ABSTRACT
This chapter explores social relationships between children within the classroom. It shows the children of other groups, particularly white children, would use aspects of the exchanges between the teacher and the Asian child that referred to perceived personal deficiencies to tease and taunt their Asian classmates. The chapter focuses on the vast majority of teachers seemed committed to the ideals of equality of educational opportunity. It examines the pattern of classroom interaction experienced by both Afro-Caribbean and Asian children. Peter Green used the Flanders interaction analysis schedule to record systematically the interaction of white teachers with mixed pupil groups of 'West Indian', 'Asian' and 'European' pupils. Black and ethnic minority carers in the nursery unit at Bridgeway School also expressed concern about the attitudes of white colleagues towards Afro-Caribbean boys in particular. Children attending 'slum' schools were considered to present the greatest problems for teachers in terms of teaching itself, classroom discipline and 'moral acceptability'.
