Inside Classrooms

How Contexts and Relationships Shape Learning and Teaching

This compelling book explores the dynamics of learning in school classrooms, drawing on over 30 years of large-scale educational research. Through extensive, naturalistic, and systematic observations of pupils and teachers, it challenges traditional explanations for learning differences.

This compelling book explores the dynamics of learning in school classrooms, drawing on over 30 years of large-scale educational research. Through extensive, naturalistic, and systematic observations of pupils and teachers, it challenges traditional explanations for learning differences, arguing that factors like motivation, sociological influences, parental involvement, and teacher effectiveness are insufficient because they overlook the immediate contextual and interactive processes that directly shape learning outcomes.

This book introduces a new eco-relational approach with three key dimensions. The first focuses on the immediate classroom context, including factors such as the layout, group organisation, and the types of tasks and interactional settings. The second examines the interactions and relationships within the classroom, both between teachers and students and among students themselves. The third dimension explores how these contextual and relational elements align – or fail to align – within the interconnected and dynamic classroom system. Organised into three sections, this book begins with an in-depth review of educational and psychological research and theory to show the importance of context in human development. The second section applies the eco-relational framework to findings from three of the author’s research programmes, covering class size effects, group organisation and group work, and the inclusion of pupils with SEND in mainstream schools. The final section outlines the eco-relational foundation for the SPRinG project, a unique programme designed to support collaborative group work in schools.

Inside Classrooms is an integration of research that offers a new approach to thinking about factors influencing learning. It is meant for academics and researchers but also teachers and school leaders, those involved in initial teacher training and professional development of teachers, policymakers and commentators, teacher representatives, and parents.

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