Role Conflict and the Teacher (RLE Edu N)

Gerald Grace

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136453755
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Gerald Grace here explores the concept of role conflict and the current theorizing about the problems of the teacher's role. He investigates four potential problem areas – role diffuseness, role vulnerability, role commitment versus career orientation, and value conflict – in a sample of one hundred and fifty secondary school teachers in a Midland town. The analysis shows how a teacher's commitment to a particular set of values exposes him or her to conflict in an achievement-oriented and pluralistic society. These conflicts, present in all schools, are seen in their clearest form among secondary modern school teachers. The author suggests that colleges of education, in emphasizing commitment and in assuming value consensus, predispose their students to conflict experiences. He indicates that internal career possibilities in schools and the influence of graduate or certified status are also important factors in conflict exposure. While accepting that certain role conflicts are important in the genesis of change, the author proposes that levels of dysfunctional conflict can be reduced by the action of head teachers, by structural change in the schools and innovations in teaching education.

1 Approaches to the Study of Role Conflict

Those familiar with the literature of role analysis are well acquainted with what Charters (1963) has described as ‘the reigning confusion’ of sociological and social psychological theory in this field. The key concepts of ‘role’ and ‘role conflict’ have been formulated in varied and sometimes contradictory ways, although important attempts have been made to produce conceptual order (see Gross et al. 1958; Biddle et al. 1966). A necessary preliminary therefore is to attempt some clarification of what can be meant by role conflict, and to outline possible reactions to it and possible consequences of unresolved role conflict.

The Concept of Role Conflict

It is self-evident that the occupants of social and occupational roles are likely to meet with problem situations to a greater or lesser extent. These situations may arise from a variety of circumstances but the intrinsic nature of the role, the process of role performance and the context in which the role is performed will be important determinants. ‘Role conflict’ is the term which has been generally used by sociologists and social psychologists to denote such problem situations, although terms such as ‘role strain’ (Goode 1960) or ‘role stress’ (Westwood 1967a), which represent a particular emphasis, are also used.

Despite variations in the terms used, the central component of all of the formulations is incompatibility. Thus role conflict, role strain or role stress are all concerned with problems for the individual which arise as the result of role incompatibilities. These may take various forms—incompatibility between roles or within a specific role, incompatibility of expectations for a role or between the orientation of a role and a particular social or cultural context, incompatibility between role expectations and the personality dispositions of the individual. Incompatibilities may be seen by role occupants to be problems, or seen and felt as problems, in which case the terms ‘role strain’ and ‘role stress’ are sometimes used to denote degrees of personal concern. As Kahn et al. (1964) point out, it is possible to examine role conflict ‘as a fact in the environment of the person and as a fact in his internal, psychological life’.¹

Strategies and Categories

Role conflict studies adopt various approaches to the examination of role incompatibilities. Some are concerned with conflict which is seen to exist in a situation by an outside observer. This is sometimes referred to as objective role conflict. Thus Seeman’s (1955) analysis of the school superintendent’s role focuses on ‘situations in which the observer notes what appear to be conflicting sets of expectations’.²

Theoretical analysis of role conflict has been much influenced by the application of Talcott Parsons’s (1951) ‘pattern variables’ to various role situations. Role occupants are seen to be faced with potential conflict arising out of value choices which they have to make. Important among these are the extent to which they become emotionally involved in role relationships (affectivity v. affectivity neutrality); the extent to which they put their own interests before those of the group or organisation (self-orientation v. collectivity orientation) and the extent to which they employ universal standards in specific local situations (universalism v. particularism). Wilson’s (1962) important and influential analysis of teacher role conflicts centres around the ‘pattern variable’ dilemmas.

Empirical studies are of two main categories. Perceptual studies attempt to measure the role occupant’s perception of conflicting expectations or orientations. It is clear that while a social situation may be one which to the observer is charged with conflict, the role occupants may or may not perceive this. Studies in this category characteristically ask the occupants of roles to rate the expectations which they perceive as being held for their role by ‘significant others’. Role conflict is said to exist when there are important differences among the ratings given for various expectations. In a recent study, Musgrove (1967) asked groups of teachers to rank four main aspects of the teacher’s role (discipline, teaching, personality and organisation) as they ideally valued them and as they thought the head of the school, their colleagues, parents and pupils respectively valued them. By comparing the extent of agreement or disagreement among the ranks, a measure of role conflict was obtained. Perceptual studies have been strongly criticised for presenting an over-simplified and misleading concept of role conflict, by those who believe that the simple perception of divergent expectations cannot be said to constitute conflict.³

The work of Getzels and Guba (1954) has been important for stressing the need to go beyond simple perception of incompatibilities to consider the extent to which such situations actually trouble role occupants. Perceptual–experiential studies attempt to measure degrees of affective concern over incompatibilities and to relate these to certain characteristics of the role occupant, including personality variables. Gross et al. (1958), for instance, have investigated the extent to which school superintendents were concerned about incompatibilities in their role and Kahn et al. (1964) have developed similar inquiries in an industrial setting.

A major distinction in role conflict studies has been made between inter-role conflicts and intra-role conflicts. The former, according to Sarbin (1954), ‘occur when a person occupies two or more positions simultaneously and when the role expectations of one are incompatible with the role expectations of the other.’⁴ A classic example is the conflict which can arise for the professional man between meeting fully the expectations for his professional role and meeting fully the expectations for other social roles such as those of husband and father. Studies have been made of the inter-role conflict of such vulnerable positions as the military chaplain (Burchard 1954) and the teacher in America (Getzels and Guba 1955). The recent emphasis of research has, however, tended to shift from inter-role to intra-role conflict, i.e. to an interest in conflict arising (from a number of sources) within a specific role.

In the investigation of role conflict, sociologists have concentrated their attention on determinants of conflict arising from the context in which a role is performed, while psychologists have concentrated upon the characteristics of the person occupying the role. The sociological perspective emphasises the cultural and societal setting of a role, the inter-relationships between a role and various organisational settings and the articulation of a role in a network of other roles. Psychologists, on the other hand, emphasise the expectations and perceptions of the individual performing the role, and emphasise also the importance of personality characteristics as factors in role conflict. There is, as a consequence, a good deal of overlap among the various formulations of role conflict. They represent not so much analytically distinct categories but rather problem situations viewed from different perspectives and with different emphases.

Role–Culture Conflict

Conflict from this viewpoint is seen in terms of basic dis-harmony between the essential commitments of particular roles and the culture or ethos in which they are performed. It is claimed (Reisman et al. 1950, Floud 1962, Wilson 1962) that roles having a moral and ethical orientation and which are concerned with the transmission of values, are exposed to considerable conflict in the cultures of advanced industrial societies. This conflict arises because of the breakdown of value consensus, because of changed attitudes to authority and because of the growth of hedonistic and other-directed philosophies of life. Certain roles are seen to be in a ‘confrontation position’ with the developing tendencies of the culture and the teacher’s role is characteristically regarded as one of these.

Role–Organisation Conflict

A good deal of attention has focused on the characteristics of organisations as determinants of role conflict (see Katz and Kahn 1966). The number of variables in this area is considerable. Leadership styles, goal setting and goal attainment, work climate, allocation of resources, communication patterns, specialisation and co-ordination, organisational commitment and professional orientation, characteristics of the clientele and relationships with the external environment have to be considered in relation to the role conflicts of individuals within organisations. In particular, attention has focused on the conflicts of professional workers in bureaucratic organisations, where the professional orientation stressing autonomy, quality of service and the application of universalistic criteria may clash with bureaucratic requirements stressing supervision and uniformity, routine and particularistic criteria.⁵ Role-organisation conflict is seen to be a major category for teachers in America (Corwin 1965) and it has been suggested that the growing size and bureaucratisation of schools in this country may soon create similar problems for British teachers (Hoyle 1965 ; Westwood 1967b).

Role–Community Conflict

The community context of a role is always an important dimension to be considered in conflict analysis. Conflict for the occupants of certain roles can arise when community expectations for the role are powerful and prescriptive and run counter to those of the role occupant. This is another area of conflict which has been regarded as a major category for teachers in America, where such influences on both the teacher’s private life in the community and his professional life in the school have been strong. Such problem situations have been analysed by a long line of American studies, starting with Waller’s influential work in 1932.⁶

A further potential area of role-community conflict relates to the social class variable. If social class groups are viewed as representing broadly different sub-cultures, with different life styles, sets of assumptions and patterns of values and aspirations, then the potential conflict of a ‘middle-class’ role in a working-class community becomes apparent. This is especially so if the ‘middle-class’ role is attempting to change life styles, assumptions, values and aspirations embedded in the community. Incompatibilities arise for the role occupant because of divergent cultural and value orientations of the role and of the immediate community setting. Recent work in this country (Musgrove and Taylor 1969) has underlined the importance of the immediate social context as a factor in role conflict analysis.

Role–Role Set Conflict

An individual usually has a reasonably clear idea of how his role should be performed but it is apparent that no role exists in a social vacuum. Each role is articulated in a network of other roles representing positions with which the individual interacts. This network of roles is referred to as the ‘role set’ and is defined by Merton (1957) as, ‘that complement of role relationships which persons have by virtue of occupying a particular social status’.⁷ Thus the role of the teacher may be seen as part of a network in which the roles of pupil, headteacher, head of department, colleague, parent and HMI are important positions in the role set.

Each position in the role set may be regarded as having expectations* for the role and these expectations may not agree, with the result that a potential role conflict situation is created for the ‘focal person’. Conflict may arise because the individual ‘perceives that others hold different expectations for him as the incumbent of a single position’⁸ or because the expectations of one or more members of the role set conflict with the individual’s own role conception. A teacher, for instance, may find himself at the focal point of expectations from parents that he should concentrate on basic subjects and examination successes. These expectations may conflict with those from a ‘progressive’ head teacher or HMI that he should concentrate on personality development and wider cultural horizons. Both of these sets of expectations may conflict with his own ‘middle of the road’ role concept. Gross et al. (1958) have suggested that in advanced societies roles cannot be regarded in a consensus framework but must be seen rather as ‘sets of expectations’ for various social positions. The concept of a role as a set of expectations can clearly result in many formulations of role conflict depending upon the position studied, the population involved and the range of expectations examined.⁹

Self-Role or Person-Role Conflict

The emphasis in the definition of self-role or person-role conflict is upon the individual performing the role rather than upon the context in which it is performed. Two major categories of self-role conflict may be distinguished; the first concerns incompatibilities between the expectations which an occupant may have for a role and the actual perceptions* which he has of the role. It is essentially conflict between the ideal and the actual. An individual may feel that a role, because of its complexity and the significance of its activity for the social system, should be highly regarded (characteristically—should be accorded professional status). His perception may be, that this is far from being the case and that the role is regarded as unimportant and commonplace. In this way, a potential role conflict situation¹⁰ is created for the individual, which may in this case show itself in what has been described as ‘status anxiety’ or ‘status insecurity’. It is clear that ideal-actual conflict is likely to be present in many roles, particularly where evaluation and reward of the role are being considered or when ideal and actual role performance are examined (Burnham 1964).

A second category of conflict, where the emphasis is upon the individual, concerns incompatibilities which may arise between the expectations held for a role by the individual or others and the personality dispositions of the role occupants. Getzels and Guba (1957) have pointed out, that role expectations and personality needs both have a quality of demand upon the person and these demands may be incompatible. In this case, ‘if the institutional demands (or it could be added—“role demands”) are contradictory to, or irrelevant to, the demands of personality, then the individual is presented with a conflict’.¹¹ So, for instance, a teacher with personality dispositions towards assertion and exhibition may face a conflict in a situation organised for ‘learning experiences’ where the emphasis is upon democratic group procedures and the self-effacement of the teacher. Similarly, roles which are essentially diffuse in obligation and intangible in results may precipitate problems for certain personality types.

Resolution of Role Conflict

Role occupants who are faced with role conflict situations which trouble them can naturally be expected to attempt some resolution of the conflict. The approach which an individual may adopt will depend upon the nature and intensity of the conflict, the situational setting and certain characteristics of the person.

Redefinition of the Situation

In this case, conflict acts as stimulus to the role occupant to attempt to change the situation in which he finds troubling incompatibilities. For instance, a teacher in conflict with the bureaucratic requirements of a school may seek formally to reduce the number of regulations or the amount of paper work. He may, in addition, stress the importance of professional autonomy and of individual discretionary powers and work to have these concepts ‘written in’ to the school’s procedure (he may of course informally ignore as many bureaucratic requirements as possible!). Similarly, teachers troubled by perceived lack of status for their profession or for their particular expertise (e.g. teacher of infants) may as a consequence engage in types of action designed to change this situation. Getzels (1963) has stressed that ‘certain types of conflict, like certain types of necessity, give rise to productive transformations’,¹² and it is clear that what may be described as positive reaction to conflict situations, provides the dynamic for much organisational and social change.

Adaptation to Incompatible Expectations

When a role occupant is faced with incompa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Approaches to the study of role conflict
• 2. The teacher and role conflict
• 3. Present perspectives
• 4. Perceptions and experiences
• 5. Diffuseness and conflict
• 6. Vulnerability and conflict
• 7. Commitment and conflict
• 8. Values and conflict
• 9. The head teachers
• 10. Conclusions and implications
• Appendices
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Indexes