Browsing by Author "Lindholm, Marjut"

Goal. The objective of this study is to survey classroom teachers’ insights of authority, its contribution to peaceful work environment and finally, how the amount of work experience affects these two factors. Teacher’s authority has been examined and written about from many different perspectives. It has been affected by changes in society and the school system. The aim of this study is to describe and address the topic as broadly as possible in order to outline the big picture. Authority has been seen to have a very large impact on peace in the class. The concept of peace at work is subjective and is usually approached from the discourse of issues. Both topics and related changes have also been actively discussed in the media in recent years. The study also took into account changes over time and their effects. Methods. The study was conducted as a qualitative study using a phenomenographic research approach. The material was collected using an electronic questionnaire and the respondents were working as a class teacher. The group of respondents was quite heterogeneous and the survey was answered anonymously. The material consisted of replies given by 33 people to open interview questions. The data was analyzed in relation to three different research questions. Results and conclusions. The research results showed that classroom teachers defined authority mostly in relation to agreed rules, student encounters, interaction, and trust. The length of teachers’ careers affected their responses in many different ways. Novice teachers felt they had less authority than those who had worked in the field longer. Novice teachers also didn’t emphasize the importance of the rules as much in their responses, but rather highlighted aspects of positive pedagogy. The majority of respondents felt that their class was in favor of peace at work and only four expressed dissatisfaction with peace at work. Almost half of the respondents mentioned certain students disturbing peace at work. Respondents who had been teachers for the longest time found most often their working peace to be good, but also stated more often that certain students perceived working peace as challenging.