Applying social psychology to the classroom

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511801921.007

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7 - Applying social psychology to the classroom

Pascal Huguet and

Hans Kuyper

Edited by

Linda Steg ,

Abraham P. Buunk and

Talib Rothengatter

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Pascal Huguet: Affiliation:
CNRS et Université de Provence, Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive
Hans Kuyper: Affiliation:
University of Groningen, Institute for Educational Research
Linda Steg: Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
Abraham P. Buunk: Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
Talib Rothengatter: Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands

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Summary

Introduction

The classroom is the core unit of our educational system. It also illustrates many common social-psychological concepts and phenomena. Whenever we bring groups of people together for the purpose of learning, we have the opportunity to apply social-psychological principles that will further our educational goals. Applying these principles to the classroom may help increase students' commitment to learning, make their attitudes towards school more positive, reduce their feeling of failure and related negative affects or emotions, improve their level of aspiration as well as their grades, and much more. Clearly, education is – at least in part – applied social psychology.

In the past three decades, more and more researchers contributed to bridging the gap between social psychology and education, resulting in the emergence of a new scientific area, the so-called ‘social psychology of education’, ‘educational social psychology’ or sometimes even ‘social educational psychology’. Is this area merely social psychology applied to a particular domain of interest? Or is it a subdiscipline of the field of education, looked at from the vantage point of the social psychologist? As noted by Feldman (1986), the most appropriate answer is that it represents an amalgamation of the two fields; it is not merely social psychology, nor is it simply education. Whatever it is called, this new area represents an interface of the two fields, which has produced a broad range of theories, research and data that speak to the interests of educators and psychologists.

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Type: Chapter
Information: Applied Social Psychology
Understanding and Managing Social Problems
, pp. 162 - 183

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511801921.007 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2008

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