ABSTRACT
When starting school young children enter an environment very different from anything which they have previously known. King (1978) described infant classrooms as an ‘educational casbah’ full of a rich variety of furniture, displays, materials, games, etc. These rooms are constantly changing spheres of activity, reflecting not only the children’s work but also the aspirations and ideals of the teachers’ ideologies. In addition, classrooms can be seen as communities where roles and rules become defined and social groups are formed and maintained, challenged and reformed. In this chapter I will argue that children’s academic performance in school is closely related to their competence within the social organization of the classroom.
