Student-teacher power relations and participation. A study in two EFL classes

Abstract

Power is in every sphere of society and schools are not exempt from it. Those relations are seen in the interaction between teachers and students which determine among other aspects, participation. The present qualitative research project focused on analyzing how power between teacher and students and its effects on participation in two groups of seventh graders of an EFL class. For this purpose, data from class observations, teacher‟s and students‟ interviews and students‟ journals were examined under the descriptive methodology and interpreted without applying a pedagogical intervention. The findings of this study revealed that the teacher used different strategies like the use of negative points, setting arrangement or different types of interaction to exert power in the class and, similarly, each one of these had different effects by encouraging or discouraging students to participate in each group. We concluded the teacher exerted power in two ways: similar in both groups as some strategies like the use of negative points were used in both groups, but at the same time with differences according to the group as some strategies were exclusive of a group which, indeed, had mostly a negative effect.