ABSTRACT
The unconscious slips which lead pupils to call their mothers ‘Miss’ or their teachers ‘Mum’ show clearly that teachers occupy an emotional space left by their parents. The issue is what happens in that space and why being emotionally ‘in loco parentis’ is important for understanding how schools contribute to the social construction of gender. From an object relations perspective mistakes will be made in all directions, pupils may confuse teachers with parents and vice versa, teachers may confuse pupils with their own children, if they have them, or with themselves as children and other teachers with memories of their own parents or teachers because all relationships are to some degree conditioned by earlier ones. But in teaching this slippage has more resonance or significance because the parallels are more overt and at root, if the quality of the teaching depends on the quality of the relationship, these mutual confusions lie at the heart of the teaching process.
