Search results for ""Author Peter Woods""

Originally published in 1984, the articles presented here explore such matters as how teachers maintain order, how they treat their pupils and how they cope with pressure; they examine the ways in which teachers relate to their colleagues, what goes on in staffrooms, how they engage in educational debate, and what their ambitions are. The contributors get to grips with what it is really like to be a teacher, to make sense of the everyday rewards and penalties, opportunities and problems.This is the hallmark of the ethnographic method of educational inquiry. It brings to life (by close observation and/or in-depth interview) the internal workings of an institution or culture, revealing the perspectives of its members, their roles and adaptations and making explicit the routine or taken-for-granted features of institutional life.All the papers in the volume are to one degree or another located within this methodological tradition – they all begin with what life is actually like for teachers in schools. Though they draw on a range of theoretical perspectives, from interactionism and ethnomethodology, to Marxism and the ‘New Sociology of Education’; and more besides.In this volume the editors bring together examples of some of the most important and influential pieces of work which illustrate the range of material, and which have hitherto been spread widely among different research reports, academic journals, and collections of conference papers. Classrooms and Staffrooms provides a fund of quality source materials for initial and in-service teachers.

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Changing schools at 11 or 12+ is a critical, often traumatic event in a pupil’s career. Earlier studies had looked at this transitional stage from the schools’ point of view, in the light of institutional aims and objectives. Originally published in 1984, this richly detailed and readable study looks at it from the pupils’ point of view: it illustrates their perceptions of the transfer, their anxieties and their experiences.The book is the result of a research project, in which children transferring from a typical middle school to a typical comprehensive in a Midlands town were observed over a period of eighteen months. The authors reveal various ways in which children adjust to a large, more complex school organisation, to new forms of discipline and authority, and new demands in school work. They emphasise the significance of teenage culture during this period, and identify an important area of interplay between school culture and sub-culture. They pay special attention to gender identities, and the ways in which these affect pupils’ responses to different subjects in the curriculum.Finally, they consider the theoretical and policy implications of their survey, and make positive recommendations for improving school and classroom practice at both primary and secondary level.

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There can be little doubt that pupils’ own interpretations of what happens in their schools represent a crucial link in the educational chain. We need to understand how pupils respond to different forms of pedagogy and school organization, and why they respond in the ways they do, in order to increase the effectiveness of our schooling.In the ten years prior to first publication ethnographic studies of pupils in schools had increased in number and importance. They had come to represent a leading area of inquiry which is still of relevance to practising and student teachers today. However, this material was not easily accessible, being widely distributed across educational and sociological journals and books. Originally published in 1984, this book collects together significant contributions to the field in a single volume, and will still be of relevance to practising and trainee teachers, and students of sociology and education.

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