ABSTRACT
The socio-educational context of teaching consistently influences teachers' opinion as to the benefits of homogeneous grouping. Surveys of teachers' attitudes towards homogeneous differentiation in the United States, Sweden, England, and Israel reveal an overall positive opinion of intra- and inter-class grouping, streaming and tracking. The controversy surrounding homogenization seems to be associated with the ideal-type distinction between "progressive" and "traditional" educational philosophies. The more hierarchical and abstract the subject, the stronger the teacher's support of homogeneous classes for that particular subject is expected to be, regardless of school affiliation. The school-type effect should be weaker for more hierarchical subjects, such as math, science and even languages, and stronger for the humanities and social sciences. Indeed subject-type effect was detected, but the consistency of the school-type effect revealed along the whole range of subjects leads us to hypothesize that the attitudinal differences found at the operative level reflect more basic differences.
