Summary
The relational dimension of the teaching profession is something that has hitherto played a hidden role in teacher education. Nevertheless, well-functioning teacher-student relationships are a fundamental part of successful teaching. Including a multi-relational perspective on teaching and education (Pedagogical Relational Teachership, or, PeRT) as well as a taxonomy with an observation scheme for student teachers and researchers, this book is aimed at student teachers at undergraduate and advanced levels and is also suitable for teachers in practice.
"Dr. Ljungblad’s new book is a significant contribution to the emerging field of relational pedagogy. Both her theorizing and her exquisite empirical work amply demonstrate what a possibility opens if we take relationships in education seriously. It is a must-read for all interested in the teaching profession and in education."
—Alexander M. Sidorkin, Dean and Professor, College of Education, California State University Sacramento
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- 1. Introduction
- A Classroom Study
- An Age of Measurement
- The Relational Dimension of the Teaching Profession
- Pupils’ Voices About Teacher-Student Relationships
- The Study’s Searchlight
- The Book’s Structure
- 2. Encounters Taking Place
- The First Encounter
- Encounters in Long-Term Relationships
- Four Different Teachers
- Teachers’ Voices About Student-Relationships
- 3. A Hidden Relational Capacity in Practice
- Tact
- Respectful and Trustful Relationships Emerge
- 4. Research on the Relational Dimension of the Teaching Profession
- International Reviews
- Teacher-Student Relationship
- Inclusive Education
- Summary of Previous Research
- 5. A Relational Turn
- Social Relationships
- A Relational Perspective on Education
- To Teach and Be a Teacher
- Relational Meaning-Making – Who Are You?
- Inclusion and the Incalculable
- 6. Pedagogical Tactfulness
- Incalculable Tact
- Pedagogical Tact
- The Situation’s Tact
- Microanalysis
- The Situation’s Tact
- Con-Tact
- The Situation’s Tact
- The Situation’s Tact
- Pedagogical Tactfulness
- The Situation’s Tact
- The Situation’s Tact
- The Situation’s Tact
- The Situation’s Tact
- Summary of Pedagogical Tact
- 7. The Teacher’s Stance
- Meeting the Incalculable
- Microanalysis
- The Teacher’s Stance
- Responsible Considerations
- Curiosity
- Microanalysis
- Microanalysis
- The Teacher’s Stance
- The Teacher’s Stance
- Pathfinder
- The Teacher’s Stance
- The Teacher’s Stance
- The Teacher’s Stance
- Summary of Stance
- 8. Pedagogical Relational Teachership
- PeRT Focuses on Teaching
- The PeRT Model
- Dimension 1
- Dimension 2
- Dimension 3
- PeRT – A Multi-Dimensional Model
- PeRT in Practice
- Free Spaces
- The Incalculable – A Relational Alternative
- A Look at the Future …
- Prologue
- 9. Tools Supporting Pro-Social Classroom Environments
- A Trusting Climate
- Exploring Teaching As an Art
- A Key Indicator Taxonomy of Relational Teaching
- Observation Schemes
- Tools for Further Research
- An Upward Path
- References
1 Introduction
Our sharing shapes our being.
By sharing each other’s lives
We give rise to ourselves.
Without sharing, we do not exist.
Torgny Lindgren (1984)
This book is about the relational dimension of the teaching profession. It is a pedagogical book that explores and illuminates existential aspects of being a teacher and pedagogue. More specifically, it gives detailed descriptions of what actually happens between pupils and teachers, in the meeting face-to-face. Thus it is about how pupils’ and teachers’ participation in shared activities can appear in school praxis. Teacher education is by tradition strongly focused on didactics and teaching, which means that the teaching profession has developed a rich supply of didactic terms during the years. However, the relational dimension, concerning the creation of sustainable teacher-student relationships and also how teachers relate to pupils, has no prominent role in teacher education. Thus, teachers have not, to a large extent, been educated in the relational aspects of being teachers, and the teaching profession has not as yet developed a professional relational language. Also, relational pedagogy (Bingham & Sidorkin, 2004) is a young field of research when it comes to classroom research. The relational dimension of the teaching profession is thus a relatively under-researched field, which inspired me to write my thesis with its focus on interpersonal relationships.
This book presents the results of my thesis Tact and Stance – a relational study about the incalculable in mathematics teaching (Ljungblad, 2016). It also introduces a theoretical perspective on inclusive education: Pedagogical Relational Teachership, PeRT (Ljungblad, 2021). PeRT is a further development of the results of the current study, the aim of which is to support the development of new professional knowledge on the relational dimension of the teaching profession. This book aims to address student teachers, teachers and pedagogues involved in school praxis, and teachers working in teacher education, as well as researchers and other professional groups working with children and young people. Results from this classroom study provide a concrete demonstration of how successful interpersonal communication between pupils and teachers is expressed during lessons. More specifically, this book describes in detail how teachers relate to their pupils in ways that create feelings of safety and trust.
The participants in the study are four teachers and one hundred pupils from the compulsory school level and the upper secondary school level, including classes for learning difficulties. Former pupils of the four teachers involved, Ingrid, Pia, Maria and Hans-Olof, have described how these teachers meet their pupils in a particularly developmental way in their teaching, which means that this book can inspire an even broader readership. The reader is enabled to share how these teachers relate to their pupils in ways that develop trustful and respectful teacher-student relationships. The book presents detailed interpretations of occurrences and momentary images of what happens in the now – life as we live it – in search of understanding interpersonal relationships in teaching.
The book also addresses different professional groups and persons who are working for children’s rights (UN, 1989) and transforming our world in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
A Classroom Study
My thesis is a micro-ethnographic classroom study (Streeck & Mehus, 2005; Pink, 2007) that involved long-term field work lasting a school year during which I came and went in six different classroom settings. Micro-ethnography explores the microworld empirically with its ever-present and unpredictable relationship between teacher and pupils. Using a video camera, I captured the interpersonal communication between teachers and pupils, sometimes from as close up as one metre. During the year, a rich collection of data was produced, including not only the video documentation but also observations, fieldnotes and interviews with teachers and pupils. One salient element was also meaning-making dialogue with the teachers after the school day had ended, when each teacher and I studied the video film from the day’s lessons. These conversations were also video-filmed, showing how the teachers attempt to put into words how they relate to their pupils. After completing the field work, one year of in-depth microanalysis of all the video observations was undertaken. This means that the thesis can present richly detailed descriptions of classroom life as lived.
Classroom life as livedThe overall aim of the classroom study was to explore empirically how the teacher-student relationship was expressed actually in the teaching. Thus the study investigates how teachers relate to pupils in interpersonal communication, face-to-face, in situated teaching. This involves openly investigating this communication, since earlier research has not clarified how teachers create well-functioning relationships with their pupils. When I started my field work, neither I nor the teachers participating had any idea about how these relational processes actually worked in practice. At the beginning of our collaboration, we did not have a well-developed relational language either. It had to be developed during the field work. In my exploration, I also focused especially on certain complex situations and studied which dilemmas turned up in the teachers’ interpersonal communication. My study aims thereby to provide new professional knowledge and increased understanding of how teachers relate to their pupils during the most difficult courses of events in teaching.
In the Swedish school system, all education is free of charge. There are two types of compulsory school: compulsory school and compulsory school for learning difficulties. All children in the country must attend one or the other. The compulsory school has 10 school years: a preschool year for six year old’s followed by years 1–9. The preschool year and classes 1–3 are called junior school, classes 4–6 are middle school and classes 7–9 are senior school. After finishing their compulsory schooling at the age of 16, most pupils continue on to the three-year upper secondary school, at which pupils select which programme they want to attend. The upper secondary school for learning difficulties offers a four-year programme as an alternative.
Details
- Pages
- XIV, 148
- Year
- 2023
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9781433193897
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9781433193903
- ISBN (MOBI)
- 9781433193910
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9781433193934
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9781433193927
- DOI
- 10.3726/b20365
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2023 (July)
- Keywords
- Teacher-student relationship relational teaching pedagogical tact stance trust social sustainability inclusive education classroom research Ann-Louise Ljungblad Margaret Myers The Relational Dimension of the Teaching Profession
- Published
- New York, Berlin, Bruxelles, Chennai, Lausanne, Oxford, 2023. XIV, 148 pp., 10 b/w ill.
