Originally published in 1984, this is an account of a two-year study of four comprehensive school classrooms, where teachers were fostering collaborative learning methods. The authors draw on their joint knowledge and experience as a psychologist and a teacher to give an insight into pupils' perceptions of their schooling, and a dynamic analysis of the process of education that they experienced. Working on the premise that successful collaboration demands common goals and mutual understanding, the author observed pupils at work, transcribed their talk, and carried out interviews with both pupils and their teachers. They show how individual children can support and learn from each other, document the social and psychological features underlying the use, or non-use, of collaboration, and take the teachers' own frames of reference as a standpoint in evaluating success. The authors' findings were intended to encourage teachers to move away from the traditional view of education as the transmission of knowledge to passive pupils. Social relationships within the classroom can potentially be, not merely a source of disruption, but the basis of learning itself. This possibility is particularly significant in the context of inner-city schools where there is often mutual mistrust and hostility across lines of race, class, gender or ability.

First published in 1980, Coming to Know offers an account which runs counter to orthodox educational psychology, in which learning and knowledge are reified, emotional aspects are excluded, the personal-social situation of the learner is ignored, and the created character of knowledge with all its social and political ramifications is denied. This collection of work explores personal knowing in a wide range of activities, from children's classroom adjustment, through student learning as a social practice, to women's perceptions of themselves. It argues that the processes of learning and knowing are not divorced from the learner as a person. Broadly humanistic in its approach, Coming to Know provides a welcome counterbalance to the scientific theory of learning. This book is an essential read for scholars and researchers of educational psychology and also for teachers and educationists.

First published in 1988, Psychology for Teachers offers a new approach to the study of the psychology of education. In contrast to many traditional texts, in which measurement is overemphasized and the individual tends to disappear in generalizations, this accessible book stresses the importance of both the individual and the process of learning and considers all aspects of schooling from the viewpoint of the person- whether teacher or pupil. Phillida Salmon provides a profile of the learning classroom through detailed case studies and examples. Her thesis will find an immediate response with all those who work in education. Psychology for Teachers offers both to those in training and in the classroom, and to those who work with them, a new and helpful way of engaging with the challenge of education and invites them to consider from a fresh viewpoint, some critical issues in schooling.