respect of access and achievements, and also for all children to acquire informed and tolerant attitudes. This book makes an important contribution to a small but growing literature, concentrating on initial rather than in-service teacher education, and it brings together papers from experienced specialists from eleven countries worldwide: Australia, Britain, Canada, Israel, Malaysia, Northern Ireland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands and the USA. The papers are concerned with the needs both of diverse classrooms and diverse societies, and also consider general principles and comparative perspectives. Of interest to the specialist and non-specialist alike, Teacher Education in Plural Societies: An International Review deals with an important and timely issue – how best to prepare teachers to meet the needs of both minority – and majority – culture pupils who are growing up in plural societies.

Gerald Grace here explores the concept of role conflict and the current theorizing about the problems of the teacher’s role. He investigates four potential problem areas – role diffuseness, role vulnerability, role commitment versus career orientation, and value conflict – in a sample of one hundred and fifty secondary school teachers in a Midland town. The analysis shows how a teacher’s commitment to a particular set of values exposes him or her to conflict in an achievement-oriented and pluralistic society. These conflicts, present in all schools, are seen in their clearest form among secondary modern school teachers. The author suggests that colleges of education, in emphasizing commitment and in assuming value consensus, predispose their students to conflict experiences. He indicates that internal career possibilities in schools and the influence of graduate or certified status are also important factors in conflict exposure. While accepting that certain role conflicts are important in the genesis of change, the author proposes that levels of dysfunctional conflict can be reduced by the action of head teachers, by structural change in the schools and innovations in teaching education.

This study gives a comprehensive account of the evolution of the educational system in Modern Egypt, set against the events of the last twenty five years. From the Revolution of 1952, which saw the breakdown of the party system, seen as ‘sham democracy’, to the re-adoption of the party system in 1976, the Egyptian government has searched for an ideal system that is secular, but not irreligious, and benefitting from, but not copying, the western or eastern models. Professor Hyde has analysed the problems of the educational system, administrative, institutional, theoretical and practical, and related them to Egypt’s urgent need to modernise the state, and to improve the quality of life of her hitherto deprived masses. The deficiencies of the system are discussed with emphasis on the attempts to provide solutions, mainly within the framework of reformed institutions. Informal and private education, literacy campaigns, women’s aspirations and student welfare are all considered, as are policies and plans for the immediate and long-term solutions of Egypt’s problems. The analysis also takes into account socio-economic factors in post-Revolutionary Egypt which not only constitute instruments of change in Egyptian society but also provide the restraints which prevent the rapid translation of educational ideals into reality. First published 1978.

This volume considers how various sociological approaches to the exploration of the conditions of teachers’ might be co-ordinated so as to produce a more penetrating and reliable understanding of the main dimensions of teachers’ work. Three dimensions are selected for special attention: historical, institutional and interactional contexts in which teachers operate. In different way the papers in this collection explore the contribution such an investigation of these contexts can make to our understanding of wider educational concerns.

The subject matter of this book – what happens in schools, the effects of curriculum change, the reasons why some children are successful and others are not – explains just why the sociology of education is one of the most important areas to achieve political importance. There are five sections to the book covering: Educational Achievement; Educational Provision; The Organization of the School; Roles in the School and Values and Learning. The editor discusses the implications of the material presented (much of which was available for the first time when this book was originally published).

What do pupils actually do in school? There are remarkably few studies that take the pupils’ perspective and reconstruct experience from their point of view within the context of their own cultures and careers. This volume brings together a number of research studies on various aspects of how pupils cope with schools. The theoretical papers consider amongst other issues a developmental model of the growth of pupil strategies based on primary and secondary socialisation; a discussion of ‘interactionist empiricism’ which argues for co-ordinated research between micro and macro perspectives and an extended overview of the general sociological background of work on teacher and pupil strategies. The empirical articles consider a number of themes ranging from strategies employed in answering teacher questions to the power and influence of the pupil peer group in the development of attitudes and behaviour.