ERIC Number: ED409820
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1996
Pages: 252
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: ISBN-0-226-75354-9
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
When Students Have Power: Negotiating Authority in a Critical Pedagogy.
Shor, Ira
This personal report of classroom experiences at an urban commuter college relates the experiences of a teacher and a group of working-class students studying the book "Utopia," which is also the metaphor for the hoped-for learning experience. The book, illustrated by excerpts from student-submitted work, shows how pedagogical theory leads to unanticipated student demands for which the teacher is initially unprepared. It explains how, entering the classroom on the first day, students exile themselves in a kind of "Siberian syndrome," filling the last rows of seats first. When the teacher attempts to build a pedagogy based on shared power and democratic authority and to mediate resistance and cross-cultural boundaries, students are wary. The book describes the working out of the processes of negotiating the curriculum, shared authority, collaborative decision making, and cogovernance between instructor and students followed by the formation of a student after-class group, and rising student expectations. The final chapters of the book are a review of what worked and what did not. (Contains 350 references.) (CH)
Descriptors: Classroom Communication, Classroom Techniques, Commuter Colleges, Creative Teaching, Critical Theory, Cultural Relevance, Educational Sociology, Educational Theories, Empowerment, Ethnography, Group Structure, Higher Education, Nontraditional Education, Participative Decision Making, Personal Narratives, Power Structure, Relevance (Education), Student Attitudes, Teacher Attitudes, Teacher Expectations of Students, Teacher Student Relationship, Teaching Conditions, Undergraduate Students, Urban Education
University of Chicago Press, 11030 South Langley Ave., Chicago, IL 60628; toll-free telephone: 800-621-2736; fax: 1-800-621-8476 (paperback: ISBN-0-226-75355-7, $13.95; hard copy: ISBN-0-226-75354-9, $34).
Publication Type: Books; Opinion Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: Administrators; Practitioners; Teachers
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A