Discipline, power and knowledge at three schools in the Eastern Cape

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT : Across teaching careers that span decades, teachers often witness on a daily basis the collapsingof traditional modes of discipline and the emergence of new power dynamics founded onhuman rights and freedoms. These experiences are ingrained in teacher's memories aspractitioners in the teaching and learning terrain. This study was inspired by a desire to inquireand to uncover the complexities associated with discipline, knowledge and power. In thatrespect, the key idea that underpins the study is that school discipline is not about school ethosor what is expected to happen on the grounds of schools, but rather about the societal normsand values that hold sway for defined schools in specific areas at particular moments in theiroperations and which are used to hold learners accountable. As such, the study navigatesdiscourses on discipline, power and knowledge in order to understand the underlyingideological motives for the kind of discipline practiced in three Eastern Cape schools. Differentcontexts are juxtaposed with power and knowledge with a view to answer questions related tothe disciplinary tools teachers use to assert their dominance over learners.With regard to discipline itself, however, most teachers conceded that the concept and practiceof school discipline went further than the crafting of a specific set of rules - that it entailed farmore than the mayopic expression of dos and dont's of the school's code of conduct. There arebroader and far more complex considerations of disciplinary practices in schools that neededto be explored. There is a void in the literature on school discipline which warrants aconceptual rethink of the basis of the very acts of discipline or forms of order in which theyhad previously been grounded.These are some of the phenomena that this research project sought to examine. In that respect,the study specifically sought to illustrate the issues in relation to the lives of 'real teachers andlearners, and fieldwork therefore focused on teachers' views of discipline at three schools inthe Eastern Cape. Notably, the study also sought to highlight teacher practices in the ruralcontext of Butterworth in the Eastern Cape, and teacher motives in dispensing discipline. Themain goal was to learn more about the disempowering patterns of thinking and behaviours thatmay be engendered in pupils through the workings of discipline, power, and knowledge.The data revealed a range of discursive linguistic tools and techniques that teachers sought touse to constitute the habitual thought patterns of learners.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University