Constructing Ethical Representations From the

Constructing Ethical Representations From the Teacher’s Pedagogical Practice: A Case of Prolonged Reflection JUKKA HUSU University of Helsinki ABSTRACT: This paper is delimited to an exploration of three representations from the field of pedagogical ethics. I focus on the ethics of backg roun d beliefs, guiding rules and principles, and dilemm a managing together with their contested practices and prem ises. The aim is to interpret and translate teache rs’ understandings from the lan gua ge th ey u se, and to give conc rete expressions to these interpr etations by their daily ac tions. M y goa l is to present how these representations can help us to see and interpret pedagogical practices, and how these interpretations can help teac hers be tter to understan d th eir professional practice. KEYW ORDS: Ped ago gy, philosoph y of ethics, ethics of teaching, pra ctical knowledge, research on teaching, teacher thinking, reflection, contexts of teaching, narrative analysis, multifocal research.

Introduction Recently, edu catio n h as be com e a to pic o f incr eased interest in professional ethics. These issues warrant further consideration (Strike & Soltis, 1985; Sockett, 1993; Strike & Ternasky, 1993; Hostetler, 1997; Goodm an & Le snick, 2001; H ansen , In Press). Previous research on ethical dilemmas in teaching reveal that most teachers are not always aware of the mor a l impac t of their ac tions (Jac kson, B oostr om & Hansen, 1993). Furtherm ore, teachers have rep orte d th at they are illprepared for dealing with moral dilemmas that they identify in their work (Lyons, 1990; Tirri, 1999; Husu 2001; Klaassen, 2002). In practice, educators are called upon to mediate u pon m any priva te an d public intere sts that pertain to personal, professional, organizational, and societal values. T each ers distribute resou rces, m ete ou t pun ishm ent, eva luate perfo rm ance, m ake curricu lar cho ices, and deal with com parativ ely naïve and vuln erable stud ents in school setting s. Th is work often presu pposes m ediation of conflictin g values th at relate to gua rding an d prom oting the be st intere sts of a studen t. Usually, professional ethics concerns those norms, values, and principles that sho uld govern the con duct of ed ucationa l professionals. It em ph asize s the inherent normative meanings that determine the appro priatene ss of professional practices. The norm ative core of professional ethics, therefore, pro vides various w ays to appraise the merits and to judge the significance of educa tional practices in scho ols. How ever, as Todd (2001) has argued, “positioning normative questions

has a tendency to make ethics prog ram matic in its orientation to education: a set of duties or obligations that if well-enough defined and well-enough follow ed will produce the ethical beh avior de sired” (p. 436). What it tends to forg et is the uncertainty and unpredictability of the pedagogical encou nter itself. Both teachers and students bring a host of idiosyncrasies and un con sciou s asso ciatio ns in ped ago gica l situations that cannot be predicted or controlled. Therefore, instead of asking what it oug ht to be, w e sh ould ask w hat make s eth ics po ssible in pedagogical settings. The purp ose of the pr esent stu dy is to shift focus to the scene where the conditions and contingencies of pedagogical ethics can possibly be found. This im plies ex plorin g da y-to-d ay d etails of sch ool life to determine what it may offer in putting forth an understanding of pedagogical ethics. The study was guided by the following research questions: What kinds of situa tions did teachers consid er p edago gica lly difficult? Wh at aspects did tea chers con sider wh en the y acted o n these situations? What considerations did they have with regard to their own role in such situations? How did they account for their actions and beha vior in such peda gogically pro blem atic situations? To explore this idea necessitates interpreting teaching encou nters for the way they promo te or inhibit the practicalities of pedagog ical ethics. I approached teachers’ actions from broader organizational and cultural perspectives and attempted to do justice to teachers’ views and the influ ence of con textual aspects on those view s. Sim ultaneously, I sought to enh ance aw arene ss of the com plex em bedd edne ss of these ethical views in the theoretical representations addressed.

Background of the Study The Pedagogical Task of Teaching Van Manen (2002) argues that the modern pedagogical task of teaching is ambiguous because contemporary policy perspectives and public discourses on education tend to focus on such issu es th at are largely external to teachers’ everyday occupations: productivity, accou ntab ility me asures, instructional techn ology, and so on. Th e point is that these perspectives and orientations do not adequately reflect the ways that teachers and students experience the tasks and duties of scho ol life. In the ir experience, teachers’ ongoing concerns deal mostly with the success of their students, their pe rsonal relationsh ips with stud ents and colleagues, and the interpersonal (moral and em otional) dimensions of the ir actions. In this sense, the focus of teachers tends to be on the com plex ity of their everyday interactions with their students and colleague s. Teachers’ work can be seen as a pedagogical challenge for knowing how to deal in appropriate ways with the contingencies of everyday events of school life (Husu, 2001, 2002; Klaassen, 2002). Seen in this way, Van Manen (2002) argues that pedagog y mak es the practice of teaching possible in the first place. How ever, a problem for educational research is that teachers genera lly lack a language in which they can express the pedagogical nature of their tasks (Kansanen et al., 2000). This is because the

pedagogical dimension of teaching relies on forms of knowledge that are not easily cap tured in theo retical an d con ceptu al represen tations. Yet, teachers are intuitively aware that their teaching activities are conditioned by their relationsh ips with the ir students an d colleagu es, by the ir will and skills in m anag ing the p roblem s they face in classro om s, hallwa ys, and school grounds. As Simon (1992, p. 62) notes, pedagogy not only comprises teach ing of eth ics, bu t is itself a n “ethica l vision.”

Three Representations of Ped agogical Ethics M y app roach to p eda gog ical ethics wa s to determine what moral issues mean to teachers and to interpret and translate their understandings from the language they use. The approach consisted of three representations from pedagogical ethics. I focused on the ethics of background beliefs, guiding rules and principles, and dile m m a managing, together with their contested pedagogical practices. These three frameworks were used as tools to uncover everyday school situations that called for teachers’ reactions. Structuring the research process in the language of representations rather than perspectives or frames e m ph asiz es th at we actively m ake choices that can be accom plished in d ifferent wa ys. 1. The developm ent of an interpretative account on ethical issues begins with the ethic of backg roun d beliefs. Without th is stan dpoint, Na sh (1996) argu es, a coherent dialogue between the person and the wo rld cannot take place. The perspective is intended to provide a type of self-understanding that can lead to an adequately informed and defen sible action. The representation provides a chance to examine the underlying assumptions of why something is regarded as right or wrong. Within this realm persons develop a more or less comprehensive and coherent acco un t of th eir ethica l pre mises. T aylor (1992, p. 37) speaks about these realm s as a person ’s “backgroun d of intelligibility,” those moral horizons against which things take on significance for her or him . In many cases it is a world the person know s on ly dimly. H ow ever, th is approach is not meant for imm ediate utility or for straightforward application to the analysis and resolution of a particular dilemma. That will come later. Its task is to provide a basis for further co nsideration s. According to Nash (1996, p. 40), the major purpose of this representation is an effort to understand the “ethical cente rs of refe rence” an d to loca te ethical judgements in a person’s decision-making. 2. Ethical d ile m m as can also be viewed fr om a representation that judges educational decisions and actions according to implicit and explicit rules and duties owed. Here, according to Walker (1998), the focus tends to be “on the policy decisions (means) and on the educato r’s conform ity to an ethical principle or a set of rules” (p. 298 ). The ethic of guiding rules and principles relies on general acco un ts of h ow to act in certain, and often d ifficult, situation s. It prov ides a g ene ral gu ide to action, a certain authority in decision-making. When ever asked what these moral principles are, teachers tend to speak in simple maxim s, which for them can be desirable rules of conduc t: Be caring. Be available when your pupils need you. Practice what you preach, and so on. These general principles and moral rules

can be seen as the underpinnings for such formal principles as thoug htfulness, accessibility, and coherence (Elbaz, 1983; Nias, 1989; Tirri, Hu su & Ka nsan en, 19 99; H usu , 2002). A s action guides, they do not specify behavior but embody broad criteria that guide rather than prescribe decisions. Nash (1996, p. 111) argues that the task of these principles is to indica te the moral rights and obligations that are at stake in a situation. They can clarify and justify the solutions to moral p ro ble m s because they provide loose standards by which ethical decisions and actions are made. 3. The third representation focuses m ore on con siderations with respect to the likelih ood of their being achieved in par ticula r rea l-world settings. Usually, teachers’ aims and actions are entangled with the aims of others in class and in the school’s professional community. Within the ethic of dilemma managing teachers cann ot ch oose a so lution to a problem without comprising other goals they want to accomplish. According to the sta nce, pedagogical ethics is approached through calculation of the prob able p ositive a nd n ega tive conseq uen ces (sh ortand long-term) of a particular educational decision. In other words, the best interests of students are served if the negative consequences are minimized and positive benefits maximized (W alker, 1998, p. 300). Usually, a teacher’s task is to balance the pros and cons of the situation. A teacher must choose a solution that aims to maximize the desired resu lts across a range of students involved, but some will suffer at the expe nse of oth ers (Lam pert, 1985; H usu, 2002 ). The process show s that p roblems teach ers face in their wo rk rela te mo st closely to the class of que stions that is referred to as “un certain practical que stions” (G auth ier, 1963). Accordin g to Reid (1979, pp. 188189), they are problem s that usually h ave m any co mm on featu res: a)

They mu st be answ ered – e ven if the answ er is to decide to do nothing.

b)

The groun ds on w hich de cisions should be made are uncertain. N oth ing can tell us infallibly what evidence should be taken into account or rejected, or what kinds of arguments should be given pre ced ence.

c)

W e must always take the existing state of affair s into ac count. We are neve r free from past or prese nt contex ts and the ir arrange me nts.

d)

E ach p ro ble m is in som e wa ys u nique, belonging to a sp ecific tim e and context, the particulars of which we can never exhaustively describe.

e)

W e can never predict the outcome of the particular solution we choose, still less know what the outcome would have been had we made a different choice.

Teaching in practice is a delicate balancing act. Since a “good act” can conflict with oth er value s, different values m ust be held in tension and decisions should b e contex t-determ ined. Th is lack of prescriptiven ess is un derstan dably problematic for educators who are vested with auth ority for the w elfare of their stud ents.

Multifocal Connections of Representations The wo rld of ethics is an endlessly in terp reta ble w orld , and there ra rely is a final or definite response to an e thical dilemma. All forms of representation of experience are limited portraits. Their meaning arises out of a process of intera ction with ind ividuals in their pra ctical settings. Meaning is fluid an d con textu al, not fixe d w ith prede fined theoretical constructs. How ever, as Hansen (2001) has argu ed, without certain starting poin ts, we w ould fin d nothing at all. To say that three ethical representations provided the working tools, is not to say that they solely determined what w as taken notice of in teachers’ reflections. Instead, the three representations created conditions for our learning as researchers – we w ere learning wha t the teachers believe and why they believe it. In such learning, the basic purpose was not to discover “ethical truths,” as it was to aid in uncovering the web of educational decisions and ac tions in particular cases. The approach can also be referred as “ethical constructivism ” (Nash, 199 6, p. 57). Young (199 9) argued that since m ost educatio nal stud ies occur within a single theoretical framework, the findings of these studies do not provide a comprehensive understanding of the problems being investigated (Ba ll, 1994; Rist, 1994; Scheu rich & Y oun g, 1997). In respon se to this problem, she argues in favor of using more than one theoretical approach to examine and analyze the same issues. The process of analyzing and interpreting the data through different frames provides a forum for com paring the similarities and d ifferences in the findings that emerge from different perspectives. This process involves viewing from one len s and su bsequently reconsidering the phenomena from another. This type of study consists of sustained attempts to “think things thro ugh ” (Barrow & W oods, 1988 , p. 186).

The Construction of Representations Method and Data The research method em ployed wa s narrative intervie w (Co rtazzi, 1993, pp. 55-56; Mishler, 1986, pp. 75-87). The aim wa s to obta in an accu rate and auth entic picture as possible of teachers’ ethical dilemmas. As Clandin in & Connelly (1995) pointed out, the study of narrative is the study of the ways hum an beings experience the world. It allows the voices of teachers to be heard; it emphasizes the need for te ach ers to talk about their experiences and perspectives in their own words. Indeed, Cortazzi (1993) argue d tha t a “teach er’s voice ma y em erge at its stronge st in teachers’ nar rativ e accou nts” (p. 11 ), wh ile Grum et (1990) assigned narrative a major role because, in narrative interviews, teachers are guided to tell their story “as a speech act that involves the socia l, cultural and political relations in and to which we speak” (p. 281). The data included 20 narrative case reports of e thical co nflicts experienced by se con dary sc hool tea che rs. All the teachers w ork ed in urban public schools in the capital area of Helsinki, Finland. Teachers were asked to tell abo ut a real-life dilem ma they had exp erie nce d in the ir work. The request was formulated as follows: “Describe a situation in your work in which you have had difficulty deciding what to do from

an ethical point of view.” The interview focused on the professional character of the teachers’ work: the manner of conduct within an occup ation and its m em bers’ integra tion of their obliga tions with th eir knowledge and skills. The interviews were relatively open and w ere guided by some general questions. All the audiotaped interviews were transcribed.

Reading Guide In the analysis, we adopted a qualitative reading guide to ex am ine teacher s’ narrative case reports. The reading guide (Brown, Tappan, Gilligan, Miller, & Argyris, 1989; Brown, Depold, Tappan, Gilligan, 1991; Johnston, 1989; Gilligan, Brown, & Rogers, 1990) was based on the evidence that person s sim ultaneously know (can reco gnize, speak in, and respond to) various perspectives in discussing practical issues and may show a preferen ce fo r on e ov er th e oth er. The approach was aimed at highlighting the various rep rese ntations, as w ell as the sense of tension people often conveyed in their case reports. The reading guide attempted to record the complexity of case reports and to capture the per son al, relational, and cu ltural dime nsions of the teachers’ exp eriences. It focused on interpreting the narrator’s way of seeing and speaking of the phenomenon. The me thod focu sed on the read ing proc ess and the creation of an interpretative account of a case report. According to Bahktin (1981, p. 276), individua l words an d ph rases th at are used to describe th oug ht, feeling, and action are me aning less in and of themselves in explaining a par ticular meaning. Therefore, “the living language exists only in a web of interrelationships that allow a narr ator’s m eaning to becom e clear only if the con text, the nar rativ e, is m aintained” (Br ow n et al., 1991, p. 27). The m e th od allowed the ethic al r epresentations to becom e objec ts of conscious re flection. In such u nder takings, the ba sic purpo se was not to discover “ethical truth” as it was to uncover the web of educ ational decisions an d actions w ithin particular cases.

Interpretative Procedures The study consisted of three comprehensive readings of the case rep orts. Each reading focused on a particular representation of pedagogical ethics and attempted to uncover various relational aspe cts of the ethical representation in qu estion. The three represen tations and their m ultip le readings provided a practical frame of reference to the dilem m a investigated by analyzing it from different viewpoints. The representations argued for are outlined: 1. The eth ic of ba ckg ound beliefs. The represen tation tried to uncover the final ends of the pedago gical practice in qu estion. A ccordin g to this stance, within the domain of ethical judgement, global assessment preceded specific practical actions. The representation focused on the narra tor’s exp ressed con cerns fo r the sou rces of th e pr oble m. I t w as a question o f attitudes, specifically those attitudes rev eale d in action s to work out, or live w ith , the problem s faced. Solutions to these pr oblem s cou ld often be sou ght for by interactive con sideration of m eans an d end s.

The first comprehensive reading was aimed at uncovering what lay behind the practical dilemma. 2. The ethic of guiding rules and principles. The second representation was aimed at revealing the practical action guides teachers relied on. Rules and principles were usually brief statem ents of what to do or what should be done in a particular situation encountered in practice. The major purpose of the stan ce w as to justify or defend educational decisions based on certain appropriate rules and principles. Reading provided the answer to the problem of what the profession’s code of ethics were regarding the practical dilemma. 3. The ethic of dilemma managing. The third representation investigated the emergent dilemm as when rules and principles were put into pra ctice. What types of pedagogica l dilem ma arose, and how d id teachers try to c op e w ith these situations? The stance focused on evaluation of the actions taken or intende d and their possible resu lts. Solutions to conflicts were often found only by doing somethin g, by acting. The last reading focused on the issue of what the practical choices were in a dilemm a. During each reading, the rea der filled in sum ma ry w orkshe ets. These wo rksh eets provided a place to document relevan t pieces of a case report and m ake interp retative rem arks of the particular ethical representation in qu estion. In the final step of each comprehensive reading, the reader used summary worksheets that captured the features of the ethical representation in question. The w orksh ee ts e m phasized the m ove fr om the narrator’s written words to the reader’s interpretation or summ ary of them. They required the reader to substantiate her or his interpretation with quotes from the wr itten story itself. As such, the worksheets stood between the case report and the m ore generalized interpretations drawn from the particular case. The y provid ed a tra il of e vid en ce from the rea der’s interpretation s of the narra tive case repo rt (Brow n et al., 1991, p. 33). It requires time and e ffort to perceive v arious qu alities in teachers’ ethical dilemm as. They do not becom e visible at a glance. As Jackson (1992) em phasized , it is a ma tter of becom ing sensitive to h ow th ese qualities are characteristically expressed in the case report of th is particular person (p. 404). The process of getting to know requires various pha ses of re flection. We learn various qu alities “by thinking about them, by reflecting what our observa tions m ean ” (p. 40 6). Th is notion is not unique, but the fact that the importance of that reflection is brought to the fore is worth noting. Jackson speaks about “prolonged refle ction ,” wh ich is as essential as the time spent gathering, transcribing, and labeling the data. It often takes longer as well. Indeed, Jackson (p. 406) recommended a data/reflection ratio on the order of 1/10. When ap plied to the pre sen t stud y it me ant o ne sheet of transcribed data, followed by 5-10 pages of interpretative remarks of reflection. Thu s, in the next section , we focu s on on e particular case report an d prese nt exam ples of its analysis.

Results This section is divided into tw o parts. The first part presents a description of a particular teacher in a situation that called out for her actions and reactions. An extract of the case report is also presented. The second part progresses from conc rete sch ool inciden ts to analysis to multip le readings that aim to uncover the relevance of the multifocal ethical representations. Here, a case report serves as a threshold for further an alyses.

At Sch ool – Contested Practices The teacher behind the case report was a 37-year-old woman who taught history and social sciences in a large suburban school near Helsinki. She had nine ye ars of teaching expe rience an d w as also qualified to teach at the college level. Her enthusiasm for teaching was apparent and she was willing to talk about her ideas and work. Her students were mainly between 13 and 16 years of age. Overall, she was quite satisfied with her school. She liked her students and regarded her colleagues as pro fessio nals in their ow n fields. However, she reported smoking to be a constant p roblem in he r scho ol. Acco rding to Finnish law, sm okin g is forbidden in schools during school hours for both teach ers and studen ts. In her school, however, both teachers and students found several ways to break this directive . The school had tried different practices, and teachers often disagreed with each other and with their studen ts over the best pr actices. Compared with drugs, violence, disruption, and sexual misbehavior, it is, naturally, a minor problem. How ever, it is em otionally load ed, sym bolic, and rep etitive them e in schools. He re, it is use d fo r its illustrative pu rpose s for tra inin g te ach ers’ ethical discer nm ent. The following excerpt from her case report presents th is complicated situation. I have been very concerned about the smoking policy in our school. I think a great number of our students smoke and many of the teachers smoke as well. This is an acute and frequent problem that I have to consider every single day in my work. Everybody knows that students smoke under the bridge that is near our school. However, the law forbids smoking during school hou rs. We h av e th is law but har dly anybody observes it. Som e teachers smoke, too, an d oth er teachers and stude nts kn ow it. And the law also forbids teachers from smoking during school hours. Nobody really knows what to do about smoking. I know myself that smoking is bad for your he alth an d the stude nts know it, too. It is not a question of not being informed about the negative con sequence s of sm okin g. W hat can I do as a sin gle teacher to change the situation? It doesn’t help to send notes h om e if I am the only teacher doing it. I think homes and e le m entary schools play a key role in finding solutions to this p ro ble m . The complicated thing is that some teachers smoke with their students. They may even suggest a sm oke break. I know that notes home and forcing students to stay in school after hours don’t help the situation. I myself smoked for 15 years; I know wh at I am dea ling with . I have tried to be a role model for my students, and I have told them about m y former

smoking habit. I have a ssured th em that it is po ssible to qu it smoking. Ev ery sing le morning I walk by the bridge and tell the students to put their cigarettes away. Some of the students obey m e and som e don ’t. I have also tried to discuss this w ith m y colleague s. I talked with the mu sic teacher about a girl who has a beautiful voice. I think she c ould be a professional singer som e day and smoking might seriously affect her voice. I asked the music teacher to talk with this girl about protecting her voice. I don’t see any concrete way to influence our school com mun ity. I sho uld b uild a fe nce to stop the students fr om goin g to the bridge. Ho we ver, th en th ey m ight star t to sm oke in the toilets and that wo uld be even worse for those who don’t smoke. The principal should do something. We used to have a smoking room for teachers but it was shut down. Now the teachers smoke outside as well. The principal should take steps to prevent teachers from sm oking du ring th eir workin g h ou rs. I don’t think we can so lve the pro blem with stude nts before we can influence the teach ers.

At the Analysis – Contested Representations The ethic of backg roun d beliefs. When the teacher w as discussing respon sibility, the law, righ ts, ideals, and profession al obligations, she was actually describing her fun dam ental assum ptions. They guided her perception of educational practice and what she experienced as good or bad, right or wrong, important or unimportant. These assumptions seemed to be the ultim ate bases by which the teacher made her decisions. Fro m this p erso nally held life-space the teacher experienced educational dilemmas from the vantage point of her own unique “horizon of meanings” (Barnes, 1971, p. 65). This life-space was her van tage poin t, her ethica l cente r of refe rence. Th e stan ce led her to question several of the purposes of her actions within the school context she worked: What was this educational organization trying to achieve? What was the right way to go abo ut th is task ? Did all teach ers an d stud ents see the p urpo se in the same way? The following exam ples pre sent n arrativ e excerp ts from the teacher’s case report and the reader’s interpretative worksheet com me nts, using the ethic of background beliefs as an interpretative approach. Narrative excerpt: The law fo rbids te achers as w ell as stud ents to smoke d uring school h ours. W e have this law b ut h ard ly anybody observes it. The com plicated thing is that some teachers smoke with their stu den ts. Som e teachers may even sugg est a smoke break. Worksh eet comment: Behind this perspective lies the fact that smoking is prohibited by law. From the professional perspective the prevailing situation is unbearable because both teachers and students consciously break the law. Narrative excerpt: Nobody really knows what to do about smoking … I don’t see any concrete way to influence our school community.

Worksh eet comment: The teacher’s immediate moral intuitions and stirrings ab out the situation seem hope less. Narrative excerpt: Students’ h om es and pre viou s sch ool le vels p la y a ke y role in finding solutions to this problem . Worksh eet comment: Due to the nature of the dilemma, she argues that the resp onsibility lies w ith stu dents’ p are nts. T his belief is refle cted in the teacher’s scheme of justification: Someone else has to do the job. Narrative excerpt: I don’t think we can so lve the pro blem with studen ts before w e can influe nce the teachers. Worksh eet comment: H ere, professional ideals co llide w ith organ izational realities. Narrative excerpt: I don’t see any concrete way to influence our school com mun ity .… The pr incip al should take steps to prevent teachers from smoking. Worksh eet c om m ent: Collegially, teachers are not capable of cooperating with each other. Therefore, primary argumentation is dire cted tow ard s the prin cipa l. McCadden (199 8) calls org anizatio nal morality the m oral basis of teacher s’ practical actions in school settings. He defines organizational morality as the teacher’s belief that her or his role as a teacher demands that she or he instills in her or his students adherence to public school life (p. 35). It concerns ideas of w hat stud ents ne ed to lea rn socially about school life. They are things that students need in their life; for example, what doe s it mean to act legally, what are the consequences of breaking the norm? According to Finnish curricular guidelines, the social preparation of studen ts come s prior to focusing on academic work at school. The aim is not to educate children to become good students but active and decent futu re citizen s. Fro m this perspective, organizational morality can be se en as a so cially constructed morality amon g me mbers of the teaching profession. As the excerpts and their interpretative comm ents indicated, moral dilemmas were presented to the teacher – beyond her personal self – in the sense tha t they invo lved oth ers. But m oral conflicts were also subjective – inside the teacher – in that they each brought a unique center of reference to these issues. The teacher reported that she had sm oked for 15 years and was very concerned for the sm oking policy in her school. Despite the lack of collegial support at the organizational level, sh e w as con fiden t that stu den ts could quit the ir smokin g ha bit. The ethic of guiding rules and principles. In se ekin g evidence of rules and prin ciple s, I wa s no t interested prim arily in statements having an outward form of a rule or principle, but rather in the way such statem ents operate in structuring the teacher’s kn ow ledg e. At first sigh t, the teacher’s statements may appear to be mere description, yet they functioned as a rule or principle, or sometimes both simultaneously.

The perspective was basically procedural. It led the teacher to identify the relevan t, yet often im plicit p rinciple, app ly it to the case, and act or react accordingly. On this level the teacher relied on implications that guided her when making educational decisions. She identified herself as a principled professional that had a set of norms by which she lived and which she was willing to stand by and defend. The following examples present the teacher’s narrative excerpts and the reader’s interpretative worksheet comments, using the ethics of guiding rules and principles as a reading perspective: Narrative excerpt: We have this law but hardly anybody observes it .… The comp licated thing is that some teachers smoke w ith th eir students .… Som e teachers m ay eve n sugg est a smoke break. W orksheet com ment: The prevailing situation clearly breaks both professional norms an d their org anizationa l applications. Legal principles tended to reduce problem-solving to a series of laissez-faire exercises. This was apparent on the professional level where teachers consciously broke the rule. Narrative excerpt: What can I do as a single teacher to change the situa tion? It doesn’t help to send notes home if I am the only teach er do ing it. W orksheet co mment: Here, on the individual level, the teacher sum ma rized the d ilemm a of rules an d principles. Narrative excerpt: I have been very concerned about the sm oking policy in our school .… This is an acute and frequent problem that I have to consider every single day in my work .… Nobody really knows what to do abo ut sm okin g. I know m yse lf that smoking is bad for your health and the students know it, too. It is not a question of not being informed about the negative consequences of smoking .… I myself smoked for 15 years, I know wh at I am dealing w ith .… I hav e tried to be a role model for my students, and I have told them about my former smoking hab it. I have assured them that it is possible to quit smoking. Every sing le m orn ing I walk close by the bridge and tell the students to put their cigarettes away. Worksh eet comment: The code of practical guidance also grew intu itively out of the teacher’s personal experiences. However, it was often difficult to separate the general aspects from the individual ones, be cau se th e ru les an d principles seem ed to develop from some conjunction of the tw o. The excerp t reflects mediation between thought and action. Rules and principles functioned as a guideline on or from which the teacher acted; she followed their often im plicit and perso nal dictates. As a result, w hat occurr ed with in this particular dilem ma was tha t most teachers we re un able to satisfy eith er the legal or the p ractical requ irem ents of the situation . M ore importantly, they fell short of examining the m oral imp lications of the dilem ma in question. Th erefore,

they neg lected their m oral re spon sibility to per ceive the issu e bey ond its sho rt-term effects. The persp ective wa s large ly a rea lm o f reflective activity and interpretation was needed. Rules and principles are often “opentextured” by their n ature (Bre nnan, 19 77); tha t is, they w ere d ifficult to interpret in such an explicit m ann er that they could encompass the varied kinds of actions that could be counted as instances of acting on that rule and principle. The ethic of dilemma managing. As prese nte d above, the teacher’s work was embedded in practical actions and was situated mainly in and between students and colleagues. The teacher had to stand in constant relation to both these parties and her em pha sis wa s on co ncre te particulars. They w ere interpreted through the ey es of the practitioner. Therefore, the starting point could be formulated as “what was perceived?” To be able to consider and choose appropriate actions, the teacher had to be able to perceive her relevant features of the dilemma. As presented, these could not be transmitted in some general abstract form beca use it was a matter of fitting her choices to the “complex require ments of a con crete situation” (Nussbaum, 1986, p. 303), tak ing all its contex tual fea tures into account. The ethic of the teacher had a great deal to do with both the way she defined the dilemm a and w hat could be done about it. T he dilem m a arose because th e state of affairs in the school comm unity was not what she wo uld hav e like d it to be. Thus, the practic al nature of the dilem m a involved the teacher’s wish for a change, and simultaneously, her pow erless reactio n to the prevailing situation. Even though the teacher was influenced by many strong forces in her school community, the responsibility to act still remained. From the teacher’s po int of view, the intention to act in a professionally coherent manner led to even more problems. She could not hope to arrive at the right solution or action in a sense that the two preceding perspectives, background beliefs and the standards of action guides, can b e said to be righ t. This is because each m em ber o f the com m un ity brought her or his own, often contradictory aims to the situation, and the reso lution of the ir dissonance could not be neat or simple. The juxtaposition of varied view s and re spo nsib ilities co uld easily lead to even further p arado xes. The following e xam ple prese nts a narrative excerpt and the reader’s interpretative worksheet com ment, using the ethic of dilemma man aging as an interpretative perspective. Narrative excerpt: What can I do as a single teacher to change the situation? It d oe sn’t help to send notes hom e if I am the only teacher doing it .… I know that notes home and forcing the students to stay in school after hours don ’t help the situation … I don’t see any concrete way to influence our school commu nity. I should b uild a fence to stop the students from going to the bridge. Ho we ver, th en th ey m ight star t to sm oke in the toilets and that would m ake the situation even worse for th os e w ho don’t smoke. Worksh eet comment: Here, even if the teacher could not find the ‘right’ solution, the problem had to be answered in some w ay or

another – even if the answer was to decide to do nothing in order to avoid cau sing any further p roblem s. In practice, all the p ossible so lutions seem ed to lead to further problem s. The teacher felt that she could not choose a solution without compromising other goals she w ished to achieve. Nevertheless, she was convinced th at so m e action had to be taken. As shown above, the teacher did not consider the conflicts as a choice between abstract beliefs or between competing rules and principles. Wh at she perceived were tensions between individual colleagues and personal confrontations between herself and a particular group of students. She could not see her basic beliefs, ru les or p rinciples as a n eat an d w orka ble sch em e to guide her job as making clear choices. Instead of engaging in a decisionmaking process that would eliminate various alternatives, she pursued a serie s of loose arguments with herself as she considered the consequences of the practices. Her aims for any particular colleague or student were tangled u p w ith her aims for each of the others in the school context. The working pe rspectives were formed in a com munity that prov ided both professional and personal settings and structures, as well as guiding exemplars necessary for her practical action.

Conclusions and Discussion In the present study, three representations of pedagogical ethics were used to guide the analysis of the teacher’s professional dilemma. The study was a process that began with bits and pieces o f linguistic mater ial, arranged them into structured case reports, left others to the side, and ended up w ith a case study representation of professional ethics. The ov era ll goa l was to tie together the bits and pieces of norm ally separate re pre sen tations. T he smoking case provided an exam ple of a real-life dilemm a that could not be understood usin g on ly one interpretative perspective. The case implied a plurality of understanding s. We concluded that the teacher simultaneously used different ethical perspectives in her practical reflection. Her pedagogical decisions were sh aped by th e interrelatio nsh ip of several elem ents: basic beliefs, wo rkp lace norm s, circu mstan ces, p ersonal philosoph ies, feelings, and intuitions. In pursuit of her action, the teacher blended them into a situational functioning whole. Within all representations, attention was focused on the agent and the act. According to Goodm an & L esnick (2001, p. 57), there are a t least two reasons for prioritizing the actor. First, our conduct is gre atly derivative of who w e are by our character. Second, wh en jud ging peop le we tend to ap praise their abid ing dispositions, goa ls, and overa ll life patterns. Both educators themselves are partly ev aluated , and peo ple outside the profe ssion te nd to evaluate them with this premise in mind. Th is suggests that the purpose of educational institutions partly resides in the conscious potential, which in turn is likely to direct an organ ization’s resources an d its practical actions. Th is calls for shifting the focus from pedagogy as a scene where the teacher ought to apply this or that prescription, to one where the conditions and contingencies of ethics m ay b e foun d. C onsequently , this

no longer m eans ba rely thinking about p edag ogy in re lation to ethics. Instead, it signifies thinking about ethics through pedagogy. According to Todd (2001), “this means exploring the day-to-day details of pedagogical encounters to see what they might offer in putting forth an understanding of teaching as a site of implied, rather than applied, ethics” (p. 437). This type of representation necessitates reading educational encounters for the way they prom ote or proh ibit conditions for p edago gica l ethics. The results sugge st that the social proce sses involved in the tea cher’s school setting s we re no t based to any great extent upon preestablished ethical reasoning, but on “socially shared identities of feeling” that teachers create in the flow of activity between them (Shotter, 1993, p. 54). Buchm ann (1987) referred to this flow as “folkways of teaching” (p. 152). She argues that the knowledge base of teaching cannot be considered special and that its users are often ambivalent about its real value. Teachers feel not only en titled, but also forced, to use their common sense in teaching. However, th is does not mean to belittle tea chers’ profe ssiona l knowle dge . The poin t is simp ly to sugge st that the knowledge teachers use cannot be placed on either side of the divide between “specialized knowledge w hich particular ind ividuals need in their occupational roles and common knowledge which all adult individuals need as members of the community” (Znaniecki 1965, p. 25). Frequently, educational dec ision -m akin g is based upon open discourse. It means that different meaning must be exposed to public dialogue within the school community. It also became apparent that the school ethos had considerable effect on the teacher’s ethical practices. The data highlighted the links between a school’s philosophy and ethos and a teachers’ orien tation to his or her work. Consecutive readings of the data gave us an impression that school culture appe ared to op erate like culture every wh ere. It constrained and liberated teachers’ agency and conduct. A school culture cou ld generate, both explicitly and implicitly, professional support for a teacher. It could enhance their com mitm ent to edu cate stude nts. How ever, scho ol ethos cou ld also dam pen a teacher’s sincere strivings. It could wear away a teacher’s hope and aspiration for better practice, and it could beco me a constan t neg ative fo rce th e teacher had to nav igate every day. School culture appeare d to generate complicated forces and pressures of many kinds that affected a teacher’s professional practices, even her evaluation of herself as a person. Its forces and pressure s seem ed to influen ce the teach er’s orientation in m any w ays. In addition, the teacher’s own character came to the fore – for example, in her very willingness, in the first place, to accept the professional obligation needed in the question. A school com munity requires serious and broad commitment from all its members. Engagement with eth ical issues, as w ell as any mind-shaping work, sho uld not be a n optional curricular activity . The en tire school staff sho uld contribute to and hav e resp onsib ility for the issue. Stu den ts sho uld know their resp onsibilities and re spe ct their contribution to the opera tion of the en terp rise. It is comm only ack now ledged that ped agog ical ethics can not be learned sufficiently during formal teacher preparation: “Character is the

product of years, not credit hours” (Strike, 1993, p. 107). Professional development must attest to the significance of practical teaching experience and acknowledge how continuing work in school settings persistently inform s teach ers’ pra ctice. N o m atter w hat the teacher’s personal and professional commitments, each teach er is strongly affected by the school’s climate. No amo unt of time spent in college classes can develop suffic iently the skills involved in pedagogical encounters; such improvement is attained on ly through teachers’ reflective experience as they w ork in scho ols. Author’s Address: Research A ssociate Department of Teacher Education P.O. Box 38 00014 University of Helsinki FINLAND EM AIL: jukk a.husu @he lsinki.fi

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