A Comparison of Turkish and French Teachers in Terms of Teacher Roles of Status Quo and Progressive Approaches

A Comparison of Turkish and French Teachers in Terms of Teacher Roles of Status Quo and Progressive Approaches

OTTEKIN DEMIRBOLAT, Ayse

Key words: Teacher roles, status quo roles, progressive roles, inter-cultural comparison ABSTRACT Teacher roles pertaining to status quo approach include provision of institutional authority, attaching importance to academic standards, and provision of effective teaching. However, teachers should also pay attention to progressive roles as a result of globalization. Those teachers performing global roles are interested in events at the local, national and global levels, actively try to be informed about these events, have a skeptical approach towards sources of information and exhibit an equitable and supportive approach. On the other hand, these two categories of teacher roles are mostly in opposition. Such a contradiction may lead to role conflict, which is significantly affected by the political, social, and cultural conditions of each society. The purpose of the study is to compare the adaptation level of Turkish and French teachers concerning the teacher roles of status quo and progressive approaches. Through this comparison, the effects political, social, and cultural conditions on the teachers’ professional role orientations will be revealed. The reason for choosing these two groups teachers is that in both countries education is administered at the central level. The study was designed as a qualitative study. Both groups contained twenty teachers. Their views were collected through semi-structured interview forms. The data were analyzed with content analysis.

Article
PeerReviewed

IBU Publishing

2013-05-03

1738