Hushing as a moral dilemma in the classroom

• Published in: Journal of moral education Vol. 35; no. 1; pp. 89 - 104
• Main Author: Thornberg, Robert
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Routledge 01.03.2006; Taylor & Francis
• Subjects: Authority; Behavior Standards; Classroom behaviour; classroom management; classroom rules; Classroom Techniques; Conflict; Conversation; Curriculum subjects: programmes and methods; Education; Educational sciences; Elementary School Students; Ethical Instruction; Ethnography; Foreign Countries; Helping Relationship; Ideological education, moral education; Moral crisis; Moral Development; moral dilemma; Moral dilemmas; moral education; Moral Issues; Moral Values; Primary schools; Regulation; Rules; SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP; School environment; School Policy; school rules; Silence; Social norms; SOCIAL SCIENCES; Student Behavior; Sweden; Teacher-Student interactions; Teaching methods; Values Education; Sweden; Classroom; Class Management; Conflict; Moral education; Primary Education
• ISSN: 0305-7240; 1465-3877; 1465-3877
• DOI: 10.1080/03057240500495336

Life in the classroom is governed by a variety of rules. One typical classroom rule is the rule of silence or low noise. Teachers often deal with students' noise-making and conversations by hushing them. This article reports an investigation of how hushing can create moral dilemmas for students at their desks in the classroom. This study is part of a larger ethnographic research project on values education in the daily life of school, conducted in two primary schools in Sweden. The findings show that students think that by hushing, teachers are now and then acting in the wrong way and, in consequence, the students are forced to go against the teacher to act in accordance with their own moral standards, or to give up, in order to avoid the risk of getting a reprimand. The analyses revealed three categories of moral dilemmas or conflicts with rules: indiscriminate hushing as (a) a conflict between morality and social conventions; (b) a pure moral conflict; and (c) a conflict between morality and authority.