Minna Uitto

Body, Caring and Power in Teacher-Pupil Relationships: Encounters in Former Pupils' Memories.

This narrative inquiry aims to look at teacher–pupil relationships through teacher memories. When 49 university students of education were asked to write their memories of teachers, they told about their teachers in relation to pupils. The data were analysed thematically and, based on that, re‐read through the concepts of body, caring and power in order to answer the question of how these can be understood as elements of the teacher–pupil relationship. We will also discuss the potential for encounter in teacher–pupil relationships, since we noticed that students especially seemed to recall encounters and non‐encounters in the relationship. By listening to former pupils, it is possible to elicit significant memories of what, from their point of view, is in the core of being a teacher. The meaning of recalling ones own teachers in teacher education is also emphasised.

Gender and emotions in relationships: a group of teachers recalling their own teachers

This narrative inquiry analyses the memories of a group of female teachers telling about their own teachers. We ask how gender and emotions are intertwined to teacher–student relationships. Gender was present in the stories where the teachers described being a schoolgirl in relationship with a teacher and told about their teachers as women and men. The collective process of recalling evoked the emotions experienced as students, but these emotions were also interpreted in the present context. When recalling, the teachers were reconstructing the past in the light of the present and the future. The article highlights the significance for teachers reflecting on their own educational histories.

Silenced Truths: Relational and Emotional Dimensions of a Beginning Teacher's Identity as Part of the Micropolitical Context of School

This article focuses on teacher identity. Based on two small stories told in a peer group by a beginning teacher, we ask: How does a beginning teacher tell about her identity as part of the micropolitical context of school? Theoretically and methodologically, the research is committed to a narrative approach in understanding teacher identity. The material consists of small stories based on videotaped peer group discussions of 11 Finnish teachers. The results of the research illustrate the micropolitical context at the heart of how a beginning teachers identity is constructed through diverse emotionally significant relationships. Narrative ways of working, such as group discussions, can offer teachers an opportunity to recognize different dimensions of their identity.

Humiliation, unfairness and laughter: students recall power relations with teachers

A Finnish magazine published my request that people remember and write about their teachers. Many writers recalled teachers who, for example, had humiliated, favoured or laughed at their students. This article focuses on a study of such negative memories, examining what writers tell about teachers and students in power relationships and how students make sense of their recollections. Students described not only the teachers’ more powerful position but also their recollections of teachers exercising that power in various ways. They recalled what happened between those teachers and themselves and how they (the students) experienced the situations, reacted and felt; they also considered the significance of their memories. Besides demonstrating how teacher–student relations can be loving and reciprocal, research is needed on relations that students recall as negative, unfair or hurtful. Students’ memories need to be taken into account to help both teachers and researchers understand how negative experiences evolve in teachers’ relationships with students, how complex those relations can be, and how teachers’ actions can impact both on student learning and on the students’ personal development. Such negative memories should also be addressed in teacher education. Both present and future teachers should have opportunities to work with their own memories.

The Tensions between the Ideal and Experienced: Teacher-Student Relationships in Stories Told by Beginning Japanese Teachers.

Abstract This narrative research explores the tensions that beginning teachers tell about their relationships with students between the ideals they have, and how the teachers experience those relationships in the micropolitical and relational environment of their everyday work. The phenomenon is approached through stories told by three Japanese beginning teachers. The stories illustrate the tensions originating from within oneself, and how they relate to relationships with senior colleagues or the hierarchical relations within the school organisation. The tensions are meaningful for the emotional distance created between the teacher and his/her students. Implications, in particular, for teacher training are considered.

The significance of emotions in Finnish teachers’ stories about their intercultural learning

Abstract The need to improve teachers’ abilities to respond to the needs of diverse students has been widely acknowledged. To acquire these abilities teachers need ongoing reflection and opportunities to learn in practice in various contexts. However, earlier research has not extensively theorised teachers’ intercultural learning as a holistic life-long learning process. This article discusses teachers’ intercultural learning as a lifelong process in which emotions play a significant role. The article is based on the findings of an analysis of biographical interviews with 10 Finnish teachers. The research question addressed here is: How does the significance of emotions for teachers’ intercultural learning appear in teachers’ stories? The findings present four ways in which the emotional dimensions of intercultural learning was present in the teachers’ stories: emotions shook the teachers’ values and perspectives, emotions triggered action, the teachers’ own feelings of otherness enabled sensitivity towards others, and the emotional climate supported the teachers’ intercultural learning. Finally, the article discusses the pedagogical conditions for teachers’ intercultural learning as an emotional process.

The challenges to discussing emotionally loaded stories in Finnish teacher education

Abstract It has been increasingly acknowledged that emotions are a significant dimension in teachers’ work and professional development, and an inseparable part of reflection promoted in the research-based teacher education. However, at the same time the difficulty of prompting student-teachers to reflect on their emotions in teacher education has been recognised. This article focuses on this difficulty by examining how emotionally loaded stories about teachers’ work were dealt with by soon-to-graduate Finnish student-teachers attending peer group mentoring sessions. We illustrate this group-level phenomenon (the challenge of discussing emotionally loaded stories) through the examples provided by one of the participants, Hannele (pseudonym). Our results revealed that emotionally loaded stories in this peer group were often responded to with laughter and humour or via masking or silencing. Participants seemed to avoid deeper emotional reflection on uncertainty related to oneself and to the teaching profession, therefore maintaining an image of a proper (student) teacher. Our results have implications for both peer group mentoring and pre-service teacher education.

You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t: the tension-filled relationships between Japanese beginning and senior teachers

Abstract This article contributes to theoretical discussions about beginning teachers’ work being both relational and emotional. Specifically, we have examined the tensions that frequently characterise the relationships between beginning and senior teachers. Our research material consisted of narrative interviews with seven beginning teachers and seven senior teachers working at the same junior high school in Japan. Through thematic analysis, we have identified three categories of tensions: (1) tension between dependence and independence, (2) tension between obedience and assertiveness and (3) tension between loyalty to one’s students and loyalty to one’s colleagues. These tensions are meaningful for both beginning and senior teachers, but they view them in different ways and connect them to different expectations regarding appropriate actions and attitudes. These tensions are also related to wider cultural expectations and general principles that are often concretely realised through different practices within the micropolitical environment of a school.