ABSTRACT
This chapter begins a discussion of schools by an examination of what for both pupils and teachers is the overwhelming reality, classroom. It then looks first at the most frequently used perspective, that of interaction analysis, and then presents two alternative approaches, interpretive and radical. The labels are fairly arbitrary; within interaction analysis are grouped those theories which use various observation schedules to discover a most efficient method for classroom teaching; interpretive refers loosely to those studies which tend to avoid any pre-emptive categorization and radical theories attempt to relate the daily activity of classrooms to a material base. One of the most puzzling aspects of classrooms is their resistance to change. The chapter ends with two examples of attempts to relate the individual classroom to a wider social structure, an attempt which Parsons also made in 1961. The article in Halsey, Floud and Anderson which comes closest to the classroom is Parsons's 'The School Class as a Social System'.
