Cultivating the middle ground: teachers and school ethos

Rutter M. , Maugham B. , Mortimore P. , and Ouston J. ., Fifteen Thousand Hours (Open Books, London, 1979).

For example, Reynolds D. ., ‘When teachers and pupils refuse a truce’, in Mungham G. , and Pearson G. . (eds), Working Class Youth Culture (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1976), and Power, M., ‘Neighbourhood, school and juveniles before the courts’, British Journal of Criminology, 12 (1972).

The same point can be made of the host of psychological studies that have been made of classroom ‘climate’ or ‘atmosphere’. Valuable as some of these are in characterising elements of the phenomenon, they are unable to convey any sense of the dynamic process which, to us, constitutes the essence of any ethos. For a useful review of work in the area see Anderson C. S. ., ‘The search for school climate: a review of the research’, Review of Educational Research, 52 (1982).

Goffman E. . The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1971).

Acton T. A. ., ‘Educational criteria of success’, Educational Research, 22 (June 1980).

See Willis P. ., Learning to Labour (Saxon House, Farnborough, 1977), and Woods, P., The Divided School (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1979).

Woods P. ., ‘Negotiating the demands of schoolwork’, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 10 (1978).

Rose A. M. . (ed.), Human Behaviour and Social Processes (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1962).

Stubbs M. ., Language, Schools and Classrooms (Methuen, London, 1976).

Barnes D. , Britton J. , and Rosen H. ., Language, the Learner and the School (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1969).

Woods P. ., ‘The language of order’, in Haigh G. . (ed.), On our side (Temple-Smith, London, 1979).

Williams R. . Culture and Society (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1968).

Woods P. ., ‘Coping at school through humour’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 4 (1983).

Walker R. , and Adelman C. ., ‘Strawberries’, in Stubbs M. , and Delamont S. . (eds.), Explorations in Classroom Observation (John Wiley, London, 1976).

Goffman E. . Encounters (Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1961).

See, for example, Blackie P. ., ‘Not quite proper’, in Reedy S. , and Woodhead M. . (eds.), Family, Education and Work (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1980); and Bethell, A., ‘Getting away from it all’, Times Educational Supplement (21 March 1980).

Measor L. ., ‘Gender and science’, in Hammersley M. , and Hargreaves A. . (eds), The Sociology of Curriculum Practice (Falmer Press, Brighton, 1983).

Mannheim K. ., ‘The problem of generations’, in Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1952).

See Hamblin D. H. ., The Teacher and Pastoral Care (Blackwell, Oxford, 1978).