The Classroom as a Social Environment

In viewing the classroom as a social system, we are employing a conceptual framework within which relations can be observed and tested and reliable knowledge about teaching-learning behaviors might possibly be constructed. It is a model capable of bringing home to us the network of interrelationships of which the specific classroom forms a small but vital connecting link. We are forced to direct our attention to teacher-pupil and pupil-pupil interaction, and to the nature of the learning occurring for each member as a result of participation in the particular ongoing system.