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Agent And Subject Of Discipline: How The Novice Teacher Experiences The Techniques Of Power, Lynn Anne Murray-Chandler

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This phenomenological study explored how five elementary school teachers experienced their first year of teaching as both the subject and agent of discipline. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s conceptualizations of power, discipline, and resistance, the investigator analyzed interview data that focused on questions concerning how novice teachers establish their own classroom management techniques, what norms they followed and resisted, as well as how and when they complied (or did not) in order to gain membership into their school/teacher community. Analysis indicated that, although novice teachers expressed many concerns, they largely complied with the norms established institutionally for managing student behavior, and …