ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at how teaching assistants' (TAs) unclear and challenging professional boundaries influence their work with others, including children and teachers. It considers how the lack of clear limits to what is the TA’s role and what is the teacher’s, influences TAs’ ability to manage behaviour in a range of significant ways – both positively and negatively. Although a simplistic model might be easy to produce to show how teachers view and therefore work with TAs, it may be more realistic to consider the research findings on teachers' views of TAs and TA-teacher relationships and models of working together as existing on a continuum or spectrum. The chapter considers how children's and teachers' understanding of the TA role impact on the working relationships formed and on the roles TAs undertake. It discusses the continuum of teachers work with TAs as ranging from control to collaboration.
