Class differences in achievement internal factors

Question 1

What is labelling?

Answer 1

Labelling someone is attaching a meaning or definition to them

Question 2

how do teachers attach such labels.

Answer 2

They base their labels of their class backgrounds such as the working class students negatively and the middle-class students as positive

Question 3

What was Howard Beckers study about?

Answer 3

This study was based of 60 Chicago’s high school teachers and found out that the teachers base their labels to how close they are to a fitted image of the “ideal pupil”.

Question 4

What was the ideal pupil defined as?

Answer 4

They was defined as quiet, passive and obedient so the children was based off their behaviour, not their ability.

Question 5

What does Dunne and Gazeley argue?

Answer 5

They argue that schools are producing working class underachievement because of the label and assumptions of teachers

Question 6

What does Ray Rists study find out ?

Answer 6

He found out in primary schools that teachers put the children into different groups based of their home background and appearance

Question 7

What is a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Answer 7

This is a prediction that come true simply by virtue of it having been made.

Question 8

what are the 3 steps to creating a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Answer 8

step 1: The teacher labels the pupil and off the basis of this label they make predictions.
Step 2: The teacher treats the pupil of as the prediction is already true
Step 3: The pupil internalises the prediction and it becomes part of his self concept and self image so they become the type of pupil they predicted

Question 9

What does Rosenthal and Jacobsons study show?

Answer 9

It shows that even though they was selected at random, if the the teachers believe a pupil to be of a certain type of way they can make him or her into that type.

Question 10

What is streaming?

Answer 10

Streaming is when they separate children into different ability groups called ‘streams’. Where in the separate groups they are taught differently for all subjects.

Question 11

What does Becker show how teachers view working class pupils?

Answer 11

He shows that teachers don’t see them as the ideal pupils and see them as lacking ability and low expectations of them so they are more likely to be put in a lower stream.

Question 12

What does Douglas’s findings show?

Answer 12

His findings shows that the middle class tend to benefit from streaming as they are more likely to be place din higher streams.

Question 13

What does Gillborn and youdells study show?

Answer 13

Their study shows that teachers use stereotypical notions of ability to stream pupils. They found that teachers will less likely to see working class pupils with having ability, therefore leading to them being placed in lower streams and doing lower gcses.

Question 14

What is educational triage?

Answer 14

This means sorting, this term is usually used to describe the process on battlefields or in major disasters.

Question 15

How are they categorised in the educational triage?

Answer 15

Those pupil who will pass anyway
Borderline C/D pupils- targeted for extra help
Hopeless cases

Question 16

what is a pupil subculture?

Answer 16

A pupil subculture is a group of people who share the same values and behaviour patterns.

Question 17

What is Colin Lacey’s concept of differentiation?

Answer 17

Differentiation is the process of teachers categorising pupils according to how they perceive their ability, attitude and/ or behaviour. For example streaming is a form of differentiation.

Question 18

What is Colin Lacey’s concept of polarisation?

Answer 18

Polarisation is the process in which pupils respond to streaming by moving towards one of two opposite “poles”.

Question 19

what is the pro- school subculture?

Answer 19

This is pupils who are placed in higher streams who tend to remain committed to he school values. These pupils gain their status through academic success.

Question 20

what is the anti-school subculture?

Answer 20

These are pupils who are placed in lower streams where it is mainly working class. They suffer a loss of self-esteem due to them being undermined and placing them in a inferior status.

Question 21

What was Stephens Balls findings on abolishing streaming?

Answer 21

He found out that the basis for pupils to polarise into subcultures was largely removed but on the other hand the differentiation continued as teachers continued to to categorise pupils differently and were more likely to label middle class pupils as cooperative and able

Question 22

what other responses are there to labelling and streaming according to Peter Woods?

Answer 22

Ingratiation - being the teachers pet
Ritualism- going through the motions and staying out of trouble
Retreatism- day dreaming and mucking about
Rebellion- rejection for what the school stands for.

Question 23

Summarise the criticism of the labelling theory

Answer 23

This creates a self fulfilling prophecy leading to pupils joining the anti school subcultures.
This theory has been accused of determinism which assumes that pupils who have been labelled have no choice but to fulfil the prophecy.

Question 24

what do Marxists criticise about the labelling theory?

Answer 24

They say that this ignores the wider structures of power within which labelling takes place.
They also argue that labels are not merely the result of teachers individual prejudice , but the stem from the fact that teachers work in a system that reproduces class divisions.

Question 25

What does Habitus mean ?

Answer 25

Habitus refers to the “dispositions” or learned, taken-for-granted ways of thinking, being and acting that are shared by a particular social class.

Question 26

who would gain symbolic capital and why?

Answer 26

Pupil who have been socialised at home into middle class taste and preferences gain symbolic capital.

Question 27

who wouldn’t gain symbolic capital and why?

Answer 27

Bourdieu call this withholding of symbolic capital, “symbolic violence”. This defines the working class as this describes their taste and lifestyles as inferior and the symbolic violence keeps them in their place.

Question 28

What did the symbolic violence lead working class pupils to do?

Answer 28

This led them to seek alternative ways of creating self-worth, status and value.

Question 29

What was style like for working class pupils?

Answer 29

Style performances were heavily policed by peers and not conforming was “social suicide”. The working class pupils felt like the right appearance would gain symbolic capital and gain approval from peers which also brought safety from bullying.

Question 30

What does Archer argue about middle class habitus?

Answer 30

Middle class habitus stigmatises working class pupils identities. The pupils’ performances was a struggle for recognition as the middle class sees nike identities as tasteless the working class pupils sees this as a way of gaining symbolic capital and self-worth.

Question 31

Why did the nike style make it unrealistic for higher education?

Answer 31

Unrealistic because it was not for “people like us “, but for richer, posher, clever people, and they would not fit in . this was also seen as unaffordable and risky investment.

Question 32

why did the nike style make it undesirable for higher education?

Answer 32

Undesirable because it would not “suit” their preferred lifestyle or habitus. Such as them not wanting to go on a student loan because they would be unable to afford the street styles that gave them their identity.

Question 33

What university do working class pupils think they don’t belong?

Answer 33

Oxbridge this is because its from the feeling of their habitus, which includes beliefs about what opportunities really exist for them and whether they would “fit in”

Question 34

how does the education system devalue the working class pupils?

Answer 34

they devalue their experience and choices of working class people as worthless and inappropriate, leading to working class pupils being forced to to choose between maintaining their working class identities or abandoning them and conforming to the middle class habitus of education in order to succeed.

Question 35

what is the relationship between the internal and external factors

Answer 35

working class pupils habitus and identities formed outside school may conflict with the schools middle class habitus, resulting in symbolic violence and pupils feeling that education is not for the likes of them.

Question 36

summarise topic 2

Answer 36

Interactionists argue that schools actively create inequality through labelling and the self fulfilling prophecy, educational triage, streaming and polarisation into pro and anti-school subcultures