Adolescents' Conceptions of Teachers' Authority and Their Relations to Rule Violations in School

Abstract

Conceptions of teachers' authority and reported misconduct regarding 20 moral, conventional, personal, contextually conventional, and prudential issues were assessed in 120 fifth, seventh, ninth, and eleventh graders (mean ages = 10.66, 12.88, 15.04, and 17.25 years, respectively). Adolescents viewed moral, conventional, and prudential issues as legitimately subject to teachers' authority and personal issues as under personal jurisdiction, but they were equivocal about contextually conventional issues. Fifth graders judged all acts as more legitimately subject to teachers' authority, all rule violations as more negative, and personal and prudential issues as personal more than did older students. Conventional misconduct was more frequent and moral misconduct was less frequent than other rule violations, but both were greater among boys than girls. Adolescents' negative rule evaluations, fewer rules, greater dislike for school, poorer grades, and living in single- or step-parent families predicted teacher- and self-reported misconduct. Relations to previous research on conceptions of adult authority, school misconduct, and autonomy development are discussed.