Two studies were done to operationalize the concept of social system boundaries as applied to teacher control in classrooms. In Study 1 a multiple choice Classroom Boundary Questionnaire (CBQ) was developed to measure teacher preference for boundary control. The 25 items were found to load primarily on one factor and to have adequate split-half reliability (corrected r = .85). In Study 2, observations in 32 4th through 6th grade classrooms found that observational measures of teacher boundary control behavior could be reliably recorded and were correlated with teachers' CBQ scores. Degree of boundary control preferred by the teacher on CBQ and the frequency of child-initiated boundary crossing events allowed in the classroom were negatively correlated (r = -.48, p < .01).
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