Class Differences (Internal) Flashcards
Class differences in achievement (internal factors): In a nutshell
Some sociologists believe working class underachievement is the product of factors inside the school environment that hinder a pupils ability to achieve. These factors include: labelling, streaming, pupil subcultures, pupil identities and the development of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Labelling and its effects: Beckers view
Teachers judge and label pupils according to how closely they fitt the “ideal pupil”. This would therefore dampen the motivation of students who did not suit the ideal pupil, due to how teachers deferred their time away from them and were unwilling to help.
Labelling and its effects: Self fulfilling prophecy
When students are given a positive label, they react to it by creating a positive self-concept, which means they are motivated to work hard and improve their grades. This also works in reverse, with negative labels leading to negative self-concepts and less motivation.
Rosenthal and Jacobson studied this by informing teachers of students who scored highly on an IQ test and would be a quick learner. The catch was that these test results were fabricated. Teachers treated those who were falsely identified as ‘spurts’ differently. 47% of those who were identified to ‘spurt’ had made significant improvement due to how teachers paid more attention to them by giving them more feedback.
Labelling and its effects: streaming
Gillborn and Youdell found that teachers labelled working-class students as unintelligent, resulting in them being placed in lower streams and sets.
What are pupil subcultures?
Lacey found that there were 2 ways in which pupil subcultures developed: polarisation and differentiation. Polarisation is when pupils respond to streaming by either moving to a pro-school subculture or an anti-school subculture. Differentiation is a form of streaming, those who are placed in higher streams gain a higher status.
Hargreaves found that boys in lower streams were triple failures: they failed their 11+ exam; had been placed in lower streams; and then labelled as “worthless louts”- their solution to this was to form a group which provided status to those who flouted the school rules and guaranteed their educational failure.
What are pupil identities?
Archer et al found that working-class pupils invest in ‘nike’ identities, leading to self-exclusion from education because it does not fit their identity and way of life; they see it as unrealistic (it is for richer and cleverer people) and they also see it as undesirable (it does not suit their habitus).
