Critical Moments in Negotiating Authority: Grading, Accountability, and Teacher Education
Source: Teaching Education, Volume 26, Issue 2, 2015, pages 222-246
The purpose of this study was to examine a teacher educator’s assumptions and perspectives about purposefully and explicitly negotiating authority through grading and accountability processes in an undergraduate teacher education course.
The author used a self-study methodology. He used a critical pedagogical lens – concerning the intersection of classroom power relations, democratic citizenship, and student growth.
The findings suggest that seeking legitimacy through consensual acceptance, responding to students’ expressed interests, and constructing knowledge through continual questioning present potential frameworks for constructing purposeful pedagogical partnerships consistent with democratic aims in teacher education.