The focus of this study was to examine the practice of flexible grouping as a classroom
management strategy. The results revealed that, at the classroom level, the teachers used various
grouping practices as part of their classroom management strategies. The teachers organized their
instruction both in a whole-class setting and in small groups. The teachers used various permanent
and temporary groupings to individualize teaching both academically and according to pupils’
social behaviour. On the one hand, this gave the more active pupils a chance to move and talk
while they worked, without the quiet ones being disturbed. On the other hand, for all the pupils,
through the use of heterogeneous small groups and whole-class lessons, the social aims of
schooling were accentuated. Thus, the way the teachers used groupings in their classroom
reflected the two aspects of schooling: the social and the academic. This practice differed from the
traditional model of classroom management.
As categorization at the school system level, group
© 2011