Fashion
and teaching seem to be completely incompatible notions. Well, not in GSE.
Women are always on heels with manicure, men are rather on skis with beards.
Frankly speaking, I was favorably impressed by the way the GSE academic staff
is dressed. Recently one of the classy professors started to grow a beard,
making the students wonder whether it is a new GSE trend or professional need.
I subscribed to the latter, before running against two contradicting volume
investigations on this topic, corresponding merely in quantitative method.
Rollman (1980) affirms that teacher attire explicitly affects the student
perceptions, which Gorham et al. (1999) challenge referring to greater affect
of the teacher’s behavior, neglecting the close connection between the teacher
behavior and attire.
Inspired
by the graduate student’s curiosity about the teacher attire affect on
students’ perceptions, Rollman (1980) conducted a quantitative research. It is
important to highlight that he was the first to investigate this topic in
educational context. Six photographs of teachers of different gender and
dressing style were used as an instrument. Hundred participants completed
five-point likert-scale questionnaires, which included ten personal
characteristics. The results showed that regardless the gender, the teacher attire
has considerable impact on student perceptions. By the same token Gorham et al.
(1999) conducted as many as three studies. Using the real teachers as
instruments, they considered external factors as gender and age of the teacher
along with dressing, during the lessons.
As
schoolchildren spend “13000 hours” staring at a teacher, the attire must be one
of the essential traits that influence the students, which is emphasized in
both studies (Lortie, 1975). Considering the different student perceptions
according to the gender of the teacher, which is disputed by Rollman (1980),
Gorham et al. (1999) urge that behavior is more important than dressing.
Obviously, it is important to consider gender, age and behaviour investigating
this topic. It is important to study though, the connection between the
behavior and attire, which is dismissed in the study by Gorham et al. (1999).
It might be difficult to ascribe negative characteristics to the person dressed
formally. On the other hand, the
research by Gorham et al. (1999) seems more reliable, as they use real teachers
instead of photographs, which added to the paper more data for analysis on
other impacts on student perception. One of such aspects is “optimal homophily”,
presented by McCroskey et al. (1974), but refuted by Gorham et al. (1999, p 285).
The former study implied that the similarity of teacher attire to students’
produces positive outcomes and perceptions.
Both
long standing studies, despite complications, show the importance of
appropriate teacher attire in formation of positive student perception. Mentioned
by Gorham et al. (1999), there should be a balance between formal and informal
dressing, considering other impacts. It might be useful to reconduct the
studies for confirmation of validity in present circumstances.
References
Gorham,
J., Cohen, S. & Morris, T. (1999). Fashion in the classroom III: Effects of instructor attire and
immediacy in natural classroom interactions. Communication Quarterly.
47(3). 281-299.
Lortie, D.
(1975) Schoolteacher: a sociological study, Chicago, IL, The University of
Chicago Press.
Rollman,
S. (1980). Some Effects of Teachers'
Styles of Dress. Paper presentei at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Speech
Communication Association. Birmingham, AL.
A very interesting post supported by research findings!
ReplyDeleteI agree that look and style of a teacher reflects students' perceptions of the teacher. As we also say "vstrechayut po odezhke - provozhayut po umu". Each day is a new meeting with students, and for sure, teacher's dressing or hair style might strongly affect his or her outcomes of the whole - day progress.
However, many Kazakhstani schools restrict creativity of teachers somehow and propose to dress in a standard way, and even some schools have uniforms for teachers. I think that there is no research done in Kazakhstan concerning this issue. It might come up that the results of research shall change standard image perceptions of teachers.
Frankly speaking I have not heard about the uniform for teachers. Thank you for your information. If there is any uniform for teachers, then it should be provided free of charge, considering the meagre salary of teachers.
DeleteI am glad you found the post interesting. Before this post, I did not know that there are investigations on sich interesting, though less important, topics. I completely agree with you about conducting the research regarding this topic in Kazakhstan, especially among the beginning teachers. Thank you Arailym!
As one of the bearded GSE faculty members, I support your favorable opinion of our collective style. Your topic, too, is one that many people may overlook, and you've done a nice job revising this post to be clear and direct. Nice job!
ReplyDelete