ERIC Number: ED615064
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2021-Sep-30
Pages: 25
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
The Interaction of Culture and Context in the Construction of Teachers' Putative Entitled Attitude in the Midst of Change
Ratnam, Tara
Advances in Research on Teaching
This chapter investigates the phenomenon of teachers' "entitled attitude" that manifested itself as resistance to change in the midst of a curricular reform in the Indian school context. For teachers long socialized into a teacher-centered culture, the change expected was nothing less than a paradigm shift in the Kuhnian sense. However, conclusions drawn from studies involving cursory surveys and teacher observation pinned the problem to teachers' "entitled attitude," an unwillingness to exert themselves beyond the minimum level required by school policies. This view reflects a lack of acknowledgement of teachers as persons with values and the capacity to think and feel as potential agents of community practices such as schooling. My study investigates the wider sociocultural historical and political basis of teachers' putative "entitled attitude" informed by Lev Vygotsky's dialectical approach. It accesses the interrelated history of a teacher at a number of levels using the teacher's life history to create the narrative. This "genetic" analysis helps illuminate what the curricular change means to teachers inside out. The findings are used to unravel the nature of support that would help teachers realize their agency and sway them from using entitlement as a compensatory mechanism to deflect change. [For the complete volume, "Understanding Excessive Teacher and Faculty Entitlement: Digging at the Roots. Advances in Research on Teaching. Volume 38," see ED614992.]
Descriptors: Teacher Attitudes, Resistance to Change, Educational Change, Curriculum Development, Foreign Countries, Cultural Context, Biographies
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Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: India
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A