Empirical studies confirmed that on the one hand, students are able to influence teachers’ perception and assessment (cf. 101 and 109, translated from German by the authors). The better students adapt to teachers’ expectations and ideas and the better they succeed in camouflaging themselves by integrating both curricula, the greater the chance for a successful school career” (, pp. If expectations are met, recognition and reward follow, if they are not met, rejection, punishment or even sanction follow. Their actions are linked to social expectations and roles. Such expectations, norms and rules also exist at school, as the following quote illustrates: “At school, teachers and students interact.

), mutual perception is (socially) constructed and dependent on attitudes, expectations and experiences. As numerous social-psychological studies have shown (cf. Within the framework of teaching and class organisation, they (compulsorily) enter into a long-term relationship (cf. In contrast to fleeting everyday encounters, students and teachers work together over a longer period of time. Social interaction between teacher and students but also between students themselves is a necessary but also momentous fact. Teachers meet a group of students, and only through the effort of all involved, successful teaching and learning is possible (cf. Teaching can be understood as a form of pedagogical action and communication (cf.

Even though the influence mechanism of impression management on school success cannot conclusively be answered, this paper opens new perspectives on the scientific discourse of social inequality as well as teaching quality and discusses implications for teacher education. And students with a high educational aspiration but low grades try to overcome this discrepancy by means of personally adapting to the teachers’ expectations. Likewise, students with a high educational aspiration and good school grades scored higher or at least differently on impression management than students with a low educational aspiration level and low school grades. By means of an empirical study, country- and gender-specific differences with regard to impression management were found. The chapter asks whether students use self-presentation tactics in order to deliberately navigate the impression their teachers should have of them. This contribution changes perspectives and addresses the question of conscious impression management within classes. Individuals have discussed rather as passively exposed to the mechanism of social interaction and perception processes. Although educational research acknowledges that social perception processes are relevant for understanding but also evaluating situations, the topic of impression management (IM) has achieved only little attention so far.

Impression management definition