Teacher Learning in a Community of Practice: A Case Study of ...

'accommodation' and intimates that the classroom provides a context for negotiation
between teachers and pupils where each establishes a "set of understandings that allow
for mutual survival" (Pollard 1982:35). Coping strategies represent responses by teachers
to situations caused by the contexts ofthe classroom and school. Hargreaves's notion of
the concept of strategies (cited in Woods 1980: 11) emphasises the authoritative nature of
the teacher's role when he suggests that "strategies are constructed responses to
institutionally mediated constraints but within the framework predicated on the tacitly
accepted understanding ofthe teacher's dominance". He further states that the imposition
of 'situational constraints' can be seen as the products ofvarious macro-structured factors
such as teacher-pupil ratio, resource levels and compulsory attendance. He views coping
strategies as linking structural questions to interactionist concerns. Woods (1980: 12)
summarises the effect of 'macro' policy on the 'micro' context by stating that coping
strategies:
... are answers to problems generated by constraints which are inextricably bound up
with wider society. Teachers ... are wrestling with educational goals in current capitalist
society that are fundamentally contradictory ..., operating under material conditions
which are a product ofplanning and politics; and assailed by a number of differing
educational ideologies.
As long as coping strategies are seen to be working, they become taken for granted as
legitimate and even unavoidable constituents of teaching.
In his study of teachers in a given situation, (Woods 1979: 149-173) identified eight
survival strategies that teachers adopted: socialization (where pupils are socialized into
the existing school culture); domination (referring to punishment or admonishment);
negotiation (entailing exchange, bribes, flattery, promises, apologies and threats);
fraternization (working for good relations and increasing pupils' sense ofobligation);
absence or removal (off loading troublesome pupils, teacher absenteeism, absconding);
ritual and routine (following set patterns, expressive order and imposed structure);
occupational therapy (the purportingofbusyness, time wasting); and morale boosting
(mentally neutralizing the survival problem by laughter and rhetoric). He states that a
feature ofsuccessful survival strategies is their 'permanence and ongoing refinement'.
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