Teacher Autonomy: A Multifaceted Approach for the New Millennium ...

In addition, the researchers found that boys got more help from teachers and were asked more questions. I cited this research as another example of the individual classroom teacher’s power to influence and control the development of children, in this case negatively.

A final example of the potential danger of teacher autonomy came from research on the use of language in the classroom presented by Stubbs (1983), who found that a teacher’s use of language in the classroom helped define what was valuable in that classroom in terms of valid knowledge. Concerning teacher talk, Stubbs discussed the western concept that learning is public and that teachers question students, who are expected to respond often with factual and brief answers. If this was the basis for the definition of learning in the classroom, then we must acknowledge the cultural specificity of this definition. We know, for example, that different cultural groups respond differently to the way in which “talk” is structured in the traditional western classroom (Philips, 1985). From a cultural viewpoint, there are groups of people who do not respond well to this western definition of classroom talk. This, however, should not define them as inferior in any way. Work by Anyon (1980) on the hidden curriculum model is yet another example of how classroom discourse and expectations can differ for different people within a given population. In the hidden curriculum model, Anyon found that respective schools were tacitly preparing children for roles within capitalistic society that were defined by social class. Anyon noticed large differences in classroom practice that were associated with the working class, middle class, professional class, and elite. These differences, argued Anyon, were directly related to what society ultimately expected of these children. For example, working-class children spent a great deal of time following directions and working in rote, while children of the elite spent a great deal of time honing analytical skills in preparation for their ultimate position within society’s ruling class.