Chapter 8: Social Implications of Educational Grouping

Abstract

The problem of meeting the needs of diverse clients in a single organization is a persistent problem in many kinds of organizations. Organizations often respond to the problem of diversity by creating subgroups, and much of educational grouping can be seen from this perspective. The problem of student diversity presents a continual challenge to educators, and one of the main responses to student diversity has been to divide students into more homogeneous groups which will be easier to teach. Historically, the earliest form of grouping has been classrooms that are homogeneous in terms of years of schooling, and the "grade " structure of these schools is now widespread. However, as schools have grown to have more than one classroom per grade, further divisions have become possible. The two most common forms have been grouping by ability and grouping by curriculum. Although American education has had more than a half century of experience with ability grouping and curriculum grouping, we still have very mixed feelings about them. On the one hand, educators are acutely aware of the diversity of students, and they are continually concerned that a particular lesson may be too slow for some students and too fast for others in the same class. Educators expect that dividing classes by ability will reduce the I am grateful for the thorough editorial review and extensive suggestions by Robert Dreeben. I am also grateful for the many helpful comments of William Kessen, Edith MacMullen, Carl

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