Epistemic Authority, Institutional Power, and Curricular Knowledge
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11575/jet.v16i1.43918Abstract
Under what conditions are student rejections of teacher authority legitimate? This paper used Keddie 's (1971) discussion of classroom know ledge as a critique of Peters' (1966) widely accepted analysis and justification of teacher authority. The contention is that Peters ' justification relies upon contrafactual presuppositions about what the teacher knows and what the teacher teaches. As such, it functions to legitimate a perspective of teacher authority which is misleading as a reflection of classroom practice. The author argues that what would in theory be considered (philosophically justified) authority based on superior disciplinary knowledge is in fact an extension of (sociologically explained) institutional power. This has important implications for the view that an aim of education is the promotion of autonomous rationality.
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