CLASS INTERACTIONS AND SUCCESS AT SCHOOL - AN ANALYSIS COMPARING BOYSAND GIRLS

The subject of this article is to account for the differences between boys and girls as regards success at school based on the analysis of c lass interaction. The theory used to explain this difference concerns the interactive aspects of pedagogical communication : girls gain more from this communication because of their << art of being a good stude nt >>. The results of a survey (carried out with 700 first and second- year students - 11-12 years old) show that girls develop << interactio nal competence >> (pair and group work, rare rowdy behaviour, consiste ncy in work achievement, etc.) which provides a better basis for succe ss in comparison to boys. Besides the boy-girl differences, this artic le also shows the importance of interactions at schools in defining an d forming success or failure at school.