Teachers’ pedagogical power – A community school study

Aim: The aim of our work was to study the types of power preferred by teachers and students of pedagogical specialties. Method: Ivanov’s questionnaire “Teacher’s pedagogical power” was used to study the pedagogical power including Reward, Coercive, Legitimate, Expert and Referent powers. In 2012 and 2013, 46 secondary school teachers and 40 students of pedagogical specialties were part of a study in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. Results: The results indicated that teachers and students of pedagogical specialties preferred making use of syncretic power, more than one power. The most frequent types of power were Legitimate and Reward. The rarest was Referent power. The teachers used the different types of power less than students of pedagogical specialties did, confirming Adler’s view that humans striving for power over others was inversely proportional to the degree of education. Female teachers preferred to use Legitimate power more compared to male teachers. Conclusions: The study of teachers’ pedagogical power could contribute to clarify teachers and students’ views of the teacher’s role in schoolar education. The studied teachers and students of pedagogical specialties perceived the teacher mainly as a regulating (rewarding or coercive) legitimate figure of pedagogical power.