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ERIC Number: EJ729127
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2006-Mar
Pages: 16
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-7240
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Hushing as a Moral Dilemma in the Classroom
Thornberg, Robert
Journal of Moral Education, v35 n1 p89-104 Mar 2006
Life in the classroom is governed by a variety of rules. One typical classroom rule is the rule of silence or low noise. Teachers often deal with students' noise-making and conversations by hushing them. This article reports an investigation of how hushing can create moral dilemmas for students at their desks in the classroom. This study is part of a larger ethnographic research project on values education in the daily life of school, conducted in two primary schools in Sweden. The findings show that students think that by hushing, teachers are now and then acting in the wrong way and, in consequence, the students are forced to go against the teacher to act in accordance with their own moral standards, or to give up, in order to avoid the risk of getting a reprimand. The analyses revealed three categories of moral dilemmas or conflicts with rules: indiscriminate hushing as (a) a conflict between morality and social conventions; (b) a pure moral conflict; and (c) a conflict between morality and authority.
Routledge, 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001. Tel: 212-216-7800; Fax: 212-564-7854; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals.
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Sweden
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A