THE SOCIAL CONTEXT AS 17
changed. You can’t be verbally abusive to pupils or you can’t be physically
abusive to them either, whereas, in the past you have been able to.
It appears that the cultural norms of the teacher-student relationship can both promote
and inhibit adaptive motivational climates. From Bruce’s perspective, they inhibit the use of
bullying; but on the other hand, Hayley believes it de-emphasizes social interaction between
teachers and students. The picture is further distorted by cultural norms impacting upon
individual teachers differently. For example, the diminished emphasis on social interaction
with students provides conflict for Hayley but is embraced by Karen. This implies that the
exploration of how the culture affects individual teachers’ lived experiences should not be
sacrificed to pursue questions that deal with how cultural norms impact upon teachers in
general. Rather, both research avenues will provide us with different, but equally important
information.
Time Constraints
Teachers in the present study highlighted that perceived time constraints were a
consistent barrier to promoting adaptive motivational climates. As Simon succinctly puts it,
“there's just not enough time ever to get everything in and get all the kids to understand it”.
This neglect of students who may take more time to understand tasks is in line with Ames’
(1992) concept of an ego-oriented climate that emphasizes normative comparison and
exacerbates differences in ability levels. Gary also indicated that the lack of time in PE
lessons helped create an ego-oriented climate:
Sometimes if you've only got a short period of time to do a particular topic
you do have to start pushing through things, but I'd like to keep going until the
students actually get what we're doing in class.
As well as encouraging ego-oriented motivational climates, the lack of time also
prevented the support of students’ autonomy, as Bruce described: