A phenomenological perspective for the classroom teacher and its application to the education of women

Abstract

This thesis is addressed to the classroom teacher in an age of confusion and change. The modern teacher who looks to educational theories and research for guidance is confronted by a bewildering plethora of often conflicting theories, models and paradigms. In the first chapter it is argued that a phenomenological perspective can provide a classroom teacher with a valuable supplement to existing educational theories and commonsense practical teaching knowledge: such a perspective can provide a teacher with principles of coherence and relevance through helping him or her to choose between theories and to see his or her habitual classroom practices in a new light. An attempt is made to define the essentials of such a perspective in comparison with three common bodies of educational thought: Skinnerian behaviourism, the linguistic analysis school of educational philosophy and the normative and interpretive paradigms in the sociology of education. It is argued that a phenomenological perspective enables a teacher to counteract the inherent "reductionism" in the "special disciplines", but it is useful as a supplement to these, rather than a complete alternative. The second chapter outlines a model for the classroom teacher's phenomenological reflection; this model shows three intersecting sets - curriculum, the world of the teacher and the world of the child; it is suggested that the teacher focus on the zones of intersection. Curriculum is defined broadly to include formal, hidden and extra-curricular activities. Discussion of the model focusses first on the world of the teacher and the curriculum and there are relevant summaries of empirical and theoretical enquiries in the fields of administration, the sociology of knowledge and pedagogical theories. There is a section on the intersection between the world of the child and most of the studies summarised in this section deal with the area of teacher and pupil expectations. Curriculum and the world of the child is the third aspect of the model and in this section there is a discussion of various "hidden curricula" operating within school classrooms. The third chapter is an application of this model to the education of women. It deals with sexism in overt and hidden curricula, women in school administration, the "psychological barriers" to "success" in women, subject and career choices amongst girl pupils. It concludes with a discussion of the compatibility of phenomenology with feminism and argues that a phenomenological perspective, with its emphasis on the individual's idiosyncratic social constructions of reality, can help a teacher and pupil to transcend an oppressive social reality. In the fourth, concluding, chapter some suggestions are made as to how teachers may learn to employ a phenomenological perspective, and it is argued that school administrators have a moral and educational responsibility to engage in consciousness raising activities with teachers through policies of "educative administration."