A study investigated classroom management from the students' perspective. Ninety-seven high school students (primarily ninth graders) were observed in one school for 15 weeks in five different classes. Data were collected from this observation, as well as from student and teacher interviews. The guidelines of the Constant-Comparative Method of Qualitative Analysis were used to generate and analyze theoretical constructs suggesting what classroom goals students sought, what strategies they developed to achieve these goals, when they chose to use these strategies, and what types of students used each strategy. Findings show that students had two major goals to achieve, "socializing" and "passing the course." They used six strategies to achieve these goals: (1) "figuring out the teacher"; (2) "having fun"; (3) "giving the teacher what he wants"; (4) "minimizing work"; (5) "reducing boredom"; and (6) "staying out of trouble." These strategies fall into the preliminary category, the proactive category, and the reactive category, each category being associated with particular kinds of classroom events. Students can be identified and clustered into four major groups according to the ratio of time spent "socializing" or "passing the course": play, play/work, work/play, or work. Important for students are the clarity with which teachers communicate their academic and behavioral expectations to students and the degree of cooperation that exists between the students and the teacher. (JM)