Teacher Pedagogical Choice

Abstract

This chapter examines teachers’ pedagogical decisions and how routinization of practice can lead to the ineffective application of pedagogy that hinders student development and achievement. Identification of tacit knowledge that supports routinization can enable teachers to critique their teaching practice and identify pedagogies that are more appropriate for the students they teach. The work of Bourdieu and Giddens provides a sociological framework to analyse the influences on pedagogical decision-making. Evidence from a case study is used to illustrate how teacher professional habitus, motivation, ontological security, routinization and time and space interact to inhibit or enable expansion of teachers’ knowledgeability and the frames of practice inform their choice and development of pedagogy.