ABSTRACT
This chapter tells a story of how, starting with the ORACLE (Observational Research and Classroom Learning Evaluation) Project which took place during the period 1975-80 studies of classroom practice at the University of Leicester have increasingly focused on the problems associated with the interaction of pupils and teachers within collaborative settings. There are parallels here with Bennett’s (1985) admission of moving towards the same focus over the same period. Whereas, however, Bennett and his research team have focused primarily on cognitive aspects of the interactions and the context under which these interactions become more effective, researchers at Leicester have increasingly turned their attention on the way in which pupils within collaborative settings create their social identity and how this affects the learning process. In this we are supported by other researchers such as Burns (1989) who queries the fact that the third edition of the Handbook of Research on Teaching (Wittrock 1986), for example, ‘contains no entry in the appendix for key constructs within the socio-emotional reflective dimensions such as self-esteem and self-concept’. Burns (1989:28) argues that:
Teachers (and children) are not merely factors in the system or passive agents in an instructional process. Teachers (and children) adjust to the social environment of a classroom in much the same ways as they adjust to the social environment outside the classroom. They display the same modes of coping, the same strengths and the same weaknesses.
