Power and Control in the Classroom: Understanding Students' Disruptive Behaviours

Abstract

This article is part of a broader research study aimed at understanding the relation between students' disruptive behaviours and teachers' pedagogic practices and finding out reasons underlying that relationship. Theoretically it is based on Bernstein's theory of pedagogic discourse. The study is centred on 4 students who were part of 2 Year 6 science classes (ages 11–12) and who had showed distinct behaviours. It addresses the following objectives: (1) to analyse students' behaviours in terms of the interaction between their socio-affective dispositions and their specific coding orientation for power and control relations that characterise the regulative context of teachers' pedagogic practices and (2) to analyse the extent to which specificities of the interaction may explain different levels of disruptive behaviours. The study suggests that disruptive behaviours in the classroom are the result of the interaction between students' socio-affective dispositions to teachers' pedagogic practices and their specific coding orientation to control relations. It also suggests that distinct specific coding orientations to power relations between teacher and students may explain distinct levels of disruptive behaviours.