Time and teachers : an empirical and conceptual study of the competition for the available time in the classroom practice of teachers working in the Western Cape, 1989-1990

Reid, Robert Christopher Walter MacNeile

Time and teachers : an empirical and conceptual study of the competition for the available time in the classroom practice of teachers working in the Western Cape, 1989-1990

Master Thesis

1990

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

School of Education

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

This study examines the role of time in the working lives of teachers in the Western Cape in the years 1989 and 1990. The study is based upon interviews with twelve teachers, all of whom were currently teaching or who had been teaching in the recent past. The interviews explored the attitudes and practices of the teachers regarding their timetables, free periods, extra-murals, marking practices and lesson preparation, meetings, homework practices, tests and examinations, and professionalism, in so far as these were affected by considerations of time. The study argues that conflict in schools is produced by the struggle for autonomy, particularly in the classroom practice of teachers, and that this struggle takes the form of competition for control of time. In particular, the study suggests that there are rankings of power and priorities in schools and that these can be better understood by examining the relationships between time, conflict and autonomy.