ABSTRACT
This chapter sets out to examine how mixed ability teaching operates in the humanities. It does so through a series of case studies of lessons given by teachers nominated by experienced teacher-trainers as effective in handling mixed ability classes. Whole-class teaching may be used throughout a mixed ability lesson. Even where it is combined with other teaching modes it is commonly used to enable a teacher to begin and end lessons tidily and with the attention of the whole class. Studies of classroom lessons and interviews with the teachers who teach them may tell us something of the way in which mixed ability grouping can be used in schools. Underlying some of the more successful teaching of individual lessons is, however, a substratum of planning which takes place at departmental level. There can be little doubt that mixed ability teaching functions more effectively in some subject areas within the broad field of humanities than it does in others.
