ABSTRACT
Teachers are expected to judge a student solely on the basis of his or her academic performance. In practice, teachers prefer students who make their work easier and who help them get through their work. They also tend to presume that a 'good' student in terms of academic performance is also a 'good' student in terms of behaviour. Such 'good' behaviour is not randomly distributed throughout society. Research on the gender, class and race bias of teachers is inconclusive but seems to suggest that most teachers are not prejudiced against certain groups of students. Teachers not only sometimes judge people by societal criteria but also by educational criteria. In addition to teachers evaluating students there is also an evaluation of the teacher by students, parents, other teachers and inspectors. Teachers judge their colleagues in terms of their noise level in the classroom, examination results of students and in terms of the behaviour of their students after a lesson.
