Tracing Trajectories of Teaching Practice: Developing and Applying the Typology for Teacher Power and Control

This chapter introduces the Typology for Teacher Power and Control (TTPC), a framework for analysing how power and control are enacted in teaching practices within innovative learning environments (ILEs). The purpose is to address a persistent analytical gap in research on student-centred learning, where communicative and cognitive dimensions have been emphasised while the material and spatial remain under-conceptualised. Grounded in Bernstein’s (Pedagogy, control and identity: theory, research, critique (Revised edition). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc, Lanham, 2000) theory of classification and framing, TTPC operationalises these concepts into observable indicators of classroom practice and extends them through sociomaterial perspectives. The chapter employs a convergent mixed-methods design, combining audio-recorded teacher–student communication with field documentation of spatial arrangements across ten Swedish ILE classrooms. The analysis illustrates how pedagogical relations of power and control fluctuate across lesson trajectories, revealing that spatial movement, material affordances, and communicative interactions jointly constitute teaching practice. The chapter positions TTPC as a bridge between educational sociology and sociomaterial theorising, offering a heuristic tool that renders the dynamic interplay of space, communication, and agency empirically traceable. In conclusion, TTPC advances analytical precision for studying enacted teaching practices and provide useful insights into understanding the distribution of power and control in ILEs, which can be used as a means for developing teachers’ spatial awareness and professional competence.