The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Literature of Liberty a Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought
• Editorial Staff
• Associate Editors
• Editorial
• Bibliographical Essay: Henry B. Veatch, Natural Law: Dead Or Alive?
• I: Natural Law
• “nature” and “law” In Natural Law
• The Anatomy of Natural Rights
• Egoism and Rights
• The Is/ought Chimera
• Deriving “ought” From “is”
• Facts Vs. Value-laden Whims
• Is/ought and Probable Reasons
• Does Righteous Anger Imply Rights?
• Why Be Moral?
• Truth As an Objective Value
• Was the Revolution Objectively Necessary?
• Natural Law and State of Nature
• Natural Law and the State
• Natural Rights and Anarchism
• Dworkin On Rights
• Liberalism, Rights, and Abortion
• Rights and “mercy Killing”
• Rights and the “brain Drain”
• The Natural Law Right to Work
• Grotius: Contract and Natural Law
• Rights and Communication
• II: Autonomy, Privacy, and Authority
• Bureaucracy and “the Organization Man”
• Autonomy and Anarchism
• Autonomy and Taking Responsibility
• Autonomy, Motivation, and “buck-passing”
• Schooling For Conformity
• The Schoolroom Vs. Autonomy
• Obedience to Authority
• The Meaning of Privacy
• Privacy and Autonomy
• Privacy and Consent
• The Court and Privacy
• III: The Ambiguities of Liberty
• Clarifying Freedom
• Rehabilitating Mill's “harm Principle”
• Experiencing Freedom
• Do Offers Coerce Freedom?
• The Danger of “dangerousness”
• Freedom, Motivation, and Government Programs
• Freedom Vs. Determinism
• Negative Vs. Positive Freedom
• Smith and Utilitarian Economic Freedom
• Locke, Freedom, and Tacit Consent
• Religious Freedom
• Freedom, Existentialism, and Innocent Victims
• Does Censorship Harm Freedom?
• IV: Slavery
• Slavery, Ideology, and Subordination
• Slavery and Imperialist Ideology
• Enlightenment Liberalism Vs. Slavery
• The Anatomy of a Slave Revolt
• Colonial American Slave Law
• Jefferson On Slavery
• Slavery and the Poor
• V: Planning
• Regulation and the Warfare State
• Mail, Privacy, and Social Control
• Corporate State Capitalism: Coal
• French War “planification”: Chlorates
• Bureaucracy and British Regulation
• British Foreign Policy and Stagnation
• Political Decisions and the Economy
• Government, Labor, and Multinationals
• Black Markets Vs. Regulation
• Regulation Vs. Academic Autonomy
• Government Schools and Social Control
• The Economics of Charity
• International State Planning and Inflation
• Competition and Individual Knowledge

The Schoolroom vs. Autonomy

Wendell Williams Dominick Pellegreno

• Drake University Iowa State

“Gatekeeping and Student Role.” Journal of Educational Research 68 (July 1975): 366–370.

Teachers function as “gatekeepers” of what is allowed to happen in classrooms. When teachers control discussions or show favoritism, do they do so on the basis of conformity or of autonomy in their students?

This study investigated the verbal interruptions of teachers and students in 10 public school classrooms. The study involved a total of 245 elementary school (third grade) students. The frequency of interruption was tied to the personality characteristics of the students being interrupted. Student teachers rather than the regular classroom teachers were controlling the classrooms during the study.

Teachers interrupted active-independent-assertive males and flexible-nonconforming-untidy females the most. On the other hand, passive-dependent-acquiescent and rigid-conforming-orderly students of both sexes were interrupted significantly less often than would be expected. Other students tended to follow their teacher's lead in the kinds of students that they interrupted. These findings are somewhat limited in that all but one of the teachers was female. However, the great bulk of elementary teachers are also female so the limitation is of small practical significance.

Williams's study corroborates others which show that teachers tend to reward passive, conforming behavior while punishing independent, nonconforming behavior. Since the existence of authoritarian political and social systems depends in large measure on the tacit support of a large group of the population, teacher support of such behavior undermines free societies. At the same time it builds the kinds of attitudes that make the establishment of an authoritarian society easier.