The main objective of this paper is to examine the nature of the grounds on which teachers rely to justify their activities and decisions in the classroom in order to gain an insight into the epistemology of teaching practice. Historically the foundational system of justification has dominated epistemological studies in philosophy. According to Goor, Heyting, and Vreeke (2004), the foundationalist model of justification arranges assertions in a hierarchical structure whereby a group of grounds or foundations are considered to be self-justificatory because of their special epistemological superiority. The application of the foundational system of justification in theoretical or what I call paradigmatic knowledge is widely acknowledged. By contrast, in practical domains like teaching, teachers’ activities may not be justified based on foundational or universal grounds. However, it is argued that teachers’ practices and their supporting beliefs and knowledge still need to be justified: teachers should reasonably show that they are not in “error” (e.g., Fenstermacher, 1994; Feiman-Nemser & Floden,1986 ).To act and reflect on teaching activities with “good” reasons and justifications help teachers step in a normative (i.e., what ought to do) direction, and thus develop their practice. Epistemological studies in the teaching practice do not, however, follow the same criteria and procedures as those of propositional knowledge. In other words, the concept of “true justified belief” may not be applied to the teaching practice. Boyles (2006) has argued that epistemological studies in education with regard to classroom practice are rare because epistemology has come to be seen from a traditional point of view that focuses on “true knowledge.” Drawing on Dewey, Boyles has pointed out that traditional definition of epistemology should be replaced by the new version of epistemology namely “warranted assertibility”. According to this perspective, “warranted assertions merge truth and inquiry together in such a way that correspondence to an external world is no longer point. The point, instead, is the interdependency of truths and the process of inquiry: the temporal satisfaction of the solved problems in a world that is not set apart from the knower’s use(s) of the world or place(s)” (p. 61). This view is based on “perspectivesm”, according to which all knowledge is essentially perspectival in character, and thus “knowers can never view the reality directly as it is in itself; rather they approach it from their own slant, with their own assumptions and preconceptions” (Fay, 1996, p. 72).

In this study, the data were gathered via semi-structured and stimulated recall interviews (Calderhead 1996) with six class teachers from two schools in Helsinki over two successive academic years. The main reason to prolong the data collection procedure was to be able rely as much as possible on teachers’ perceptions and understanding of researched phenomenon. This indicates that the main research strategy was “phenomenography.” This strategy studies the individuals’ understanding, perceptions and conceptualizations of the world around them (Marten). Interviews were transcribed verbatim, and analyzed through an inductive procedure. The result was development a system of categories and subcategories regarding to the justification system in teaching practice.

The findings showed that teachers used a contextual system of justification, including professional context, situational context, and personal context to support their educational activities. Professional context refers to the fact that teaching is bound up with pedagogical obligation. In this case, teachers frequently relied on the “pedagogical character” of teaching as representing a particular context in which they needed to provide a sound teaching-studying-learning environment: teachers may maintain that they believe in or do something because it is based on their pedagogical obligations and because it enriches the learning environment in a way that students can learn better and teachers can act more effectively. Two inclusive categories of professional context were initiating and preventing pedagogies. The situational context was the second set of grounds on which teachers relied to warrant their actions. From this point of view, each particular classroom is a context and the practice of teaching is based on the situatedness of events in that classroom. Various interventions (e.g., learners’ characteristics) influence teachers’ actions in each particular classroom, and these interventions call for situatedness of different classrooms. The other contextual ground was the personal context whereby teachers justified their actions according to personal experiences and personal views.