Schools' legitimation as institutions can no longer be explained by the distribution of knowledge, but by the way knowledge is distributed.Aspects of classroom management and discipline is more and more getting into focus of educational research and teacher education. In many countries two ways of organizing teachers' work exist: class teacher on the one hand and subject teachers on the other. Even though this is a common phenomenon, the existing research literature on the subject is very limited.
In this paper it will be analysed and discussedto what extentclass teachers' and subject teachers' classroom management and communication strategies differ. This paper's empirical data consists of classroom observations following two class teachers and two subject teachers in southern Germany. All teachers work at lower secondary types of schools where either subject teachers or class teachers dominate. The two professions have different educational and historic backgrounds, e. g. subject teachers have a long tradition of academic education, stemming from a grammar school tradition. Class teachers only recently became part ofuniversitary education and go back to an elementary school tradition.
The amount of empirical data in this study is limited and must therefore be seen as exploratory and as starting point for further, more extensive research.The analytical approach in this study is based on a model forconstructing empirically founded, multidimensional typologies which answers to the study's mentioned shortcomings in empirical data and theoretical preconceptions(Kelle & Kluge, 2010). This model implements both inductive and deductive elements and permits theorizing based on relatively limited amount of empirical data. Aspects of subject respectively class teachers' role in the class, their relations to subject, profession and pupils as it appears in everyday classroom work will be analyzed.