O sytuacjach granicznych w nauczycielskiej codzienności. Przypadek podejmowania decyzji
On Boundary Situations in a Teacher’s Reality: The Case of Making Decisions

Summary/Abstract: RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The aim of the paper is to present boundary situations experienced by teachers in school everyday reality while making decisions relating to education.THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: In this text I focus on the issue: Which educational events that require taking decision do teachers give the meaning of boundary? Empirical data comes from focus interviews carried out with teachers and from an overview of existing data – teachers’ portfolios. In the analysis of this data I apply qualitative methods of text analysis.THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The paper opens with a short reconstruction of the notion of boundary situations and the theory of decisions, combined with each other in the process of education and upbringing. In the part describing the empirical studies I outline the categories of meanings unravelled during the data analysis as assigned by teachers to their experiencing of boundaries while making decisions regarding everyday work with students.RESEARCH RESULTS: In the case of decision taking, teachers experience such boundary situations: (1) oppressiveness of the school environment, generated by educational law, (2) adversities arising in social relations; (3) helplessness constructed at grassroots by the subject. These options are not separable, and the effects of experiencing them may have either a destructive impact on pedagogues or motivate them to develop professionally and to expand their autonomy. CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS: Experiencing boundaries in a teacher‘s job is as common as eliciting independent pedagogical self-reflection, which calls for: (1) realising the situation occurring as a boundary one; (2) devising an effective strategy of overcoming it; (3) undertaking a real action. Although it is risky, it is conducive to autonomic causality and transgression.

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