The impact of elementary children's school roles and sex roles on teacher attitudes: An interactional analysis

ABSTRACT. In this paper, teachers ' attitudes toward children are examined from the perspective of role theory. Based on existing analyses of the school as a social system, three school roles for children are formulated: Pupil, receptive learner, and active learner. Their relationship to the hidden and academic curricula of the school is discussed. The extant literature in three major areas of research on teacher attitudes is analyzed in terms of their interactions with each of the three children's school roles and with children's sex roles. The implications of these interactions for the differential educational experiences of boys and girls are considered. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research. Teachers ' attitudes towards the children in their classrooms have been the focus of critical attention dating back to Wickman's pioneering study in 1928. It has been argued that teachers ' attitudes are strongly influenced by the degree to which children conform to teachers ' perceptions of acceptable student attributes, and that interactions between these expectations and such child characteristics as sex, academic behaviors and interpersonal behaviors make for important differences i