Teachers' Labour Process; Proletarianisation and the Greek Case
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Teachers' Labour Process; Proletarianisation and the Greek Case Dimitra Thoma Thesis submitted for the Degree ofPhD Institute ofEducation University ofLondon 2004 ABSTRACT The focus of the thesis is teachers' labour process in upper secondary education in Greece, as this is structured by the introduction of prescribed and standardized curricula. At the centre ofour theoretical approach lies the Marxian theory oflabour process and its development of the proletarianisation thesis.The theoretical approach, that is adopted by this study, is a critical approach to the labour process theory and its proletarianisation thesis. The labour process theory, we argue, studies teachers' labour process by particularly focusing on the introduction of predetermined and standardized curricula which, as is argued, result in teachers' proletarianisation, that is to say teachers' autonomy is restricted and they are not able to exercise any control on their labour process. Our theoretical reservations, as far as the labour theory is concerned, are related to the way teachers' labour process is conceived and understood. More specifically, we argue, that labour process theory does not conceive teachers' labour process as a production process and consequently does not take into consideration the production relations, in and of production. Hence this study argues that teachers' labour process is shaped, apart from the curriculum, by the parameter "students" and to be more concrete, by "students' cultural capital" and habitus towards knowledge. Without taking into consideration and theorizing the factor "students", labour process theory, we argue, is unable to conceive and understand the "production relations", developed in the classroom, namely the relations developed between teachers and curriculum as relations mediated by students' presence. In short labour process theory has a narrow concept of"skill" and "de-skilling". Finally, we argue, as our findings indicate, that proletarianisation should be theorized and conceptualized not as a homogeneous process but should be seen as a process which is characterized by variations in its modalities, in relation to particular socio historical conjunctures. CONTENTS PART 1- SETTING THE PROBLEM: TEACHERS' WORK--------------------------------l CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION---------------------------------------------------1 1. STARTING TOTHEORISE. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1 2. AREA OFINVESTIGATION ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4 3. STRUCTURE OF THETHESIS. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6 CHAPTER 2: THE THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ----------8 2.1 INTRODUCTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8 2.2 TEACHERS' WORK. USE OF THETERM --------------------------------------------------------------- 9 2.3 STUDYING TEACHERS' WORK-------------------------------------------------------------------------15 2.4 TEACHERS' WORK, THE SCHOOL AND THESTATE -------------------------------------------------24 2.5 TOWARDS A LABOURPROCESS THEORY OF TEACHERS' WORK ------------------------------------33 2.6 THELABOURPROCESS THEORY: BRAVERMAN------------------------------------------------------36 2.7 STATE SCHOOL TEACHERS AND THEIRCLASS LOCATION--------------------------------------------45 2.8 TEACHING ASA LABOURPROCESS --------------------------------------------------------------------56 2.9 THETEACHER PROLETARIANISATIONTHESIS RE-VISITED-------------------------------------------65 2.9.1 Proletarianisation: Students' habitus towards knowledge --------------------- 75 2.9.2 Proletarianisation: Teachers' Gender --------------------------------------------- 77 2.9.3 Proletarianisation: Teachers' Specialisation -------------------------------- 79 2.9.4 Proletarianisation: Teachers' Seniority--------------------------------------- 81 CHAPTER 3: THE GREEK CASE ---------------- 84 3.1 INTRODUCTION ------------------------:.-------------------------------------------------------------84 3.2. THE SYSTEM OF ENTRANCE TOHIGHEREDUCATION ACCORDING TONEW DEMOCRACY'S POLICY (1035/1980 ACT) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------86 3.3 THE SYSTEM OF ENTRANCE TOHIGHEREDUCATION ACCORDING TOPA.SO.K's POLICY (GENERAL EXAMS) (1351/1983 ACT) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------89 3.4 TEACHERS' LABOUR PROCESS ---------------------------------------------------------------------95 CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESES ---------------------108 PART II: WORKING ON THE PROBLEM------------------------1l5 CHAPTER 5: METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS-----------1l5 5.1 GENERAL RESEARCH DESIGN --------------------------------------------------------------------- 115 5.2 SAMPLING ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 119 5.3 THE QUESTIONNAIRE ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 123 5.4 THE SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW --------------------------------------------------------------------- 127 CHAPTER 6: ANALYSIS-PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS ------------------------------130 INTRODUCTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 130 6.1 WORKING CLASS AREAS------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 132 6.2 MIDDLE/UPPER CLASS AREAS ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 159 6.3 SCHOOL ADVISORS ANDTEACHER UNIONISTS------------------------------------------------------- 181 CHAPTER 7: DISCUSSION-------------------------------------------------------------187 PART III------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------215 CHAPTER 8 : CONCLUSIONS --------------------------------------------------------------215 BIBLIOGRAPHY--------------------------------------------------------------------------------225 APPENDIX I -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------239 QUESTIONNAIRE TO TEACHERS AT STATE SCHOOLS ----------------------------------------239 APPENDIX II-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------245 QUESTIONNAIRE TO SCHOOL ADVISORS AND TEACHERUNIONISTS ------------------ 245 APPENDIX III --------------------------------------------------------------------249 SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW WITH STUDENTS--------------------------------------------- 249 APPENDIX IV-------------------------------------------------------------------251 SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW WITH TEACHERS.-----------------------------------------251 APPENDIX V -------------------------------------------------------------254 Acknowledgements During the years it takes to research and write a thesis, one receives help and support from many different sources. First and foremost I would like to thank the State Foundation ofScholarships (1. K.Y.) which offered me a scholarship and my supervisor Tony Green, who was my most important source of help and support. Therefore I am deeply indebted to Tony Green and I am truly grateful to him for his wise guidance and inspiration. I also owe thanks to Nicos Kaberis for the discussion we had on the theoretical part ofthis study. I wish to express my thanks to all teachers, School Advisors, Teacher Unionists and students who partcipated in the empirical part ofthis study. Furthermore, I sincerely thank my parents and my friends for their encouragement and support. Finally, many thanks to Nikoleta Sidira-Xenou for the layout ofthe thesis. It is not interesting to be described the visible but to be made visible what is not. Paul Klee Part I - Setting the problem: Teachers' Work Chapter 1: Introduction 1. Starting to theorise. This study is about teachers' labour process and the proletarianisation thesis.The central concern ofthe thesis is to identify "main tendencies" which set up differences and polarises the experiences and practices of teachers working in different educational contexts. More specifically, this study focuses on variations in teachers' labour processes in Greek upper secondary education (Lyceum). It attempts to investigate teachers' labour process as this was shaped and structured after the introduction, by the government of the Socialist party (PA.SO.K) in the ' 80s, of a system of selection for entrance to Higher Education, known as Desmes. The introduction ofthat system, we argue, resulted in restricting teachers' autonomy and increasing control by the educational authorities over their labour process. Before we proceed to the development of the study, I would like to present the reasons for choosing the specific research topic. These reasons can be distinguished in two categories: the personal/substantive and the objective ones. The first category has to do with my professional career as a teacher. I started my career at the beginning of the '90s be consistent on this throughout in a Lyceum in the West part of Attica, a working class area, where I was teaching Sociology. Sociology as a subject was considered, along with three other subjects (History, Mathematics and Modem Greek-Composition), as a compulsory one for students interested in doing socio-economic studies in Higher Education. It was part of the examinations which students took for their entrance into Higher Education.