Educational Organizations: Power in the Classroom. Metropolitan Technological Institute and University Institution Salazar y Herrera Case Study

Abstract

Acquiring knowledge must be the most motivating feature for learners in any field of study. However, this can be a complex issue and sometimes tortuous, because power relations are immersed inside the most evident or subtlest aspects of the classroom. The objective of this research is the analysis of power and its involvement in the classroom, using multiple theoretical approaches (Machiavelli, Parker, Weber, Foucault, Redorta, Mintzberg and Morgan) to see the incidence of power on two colleges in the City of Medellín, Colombia: Instituto Tecnológico Metropolitano (ITM), a public educational institution and the Institución Universitaria Salazar y Herrera (lUSH), a private Catholic university institute. Both institutions were selected for having non similar social characteristics. The research had a qualitative approach; subsequently, following the methodological recommendations of Galeano (2009) for this type of studies, a categorical system was created resulting in 9 categories of analysis. As a methodological tool in the field work, a structured interview was chosen and applied to 10 teachers and 10 students in both institutions selected. Twenty nine open-ended questions were used for interviews with teachers, and fourteen open-ended questions as well for students. The data were analyzed descriptively, taking each one of the nine conceptual categories: learning, authority, institution, environment, classroom situations, forms of power inside the classroom, knowledge, recognition of agents in the class, interests.  It was found that in both institutions there was a latent desire for learning by students. Also, students considered that ITM had higher academic demands than IUSH. However, IUSH had a greater influence in the process of decision making, which makes the teacher sometimes feel they should give up to pressure to lower the level of academic demands. Initially, teachers exert authority in the classroom in both places, but they should corroborate it by demonstrating their knowledge and pedagogy in front of students. ITM students feel they are living in a more hostile environment as a result of the social problems in which they live (more vulnerable population). The classroom of both places remains as a political stage, framed by different interests. Researchers have observed that in both institutions power has a bigger role than knowledge; students, in their vast majority, expressed a short-term vision in the learning process, they are happy with having higher grades, but their knowledge learning level is minimal or non-existent.