Breaking the vicious circle of categorizing students in school

an article by Jaakko Virkkunen and Ritva Engestroöm (University of Helsinki, Finland), Denise Shelley Newnham (University of Bath, UK) and Paul Nleya (University of Botswana) published in Learning, Culture and Social Interaction Volume 1 Issues 3–4 (September–December 2012)

Abstract

Teachers categorising of students profoundly affects the educational process and can subvert open teacher-student communication and create a vicious circle of student’s lack of support and academic failure.

In this article we use data from a Change Laboratory intervention in a senior secondary school in order to study the possibilities of changing the way teachers construct students as objects of their work and overcoming this vicious circle. We analyse categorisation as a form of thinking based on empirical generalisation and conceptualise its opposite as a dialectical process of constructing individual students’ specific potentials and learning problems as the object of teachers’ work.

For this the teachers need new kinds of tools that mediate the teacher-student interaction in a way that supports teachers’ and students’ mutual learning and support.

Previous studies have shown a number of steps that are necessary for such a remediation of the teacher-student interaction to take place.

In this study, we test and elaborate these observations.

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