Authority Without Authoritarianism

Discussions of authority in education often begin with a diagnosis of a crisis of authority. This theoretical paper instead asks under what conditions parental and teacher influence becomes legitimate in the eyes of young people. Drawing on research published no later than 2011, the paper examines the distinction between formal power, obedience, relational credibility, procedural justice and developmental autonomy. It proposes six dimensions of reflective authority: competence, consistency, procedural fairness, relational respect, responsible firmness and orientation toward autonomy. The model is an interpretive conceptual synthesis, not a validated measurement instrument, and the paper does not report original empirical data or a systematic literature review. The present edition is a scholarly reconstruction of a student manuscript originally prepared in 2012; its first public release is planned for 2026.

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DOI URL: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23357877