Teachers' Disempowering Practices in School Setting

The purpose of the study was to explore the common disempowering practices among teachers, their effects to the students’ academic performance and emotional well-being, and the suggestions to mitigate disempowering practices. The research used a qualitative design and the data were gathered through an interview with six teachers and six students from a public and private schools. The data were analyzed using a thematic analysis using Creswell’s Framework for Analyzing Qualitative Data. The research study revealed the common disempowering practices in school identified by both students and teachers which include: restrictive communication rules, appearance-related regulations, public shaming, no cellphone policy, seating arrangements, and unfair grading. These practices were found to reduce students’ motivation, decline academic performance, and negatively impact students’ emotional well-being, resulting to anxiety, trauma, loss of self-esteem, and feelings of isolation. In order to mitigate these impacts, students and teachers suggested improving fairness, empathy, open communication, opportunities for self-expression, training, and respect to boundaries. The study emphasizes that adapting a more flexible and supportive teaching strategies, instead of controlling and restrictive practices, could not only improve students’ academic performance but also nurture their confidence and motivation to learn