Black Sheep as Tragic Hero: How Disruptive Students Resist the Oppression and Why They Fail to Liberate?

Abstract

Within the educational landscapes, there exists a prevailing dichotomy. On one side stand the obedient students, absorbing knowledge from their teachers unconditionally, and on the other side stand their non-compliant counterparts who are prone to disrupt the prescribed order, labeled as the black sheep of the academic flock. In education, obedience and conformity are celebrated, while noncompliance is stigmatized. Researchers often focus on strategies to control disruptive behavior, perpetuating teacher-centered approaches that maintain power imbalances. However, disruptive behavior is not just defiance. It's a response to an oppressive educational paradigm. This study delves into the narrative of these disruptive students, exploring their resistance to an educational system with intrinsic oppressive nature and the obstacles they encounter in their pursuit of liberation. The theoretical framework of this study is mainly constructed upon Freires critical pedagogy theory and literature on power dynamics to examine power dynamics in education settings and to understand students resistant behavior and why it fails to provoke change.