ABSTRACT
In establishing a helpful conceptual distinction between variable and fixed elements in the teaching-learning process Broadfoot et al. (1988) describe how different ‘national contexts’ operate on universal ‘classroom constants’ to produce variations in the educational realities actually experienced by teachers and pupils in different societies. In an earlier paper (Broadfoot et al. 1985) ‘such features as strong teacher authority, pupil coercion and group oriented curricula’ had been identified as ‘international constants in the teacher’s role’, whilst the national context had been broken down into three analytically distinct component parts: 1 Prevailing educational policies and priorities 2 The institutional infrastructure 3 Dominant ideological traditions In a series of papers published throughout the 1980s this research group has presented powerful evidence of how nationally specific differences in the professional role-conceptions of British and French primary school teachers result in systematically structured differences in classroom practice between the two countries. By studying teachers in four different socioeconomic areas in each country it was possible to show that overall national difference was much more significant than the inter-country variations between regions defined on a social class basis. In responding to questions about their educational aims and objectives, their teaching styles and their professional responsibilities, the French teachers resembled each other more than they resembled their British counterparts working in equivalently affluent or equivalently disadvantaged areas.
