Session Information
25 SES 07, Children’s Rights in the Classroom
Paper Session
Contribution
TEACHERS AND PRIMARY SCHOOLS: PUPILS’ VOICES
1. Introduction
Since the 2005-2006 academic year, new National Curriculum, which is different from the previous one in terms of structuring, has been implemented in all primary schools all around Turkey. The new National Curriculum was designed based on a constructive perspective rather than an instructive perspective as the previous one was. Even though this new approach put pupils in the centre of teaching and learning activities, policy makers, administrators and teachers consciously or unconsciously discount pupils’ voices. Since as learners, pupils need to be engaged in all activities and to have responsibilities in making decisions about teachers, teaching processes and schools.
Jamiesson and Wikeley suggest that “schools need to systematically find out as much as they can about the interests and concerns of their young people and use this information as a starting point to debate and work with young people in designing the arrangements of schooling” (2000, p.446). As pupils are the main sources who have something to say about how they learn, when they learn, where they learn and so on. Therefore, it is assumed that at least teachers discuss and negotiate with pupils to get their views on expectations, problems and potential solutions in their schools.
As in previous studies (Oldfather, 1995; Rudduck and Flutter, 2000) listening pupils’ voices improve pupils learning when they share their ideas about curriculum and instruction. Listening pupils’ voices not only help pupils to understand how they learn and to be aware of their abilities but also help teachers to do a better job of meeting pupils’ needs. Apart from these positive feedbacks of pupils’ voices, it needs to be considering that pupils have a right to be involved in the decisions that affect them.
As mentioned earlier, virtually all school reform is planned and implemented by adults. By talking with and listening to students, we can learn more about how classroom and school processes can be made more powerful, and how improvement can be fostered. When we looked at Turkish context, we found that there were no studies considering pupils’ voices. Therefore, in this study it is aimed to find out the pupils’ views about teachers and schools. To this aim, pupils were asked to answer questions about how they think a teacher and a school should be and why they make those decisions.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
References Bogdan, R. C. & Biklen, S. K. (1992). Qualitative Research for Education: An Introduction to Theory and Methods. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Bryman, A. (2004). Social Research Methods. Oxford: University Press. Creswell, J.W. (2003). Research Design Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. (2nd Ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publication. Jamieson, I. & Wikeley, F. (2000) Is Consistency a Necessary Characteristic for Effective Schools? School Effectiveness and School Improvement Vol. 21 (4), 435-452. Krueger, R.A. & Casey, M.A. (2000) Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research (3rd ed.), Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage. Oldfather, P. (1995). Songs "come back most to them": Students' experiences as researchers.Theory Into Practice, 34(2), 131. Rudduck, J., Day, J. & Wallace, G. (1997). Students' perspectives on school improvement. In A. Hargreaves (Ed.), Rethinking educational change with heart and mind (The 1997 ASCD Year Book). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
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