Pleasing Yourself and Working for the Teacher: Children's Perceptions of School

Three hundred and eleven multi-cultural children were interviewed to explore how 4-9 year olds perceived and experienced their activities, roles, responsibilities and relationships with peers and teachers in school. The study explored children's conception of social and moral issues such as racism, sexism, violence, punishment, social justice and safety issues. The study was to assist educators and care-givers in their understanding of children's thinking in a rapidly changing world. More than 310,000 items of information were collected. This paper concentrates on children's views of schools, teachers, the curriculum, punishment and social justice.