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Critical moments in negotiatingauthority: grading, accountability, andteacher educationNathan D. Brubakera

a Faculty of Education, Monash University, Frankston, AustraliaPublished online: 09 Jan 2015.

To cite this article: Nathan D. Brubaker (2015): Critical moments in negotiating authority: grading,accountability, and teacher education, Teaching Education, DOI: 10.1080/10476210.2014.996742

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Critical moments in negotiating authority: grading, accountability,and teacher education

Nathan D. Brubaker*

Faculty of Education, Monash University, Frankston, Australia

(Received 2 April 2013; accepted 23 November 2014)

Understanding teacher educators’ reasoning about critical moments in negotiatingauthority can inform efforts to foster democratic teacher education practices andprepare future teachers to teach democratically. We know very little, however,about critical moments in negotiating authority, particularly in teacher educators’practices. The purpose of this study was to examine, using self-study methodol-ogy, a teacher educator’s assumptions and perspectives about purposefully andexplicitly negotiating authority through grading and accountability processes inan undergraduate teacher education course. From a critical pedagogical lens –concerning the intersection of classroom power relations, democratic citizenship,and student growth – the findings suggest that seeking legitimacy through con-sensual acceptance, responding to students’ expressed interests, and constructingknowledge through continual questioning present potential frameworks for con-structing purposeful pedagogical partnerships consistent with democratic aims inteacher education.

Keywords: democratic practice; teacher education; authority; negotiation;grading; accountability

Current educational trends toward privatization heighten the need to focus on issuesrelevant to the public good. Educational researchers can further this aim byproducing research and constructing knowledge concerned with fostering active par-ticipation in democratic life. Issues of authority are of particular relevance to educa-tors interested in fostering democratic classroom practices. Specifically, negotiatingauthority – a multifaceted process of mutual bargaining over the right to rule andthe right to be believed (Steutel & Spiecker, 2000) – permeates all facets of teachingexperience and can be considered an outgrowth of such epistemological and proce-dural dimensions of classroom life as issuing instructions, claiming expertise, andmaking decisions (Shor, 1996; Winograd, 2002). While purposefully and explicitlynegotiating authority has been theorized as an essential dimension of democraticeducation (Boomer, Lester, Onore, & Cook, 1992; Freire, 1996; Shor, 1996), doingso remains more the exception than the rule in educational practice.

A starting point for teachers interested in democratizing classroom practices is tounderstand how authority is negotiated in different classroom contexts. We knowvery little, however, about this process, particularly in teacher education settings(Pace & Hemmings, 2006a). While several recent studies offer valuable insights into

*Email: nathan.brubaker@monash.edu

© 2015 Taylor & Francis

Teaching Education, 2015http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10476210.2014.996742

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different pedagogical processes through which authority is negotiated in teachereducation courses – including grading (Brubaker, 2010), classroom inquiry(Brubaker, 2012b), and curriculum (Brubaker, 2012c) – they are more concernedwith broad themes than specific events. While one study (Brubaker, 2009) demon-strates how a teacher’s actions – through a combination of authoritarian and permis-sive practices that largely eluded the more complex middle ground of democraticauthority – embodied a tension between action and intent (Berry, 2008) and mani-fested important discrepancies with his stated beliefs, the teacher’s reasoning is notexplored in depth. To gain a deeper understanding of the complexity and difficultyof disrupting conventional authority relations in teacher education, additional studyof teacher educators’ perceptions of critical moments in negotiating authority isneeded. A self-study methodological approach, as employed in this research, can beparticularly useful for providing insight into such perceptions.

Conceptual framework

A critical pedagogical perspective is particularly relevant to examining criticalmoments in negotiating authority. From such a perspective, the purpose of teachingis to promote a more just, equitable, and democratic society. It is guided by thebelief that self-governance and democratic citizenship are not naturally occurringphenomena, but are ways of living that must be purposefully cultivated throughdemocratic educational experiences (Kyle & Jenks, 2002). From this view, democ-racy is “more than a form of government”; it is, in fact, “primarily a mode of associ-ated living, of conjoint communicated experience” (Dewey, 1966, p. 87), requiringthe active participation of students in collective deliberation and inquiry to learnhow to live in freedom (Dewey, 1996a; Johnston, 2004). Only through activeapprenticeship in democratic life can teachers be properly prepared to cultivate suchqualities in future students. While the task of “teaching liberty” (Barber, 1992) is acentral priority of many teacher educators, it could be enhanced with expandedinsight into how authority is negotiated in different classroom contexts.

Relational theories of classroom power, which consider power and authority tobe mutual constructions rather than possessions (Manke, 1997), help further elabo-rate the critical pedagogical perspective employed in this study. From the standpointof such theories, authority is an inter-relational force that is exercised rather thanowned and that flows through classroom experience in ways that are jointly con-structed by teachers and students (Foucault, 1984, 1995; Gore, 1995). In this way,authority relationships are continually negotiated, regardless of specific educationalpractice, and the reciprocal construction of authority relations implicitly unfolds,whether participants are aware of it or not. Increased insight into the complexity anddynamics of negotiatory classroom processes could help expand our understandingof the inter-relational dimensions of teacher education and create more purposefulclassroom interactions that foster democratic authority relations.

Consistent with beliefs about classroom power relations and democraticcitizenship as they are relevant to critical moments in negotiating authority are socialconstructivist pedagogical theories. From such perspectives, pedagogical practicesthat purposefully and explicitly negotiate authority in classroom contexts foster dem-ocratic, equitable, and nurturing classroom relations that humanize students in waysauthoritarian practices cannot (Freire, 1996). Through cultivating classroom condi-tions characterized by social interaction (Vygotsky, 1978), inquiry (Dewey, 1996b;

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Lipman, 2003), communicative action (Habermas, 1998; Morrow & Torres, 2002),and interpersonal relations of mutual understanding and acceptance (Rogers, 1961,1969), teachers can help students more fully maximize their personal growth andfulfill their human potential. Expanded insight into processes of negotiating authorityin teacher education contexts could heighten our understanding of how pedagogicalpractices support student growth. While these perspectives on pedagogy providesolid conceptual foundations for examining critical moments in negotiatingauthority, they require systematic investigation to discern implications for teachingpractice.

Review of relevant literature

While the concept of critical moments has been examined extensively as a lens foreducational research (Tripp, 1993), it has not been applied to negotiating authorityin teacher education. Studies examine teacher decision-making (Salmon, Kemeny,Rossman, & Winter, 2008) and student teachers’ thinking from analyzing dilemmasin their practice (Farrell, 2008; Griffin, 2003; Romano, 2005; Talanquer, Tomanek,& Novodvorsky, 2007) without providing insights into the pedagogical dilemmas ofteacher educators. Studies concerned with teacher educator’s dilemmas (Sutton,2004; Tillema & Kremer-Hayon, 2005) provide only limited insight into the reason-ing used to resolve such dilemmas. Teachers’ reasoning about critical moments innegotiating authority could therefore benefit from additional examination.

Although little research has been conducted on critical moments in negotiatingauthority, literature does provide insights into teacher educators’ perspectives onproblems in their practice relevant to negotiating authority. Demonstrating congru-ence between one’s actions and ideals – of particular relevance to those committedto reconstructing conventional practices – is a commonly identified theme in teachereducation literature. Research, for example, on inquiry-based teaching (Newmanet al., 2004), self-regulated learning (Tillema & Kremer-Hayon, 2002), and teachereducators’ conceptions of teaching (Tillema, 2004; Tillema & Kremer-Hayon, 2005)demonstrates that theory/practice dilemmas are among those most commonlyencountered by teacher educators. Such difficulties – variously referred to in the lit-erature as problems of practice (Loughran, 2006), tensions (Berry, 2008), bumpymoments (Romano, 2005), critical incidents (Tripp, 1993), and dilemmas (Tillema &Kremer-Hayon, 2005) – represent critical moments when they arise at unplannedand unanticipated times, force teachers to make choices between alternatives ofequally perceived value, and leave future actions hanging on how situations aresolved (Romano, 2005; Tillema & Kremer-Hayon, 2002).

Helping teachers reason more deeply about the complexity of teaching has beenidentified in teacher education literature as a central benefit of examining criticalmoments. Through evoking hesitation, doubt, and “inner debate” (Tillema, 2004)about competing beliefs for which there is no single “right” solution (Talanqueret al., 2007), critical moments have been theorized as important tools for uncoveringassumptions (Newman, 1987), illuminating unconscious biases, beliefs, and“interactional misfires” (Macgillivray, 1997), articulating practice, making teachingperspectives explicit, addressing impediments to continued growth (Tillema &Kremer-Hayon, 2005), bridging the gap between theory and practice (Lea & Griggs,2005), disrupting conventional assumptions of teachers as unquestioned authorities(Griggs, 2004), and providing windows of insight into how expertise operates in

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teachers’ work (Orland-Barak & Yinon, 2005). Such benefits accentuate theimportance and relevance of teacher educators examining critical moments in negoti-ating authority.

Overall, literature on negotiating authority in teacher education focuses more onpedagogical processes than teacher reasoning and does not explore in depth thecomplexity of teacher educators’ thinking about their efforts to disrupt conventionalauthority relations. Critical moments – which have been examined primarily withprospective teachers but not teacher educators – are considered important tools forhelping teachers unpack the reasoning associated with their actions. This creates aneed to systematically examine teacher educators’ perspectives on critical momentsin negotiating authority. The purpose of this study was to investigate, as a self-studyof my own practice as a beginning teacher educator, how I constructed meaningfrom critical moments in negotiating authority with preservice teachers.

Methods

As a self-study of my own practice as a beginning teacher educator, I sought tograpple with the difficulties and dilemmas embedded in my teaching as a means ofconstructing knowledge of relevance to teacher educators more broadly (LaBoskey,2004). I used self-study methodology because many benefits are associated withstudying one’s own practice, including the opportunity to generate knowledge aboutteaching and learning from “insider” perspectives (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999),assessing the congruence of one’s practices and beliefs (Berry, 2004; Loughran,2004), and improving one’s credibility as a teacher (Hamilton & Pinnegar, 2000)while resolving dilemmas embedded in one’s teaching (Loughran, 2007). Subjectingone’s practices to public critique as a means of both reinterpreting and reframingone’s experience, extending beyond oneself, and making explicit the tacit theoriesembedded in one’s teaching are important to realizing the many benefits of self-study as a genre of qualitative research (Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009). In light of mycommitments to promoting social justice, democracy, and equity through my effortsas a teacher educator, such a methodological frame was particularly useful for attain-ing such purposes. I used a single critical moment for this study to help elaborate indepth the extent to which such purposes were fulfilled through my efforts as abeginning teacher educator.

I conducted this study at a large comprehensive state university in an urban areain the Northeastern USA, where I audio-recorded and transcribed all course activi-ties for the Spring 2006 semester while teaching the course, Teaching for CriticalThinking, as a graduate assistant (see Brubaker, 2010, 2012b, 2012c for additionaldetails on the context and methodology of the larger study of which this one was apart). Doing so involved analyzing nearly 6000 pages of data using the constantcomparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1999), which included complete transcriptsof 28 class sessions (75 min each) and 53 meetings with students outside of class(31 min average length), as well as a variety of teacher- and student-generatedcourse documents like e-mails, journal reflections, and observation field notes andinterviews from experienced third parties (three full-time faculty members and twodoctoral students who observed my classes for purposes of helping me identify anddiscuss different perspectives on my teaching). Twenty-two undergraduate studentswere enrolled in the course (68% White, 27% Hispanic, 5% Asian; half male andhalf female; ages 20–37; representing five different native languages; mostly middle

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class; juniors; and seniors just a semester or two away from student teaching). All ofthe students agreed to participate in the study as it was approved by the universityethics committee. I identified as White, male, in my early thirties, native Englishspeaker, middle class, with an academic background in Pedagogy.

To analyze the data, I used a range of grounded theory methods including con-stant comparison, memos, and theoretical saturation (Birks & Mills, 2012; Glaser &Strauss, 1999; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Constant comparison involved continuallycomparing incidents in the data with previous incidents of similar and different attri-butes until stable categories emerged to give rise to the findings for the study. I usedthe computer software program QSR Nvivo 8.0 to facilitate this process of constantcomparison. Writing memos consisted of maintaining a detailed record of thedecision-making processes that informed all of my research activities, includingchanges in my research direction and my rationale for such changes. Maintainingsuch records, which I treated as data in themselves, enhanced the dependability ofthe findings by providing a detailed audit trail from which others could replicate myprocesses. Theoretical saturation involved arriving at conceptually abstract catego-ries until no new codes could be clearly articulated or integrated. Such categorieswere not forced into predetermined theoretical frames, but allowed to inductivelyemerge from the data. Overall, this iterative and inductive method, which proceededline by line through at least three complete passes through the data-set, helped mediscern more deeply what was happening in the data and develop themes to descrip-tively illuminate the phenomenon being examined. For this study, I used a subset ofdata from the larger study to help illuminate the central research question concerninghow I constructed meaning from critical moments in negotiating authority with theclass of preservice teachers.

The findings of the study were further informed by negative case analysis – theprocess of examining situations that are contrary to what is expected or are inconsis-tent with participants’ contributions in the data. Examining negative cases is impor-tant to sufficiently capture the complexity of a topic and explore in depth thephenomenon being examined (Birks & Mills, 2012). For this particular study, Idecided to use a single case as the central focus of the study as a means of capturingin detail the circumstances concerning my reasoning as a teacher educator. I arrivedat such a decision from identifying critical moments from my first three years ofteaching diversity courses, from 2007 to 2010, as a full-time member of the teachereducation faculty at a large comprehensive state university in a rural area in theSoutheastern US Reviewing student comments on course evaluations, reflectivepapers, and critical incident questionnaires (Brookfield, 1995); my own commentsfrom personal journals; input from colleagues with whom I regularly discussed myteaching; findings from my previous research; and professional dialog with a moreexperienced teacher education colleague over a period of ten months helped facili-tate the process of identifying relevant moments. I paid particular attention to experi-ences that were memorable and unsatisfying, and then grouped my critical momentsinto themes and chose exemplars from the data as a basis for unpacking my assump-tions and perspectives. I elected to focus the study on a single critical moment forpurposes of exploring my perceptions about purposefully and explicitly negotiatingauthority in greater depth. This critical moment (described below) reflects my con-cerns with the complexity and problematic nature of conventional grading practicesin teacher education, and my efforts to envision and implement alternatives to suchpractices in my teaching.

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The credibility of the findings was enhanced by several strategies: thetriangulation of both the data methods and sources, progressive subjectivity, nega-tive case analysis, persistent observation, and prolonged engagement (Guba &Lincoln, 1989; Patton, 2002) – in addition to the thoroughness and detail of thedata collected for the study. A colleague supported me throughout the study as a“critical friend” in an effort to shift the lens through which I viewed studentlearning (Costa & Kallick, 1993) and unmask assumptions embedded in my prac-tice (Brookfield, 1995). Although dozens of themes seemed significant throughoutthe process of analyzing the data, only those that were directly supported by thedata were ultimately incorporated into the findings for the study – a connection Iverified through systematically searching the data using QSR Nvivo 8.0. Sixpoints of analysis and three themes emerged from the data about my perspectiveson critical moments in negotiating authority. Below, I present a brief context ofthe critical moment, followed by an overview of the critical moment using sixpoints of analysis. I then elaborate on the three central themes of the study.

Context of the critical moment

The critical moment that comprised my focus for the study arose from my efforts toinvolve students in establishing their obligations for the semester by designing indi-vidualized grading contracts. By fostering critical examination of grading and havingstudents experience firsthand the complexity of developing personalized plans in thecourse, I sought to help students envision alternative approaches to grades in theirfuture teaching while creating a climate in which students could openly communi-cate and question without jeopardizing their grade for the course. As I noted in myjournal before the course began, “I want for the grades to become a source of learn-ing.” I further reflected, “I want them to feel that they will not be penalized bygrades, that they will not be punished by me through lowered grades for sayingsomething in class that might be offensive to me.” On a worksheet that I completedin preparation for the opening weeks of the course, I specified my interests in “[f]ostering collaborative relations with open and honest communication” and “[e]xpos-ing students to my views without imposing them.” Through designing individualizedgrading contracts, I aspired to create a classroom environment in which we couldachieve these goals.

While I expected students to be thorough in specifying the details of theircontracts, the overall structure of my proposal afforded them virtually unlimitedoptions. They could accept my proposal in its entirety, accept it with minor “rea-soned modifications,” or present to me a reconstructed and individualized versionthat reflected major changes – so long as they accounted for each of the elements inmy proposal (activity options, quantity/quality expectations, means of documenta-tion, grading scale, and guidelines). Before finalizing with the students how theirgrades for the course would be determined, I actively encouraged them to consideralternatives to my proposed grading scheme. Our third class session was devoted toidentifying and exploring different options available to us. I announced to students:“[W]e’re brainstorming here. We’re getting as many ideas down as we can,” and Iencouraged them to generate additional ideas with comments like: “Don’t be shy.Be radical. Be bold. Be daring.” “[L]et’s be inventive, let’s be creative.” Together,we generated a variety of options ranging from a traditional teacher-centered schemeto a blanket system where everyone in the class would receive the same grade. After

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discussing these options in small groups and then as an entire class, students decidedin the fourth session to accept my proposal and develop individualized grading con-tracts – on the basis that doing so would help satisfy the underlying interests thatmotivated our efforts for the course, which we collectively identified in the secondsession (e.g. “getting what we deserve,” having a “reasonable amount of work,” fos-tering “ownership of learning,” and ensuring “high standards without standardiza-tion”). Nine students accepted my proposal in entirety, while thirteen students mademinor or substantial modifications to the activities I proposed.

Critical moment overview

Throughout the semester, the process of designing individualized grading contractsunfolded smoothly and predictably – even enthusiastically – until the final week ofthe semester when Franklin (all names used in this study are pseudonyms, with theexception of my own) submitted documents for the course that did not appear to behis. While incidents of plagiarism are rampant in university settings and highereducation personnel commonly employ a variety of measures to combat it (Levy &Rakovski, 2006; Selwyn, 2008), as a beginning teacher educator, I had not previ-ously encountered such circumstances. As such, uncovering Franklin’s potentiallypirated projects proved, for me, thoroughly unplanned and unanticipated. In mymind, it represented a test of my entire approach to grades – revealing potentialflaws that would reflect my integrity as a teacher educator. I was suddenly facedwith a critical moment in my teaching; my future actions hung on how the situationwas solved. Below, I use six points of analysis to further describe the criticalmoment and the underlying considerations of relevance to my reasoning as a teachereducator. They are organized as follows: deciding to act, gaining support, securing aconfession, upholding standards, reaching a fair resolution, and questioning theenterprise of education.

Deciding to act

Having perceived that there was a problem, I needed to decide whether or not to acton it. As Levy and Rakovski (2006) argue, there is very little personal benefit asso-ciated with having to confront students presumed to have plagiarized. Considerabletime and effort are necessary to process paperwork, appear in front of honesty com-mittees, respond to parents, and contend with supportive or unsupportive administra-tors. Turning a blind eye to the circumstances is often the easiest route. Accordingto Freedman (2004), deciding to inflict justice on quasi-criminals who are guilty ofproffering another’s work as their own is a decision not to be taken lightly. The con-sequences for all parties can be severe.

In my mind, I figured I needed to “bust [Franklin],” but that I could only do sowith “concrete proof” that he had either completed his projects for another class orhad copied them from the internet. I could accuse him of as much, but, as I sharedwith a colleague, if “he says, nope, then we’ve got a showdown.” From my view,how I handled this dilemma would set a precedent for my future teaching as well asmy students. It would affect how I would treat others in the course and how theywould treat me, as well as how our course experience would ultimately be remem-bered. Ethically, I perceived an obligation to act, though there was no guarantee thatdoing so would be worthwhile or straightforward. As Levy and Rakovski (2006)

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have demonstrated, taking a zero-tolerance position about academic dishonesty canhave unintended consequences – discouraging most dishonest students but alsocausing some honest students to avoid one’s class from a perception of also beinginflexible about other areas of the teacher–student relationship.

Gaining support

Gaining support from colleagues can be helpful for securing a stronger sense oflegitimacy concerning one’s decision to act. According to Higbee and Thomas(2002), such support is particularly important when it comes to matters of plagiarismbecause considerable confusion exists regarding what behaviors are consideredacceptable in the academic community. In one study by Green, Johnson, Kim, andPope (2007), the authors identified grading practices as having the lowest agreementconcerning specific ethical questions, with only four of thirteen issues concerninggrades reaching eighty percent agreement among respondents. As a ground withoutprofessional consensus, decisions concerning ethical components of grading arecomplex and therefore can benefit from others’ perspectives.

With regard to Franklin’s documents, consulting with colleagues helped clarifythe central considerations underlying the circumstances. When communicating withthe chair of my department, I characterized the circumstances as a “fishy situation”in which, even if the documents were his own work, “I strongly suspect he did notcomplete [them] for my class.” From my perspective, the text did not “appear rele-vant to class” and contained no “explicit connections to [teaching for critical think-ing].” She agreed: neither project came “anywhere close” to fulfilling the criteria ofthe assignments. She encouraged me to hold him to a “high standard” and not “con-vey the message that everything we’ve done means nothing.” If necessary, she sug-gested “pulling rank,” while another colleague recommended taking a “strongstance” when students turn such circumstances “into a game.” While I wondered ifperhaps I was “too nice, too flexible, and too accommodating” to handle the situa-tion in the manner in which my colleagues had advised, I promptly contacted Frank-lin via telephone and arranged to meet with him the following day to discuss theextent to which his projects aligned with the criteria in his contract. Having gainedsupport for my view that the documents were not original, I moved ahead with aclearer conscience and greater confidence.

Securing a confession

Securing a confession, without being accusatory and emotional, is often an implicitaim in framing communication about academic honesty. As Baggaley and Spencer(2005) assert, encountering student plagiarism is a disheartening experience. Itinvolves a range of emotions including shock, anger, hurt, frustration, consternation,and sleeplessness. As Power (2009) describes, students closer to graduation havemore invested in their education and therefore have more to lose from admittingguilt. They have had more practice writing with sources and more exposure to oth-ers’ views that academic dishonesty is unacceptable. Securing a confession can sim-plify the interaction, though doing so is neither guaranteed nor necessarily easy.How authority and agency are exercised – and by whom – are therefore key.

My meeting with Franklin lasted ninety minutes and covered a wide range ofissues and perspectives concerning his projects. I asked him multiple times to

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explain how teaching for critical thinking was evident in his documents. Heacknowledged that he “didn’t like put it out there” but that “you’re still thinking”and “there’s thinking going on,” to which I replied: “I don’t know as though itwould be automatic.” To me, “part of the point of the course” was that critical think-ing “doesn’t just happen by itself” and that there’s a difference between teaching forcritical thinking and “just leaving it to chance,” whether or not we agreed that“thinking and critical thinking are two different things.” Without adequate explana-tion about how his projects connected to the course, I asked: “So this was somethingthat you developed for another context?” Franklin replied: “I’ve used it a coupletimes, not the whole thing, but like, you know, pieces … different pieces for differ-ent classes.”

Had such comments constituted an admission of guilt on Franklin’s part?Whether they did or not, they were complicated by different views concerning theacceptability of him using his documents across different contexts. To Franklin,doing so was not particularly a problem, since I had shared with him earlier in thesemester, from his view, that “we could … use other unit plans, or other things thatwe’ve done.” I then clarified:

I didn’t mean that in the sense of just taking something you had already developed andresubmitting it. I meant that in the sense of taking something that you’ve alreadydeveloped and using that as a foundation for further developing it. So rather than …needing to start over from scratch … you could start with something that you’vealready developed … and then … go further with the teaching for critical thinking.

From my perspective, the opportunity to integrate one’s efforts for the course withother projects was important for realizing higher levels of engagement with theclass. By the end of “hours and hours of work,” one could have “maybe two [unitplans] that are exemplary” rather than “five or six kind of marginal” ones, whichreflected only limited “development into critical thinking.” Allowing students tointegrate their projects, I figured, would ultimately help them create a stronger andmore meaningful foundation for moving forward into student teaching. Regardless,the immediate task at hand was, implicitly, to secure a confession. Suspecting hisdocuments were duplicitous, I sought firsthand confirmation. In return, I receivedinsights which both clarified and complicated our interaction.

Upholding standards

Upholding standards associated with gaining entry into the profession is ulti-mately at stake in academic honesty matters. As Collins and Amodeo (2005)assert, the profession is not served by allowing dishonest students to graduate.Unethical students are likely to be unethical practitioners. According to Sadler(2007), unpunished academic dishonesty diminishes the value of a universitydegree. Furthermore, allowing students to accept unearned grades deprives othermore-deserving students of opportunities like financial aid, scholarships, universitypositions, and perhaps even jobs. As Reilly, Pry, and Thomas (2007) contend,plagiarism is fundamentally a form of deception and lying. In plagiarizing, stu-dents treat instructors as mere instruments for use toward their own ends. Havingto deal with plagiarism not only takes time away from helping other students, butultimately diminishes professional standards. It was my responsibility in this caseto be a guardian of such standards.

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In our conversation, Franklin argued that his other courses had already helpedhim attain the standards necessary for becoming a teacher, having learned a greatdeal from them about teaching for critical thinking. He explained: “[W]e werealready taught that … over and over with … asking why, and asking how.” Iresponded: “I’m glad … So let’s assume … you already know everything that theclass has to offer. So then, great, you don’t have to do much for this class, and yourfinal products can still show what the class had to offer. Right?” Franklin said, “I dofollow what you’re saying,” but that his problem was with “putting [his learning]into practice” because he was “more of an action guy” and that going out and doingit was “a better example of [his] understanding as opposed to just writing it down.”Yet, somehow, “we always need to have it written down,” which was not “alwaysthe best way of expressing what [he] understands and knows.” I agreed that students“should have options to foster what is best” for them to help them “develop in thebest way as a professional and as a student.” I then reminded him of the specificoptions to which he had agreed in his contract. “[Y]ou chose some pieces thatneeded to be written … you could have chosen something that would have beenmuch more action oriented.” In reminding him of his responsibility to honor thatwhich was outlined in his contract, I acted on behalf of upholding what I consideredto be an important standard for joining the teaching profession.

Reaching a fair resolution

Reaching a fair resolution is important in conflicts concerning academic honesty. AsCollins and Amodeo (2005) assert, students do not necessarily arrive at universitiesknowing how to avoid plagiarizing. Furthermore, they are not necessarily wellgrounded in the rules of academia, nor are they necessarily ethical, moral, andhardworking. Having been taught, as Whitaker (1993) contends, that the ideas ofauthorities are preferable to their own ideas, students subscribe to the notion thattheir primary task for assignments is to assemble others’ ideas without necessarilystriving toward personal mastery, carefully considered opinions, or analysis of wheretheir own positions fall with respect to others. As Collins and Amodeo (2005) sug-gest, perhaps my standards were so high that Franklin felt he could not achievethem. Similarly, did he consider me sufficiently inattentive and passive that Iwouldn’t catch or confront him? Had I actually given directions that implied thatusing documents from the internet would be acceptable submissions for the course?Perhaps I did not make explicit enough the link between being a professional andperforming ethically. Having potentially had a role in shaping his decisions in suchways, reaching a fair resolution was the only reasonable grounds on which to pro-ceed.

While part of me considered Franklin’s predicament an opportunity for him “togrow even further” by putting “something into writing” and capitalizing on hisweaknesses, I was also open to renegotiating his projects in light of our shared out-look on individualization. We proceeded to arrange for him to take an incompletefor the course despite the fact that he was “offended” that I would think he would“just print something out” and hand it to me “from another class” and that every-thing he had done for the course essentially “[didn’t] mean shit.” We also arrangedfor him to complete different projects from those to which we had originally agreed,for which he would extend several of the lesson plans he had already submitted toreflect additional evidence of teaching for critical thinking, while carrying out an

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action project with children at a local school for his second project. While unhappywith needing to receive an incomplete, Franklin agreed to work toward what I was“looking for” rather than take a D + for the course. From his perspective, he haddone “a lot of work” on his projects and figured “where we don’t agree” was just amatter of my “opinion.” I explained:

I think it’s more than my opinion, because I’ve shared my reasons, I’ve shared myassumptions, I’ve shared other things. And a lot of it we’ve come to some agreementon. So while I can understand why you’d be frustrated and disappointed, I think we’ve… had an agreement, and I think we’ve agreed that it hasn’t been fulfilled.

To Franklin, there was a lot of “yellow tape” and “for people who are working full-time and going to school full-time,” to be worried about the details like thoseembedded in course rubrics “when you’ve got to worry about paying your rent” and“doing your stuff” was a problem. From my perspective, “part of the reason whythings are so extensively set up is so that we can come to the same exact conclu-sion,” to which Franklin responded: “Right. Which we’re not.” We then arranged atimeframe by which he would submit his new documents and before departing, Iasked: “Is that reasonable?” Franklin responded: “Yeah, that’s fine. I mean, I’m nothappy that … my view and yours is different … but I understand what you’re say-ing.” He concluded: “My interpretation of the curriculum thing was just a little off.”He then thanked me for meeting and within six weeks sent me “the rest of the workthat we agreed on,” which I considered, in my response, “more strongly [alignedwith] the overall spirit of the course.” One project I regarded to be worth full creditand the other partial credit for an overall grade of a B- for the course. In the e-mailin which I informed him of my reasoning for his grade, I concluded: “If there’s any-thing else you’d like to discuss, please let me know.” It was the last e-mail that weexchanged.

Questioning the enterprise of education

Questioning the enterprise of education is a potential outcome of dealing withacademic honesty disputes. As Ehrich, Kimber, Millwater, and Cranston (2011)demonstrate, in their model of ethical decision-making, ethical dilemmas involvemultiple layers of complexity informed by a wide variety of variables. Such vari-ables include: legal policies, institutional contexts, organizational cultures, students’actions, colleagues’ actions, professional ethics, public interests, global contexts,political and economic contexts, individual values, and ethical orientations shapedby socialization and conscience. Grappling with the particular combination of vari-ables underlying our ethical challenges was bound to generate questions concerningthe enterprise of education more broadly.

The circumstances with Franklin caused me to question the very basis of thecourse and the extent to which we accomplished its underlying goals. As I reflectedin my journal, my meeting with Franklin “shook up my entire conception” ofreviewing students’ documents and compelled me to look more closely at all stu-dents’ papers to assess the extent to which they matched the actual requirements ofthe course. In making sure no one else was pulling any “hot ones” on me, I found aproblem with another student’s documents – due largely to the “dead giveaway ofthe retroactive dating on the lesson plans.” Consequently, I grew concerned that“there aren’t that many [students] that have actually demonstrated any sort of

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mastery of [critical thinking] content.” While I was reluctant to hold them “strictlyaccountable to [such a standard] when I have not been that didactic throughout thesemester and have simply been wanting them to jumpstart their brains,” I neverthe-less perceived a challenge in “maintaining some degree of quality while not usingthe grade as a club.” Had I submitted students’ documents to some sort of externalreview, I was concerned they would “fail miserably,” even though doing so wouldhave discounted “the value of showing something in development, in process.” Suchconsiderations only affirmed for me “quite dramatically how incredibly arbitrary theentire process of grading is.” Regardless of the particular criteria and circumstances,I concluded there was “no way of telling what an A actually means.” Overall,“Some have been affected [by the course], some have been transformed. All are infor a rude awakening in student teaching.” Regardless of the setting, I concluded,“we are all victimized by the context and experiences from which we come, and soit’s amazing a course such as this is able to accomplish anything.” Perhaps, I fig-ured, “I really do need to be more stringent in holding them to what they contractfor.” Either way, “It’s clear that I am an advanced thinker and learner, and have beenfor a long time, and they are not. My assumptions are flawed and do not match withthe students’ lives.” Such was the significance of my critical moment with Franklin– leading me to question more deeply the very enterprise of education in which wehad been involved throughout the semester.

As stated above, three central themes emerged from the data about my perspec-tives on critical moments in negotiating authority: seeking legitimacy through con-sensual acceptance, constructing knowledge through continual questioning, andresponding to students’ expressed interests. Such themes mirror the challenges ofcultivating classroom democracy identified in a previous study (Brubaker, 2012a). Inthis study, they are developed in much greater depth and in reference to the particu-lar critical moment described. Below, I elaborate on each of these themes.

Seeking legitimacy through consensual acceptance

Seeking legitimacy through consensual acceptance was a continued challenge ofinvolving students in customizing the course to suit their individual needs. As Benne(1970) has described, authority in educational settings takes three forms: theauthority of rules, the authority of expertise, and the authority of community. Inthe authority of rules, authority is exercised as it is in playing a game. While thepurpose of rules in a game is to create a system of orderly transactions amongparticipants, a game cannot be played when participants do not willingly obey itsrules – short of creating a different game. In proposing specific assignments at thebeginning of the semester – to which students were expected to respond by eitherproposing alternatives or accepting the ones I provided – I invited students to shareresponsibility for shaping the rules regulating conduct in class. As a teacher, Iaspired to be in authority only to the extent that students recognized legitimacy inmy proposals (Oyler, 1996). Doing so represented a different sort of game fromthose to which students were accustomed concerning grades.

The challenge of deriving legitimacy from mutually recognized sources wasparticularly evident when discussing with Franklin the extent to which his projectsfulfilled the criteria to which he had agreed at the start of the course. In the follow-ing exchange, after asking him to explain how his documents aligned with the cri-teria in his contract, I returned to each criterion as a basis for solidifying the

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contract as our mutually recognized source of legitimacy. Considering that we hadalready agreed to the activities in his contract – after examining other availableoptions both in class and in person – I anticipated no problem recognizing the rele-vance of such criteria.

Nathan: … [I]t’s not a discussion plan. Do you agree?Franklin: I don’t know what a discussion plan is.Nathan: Okay, well, I could show you lots of examples, we went through some

in class. But it’s not a plan on how you’re going to lead a discussion ofany sort.

Franklin: Okay, oh, right right right.Nathan: It’s not an exercise or something that you’re going to lead the students

through. And it’s not a lesson plan.Franklin: All right, maybe I was just going through the curriculum analysis part,

like of just curriculum and how I’m going to do it. But apparently thatdidn’t work.

Nathan: And it’s not an extensive analysis of something that’s already been gen-erated. So I don’t see it fitting any of those categories.

Franklin: So basically, all the work I’ve done just didn’t work at all for this class.Nathan: I don’t see how it’s squaring with what you contracted for. I mean, it’s

possible you could have negotiated for a different option that would havemade that fit, but I don’t see the connections being made …

Franklin: … I just don’t think doing papers and doing this and that helps me learnto…teach other people to critically think. I just think it’s, you know, doc-uments so you can get your paycheck at the end. To be honest …

Nathan: Right. Well for a lot of people it is that. I’ve tried to make it more.

By entering into a contractual relationship in which Franklin’s preferences weregiven top priority, I expected he would find something meaningful to which hewas committed, assume increased responsibility for his learning, and immerse him-self more fully in his tasks to an extent that would result in him potentially doingmore for the course than if he had just been unilaterally told what to do. Yet, inexpressing surprise about the content of his contract and its congruence with hisdocuments, Franklin revealed a more complex relationship between consensualagreement and commitment. In one respect, he admitted ignorance about the verydocument to which he had agreed, suggesting he had not read it, understood it, orperhaps had no intentions of adhering to it. In another respect, he perceived legiti-macy in a source more closely aligned with authoritarian teaching than the moredemocratic alternative to which I was committed to cultivating in class. Hisseeming assumption that my job was to make him comply – and his to just getby – reflected a perception that in departing from grades as instruments of control,authority inhabited extremes of dictating or abdicating but without any middleground of negotiating in a democratic fashion (Shor, 1992, 1996). To this extent,the grade was what mattered most. Without a heavy-handed means of ensuringaccountability and rigor, the contract created for Franklin a perception of permis-siveness which undermined the legitimacy of our efforts to realize an alternative toauthoritarian practice.

According to Benne (1970), the authority of rules in educational settings emergesnot so much from the rules themselves, but from the historical precedent of all thosewho have consensually accepted and re-enacted them through playing within therules of the game. In Franklin’s circumstances, we valued conflicting sets of rules.Only those granted legitimacy could ultimately be considered authoritative (Benne,

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1970). Without legitimate claims to competence, authority relations could haveeasily degenerated into power relations characterized by inequality, domination,exploitation, manipulation, and patterns of over and for rather than with (McNay,2003). Nevertheless, I resisted the urge to force Franklin to obey through threats ofsanctions and punishment (coercion), to gain cooperation and conformity throughincentives (exchange), or to use influence deceitfully to obtain voluntary cooperationwhich otherwise would be withheld (manipulation) (Metz, 1978). To this extent, Iinvited him to help shape the underlying source of legitimacy rather than simplyconsidering it the sole domain of the teacher and subverting it.

As Shor (1992) contends, students who are already alienated by authoritarianclassrooms play the game of getting by as one means of manipulating teachers intoallowing them to do the least amount of work possible. Such a game is a way ofdefending themselves against unilateral authority. In exercising my obligation torationally explain my claims to competence, I helped construct a classroom realityin which authority “operates in situations in which a person or group, fulfilling somepurpose, project, or need, requires guidance or direction from a source outside him-self [sic] or itself” (Benne, 1970, p. 392) with an appeal to common rather than con-flicting sources of legitimacy. In so doing, I attempted to engage Franklin in aprocess of learning to inhabit a more democratic space – to embody a relationalmode of deliberation and inquiry – as a way of living that was to be purposefullycultivated instead of assumed to have been naturally acquired (Dewey, 1966; Kyle& Jenks, 2002). Having a standard that applied – to which we were both account-able – was an important component of cultivating such apprenticeship in democraticlife. Both exercising freedom and honoring responsibilities – a delicate balance wedid not always successfully realize – were key to experiencing firsthand suchdemocratic living.

Constructing knowledge through continual questioning

Constructing knowledge through continual questioning was another challenge of cre-ating a classroom climate characterized by dialog and deliberation rather than unilat-eral transmission. According to Benne (1970), the authority of community ineducational settings involves constructing relationships, which are not assumed toconsist of unilateral transmission of culture from the old to the young, but are con-sidered processes of mutual renewal and reconstruction. The task of the teacher is tohelp situate authority in processes of mutual association involving all members ofthe group as a means of helping them become autonomous members of the profes-sion who can think and act like actual teachers. Continual questioning is one meansof ensuring the interaction and reflection necessary for enabling such growth inknowledge construction occur.

The challenge of constructing knowledge through continual questioning was par-ticularly evident when determining with Franklin the assignments he would beexpected to complete in place of those for which he had already contracted. Uponbeing asked for additional details about what specifically I was “looking for” in hisnewly agreed-upon projects, I left my criteria open for discussion while refusing toimpose my own philosophical convictions. I nevertheless asserted my intention tohold him accountable to a particular thought process rather than set of conclusions,as was evident in the following exchange:

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Nathan: Well, a big piece of what I’m looking for is that you come to your ownconclusions about what all this stuff means.

Franklin: Me coming to my own about what worked and didn’t work kind ofthing? Or what they …

Nathan: I’m not expecting you to regurgitate whatever I’ve given you throughoutthe semester.

Franklin: No no no, right.Nathan: But I am expecting you to come to some conclusions that show that

you’ve grappled with it and have not just blown it off, or not even takenit into consideration. So it’s more the process of you being engaged withit than the outcome or the specific conclusion, the content of your con-clusion. What’s problematic about [your submitted project] is it doesn’tlook like you’ve engaged in the process of wrestling with all the ideasyou have about teaching for critical thinking. You have a great founda-tion, you’re ready to take it a step further, and you have the knowledgeand the insights and the capabilities to do that …

Franklin: Right.Nathan: So that’s just what you need to do.

In expecting sound reasoning from Franklin as opposed to particular answers, Iasserted my adamance about modeling the central tenets of the course, of actuallyteaching for critical thinking, at all times. By inviting continued dialog about conclu-sions, I also embodied a quest for equitable access to knowledge – with the under-standing that knowledge is a product of social interaction, jointly constructed by thoseinvolved rather than existing independently of human experience (Gasper, 1999).

To the extent that authority was exercised rather than owned and emerged from arelational context, Foucault’s conception of power was evident in our interactions(Manke, 1997; Pace & Hemmings, 2006b). From such a perspective, authority doesnot always function in clear and concrete ways because different people exercise itdifferently at different times. As a force that continually “circulates,” it is “neverlocalized here or there, never in anybody’s hands, never appropriated as a commod-ity or piece of wealth,” but is “employed and exercised through a net-like organiza-tion … [where] individuals are the vehicles … [rather than] its points ofapplication” (Foucault, 1980, p. 98). As Manke (1997) asserts, the traditional viewof power involves focusing on opposition between teachers and students and assign-ing power to the teacher alone. A more complex conception of classroom powerinvolves examining the relationships students and teachers build together, withoutdevaluing students as a means of escaping from the burden of shared responsibilityfor classroom events. Students and teachers simultaneously undergo and exercisepower through indirection, invisibility, and conflict over competing agendas – oftenconcealed beneath a publicly shared agenda of cooperation. What counts asknowledge itself is often at stake (Manke, 1997).

As Bullough (2011) has demonstrated, tensions of morality and power areunavoidably inherent in the exercise of authority. Conflict is an inescapable risk ofcaring. It is important to listen to others before making crucial judgments, thoughhumans only rarely act in a planned-out manner when encountering moral dilemmas.Through the continued interplay of action and counteraction – of which some of ourmoves were invariably calculated, others not – authority flowed through our interac-tions. Jointly constructing such experiences in a manner in which authority wasexercised at the micro-level of pedagogical practices was productive, not justrepressive, and involved such techniques as individualization, normalization, and

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exclusion (Gore, 1995). While exclusion, in Gore’s view (1995), can be seen to havepotentially negative consequences, it is integral to pedagogy because pedagogieswhich do not set boundaries are almost inconceivable. Whether aware of suchboundaries or not, we continually negotiated the authority relationship in ways thatwere reciprocally shaped and constructed. Our discussion – concerned as it was withassessing Franklin’s academic honesty and upholding standards – was but a technol-ogy of power, discipline, and surveillance embedded in minute, capillary relations ofdomination (Foucault, 1980). From such on-going association, we both supportedand undermined the task of thinking and acting like actual teachers in becomingautonomous members of the profession.

Responding to students’ expressed interests

Responding to students’ expressed interests was a third challenge of involvingstudents in fashioning course purposes to which we were collectively committed. ToBenne (1970), the authority of expertise in educational settings involves relying onothers with claims to specialized expertise considered important to their way of liv-ing. The task for teachers is not to present one’s knowledge as absolute, but to situ-ate authority in students’ needs as learners. Through collaboratively structuringcomponents of the course around students’ questions and concerns, I aspired to bean authority to the extent that students actively sought my knowledge as an integralpart of building their own instead of considering expert authority my sole possessionas a teacher educator (Oyler, 1996). Responding to students’ expressed interests wasone means of creating such a reality within the course.

The challenge of responding to students’ expressed interests was particularly evi-dent when discussing with Franklin the available options for modifying his contractand affording him yet additional opportunities for expressing his understanding andknowledge from the course. In the following exchange, upon exploring alternativesto activities he had already agreed to complete for the semester, I reminded him ofthe overall context of our discussion. At first, it seemed like I was growing impatientwith the conversation and was tempted to end further discussion, yet promptlyrestored my commitment to using our interaction as a basis for furthering his devel-opment as a prospective teacher.

Nathan: Let’s just be clear about what’s happening here. You had a contract for[activities] 1, 5, and 6. And then it was the last week of the semester, weofficially finalized a renegotiated contract of 1, 6, and 8. And now thesemester is already over, and we’re talking about renegotiating to num-ber nine.

Franklin: Not that I wanted to, but, you know …Nathan: Well, this is an option. I mean, I’m open to this.Franklin: Right.Nathan: I’m very flexible and very open to negotiating to accommodate individ-

ual needs and purposes. I just want to be aware of the fact that thesemester is already over, and now we’re starting to renegotiate the con-tract …

Rather than halting his efforts to find ways around having to document his ownideas on paper by designing different options for his assignments, I pronounced myenthusiasm for using our encounter as an opportunity to further his learning for the

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course. In so doing, I acted on an assumption that there was always a time fornegotiation and that little would be gained by staging a showdown over the specificdetails of his contract when much could be gained by seeking other avenues. I per-ceived an opportunity in essentially every circumstance for cultivating students’interests. To this extent, I afforded virtually unlimited opportunities to follow stu-dents’ lead in defining the contours of their learning, even though I recognized thatthe purpose of negotiation was not always to reach agreement, when my own inter-ests could potentially be better fulfilled by pursuing alternatives to a negotiatedagreement (Cohen, 2003; Ury, 1993). Such recognition was evident when I informedFranklin, regarding the concern he had expressed about attending to specific courseexpectations in light of working full-time: “Right. Well, I think one alternative is Ijust make a unilateral nonnegotiable judgment, like a lot of other professors do.And, I don’t find that to be a very attractive alternative.” In setting limits and bound-aries to an otherwise unending process of redefining one’s learning needs, I assertedmy credibility and integrity as a teacher educator while nevertheless creating valueand responding to students’ expressed interests in unconventional fashion.

Throughout the course, I was faithful to Dewey’s ideal of following students’interests perhaps to a fault. For Dewey, the task of the teacher is to cultivate class-room conditions that situate subject matter in students’ experiences. This involvesinterpreting subject matter as an outgrowth of students’ interests and fostering afacilitative relationship between teachers and students in ways that continually begetadditional commitment through directing attention to students’ underlying interests.For Dewey, this is justified because interests are not ends in themselves, but repre-sent attitudes toward possible experiences, signs of “culminating powers,” propul-sive forces toward higher levels that are “prophetic” – of “germinating seeds,” an“opening bud,” “fruit to be borne” (2001, p. 112). “Wherever we have interest wehave signs of dawning power” (1996c, p. 173) – a dawning of “flickering light,”bound up in future possibilities that cannot be predetermined (1966, p. 125). Peda-gogically, these interests embody what is of ultimate significance to students andwhat they are prepared to learn – defining the experiential context into which subjectmatter must be situated. Teachers “must connect with [students’ interests] or failutterly” (1996c, p. 172).

While I was ultimately responsible for upholding the policies and procedures ofthe educational institution, I was continually open to fashioning our class experiencearound the expressed interests of those involved. Resorting to compulsion, prestige,bribes, threats, or charisma to convey knowledge does not represent being “authori-tative,” but of failing to establish expert authority relations in which teachers’ exper-tise is properly aligned with students’ learning needs (Benne, 1970, p. 396).Through firsthand participation and active engagement – with an underlying concernfor how to think instead of rote memorization of what to think – I purposefully andexplicitly promoted students’ growth in embodying democratic values and my ownin attaining authoritative status (Kyle & Jenks, 2002).

Scholarly significance

Fostering active participation in democratic life is a major priority of many teachereducators, though this task is complicated by limited insight into critical momentsin negotiating authority. In this study, as a self-study of my own practice as abeginning teacher educator, I investigated how I constructed meaning from critical

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moments in negotiating authority. Upon taking action to address a suspected act ofstudent plagiarism – in an effort to uphold standards and reach a fair resolution – Iillustrated possibilities and pitfalls of enacting classroom practices informed byunderlying commitments to participatory democracy. As Tripp (1993) contends,incidents in teaching happen, but critical incidents are produced by the ways inwhich we interpret the significance of given situations. The following insights pushbeyond the study’s three central themes – seeking legitimacy through consensualacceptance, constructing knowledge through continual questioning, and respondingto students’ expressed interests – to examine more deeply the underlying signifi-cance of such authority relations for grading, accountability, and teacher educationmore broadly.

With regard to grading, the findings from this study suggest, as Shor (1996)asserts, that teachers attempting to negotiate mutual relationships with students thathave neither requested such mutuality nor expect it must proceed carefully. AsSpidell and Thelin (2006) conclude, students can have difficulty letting go of previ-ous educational conditioning when it comes to introducing alternatives to conven-tional practices. While involving students in explicitly shaping classroom authoritythrough grading is not to abandon one’s own agenda, it is to accept that it willbecome one of the many competing agendas in the classroom. One cannot expectone’s own agenda to prevail unchallenged in the classroom when it is actively andauthentically shaped by the agendas and actions of others (Manke, 1997).

As Shor (2009) has written, contract approaches to grades in particular require a“meeting of the minds” to effectively work. As a covenant of explicit understand-ings between those involved, a contract requires negotiation – “co-authoring” – togenerate mutually recognized obligations. Simply announcing rules and expectationswhich students must follow – in which one person is authorized to enunciate theterms of encounter – is not contractual, but nonnegotiable. From this perspective,on-going communication is important for alleviating the “mystifying vagaries ofgrading” and arriving at clear and hospitable expectations between teachers and stu-dents in classrooms (pp. 7, 13–14). Students who do not seem to grasp the underly-ing intentions of such practices may be making more or less deliberate efforts tochallenge the teacher’s agenda. Teachers do not see every detail of the classroompicture; being overly controlling with grades only increases students’ motivation toresist, disrupt, or covertly involve themselves in other activities (Manke, 1997).

With regard to accountability, the standard organizational approach to studentcheating is rule compliance. An alternative is to adopt an integrity-based approach,in which the focus is less on telling students who have failed to uphold ethical stan-dards what they should refrain from doing and more on using students’ ethical fail-ures as opportunities for learning (Gallant, 2009). From this perspective, studentssuch as those depicted in this study should be considered good people who makebad ethical decisions in times of stress. While students raised in totalitarian politicalsystems may possess cultural interpretations of academic honesty quite differentfrom those from other countries (Flynn, 2003), teachers who employ integrity-basedapproaches aim to shape students in ethically justifiable ways. By working towardbeing more collaborative instead of taking a rigid stance – and then digging into thatposition as I negotiated with students – I attempted in this study to build a classroomculture that promoted courageously acting teachers (Simpson, Jackson, & Aycock,2005). Such a culture requires developing students’ abilities, but at the same timerespecting their autonomy and individuality.

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More broadly, accountability requirements from government bodies and accredi-tation agencies are becoming increasingly prescriptive and controlling of teachereducation curricula (Zeichner, 2010). Such requirements are eroding teachers’ auton-omy and constraining their ability to exercise judgment in classrooms. As Cuban(2009) has demonstrated, teachers persistently fuse contradictory conceptions ofquality teaching to accommodate the heightened emphasis on high-stakes standard-ized testing. Teachers “hug the middle” of the pedagogical continuum and adopthybrid pedagogies – blending teacher-centered and student-centered pedagogical tra-ditions – in an effort to reconcile conflicting policies, parental demands, administra-tive directives, and professional obligations with their beliefs, knowledge, andvalues. Teachers who are armed with a “broad repertoire” of classroom practices“from different traditions of teaching, and [with] the expertise to vary those practiceswith individual students and groups of students – teachers who hug the middle –have the best chance of succeeding with most students, most of the time” within thedemands of our current environment (Cuban, 2009, pp. 68–69). By simultaneouslyreconstructing and enforcing rules, with a concern for student development and ethi-cal standards, I exhibited aspects of such middle ground and hybrid pedagogy in thisstudy.

With regard to teacher education, the findings from this study suggest that, whileteaching is becoming increasingly vulnerable to review and control by externalagencies and corporations, teaching is not reducible to a single symbol (Madeloni &Gorlewski, 2013). As Shor (1996) has written, students arrive to university class-rooms occupying a subordinated and alienated space in which they are silencedspectators in the educational process. Involving students in reconstructing authorityrelations is important for transcending the “Siberian Syndrome” by which they havebecome positioned as intellectual and political exiles in the classroom (p. 14). Repo-sitioning students’ relationship with grades is but one means of reconstructing thesources of institutional power (Danielewicz & Elbow, 2009) which help conditionstudents to obey authority rather than to take risks in their learning (Spidell &Thelin, 2006).

Implementing alternative approaches to grades which involve students in fash-ioning their learning is important not for creating classrooms in which anythinggoes, but where anything is possible (Inoue, 2005). Doing so in teacher educationsettings is ultimately important for helping teacher candidates experience for them-selves the difficulties and dilemmas of grading by making more problematic thetaken-for-granted aspects of grades. Acting as though one has no authority, or asthough students are ready to assume such authority, would be to risk being per-ceived as promoting an anything-goes environment and could be seen as broadcast-ing incompetence or carelessness, as though abdicating one’s professionalresponsibilities. More democratic alternatives, however, are available. Such alterna-tives are not without challenges, as demonstrated in this study, though for the vastmajority of students, as I have documented in another study (Brubaker, 2010), itremains possible to reconfigure the intellectual atmosphere of the class, construct aworking relationship, and meaningfully further their development as future teachers.

Overall, my practice has benefited a great deal from having conducted this studyand from examining more deeply my reasoning about critical moments in my prac-tice. As Tripp (1993) asserts, what’s typical when unpacking the problematic aspectsof one’s practice is “not to abandon the practice, but to seek ways of mitigating theproblems inherent in it” (p. 63). Over my years of experience as a teacher educator

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since encountering the critical moment in this study, I have made conscious effortsin my approach to grades to narrow the gap between students’ deeply rooted famil-iarity with authoritarian teaching and my own aspirations to help them experience amore democratic environment. With regard to academic honesty in particular, I amnow sure to explicitly include university policies in course documents and draw stu-dents’ attention to them from the very beginning of the semester in ways I had notpreviously done. I am more familiar with institutional honor code policies and takestudents to trial when necessary (which I have done once) or else resolve with stu-dents informally their academic offenses and file the necessary documentation(which I have done three times) to ensure accountability for both myself and stu-dents to university policies.

I also focus on prevention – not detection – as the heart of my efforts to combatplagiarism (Freedman, 2004). My criteria for assignments are clearer and moreexplicit, and I provide firmer deadlines for assignments to ensure that students aredemonstrating progress and that they understand the levels of performance expectedof them. I also make additional use of persuasion to help prevent plagiarism, byemphasizing ethical, process, self-satisfaction, risk, cognitive, and product arguments(Shenton, 2010). Through taking measures to clarify my expectations and assumeincreased responsibility for shaping the class climate, I have precipitated less dis-equilibrium between what I have intended to accomplish and what students havebeen used to accomplishing in other settings. In this way, I have made a more con-certed effort to work with students regarding honesty policies rather than againstthem, by developing more holistic approaches emphasizing shared responsibilityinstead of counter-surveillance (Selwyn, 2008), while still providing ample opportu-nity for input and choice.

While the process of negotiating authority illustrated in this study represented apurposeful pedagogical partnership that helped us collectively transition from anauthoritarian reality to a more democratic environment, the concept of blundering isparticularly useful for explaining how my largely democratic practice proved prob-lematic for the particular student involved. As Tassoni and Thelin (2000) describe,the cause of most blunders – episodes of less-than-successful teaching which revealthe limits and possibilities of progressive teaching – is often hard to pinpoint. A net-work of factors contributes to such difficult and challenging occurrences. Identifyingsuch factors can be teachers’ first step toward democratizing the social, cultural, andinstitutional forces that confound their efforts to actualize their aims. In this study,my assumptions informing my own subjectivity undermined my efforts to cultivatethe particular classroom environment I envisioned. In projecting my image of myselfas a student onto those before me – as though highly self-directed, passionatelycommitted, and actively seeking opportunities to exercise ultimate ownership oftheir learning – I failed to accurately understand each student’s circumstances. Hav-ing never before plagiarized, I could hardly imagine cheating, particularly in a con-text of responsible freedom like the one I had provided.

In hindsight, I somewhat dared students, I think, to plagiarize as a means of draw-ing their attention to – and encouraging them to embrace – the democratic ideals ofthe class. I am now more stringent about what I assume. I recognize that students’past experiences have not necessarily prepared them to embrace such a reality. With-out academic interests that have been actively cultivated and nurtured, I recognizemore deeply than before that they have little reason to trust teachers attempting dif-ferent practices. With additional time to develop the apprenticeship, I am confident

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that those who struggled would have been less tempted to place their effortselsewhere. Those who did struggle, however, did so in part because they had toomuch leeway. Lacking authoritarian direction, they were adrift without the order andcontrol characteristic of traditional classrooms.

As Macgillivray (1997) contends, each of us as learners and teachers has prefer-ences that run deep. Students might try to figure out teachers’ rules or might be usedto relating to people by breaking their interactional rules, but students may also ulti-mately have little interest in connecting with teachers at all. Only through increasedawareness of their preferences can teachers better resolve the contradictions whichcause them to struggle within and against themselves (Macgillivray, 1997). At theheart of my own blunder was a conflicted sense of self which rendered me ill pre-pared for students violating my trust – my own experience had not prepared me toconsider such a scenario plausible given the circumstances (Levy & Rakovski,2006). Other teacher educators could likewise benefit from examining their ownblunders in implementing alternatives to conventional grading practices. For futureresearch, we need to know more about how the implementation of individualizedcontract approaches to grades in teacher education settings compared with otherpractices. Specifically, what other sorts of difficulties, challenges, ethical dilemmas,and pedagogical possibilities does it promote? How do participants perceive thenature, value, and purpose of such practices? Do they demonstrate congruence withdemocratic ideals?

Conclusion

According to Kohn (2008), students are more likely to see cheating as acceptablewhen they perceive the ultimate goal of learning to get good grades. It becomes arational choice in a culture of warped values, which reflects less a lack of integrityon the part of students as it does a lack of conformity. Plagiarism, as Sadler (2007)describes, nevertheless involves the intent to deceive. It means treating another as amere means to a grade – violating the trust upon which higher education is estab-lished. “When students misrepresent their work, they also misrepresent themselves,undercutting the implicit trust that informs the teacher–student relationship” (Sadler,2007, p. 286). In responding to such circumstances, teacher educators would be wiseto heed Dewey’s (1989) advice: “[T]he democratic road is the hard one to take …But that which is its weakness at particular times is its strength in the long[term]”(p. 100). Making our own education “an evolving manifestation of democraticideas” requires “democratic methods for their realization” (p. 133). Such knowledgecan help teacher educators fashion a more democratic pedagogy of teacher education(Loughran, 2006) – important for advancing the public good through cultivatingteachers committed to creating a more democratic society.

AcknowledgmentThe author is grateful to Tamara Lucas for her assistance throughout the larger study ofwhich this one was a part, Tom Griggs for his assistance in the initial stages of this particularstudy, and the two anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier versions of thisarticle.

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