The Social Psychology of the Classroom

Elisha Babad

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780415882590
• eBook ISBN: 9781135212674
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Classroom Management

Teachers often find that their training has not provided them with sufficient knowledge and understanding about underlying social forces and processes in their classrooms. This new book addresses this gap by focusing on the social psychology of the classroom, providing the relevant social psychological knowledge and facilitating the application of

Part I
The Social Psychology of the Classroom

1
The Classroom as a Social Environment

INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS: VIEWING THE CLASSROOM, TEACHERS AND STUDENTS FROM A SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

School is a central societal institution. Its major purposes are “to teach” and “to educate” the young generation and to prepare students for good and effective “citizenship.” Teachers have a dual role as instructors (teaching students, developing their intellectual capacities and leading them to academic achievements) and as socializers (developing students’ values and social selves, their cultural level and social conduct). This book is focused on the social psychology of the classroom. It is intended to help teachers to better understand social psychological forces operating in the classroom, to be aware of implicit and hidden psychological aspects in teacher–student interaction, and to improve their classroom management. For teachers to be competent managers and effective agents of socialization, they must be attuned to the social forces in the classroom society, to have sufficient knowledge in the relevant domains of social psychology, and to have skills for managing the classroom society and for educating and changing students. In short, the main purpose of this book is to turn its readers (experienced teachers, teacher education students, school administrators and students of education and the social sciences) into budding social/educational psychologists.

Going to school is the child’s most central formative experience of living in a society and becoming a “citizen.” Beyond the social framework of the family, the school and the classroom are the central “societal experiences” throughout childhood and adolescence. Children learn to understand society and how to live in it, what is required of them as citizens, and what are the difficulties that they must cope with to become effective in the social environment. The social self of the individual child is formed through the social experiences in the classroom society. In school children acquire the basic social insights and modes of social behavior. These experiences influence students’ self-concept and self-esteem, motivational patterns and eventually the formation of one’s attitudes, values and world perspective. The social processes act as moderating factors which influence the other primary objective of schooling; namely learning and achievement.

The instructional and academic parts of the teacher’s job are often overemphasized at the expense of the social aspects. This characterizes numerous teacher education programs, and many teachers complain that their knowledge in the psychology of the classroom is too limited, especially practical considerations how they could apply psychological knowledge in managing their classrooms. When something goes wrong in the classroom (problems in maintaining discipline, conflicts among sub-groups, inexplicably low achievement, negative classroom climate and especially disruption caused by problematic students) some teachers turn immediately to outside experts (e.g., school psychologists, counselors) for help. Quite frequently, the advice of the outside expert would concentrate on social psychological forces in the classroom and on the teacher’s strategy of classroom management. The experts would provide consultation how the teacher could modify her/his own conduct in the classroom.

THE CLASSROOM AS “SOCIETY”

The classroom is a mini-society. It has a defined structure and formal goals, it has a “ruler” of legitimate authority and “citizens” who enact their roles and interact with each other and who must “work” toward attaining given goals. Students’ membership in this society is coercive rather than voluntary, and this society is non-democratic. (Some types of collaborative classrooms provide students with more decision-making power, but classrooms are nevertheless non-democratic by their inherent nature). Students are continuously required to invest great efforts in activities that are not necessarily to their liking, to follow a rather strict set of rules and adjust to them. Rebellion is not tolerated and might lead to severe punishment. Students must accommodate to school, and they would achieve positive products only if they work very hard according to the rules. The teacher is the powerful leader who can reward or withhold rewards, and teachers can often be quite arbitrary. For many students, their “citizenship” in the classroom “society” is not a very pleasant experience.

I know that the above description is blunt, and the social nature of the classroom society could have been (and often is) described in a more positive manner. But I think that it is important to recognize from the onset that involuntary participation and continuous coercion are the foundations of school culture. From this basic definition, teachers and school administrators can search for means of creating a positive learning atmosphere and for making the school experience as enjoyable and satisfactory as possible for students.

Beyond the universal pre-determined formal structure, each classroom has an informal structure that unfolds and develops through the interactions between students and teachers: Explicit and implicit norms are formed; complex processes of social influence take place; leadership, social classes and roles emerge; and continuous struggles for popularity, prestige and power take place in every classroom. The group dynamics of the classroom influences each individual student (in status, expectations, self-image, social behavior and eventual achievement) as well as the atmosphere and social-emotional climate of the entire classroom (cohesion, cooperation and competition, conflict, tension, social support, etc.).

NORMS, RULES AND EXPECTATIONS

Social norms are behavioral standards, fixed sets of unwritten rules controlling social behavior of group members in defined circumstances. They are the specific reflections of the group’s values, goals, and underlying culture. Norms are formed and maintained through group, rather than individual processes, but they determine and control individuals’ behavior, so that social behavior in the group becomes predictable. Norms represent consensual joint expectations concerning appropriate and inappropriate behavior. Although most norms are implicit and hidden, individual members are well aware of them and of the potential consequences of violating them. Psychologically, norms are very functional both for individual members and for the group as an entity. For the individual, norms make it possible to know what is appropriate, reduce ambiguity and increase self-confidence. For the group, norms contribute to the maintenance of group uniformity and social order.

Norms are quite amazing as social mechanisms because they are usually implicit and hidden, and yet all members know the norms with no need to talk about them explicitly at all. An important part of normal social adjustment is the ability to quickly infer about norms of appropriate and inappropriate behavior in every social situation without focused learning. Students with salient social disabilities such as autism and the Asperger Syndrome (see Chapter 13) indeed lack the ability to infer underlying norms, and therefore they very often act inappropriately. I tell my students on their first day in the university that it is amazing how they know exactly how to dress, how to behave, what to do and what not to do in their first class session, although the university experience is totally new to them. Norms differ from rules and procedural directives in that they are implicit and undefined, whereas rules are delivered in explicit and exact terms, and some authority figure inspects that the rules are indeed followed. Norms prescribe differential behavior in different contexts—in the classroom versus the yard at break; during school ceremonies versus regular classroom discussion; in one instructional situation compared to another, etc.

A known activity in group workshops is “the fishbowl exercise,” where a random group of participants is asked to discuss a given issue and to reach a consensual decision. Other participants observe the discussants from outside the circle, and the group process is subsequently analyzed by all. It is always amazing to observe how quickly and without any explicit negotiation the norms are formulated—the group “decides” without words whether it would be cooperative or competitive, whether individuals would be allowed to take control, whether the atmosphere would be tense or relaxed, how roles would be divided and how the decision would be reached. Sometimes an implicit struggle over norm-formation might be observed, but it is always amazing how quickly a random group settles on its set of norms without really talking about it at all.

Types of Norms

Types of norms and distinctions between them should be recognized. The most important distinction is between norms reflecting values and norms intended for the management of the routine life in the group. Of course many norms belong concurrently in both categories, such as not to touch another child’s property or not to hit another child. The purpose of norms for maintenance of routine life in the classroom is to enable effective academic work and learning. Many of those norms are dictated by the school authorities—often in the form of rules and procedural directives which are subsequently translated into more specific behavioral norms. Other norms derive from the children’s group—how to manage interpersonal relations, kinds of speech and forms of violence allowed and disallowed, relationships between boys and girls, and also norms on how to interact with teachers and with school authorities.

Behavioral norms reflecting values are of high educational significance. They “translate” a general value—such as cooperation or respect for other people—into specific behavioral requirements. Examples might include norms such as waiting until the other person has finished speaking and taking turns, or not mocking others publicly—all for the value of respect; or training children to share toys or solve problems together for the value of cooperation. The educational literature on norms emphasizes the importance of value-reflecting norms. However, it must be remembered that the existence of normative behavior is not necessarily proof that the person holds the value and internalized it. For example, many men open doors for women and let them pass first, but they do not necessarily respect women inherently. Sometimes the behavioral expression—especially if enacted in an exaggerated fashion—is a mask hiding the absence of the relevant value!

Beyond these major distinctions: (a) between norms for management of routine life and norms reflecting values, and (b) between norms formed (or influenced) by external authority and norms formed naturally within the group—several other characteristics of norms and distinctions among norms should be mentioned:

• Some norms are formal and explicit, whereas other norms are more informal, implicit and hidden;

• Some norms are fixed, static and consensually accepted, whereas other norms are more dynamic and flexible, often the focus of struggle within the group;

• Some norms are “strong” and others are “weak” in terms of the required conformity and expected sanctions for violation.

Normative Change

Chapter 16 presents several strategies for psychological change, and one of them is the normative strategy. That strategy is based on the idea that, if the normative environment is changed, a deeper change in participants’ attitudes and values might follow, because people’s views tend to follow their behavior and to be consonant with their conduct. If “our classroom” is (normatively) known to be well behaved, or always punctual, or has a reputation of hard workers, there is a good chance that these norms would be internalized and “owned” by the students. Teachers also know that appointing a disruptive student to an officially responsible role in the classroom often changes the child’s conduct and attitude considerably.

Therefore, the educational literature sees norm development and norm changing as important components of the teacher’s educational role. An Internet search for “classroom norms” yields hundreds of sites that include lists of specific norms and intervention programs for norm setting and norm changing. In this chapter, the initial concern is that teachers would become aware of their classrooms’ norms and would be able to analyze these norms in order to understand the underlying culture of the classroom. Further down the line, teachers might become involved in planned interventions to set and modify classroom norms.

CONFORMITY

The social psychological concept that complements norms is “conformity”—the degree to which norms are kept obediently by group participants. Group members usually vary in the extent to which they follow the norms, but in order to maintain social order, groups must apply pressure for conformity, punishing violators of group norms. Conformity to normative pressure can derive from real conviction in their value (through internalization, identification and attitude change), but might also be caused by the individual’s need “to fit” in the group and to avoid social pressure, rejection, punishment and sometimes even excommunication. Thus, to maintain social order norms must be kept, and groups (even democratic and voluntary groups) must demand conformity.

Readers might have felt uneasy reading the above paragraph about the importance of conformity, because conformity is viewed negatively in modern Western society, and non-conformists are appreciated and viewed more positively than conformists. To be labeled “conformist” is quite an insult! To clarify the issue, I must emphasize the conceptual difference between two different varieties of non-conformism: One is “independence,” where one’s behavior is independent and cannot be predicted at all from the existing norms; the other is “counter-formism,” where one’s behavior can be predicted from the norms, because one always acts exactly in opposite of the norm! Many people who pride themselves as being independent non-conformists are actually quite predictable counter-formists. Many of the...

Table of contents

• Routledge Research in Education
• Contents
• Preface
• Part I The Social Psychology of the Classroom
• Part II Social Measurement in the Classroom
• Part III Teacher-Student Interaction and Teacher Expectancy Effects
• Part IV Classroom Management
• Part V Nonverbal Behavior in the Classroom
• Part VI Educating and Changing Students
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index