Browsing by Subject "pedagoginen paradoksi"

Objectives. The aim of this study is to analyze pupil agency and pupil initiatives in the formal context of school. Based on previous studies, the traditional school is claimed to offer limited possibilities for student agency and initiatives, even though current research and national curriculum highlight the active role of pupils. The purpose of the study is to find out what kind of initiatives pupils express during interaction in their peer groups and with the teacher, how the teacher can support the agency of pupils, and what kind of challenges the fulfillment of pupils' agency faces in the school's formal activity. Methods. This study is an ethnographic case study. The research site was a combined 5th and 6th grade class in a small comprehensive school in Southern Finland. The data was collected by videotaping and observing the class working on a Good Life Project during four school days, and also interviewing the teacher of the class. The data on pupil initiatives in peer group was collected in a Desert Island exercise of c. 3 hours. A thematic interview of the teacher was carried out at the end of the data collection period. The material was analyzed by utilizing interaction analysis and narrative approach. Two analyzers were used as a way to improve the reliability of the results. Results and conclusions. The results show that in their peer group pupils generate constructive initiatives, supportive initiatives and deconstructive initiatives in many different ways. Deconstructive initiatives could also advance activity. Pupils generated initiatives more diversely with their peers than with the teacher. In interaction with the teacher, pupils' initiatives were mostly answers to teacher's questions or questions about the task. The teacher could support the pupils' agency by using self-evaluations, giving positive feedback to pupils, using humour and creating positive interaction. The teacher was aware of the tension between agency and control in the school institution. However, the data shows that pupils in this study did not express initiatives equally. Expressing initiatives was gendered in a way that in the Desert Island exercise boys were more active than girls. There was a tense relationship between pupils' activity and passivity, and in this study this contradiction was observed as a dialectical dimension of agency.