Authority, power, and morality in classroom discourse

Abstract

This paper examines the complex relationships among authority, power, and morality in classroom discourse. We begin by suggesting that teacher authority is an ever-present feature of classroom interaction. We further point out how theoretical and empirical research has demonstrated convincingly that teaching nearly always involves unequal power relations and at the same time is fundamentally moral in nature. We then outline Bernstein's (Pedagogy, symbolic control and ideology: Theory, research, critique, Taylor & Francis, Bristol, PA, 1996) notion of pedagogic discourse as a means of clarifying the relations among authority, power, and morality as they are played out in classroom discourse. We analyze an extract from a transcript of a writer's chair activity in a third-grade US classroom, focusing on two dilemmas of authority that the teacher faced in this activity; we suggest that these dilemmas can be best conceptualized in terms of Bernstein's twin notions of regulative discourse and instructional discourse, the two components of pedagogic discourse which reflect the twin notions of power and morality. Finally, we consider the implications of the analysis for a deeper understanding of the moral dimension of classroom discourse.