Technology and Deviant Teacher-Student Interactions

The marriage of technology and education is complex and laced with features that are both desired and despised. Technology used in and out of the classroom is a useful apparatus for facilitating learning, enhancing teacher-student immediacy, and recruiting and retaining students. However, technology can also adversely affect the educational experience through compulsive smartphone use, reduced work ethics and subsequent grades, deindividuation, flaming, miscommunications, expectations of immediate and constant access, indecorous messages and posts, and a legion of classroom distractions. Housed in a clear recognition of technology's educational advantages, this chapter unveils the pedagogical deviance that can emerge from a technologically saturated classroom environment.

Teacher Deviant Communication and Behavior

Teachers occupy a powerful and influential position in the classroom. This power can be used effectively to inspire student learning, or it can be misused and abused, resulting in a non-supportive, tense, and unpleasant learning environment. Because teachers are not beyond violating their classroom power, this chapter considers teacher-initiated deviance by synthesizing and reflecting on the myriad of characteristics that encompass teachers misbehaving when interacting with students. Some topics that dominate the literature include misbehaviors, bullying, norm violations, compulsive communication, verbal aggression, swearing, anger, biases, classroom management, and cultural insensitivity. This chapter not only defines and explains some of the many ways teachers engage in deviant communication and behavior in the classroom, but it also addresses how the deviance is menacing to the teacher-student relationship and can serve as a catalyst for student misconduct.

Student Entitlement, Complaints, and Negative Perceptions

Perceptions are a fixture in the complex web of human interactions. The way individuals view each other is fluid, situationally dependent, consequential to relationship development and maintenance, and often walks a fine line between positive and negative extremities. This chapter examines students' unfavorable perceptions of teachers and course content. Many demographic features and variables can affect the way students perceive teachers, but race and gender are among the most salient and are, therefore, given detailed attention in this chapter. The chapter further pierces into the deviant behaviors of academic entitlement, nagging, nuisances, complaints, and offensive speech that infiltrate the teacher-student relationship. The pedagogical implications of student entitlement, complaints, and negative perceptions are also considered.

Student Resistance

Students are both producers and consumers of persuasion in the classroom. As message producers they enact compliance-seeking strategies to persuade teachers to comply with their requests, but as consumers of persuasion they receive requests from teachers that they may or may not follow. Students enact a variety of strategies to resist complying with teachers' requests, classroom norms, and school policies. This chapter explores the various motivators and consequences of students resisting compliance in the classroom and how these behaviors result in incivility, misbehaviors, annoyances, distractions, disrespect, and even student-to-teacher bullying. The chapter further considers the impact student resistance has on teacher-student interactions and the holistic learning experience.