Students’ categorization: a study on the internal structure of teachers’ cognitions about students

Abstract

This paper suggests a study on the internal structure of teachers’ cognitions about students using two methods of students’ categorization: the first one uses description of typical students and the second a student grouping task. Data gathered through the participation of nine Geneva elementary school teachers and analyzed in the light of theories about the structure of cognitions shows that teachers’ knowledge about students adopt a clusterized shape comprising prototypes and peripheral elements. As students’ association to a cluster isn’t always clear-cut, we converge with Green’s (1971) theory that the boundaries between student categories are permeable.