Do Teachers Discriminate? Reactions to Pupil Behaviour in Four Comprehensive Schools

The popular consensus in the field of education is that teachers consciously or unconsciously discriminate against pupils on the basis of social class, ethnicity and sex. However, in exploring the extent of bias in teachers' perceptions and treatment of pupils from different social groups, few studies have satisfactorily taken into account variation in pupils' conduct. More specifically, the research in this area has frequently failed to demonstrate whether teachers respond to some pupils more than others because of their social attributes or because of their behaviour. In this paper multivariate techniques were used to address this problem. The results of the analysis showed little evidence of social class or racial discrimination by teachers. It was, however, apparent that girls were significantly less likely to be punished than boys after differences in behaviour had been taken into account.