Introduction

This chapter discusses those studies which have tried to get to grips with the inter-related opinions, attitudes, feelings and actions of teachers and pupils in the classroom. It looks at the perceptions teachers and pupils have of each other, the impact of classroom organisation on patterns of interaction, the effect of teachers’ ‘expectations’ on pupils’ performance and so on. There are people who have always appreciated that teaching is not just a matter of filling empty heads with facts. They have understood that teaching is vitally concerned with personal relationships. Relationships between teachers and teachers, teachers and pupils, and pupils and pupils. The teacher is adult, in charge, and trained to instruct her pupils in a number of valued skills. The pupils are children, under authority, and directed to learn whatever they are given.