Classroom Power Relations

CLASSROOM POWER RELATIONS
Understanding Student-Teacher
Interaction
Mary Phillips Manke
Mankato State University
LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS
1997 Mahwah, New Jersey London
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Questia Media America, Inc. www.questia.com
Publication Information: Book Title: Classroom Power Relations: Understanding Student-Teacher Interaction.
Contributors: Mary Phillips Manke - author. Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Place of Publication: Mahwah, NJ.
Publication Year: 1997. Page Number: iii.
Chapter 1
Introduction
Who has power in classrooms? Most people would say it is the teacher who
has power. Willard Waller, an early sociologist of education, wrote in 1932,
"Children are certainly defenseless against the machinery with which the
adult world is able to enforce its decisions: the result of the battle [between
teachers and students] is foreordained" (p. 196).
Waller's statement expresses the understanding of classroom power that
prevails for most people--teachers, administrators, educational re
searchers--in our culture. It is an understanding that focuses on opposition
between teachers and students as well as one that assigns power to the
teacher alone.
In this book, you will read about a much more complex conception of
classroom power. It portrays students and teachers in power relationships
they build together and calls into question common assumptions about the
workings and results of power in the classroom.
Underlying Waller's statement is this belief: The teacher must have the
power in the classroom. Let us work out some of what this belief implies.
First, it seems to mean that power is something you can have, an object
that a person can own. In this book, the understanding of power is quite
different: Power is a structure of relationships--a structure in which
teachers and students can build or participate. Power is not an object and
cannot be owned by anyone. The structure of relationships is called
power because it, rather than the individuals who create it, is what shapes
people's actions.
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Publication Year: 1997. Page Number: 1.
Chapter 5
Teachers' Organization of Time
and Space: One Aspect
of Classroom Power Relations
In almost any classroom, an observer can watch teachers engaged in direct
interaction with students that is intended to control student behavior and
promote student learning. Yet, this is only one aspect of teachers' efforts to
pursue this agenda. Outside the students' view, teachers plan and carry out
other actions before students even come into the classroom. Thus, they
contribute to the building of the structure called "What Teachers and
Students Can Do Here," building walls and creating living space, without
the possibility of immediate conflict with students. It is these "invisible"
( Hustler & Payne, 1982) arrangements that are the focus of this chapter.
Teachers often consider the ways they organize time and space in their
classrooms to be part of classroom management. Classroom management
authorities call this proactive management, management that prevents
trouble from happening, rather than dealing with it after it happens.
Teachers arrange desks so they can see all the students, provide an activity
for students to start on as soon as they enter the room, and leave enough
space near the door for students to stand in an uncrowded line. They arrange
furniture so that students have to move in a controlled manner from one
area to another; they make sure they have more than enough for students
to do during each class period, thus, avoiding "dead time" when trouble can
occur. All these are tactics teachers use in pursuit of their agenda to control
student behavior so that students can learn.
Yet, teachers may also consider arrangements of time and space in terms
of curriculum content and instructional methods. They may arrange desks
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Chapter 7
Defining Classroom Knowledge:
The Part That Students Play
Because schools are intended to be places where learning occurs, the
question of what will count as knowledge is especially important. What
counts as knowledge is a determining factor in what students actually learn.
That is why this aspect of classroom power relationships--how students
contribute to the process of determining what will count as classroom
knowledge--is the focus of this chapter.
In traditional sociological and political analysis, the power to define what
will count as knowledge is assigned to the teacher. The larger society--de
fined as the structure of the school, the expectations of administrators,
parents, and community members, and all kinds of curriculum materials--is
thought to influence the teacher's use of this defining power.
Although the actions of students described in this chapter are surely
affected by the same larger society that influences teachers' actions, the
analysis I present here focuses on student actions exerting influence on what
will be learned in a given classroom. I stress this point because so many
writers in education have focused on the influence of the teacher, or of
society through the teacher. Some view this influence as a primary instru
ment for the oppression or control of students, particularly those who are
culturally different from the majority; others see it as a necessary part of the
transmission of the desirable aspects of an historic culture. Without denying
that one of the ways teachers contribute to constructing classroom power
relationships is to influence the definition of classroom knowledge, I look
in this chapter at how students also influence this definition. In doing so I
am opening up the possibility of looking at how the influence of the
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Chapter 9
How Is It Useful to Look
at Classrooms in This Way?
The last four chapters of this book have explored several questions in the
context of an interactive constructivist theory of power relations:
• How do teacher choices about the physical organization of classrooms and
the kinds of activities that take place in them contribute to the construction
of power relations?
• Why and how do teachers cloak their contributions to power relations behind
politeness formulas and indirect discourse strategies?
• What kinds of student and teacher actions contribute to defining what is to
count as classroom knowledge in a particular classroom at a particular time?
• What student actions can be understood as being in conflict with teachers'
arrangements of classroom time and space?
• What student actions can be understood as seeking to make the teachers's
agenda visible so it can be challenged?
• What kinds of student actions can be understood as their efforts to create
areas within power relations in which they can act freely?
The study on which this book is based makes a start at answering such
questions, and suggests what kinds of analysis can produce more complete
answers. The individual qualities of the three classrooms, with their teachers
and students, as described in chapters 2, 3, and 4, must be kept in mind in
thinking about the details of the analysis. The study belongs to a research
genre that calls on readers to make judgments about the validity of its
conclusions. By providing "thick description" ( Geertz, 1973) of the three
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Appendix
Exploring Ideas About Power
Relations in Classrooms
For readers who seek to add depth and context to the ideas in this book,
here is a bibliography of books and articles relevant to many of the issues
that have been raised.
I: WHAT IS POWER?
A. Definitions, Explorations, Critiques
• Barnes B. ( 1988). The nature of power. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.
Barnes believes that people use the concept of power to make moral
judgments of other's actions. We claim that people can control both their
own actions and those of others so that we can hold them responsible. This
idea is exactly the one that saddles teachers with total responsibility for what
happens in their classrooms. Barnes considers it a convenient falsehood.
He suggests that our belief that power is real is based on our recognition
that we can affect the actions of others. We connect power too closely with
the possession of coercive resources, and need to expand our under
standing of the sources of power. Barnes holds that knowledge is a key
source of power.
• Bell R., & Harper L. ( 1977). Child effects on adults. Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press.
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Publication Year: 1997. Page Num
THE EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE OF LEARNING AND TEACHING
Chapter 1
Hopeful and fearful expectations

A new year, a new job, a new baby; the
beginning of a new relationship, a book, a
course of study-eagerly we turn to each new
event with expectant hope. Untried, unsullied,
it holds the promise of meeting some need as
yet unmet, the fulfilment of desires as yet
unfulfilled, the ideal we have never given up
searching for. Unless, of course, past
disillusionment has blunted our capacity for
hope, made us fearful of risking
disappointment yet again. But, however
hopeful our anticipation, we also harbour
fears about the future. 'Aller Anfang ist
schwer' (every beginning is hard) says the
wise German proverb, pointing to the
uncertainty and doubts which tend to beset
us. Will the new job be a failure, the course
worthless, the new year bring disease and
death, the journey end in disaster, the new
baby be a monster? And in a less extreme
vein: will they bring the same frustrations
and difficulties that we have encountered
before and had hoped to escape from? It is of
the nature of beginning that the path ahead
is unknown, leaving us poised as we enter
upon it between wondrous excitement and
anxious dread.
As I begin to write this book, I am filled with
some degree of expectant hope; yet I am
mainly burdened by the weightiness of the
task that lies ahead. Empty pages face me as
my mind is alternately a blank and in a state
of chaos. Will, out of this uncertainty and
confusion, any thoughts emerge, ideas be
clothed into meaningful phrases, will they
form themselves into some order? Do I have
anything worthwhile to contribute? But as I
reflect upon this despair, I become aware that
these doubts and agonies are part and parcel
of beginning, are the essence of any creative
work. And then a somewhat reassuring
thought occurs: 'I do have a basis in
experience, something to start this chapter
with/I have recently been confronted with a
group of teaching staff from primary,
secondary and tertiary education beginnning
a course at the Tavistock on Aspects of
Counselling in Education.
A group of fifty strangers faced me this
month at the start of the
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Publication Information: Book Title: The

Emotional Experience of Learning and
Teaching. Contributors: Isca Salzberger-
Wittenberg - author, Gianna Williams - author,
Elsie Osborne - author. Publisher: Karnac
Books. Place of Publication: London.
Chapter 3
Aspects of the teacher's relationship to
the student
Introduction
Once we realise the crucial role the teacher
plays in the mental and emotional life of
students, it becomes essential to examine the
attitudes and expectations he brings to the
relationship. The teacher will be aware of
some of these and not at all aware of others,
yet they will all deeply colour the way he
views (a) the nature of his role, (b) the way
he perceives, interprets and responds to the
students' behaviour, and (c) the way he
expects to be regarded by them. His
convictions will be based on his life
experiences and what he has learnt from
them. They will have developed on the basis
of what he felt towards those responsible for
his education (not only his teachers but
members of his family and other mentors),
the way he perceived their adult behaviour
and how they set about the fulfilment of their
task as educators. It will be of the utmost
importance whether the teacher's attitudes
are based primarily on an identification with
the good qualities of parents and teachers
and an appreciation of a child's difficulties
and struggles; or alternatively, on the more
unhelpful qualities of his parents and teachers
and/or his own unsatisfied child-like desires.
Let us consider the following statements
made by student teachers in discussing their
choice of career:
'I enjoyed school and liked my literature
teacher in particular. He was enthusiastic
about English, encouraged me to go on when
I felt hopeless about my progress, but was
strict when I was shirking work. I found him a
great help and would like to become like him.'
'I hated school. I couldn't bear all the rules
and disciplines. When I become a teacher, I
want to let the children do just what they like
and I will help them to rebel against anyone
in authority.'
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Chapter 5
Idealised relationships
In this, and the subsequent two chapers, we
shall look at examples which teachers
brought from their work experience. Many
instances of idealisation were brought by
teachers to our work discussion group. The
problem of idealisation is so complex and has
so many facets that it might be helpful to
focus on one of them at a time. In some
cases, the idealisation of the teacher-
counsellor was particularly evident. In others,
a child or young adult was exerting great
pressure to be idealised by the teacher. Those
two aspects are usually closely related, but I
have tried to select examples where one or
the other predominates.
Unreasonable demands on the teacher

It may be difficult to continue perceiving
oneself as a useful and helpful person when
the demands made are very excessive and
out of proportion with what one could
possibly offer. The pressure to overstep one's
limits and to go 'out of one's way to be
helpful' can in those cases be very strong.
One such example was presented by a
teacher in Further Education. She was
extremely worried about the extent of her
commitment and responsibility for one of her
students. Mrs V prefaced her presentation by
saying that she felt she had got very
involved, perhaps over-involved with Sandy.
This student of 22 years left school with no
qualifications and had recently enrolled at
college. She lived in a hostel and had no
contact with her family. Mrs V had
occasionally been meeting her after lessons,
and at student gatherings at the pub. The
first incident which caused Mrs V alarm
occurred one day when she was leaving the
college and Sandy, looking very dreamy and
lost, informed her that she had taken an 'LSD
trip', and was still under the drug's influence
and frightened. Mrs V felt very alarmed, but
was not sure that Sandy was so afraid herself
as she seemed so 'switched off. Sandy related
that she had taken what she knew to be a
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Publication Year: 1999. Page Number: 81
Chapter 10
Different kinds of endings
Introduction
The end of term, the end of a school year;
the temporary or permanent end of an
important relationship, the end of school,
childhood, youth; bereavement and the end
of our life-all these situations in varying
degrees confront us with the experience of
loss. We have to come to terms with losing
what has sustained and supported us and
those whom we have needed, loved and
depended on. Will we be able to manage
without the presence of parent, friend,
partner, mentor? Have they abandoned us to
our fate, left us to die, to feel lonely and
bereft? Will they come back again, or will ill
befall them in our absence? Will they
remember us? Can we give up our demand
that they be available to us endlessly? Can
we cherish their memory and what they gave
us? Can we let go of the comfort and
privileges of babyhood, childhood, youth-of
life itself, without too much resentment? Even
a conflict-laden situation may be hard to part
from for it offers some sense of security by
being familiar. We may in addition dread what
might take its place; as the saying goes:
'better the devil you know than the one you
don't know.' It is only if the past or present is
disastrous that we contemplate the end with
sheer relief.
We shall examine some of the ordinary
ending situations in the lives of students and
teachers. The anxieties and pain which
accompany such situations are rarely faced,
yet how these experiences are dealt with is of
great importance in determining what of the
past can be retained and used creatively in
the present and future.
Transfer to another teacher

In most schools, children experience frequent
staff changes. They are passed regularly from
one teacher to another as lessons follow each
other
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COMMUNICATION
A series of volumes edited by:
Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant
Zillmann/ Bryant ∣ Selective Exposure to
Communication
Beville ∣ Audience Ratings: Radio, Television,
Cable, Revised Edition
Bryant/ Zillmann ∣ Perspectives on Media
Effects
Ellis/ Donohue ∣ Contemporary Issues in
Language and Discourse Processes
Winett ∣ Information and Behavior: Systems
of Influence
Huesmann/ Eron ∣ Television and the
Aggressive Child: A Cross-National
Comparison
Gunter ∣ Poor Reception: Misunderstanding
and Forgetting Broadcast News
Olasky ∣ Corporate Public Relations: A New
Historical Perspective
Donohew/ Sypher/ Higgins ∣ Communication,
Social Cognition, and Affect
Van Dijk ∣ News as Discourse
Wober ∣ The Use andAbuse of Television: A
Social Psychological Analysis
of the Changing Screen
Kraus ∣ Televised Presidential Debates and
Public Policy
Masel Walters/ Wilkins/ Walters ∣ Bad
Tidings: Communication
and Catastrophe
Salvaggio/ Bryant ∣ Media Use in the
Information Age: Emerging Patterns
of Adoption and Consumer Use
Salvaggio ∣ The Information Society:
Economic, Social, and Structural Issues
Botan/ Hazleton ∣ Public Relations Theory
Zillmann/ Bryant ∣ Pornography: Research
Advances and Policy
Considerations
Becker/ Schoenbach ∣ Audience Responses to
Media Diversification:
Coping With Plenty
Richards ∣ Deceptive Advertising: Behavioral
Study of a Legal Concept
Flagg ∣
CHAPTER 8
Affinity in the Classroom
John A. Daly
Pamela O. Kreiser
University of Texas
Teachers gain power and influence in the
classroom in a number of ways.
They influence others by the rewards they
give and the punishments they
use. They are seen as experts and, as a
consequence, have students engage
in the behaviors they recommend. They
depend on students' recognizing
that they, as teachers, hold a power position
in the school different from
others. And they bolster their interpersonal
relationships with students,
hoping that if students like them they will
heed their instructions, pay more
attention, participate more actively, and, in
the end, learn more. This
chapter is about this last strategy --
influencing students through enhancing
students' affinity for their teachers.
The observation that teachers who are liked
by their students are more
effective in classrooms than teachers who are
disliked may seem obvious to
many. But surprisingly, until recently, there
has been little systematic
examination of that presumption. In the past
few years, however, scholars
primarily in the field of communication have
begun to carefully examine
how teachers try to get students to like them
and the consequences of those
attempts. Reflecting this research is a recent
national project sponsored by
the Educational Testing Service (ETS). In its
new national assessment for
beginning teachers (PRAXIS), ETS noted that
one of the characteristics of
good teaching is the establishment and
maintenance of teacher rapport with
students (ETS Policy Notes, 1991). Rapport,
in many ways, represents
affinity.
This chapter reviews the recent literature on
affinity with special
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Publication Information: Book Title: Power

in the Classroom: Communication, Control,
and Concern. Contributors: Virginia P.
Richmond - editor, James C. McCroskey -
editor. Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates. Place of Publication: Hillsdale, NJ.
Formative Evaluation for Educational
Technologies
Narula/ Pearce ∣ Cultures, Politics, and
Research Programs: An International
Assessment of Practical Problems in Field
Research
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Publication Year: 1992. Page Number: ii.
CHAPETER 4
Power in the Classroom:

Seminal Studies
Virginia P. Richmond
West Virginia University
K. David Roach
Texas Tech University
In this chapter we review the early research
on power and communication
in the organizational environment and the
early studies in the instructional
environment that were spawned from that
work. After the previous studies
are reviewed, conclusions and explanations
are drawn concerning the
communication of power.
There are three conclusions that can be
drawn from the previous chapters
on power and communication. First, there is a
certain amount of power
rooted in most relationships. That power can
be established in any
relationship (e. g., teacher-student,
supervisor-employee, opinion leader
follower, wife-husband, husband-wife).
Second, power is a perception.
One person grants the other power over her
or him. If power is not
perceived, power cannot be exerted by
another. Third, power and commu
nication are inextricably related. For example,
in almost all relationships
there is a point when one person will try to
exert power over another
through communication.
INFORMAL INFLUENCE
Some of the earliest work on power and
communication started with
Richmond and her colleagues in the latter
part of the 1970s. Richmond was
interested in the use of informal power of
opinion leaders on information
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CHAPTER 5
Teacher Power in the Classroom:

Defining and Advancing a
Program of Research
Timothy G. Plax
Patricia Kearney
California State University, Long Beach
Over the last decade we have been examining
how teachers employ power
in the classroom to manage student on- and
off-task behaviors and thus,
student cognitive and affective learning. Our
research team discovered early
on that these issues are both difficult to
delineate conceptually and to
untangle empirically. We are comfortable,
however, that we have a better
understanding of these issues after a decade
of investigation. That is, taking
stock of our programmatic efforts after
almost 10 years suggests that we
have made substantial progress in both the
theoretical and the empirical
explication of what has become a well-
recognized area of instructional
communication research. We feel that from
what our team has discovered
thus far we can comfortably draw several
conclusions for teachers, re
searchers, and other interested consumers
regarding teachers' communica
tion of power and influence in the classroom
and correspondingly, students'
reactions to teachers' attempts at control.
Part of being able to utilize what is suggested
to practitioners by a body
of literature is that they understand the way
the research was conceived and
conducted. Unfortunately, practitioners are
not typically assisted by inves
tigators to understand the origins, evolution,
or the actual conduct of
investigations. In an effort to ameliorate this
shortcoming, the primary
objective of this chapter is to overview in
general terms the origins and the
continuing development of the program of
research referred to in the
instructional communication literature as
"Power in the Classroom."
Emanating from this overview is our second
and equally important
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CHAPTER 10
Teacher and Student Concern and

Classroom Power and Control
Ann Q. Staton
University of Washington
Insight into teacher and student perspectives
is important in understanding
the teaching process, classroom
communication, and power and control in
the classroom. One framework for
understanding teacher and student
perspectives is that which has been labeled
concern.
This chapter provides an examination of the
concern framework and
suggests its usefulness in understanding
classroom power and control. First,
the origin of the teacher concern construct is
explicated. Second, over two
decades of research on the concerns of
teachers is reviewed. Third, the
potential relationship of teacher concern to
teacher power and control is
explored. Fourth, the potential relationship of
student concern to power
and control is examined. Finally, a view is
presented of power and control
as dynamic processes negotiated in the
classroom between teacher and
students.
ORIGIN OF THE TEACHER CONCERN

CONSTRUCT
In a landmark study, Fuller ( 1969) examined
the developing concerns of
prospective teachers in order to discover the
nature of the concerns and
whether they could be categorized into a
conceptual framework or model.
She defined concerns as:
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OBSERVATION GUIDE: TEACHER-STUDENT INTERACTION
Professional Methods Field Experiences

Classroom Power Relations

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CLASSROOM POWER RELATIONS

Hopeful and fearful expectations

Publication Information: Book Title: The

Publication Information: Book Title: The

Unreasonable demands on the teacher

Publication Information: Book Title: The

Transfer to another teacher

Publication Information: Book Title: The

Publication Information: Book Title: Power

Publication Information: Book Title: Power

Power in the Classroom:

Publication Information: Book Title: Power

Teacher Power in the Classroom:

Publication Information: Book Title: Power

Teacher and Student Concern and

ORIGIN OF THE TEACHER CONCERN

Publication Information: Book Title: Power

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