ABSTRACT
This chapter describes studies using B. J. Fraser’s ‘My Class Inventory’ (MCI) on an ‘opportunity’ basis in France and Lithuania following initial use in the UK. The MCI enables social interaction in a classroom to be explored through the perceptions of the participants, the teachers and the pupils. UK primary schools have prided themselves for many years on the quality of their teacher-pupil relationships and the creation of learning environments. The accent has been on the creation of situations within which pupils can learn through experience as much as through teaching. The teachers and pupils agree on the existing characteristics of the lower school and on the direction that any changes should take. It is only on Difficulty that the main difference in perception occurs. The pupils believe that the work they are given is more difficult than do the teachers.
