Class Differences In Acheivement Flashcards
Labelling theory
Howard Becker
Carried out an important interaction study of labelling based on interviews with 60 Chicago, high school teachers. He found that they judge peoples according to how closely they fitted an image of the ideal people.
Amelia Hempel Jorgensen
Labelling theory
Found the notations of ideal people, very according to social class make up of the School. In the w/c school, the ideal pupil was defined as quiet, passive and obedient. In the m/c school, the ideal people was defined as being non-misbehaving and having academic ability.
Labelling in secondary schools
Máiréad Dunne and Louise Gazeley.
School persistently produce w/c under achievement because of labels and assumptions. They found in nine English states secondary schools. the teachers normalise the underachievement of working class pupils.
Labelling in secondary schools
The major reason for normalising under achievement, was because the teachers’ belief in the role of pupils home backgrounds. They labelled w/c Parents as uninterested in their children’s education, and m/c parents as supportive.
Labelling in secondary school
Result in teachers labelling
This led to class differences and how teachers dealt with pupils they perceived as unachieving. they extended work for underachieving middle-class but entered working class pupils for easier exams.
Labelling in primary schools
Ray Rist
He found that the teacher used information about children’s home background and appearance to place them in separate groups. Those the teachers with learners tended to be middle-class and sat them closer to her and showed them greater encouragement.
Self fullfilling prophecy
Self fulfilling prophecy works by the teacher labelling pupil then the teacher treating the pupil accordingly to the label and the pupil internalising the teachers expectation.
Teachers’ expectations
Robert rosenthal and leonora Jacobson
They told the school teachers the pupils who would “spurt”, except the pupils were chosen randomly. They found that the “spurters” had made significance progress due to encouragement of teachers.
Self fulfilling prophecy and teacher expectations
Self-fulfilling privacy can produce under achievement. if teachers have low expectations or certain children, the children may developed a negative self-concept, and may come to see themselves as failures.
Streaming
Howard Becker
Becker shows that teachers don’t see working-class children as ideal pupils and put them as lacking ability and are more likely to find themselves in lower streams, which is more difficult to move up from. Creating a self fulfilling prophecy of unacheivement.
Streaming and the A-C economy
Gillborn and Youdell
they link steaming to the policy of publishing exam league tables. According to exam performance publishing league tables creates an A-C economy. This is a system in which school focus the time effort and resources on those peoples they is having potential
Educational triage
Gillborn and Youdell
Triage is the term used for sorting. Schools categories peoples into three types thought who pass, those who have potential and those who are hopeless. They are sorted. Using a stereotypical view of working class and black peoples as lacking ability.
Pupil subcultures
Colin Lacey on polarisation and differentiation
Differentiation is the process of teachers categorising pupils, according to how they perceive their ability. Polarisation is the process in which pupils respond to streaming by moving towards one of two opposite poles.
Pro school subculture
Pupils in high streams tend to remain committed to values of School. They gain that status in the approved manner through academic success. These students are largely middle-class.
Anti school subculture
Close placed in low extremes suffer a lot of self-esteem. The school has undermine their self-worth by placing them in a position of the status. The students tend to be working class.
David hargreaves
Anti school subculture
Found a response to labelling and streaming in a secondary modern school from the point of view of education system. Boys in lowest streams were triple failures, they failed that 11+ exam were in lower streams and had been labelled worthless.
Abolishing streaming
Stephen ball
Ball found that when schools abolish banding, the basis for pupils to polarise into subcultures was largely removed and the influence of School subcultured declined. However, teachers continued to treat and categorise peoples differently.
Abolishing streams and the educational reform act in 1988
After this act, there had been trends towards more streaming, and towards a variety of types of school, some of which have been more academic curriculum than others. This created more opportunities for schools and teachers do differentiate pupils.
The variety of pupil responses
Peter woods
Pupil responses
Ingratiation- “teachers pet”
Ritualism- staying out of trouble
Retreatism- daydreaming, muck about
Rebellion- objection all school values
Variety of pupil responses
John furlong
During his observation, he found that many students are not committed permanently to any one response that may move between different types of responses, depending on lesson and teacher
Criticism of labelling theory
Mary fuller (1984)
Argues that pupils have a choice to not fulfil the prophecy, and will not always inevitably fail.
Criticism of labelling theory
Marxist
Marxist criticise the labelling theory for ignoring the wider structures of power within which labelling takes place. they argue that labels are not merely the result of teachers individual prejudices, but from that teaches work in the system that produces class divisions.
Pupils class identities and the school
Habitus
Middle-class has the power to define its habitus as superior, and to impose it on the education system. As the School places a higher value on middle-class, tastes and preferences. This links to bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital.
Symbolic capital and symbolic violence
Pupils’ class indentities and the school
Middle-class, peoples gain symbolic capital and recognition for their habitus and have worth. By defining the working class lifestyles as inferior symbolic violence, reproduces the class structure, and keeps the lower classes “in their place”.
