It is crucial, here, that children see the wisdom of identifying more with
their classmates as a group, than with only a small faction, selected because
they belong to the same ethnic or class category. At the same time, this
should not mean the dissolution or devaluation of such categories in the
classroom; rather, the sense of the class as an important collectivity which
can be identified with in its own right should become more salient. As well, a
useful strategy would be to emphasize that teacher and pupils belong to the
same social group, for educational purposes, in the school context (see
Brown and Turner, 1981; Sherif, 1967; Turner, 1981). Such a collectivity
could then take its place among other relevant groups and could assist,
through inter-group comparison, in the development of more accurate,
favourable, and therefore healthy social identities.