Teacher–Students Classroom Relationship in Selected Secondary School Civics Classes, in Kinondoni Municipality, Tanzania

Democratic teacher–students classroom relationship is crucial in deploying participatory pedagogy in the classroom teaching and learning. This paper shares experience on how secondary school teachers relate with their students when teaching Civics lessons in the classroom. Specifically, it investigates whether Civics teacher–students classroom relationship reflects the recommended participatory pedagogy. A qualitative approach was used to collect and analyse data from participants in purposively selected case schools. Data were generated and collected using non-participant classroom observation, whereby, each sampled Civics teacher (CT) was repeatedly observed (at least three times in different days) teaching Civics lessons in his/her classroom. Concurrently, a sound tape recorder was used to record the teacher–students’ oral interactions. The findings indicate that although, the CTs–students’ relationship was characterised by both kinds of interactions, the positive interactions were dominant. This means that teacher–students classroom relationship was mainly characterised by positive interactions which also suggests that CTs largely demonstrated democratic relationship with their students consistent to participatory pedagogy recommended by the Civics syllabus. Key words: Civics teachers, negative interactions, positive interactions, participatory pedagogy, teacher–students classroom relationship. DOI : 10.7176/JEP/15-8-08 Publication date : July 30th 2024