Description:
This research illustrates how pupil grouping within primary education influences their possibilities to achieve high education results. Paper aims to show how does pupils’ achievements and education interpretation are constructed and how such constructs are connected to teacher interpretation of pupils’ abilities. Analysis is concerned with micro interaction occurring in schools between teacher and pupil. Research is elaborated in interpretative perspective and based on theories of new sociology of education and grouping. To obtain information about questions analyzed several interviews with Latvian language and mathematics teachers were conducted. Afterwards several interviews were done with pupils whom interviewed teachers described as “good” or “bad”. To analyze empirical data Critical Discourse Analysis was applied. Results show that both pupils and teachers legitimize pupil grouping and groups is used to predict pupil performance. It’s also possible to conclude that pupils’ interpretation of education processes comes from interaction within school. Although there is a link between interaction and pupil’s achievements, teachers tend to explain pupil achievements through other factors.