Value-Based Authority and School Discipline: Understanding Students’ Perceptions in Secondary Education

The relationship between students and school authority in secondary education is no longer straightforward; it is marked by a striking tension between accepting the need for discipline and rejecting the traditional ways it is enforced. This paradox forms the starting point of the present study, which aims to understand how students perceive the legitimacy of school rules and how they distinguish between different forms of authority—particularly coercive authority versus value-based authority.Drawing on a field-based survey administered to secondary school students, the study reveals a central contradiction: although students acknowledge the importance of discipline in ensuring effective learning and maintaining a positive classroom climate, they clearly express dissatisfaction with authoritarian practices rooted in punishment, unexplained strictness, and the absence of communication. Open-ended responses further show that when discipline is associated with ambiguity or arbitrariness, it diminishes students’ motivation and undermines trust within the classroom.Conversely, the findings highlight a strong preference for a value-based model of authority—one grounded in fairness, respect, dialogue, clarity, and ethical role-modeling. Students place particular emphasis on improving human relationships and expanding educational activities as essential conditions for strengthening constructive discipline, reflecting their desire to be treated as active partners rather than passive recipients of control.The study concludes that enhancing school discipline cannot be achieved through stricter sanctions or the reproduction of traditional authoritarian models. Instead, it requires building value-based legitimacy, where rules are clear, just, and collectively shared. Understanding students’ perceptions, therefore, is not merely a diagnostic exercise but a strategic entry point for reforming classroom practices and reshaping the relationship between authority and learning within the Moroccan school context.