Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

You are here

field paper proposal

allison.hacker's picture

For my final field paper I’d like to focus on respect and how that is conveyed and not conveyed in the classroom. This includes the way the teacher shows respect for the kids, how the kids respect the teacher, and how these factors vary in relation to one another. In my fieldwork I have observed three different teachers in the classroom with the same group of kids and there were noticeable differences in how each teacher interacted with the kids and how the kids behaved with each teacher. I think this might be tricky because respect is subjective and this would be entirely based on my interpretations of respect in the classroom. I could also draw from the weeks 5 and 6 readings on pedagogy and curriculum. 

Comments

jccohen's picture

allison.hacker,

Might you want to look at the interactions between the students and these teachers, and then see what you can learn about respect from there?  This switch would address your question about starting with your own definition of respect, since you might be able to construe a definition of respect from the quality of the interactions.  What do you think?  Also, if you have an opportunity it would be interesting to ask teachers and/or students how they define respect; this would offer an emic, or insider's, view.