ABSTRACT
Since the seminal work of David Hargreaves in 1972 there have been many studies of teachers and pupils which have used the interpretive approach. This chapter examines Sharp and Green's study of a progressive primary school. The study seems to be an attempt, at one level, to explain why the school fails to implement the child-centred, individualised learning approach to education that it advocates. Sharp and Green note certain 'ambivalences' in the head's account. There is the problem of the need to teach literacy and numeracy contrasted with the desire to look to the welfare of the child as the first aim. Sharp and Green adopt a somewhat different approach to understanding the way that teachers come to have categories of pupils. There is some evidence that stereotypical knowledge does have an impact on the way that pupils are understood.
