Chapter 10 Teachers Supervising Teaching Assistants: Assigned Role or Discretionary Behaviour? Reflections from the United Kingdom

Abstract

This chapter examines the teacher's role as supervisor of support staff (Teaching Assistants (TAs) in the UK, school paraprofessionals in the US) – a role for which there is typically little administrative or infrastructural support. Working from a UK perspective, the chapter draws on research from the UK and the US to address questions pertinent to the education systems of all countries which employ paraprofessionals: What types of behaviours do conscientious teachers engage in to provide effective supervision to paraprofessionals? How do paraprofessionals view the supervisory behaviours of their supervising teachers? Given the important role of paraprofessionals, the high levels of expertise required by their assigned roles, and the uneven provision for their professional development, the chapter also makes recommendations for building the teacher's supervisory role into the infrastructure of schools, rather than relying on its emergence as a discretionary behaviour.

Citation

Morgan, J. and Ashbaker, B.Y. (2012), "Chapter 10 Teachers Supervising Teaching Assistants: Assigned Role or Discretionary Behaviour? Reflections from the United Kingdom", Duyar, I. and Normore, A.H. (Ed.) Discretionary Behavior and Performance in Educational Organizations: The Missing Link in Educational Leadership and Management (Advances in Educational Administration, Vol. 13), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 249-274. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3660(2012)0000013015