Teachers’ views on classroom management volume 17

In the international educational community, the first references on classroom management date back to the mid-20th century, while in the Greek educational reality, the references on the subject are very limited and without extensive research background. The awareness of this lack, both in terms of literature and research, and as a pedagogical training for prospective teachers, combined with the current and demanding socio-economic reality and the rapid technological explosion, events that affect all aspects of our lives, lead to our engagement with this topic. Teachers are now called upon to play a multifaceted and particularly crucial role, so they must be equipped with the knowledge and support they need to cope effectively with their work and create the right conditions for their pupils to perform to the best of their abilities. The research objective of this paper is to explore the views of teachers from both primary (kindergarten-primary) and secondary (high school) education on this issue. The analysis of the material emanates from the qualitative approach and is carried out using the method of content analysis, while the tool used is the written text. The participants of the research are practicing teachers and record in free text their views on the topic of classroom management. Through the in-depth analysis of the texts, it is largely observed that there is a lack of knowledge of the term ‘classroom management’, one that is closely associated by most participants with a specific parameter of the term. Moreover, in some cases there seems to be a gap between what teachers would like to implement and what they are finally able to implement. Nevertheless, however, some particularly promising findings emerge that could help interested, educational researchers.