Education- Topic 2( class differences in achievement internal)

Question 1

Labelling and its effects- Becker- ideal pupil

Answer 1

60 Chicago high school students. Findings: Teachers judge and label pupils according to how closely they fit 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.

Question 2

Labelling and its effects- Self fulfilling prophecy

Answer 2

• 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.

Question 3

Labelling and its effects- Streaming

Answer 3

Gillborn and Youdell found that teachers labelled working-class students as unintelligent, resulting in them being placed in lower streams and sets.

Question 4

Pupil subcultures and identities- Pupil subcultures

Answer 4

• 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.