Who Sets the Boundaries in the Classroom? Discipline, Authority, and the Roles of Teachers, Students, and Parents in Contemporary Primary Education

Abstract

Debates about school discipline are often organised around a false opposition between firm teacher control and democratic, student-centred education. This purposive conceptual integrative review reframes the problem by distinguishing authoritarian control, permissiveness, controlling structure, and autonomy-supportive structure. Targeted literature searches conducted during August-September 2026 drew on ERIC, PubMed, publisher and journal platforms, and backward/forward citation searching, with priority given to systematic reviews, meta-analyses, recent reviews, and primary- or elementary-specific evidence where available. The synthesis develops a Pedagogical Boundary Framework (PBF) for primary education comprising four analytically distinct but mutually conditioning dimensions: legitimate authority, predictable structure, student agency, and differentiated responsibility. Its distinctive contribution is to connect psychological evidence on structure and autonomy with institutional questions of jurisdiction, participation-rights scholarship, and family-school role differentiation. The framework further treats classroom regulation developmentally: adult regulation is progressively shared through co-regulation and self-regulation toward responsible autonomy, while recognising that higher risk, novelty, or task complexity can require renewed scaffolding. Empirical findings are distinguished from conceptual integrations and normative/institutional propositions. Culture, inclusion, and equity are treated as constitutive tests of boundary legitimacy rather than peripheral qualifications. Six researchable propositions and candidate indicators are proposed to support future empirical testing. The PBF is presented as a conceptual synthesis, not as a validated measurement model.