ABSTRACT
The Sheffield psychology department was a tiny place specializing in experimental psychology. The school was very large with ten classes in each year, streamed for ability. School exclusion was a casual, committeeless affair. Primary schools were also supposed to be part of the new educational zeitgeist. The school had a number of children who disappeared for part of the summer term when their families decamped to the hop fields. The village school was relatively peaceful and very boring. The headmistress was another disciplinarian who had incorporated humiliation into her teaching repertoire. The schools were located in very poor districts of London where a sizeable number of the children and their families had the kind of complex multidimensional problems that were all too familiar to any inner-city teacher. The relationship between teachers and pupils is rarely collegial or mutually respectful, but almost always punitive.
