ABSTRACT
Discipline is of interest to a social psychologist because it is an interpersonal concept. Discipline refers to a set of rules or norms, specifying acceptable forms of classroom conduct, which is either imposed by teachers on pupils or agreed between them. A preferable approach would be to treat the establishment and maintenance of discipline as a dynamic interpersonal process. Because in many respects schools and classrooms are like society in miniature, such an approach raises the many problems that are involved with any variety of deviant behaviour—crime, delinquency, mental illness, homosexuality and drug addiction. In attempting to analyse the disciplinary skills of teachers we have soon found ourselves compelled to make value judgments—to distinguish the 'good' from the 'bad' methods of achieving and maintaining order and discipline in the classroom. Educationists not infrequently tell their students that there is no discipline problem if the teacher's lessons interest the children.
