Investigating dilemmas in teaching: towards a new form of pedagogical scholarship

This article investigates five dilemmas that emerge from analysis of a brief episode of classroom practice: issues concerning the design and management of the classroom discussion, the use of drama in teaching, teacher handling of pupil disturbances, and the advantages and drawbacks of competition. We argue that such dilemma-driven analysis is missing from current pedagogical scholarship, in which analyses tend to be theory-driven and narrower in their scope. Our aims are to (a) do justice to the richness and complexity of classroom activity and the work of teaching; (b) illustrate a means of working with representations of practice that is likely to facilitate the development of teacher professional judgment; and (c) uncover some of the central dilemmas experienced by Israeli primary teachers. The data are drawn from a sixth grade Hebrew language lesson in an Israeli state primary school.