Specifics of Teachers’ Attitude to Students with Different Status in School Class

Abstract

The paper presents outcomes of an empirical research on general education teachers’ attitudes to students with different status in school class. The issue of teachers’ evaluation of middle status members of student groups was of special interest. The research involved a set of social psychological techniques: parametric sociometry, autosociometry, parametric reference measurement tool, autoreference measurement tool, a tool for measuring informal intragroup power structure in contact community, and G. Kelly’s Repertory Grid Technique (modification). The subjects were 126 teachers of 5—11 grades of Moscow schools, with work experience ranging from 3 to 38 years. As it was revealed, the teachers adequately perceive the status structure of the class; however, they tend to poorly differentiate the category of middle status students. The paper also discusses the features of the teachers’ emotional attitude to the students depending on the latter’s status in the student group.

Keywords

• teacher
• interpersonal significance
• status structure of relationships