School Guidance and Discipline: teachers’ and students’ construction of classroom knowledge in two Hong Kong secondary schools

Abstract

Most Hong Kong secondary schools have two teams of guidance and discipline teachers to manage students’ misbehaviour. The guidance team is mainly responsible for providing a personal counselling service and for carrying out guidance programmes, such as sex education. The discipline team works with students who have been identified as having behavioural problems. They are also responsible for enforcing discipline policy, such as the wearing of school uniform. Most teachers and school managers are concerned with the difficulty of integrating guidance and discipline into schooling. Many studies have shown that guidance teachers are described as ‘soft’ whereas discipline teachers as described as ‘strict’ and ‘tough’. Each team of teachers has a contrasting rationale as to how best to help students resolve their difficulties. However, no research has yet been completed into how guidance and discipline are implemented in the classroom. This article focuses on this area and reports a study of what classroom knowledge teachers and students construct, with respect to the relationship between guidance and discipline. The qualitative methods for data collection are described and two case studies are presented. The analysis shows that such a relationship differs from school to school, and that teachers’ construct of classroom knowledge of guidance and discipline is closely linked to the features of school organisation of the schools to which these teachers belong. Finally, the paper looks at the implication of this study in drawing school managers’ and policy makers’ attention to the impact of school organisation on guidance and discipline in the classroom.