“Being Nice” as Modus Vivendi in Classrooms: A Collective Behavior Approach to Deviant Behavior in Primary Schools

Abstract

This study of first-year primary school draws on Goffman's concept of “collective behavior” to examine how order is established and disrupted through the mutual adjustment of all participants' actions. We employed a multi-method longitudinal design, using semi-standardized observations and qualitative interviews with teachers and children at three points during the year. We found that children contribute to the social order of the classroom by “being nice,” which means being recognizably willing and ready to acknowledge and respond to teachers' expectations and respect their authority. Meanwhile, rule-breaking is frequent and inevitable, and teachers accept this when children are obviously “nice.” It is only when this “being nice” prerequisite is no longer met that teachers identify a disruptive child as being outside the norm and the child may then become a “case.”.