Class Size and School Size

Educators in Western countries generally consider any classroom of 25–30 students to be large and, consequently, to present difficult challenges to teachers to achieve their instructional goals. Educators focused on the “large class” with the goal of providing ways for teachers to cope with a situation that has become a norm in many school systems (Carbone, 1998; Cherian & Mau, 2003; Nolasco, 1988; Pat, 1992). Yuanshan and Mau (2003) stated that a class of 50 or more was “defined” as large by educators in China after an effort was made there to reduce class size from much larger numbers (such as 150 students) that had glaringly negative impacts on teachers and students. What is large for China or India is more likely very different than what is conceived as large in Western countries. Remarkably, in a very small country like Israel, whose entire population is a fraction of the size of any major city in China, official class size is 42, common only in very large countries.