ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the processes by which teachers come to know their pupils. At the beginning of each school year teachers are faced with the problem of getting to know their new pupils. Pupils are also faced with the problem of getting to know their new teachers. Under all circumstances a teacher has somehow to put together all the various pieces of information that she has concerning a particular pupil, those that arise from her own interactions with the pupil and those that she obtains indirectly from others, into an over-all, coherent impression. This process of impression formation is at the heart of what social psychologists have come to refer to as person perception. During the early stages of the impression-formation process the teacher will be attempting to assess each pupil on those characteristics that are central to her definition of the ideal type.
