Interactionist approach (subcultures,hidden curriculum, setting/streaming) Flashcards
What are pupil subcultures?
What form of sub-culture did the ‘lads’ have study by Paul Willis?
What other form of subculture can students have?
Who identified subcultures that are both anti-school but pro-education?
-Groups of pupils who share norms and values that are different from the rest of the school.
-The ‘lads’ carried a anti-school subculture.
-Students can also have a pro-school subculture.
-Mirza and Mac An Ghail identified groups of pupils who were both pro-education and anti-school.
What do postmodernists focus on regarding identity?
How does Maffesoli describe subcultures?Identity?
-Postmodernists focus on how people choose their identities.
-Maffesoli argues subcultures are ‘tribes’ based on consumption(music and fashion) rather than attitudes to school.
-Identities are also fluid: people can choose identities and move between identities.
What do functionalists argue about the hidden curriculum?Marxists? Feminists?
How are these transmitted?
-Functionalists argue the hidden curriculum teaches norms and values to build a value consensus.
-Marxists i.e. Bowles and Gintis argue the hidden curriculum transmits bourgeois ideology.
-Feminists argue the hidden curriculum transmits patriarchal ideology.
-This happens through school rules, extra-curricular activities, sports, assemblies, etc. As well as broader moral lessons from formal curriculum content(i.e. history and literature.
Who describes streaming as ‘differentiation’? What is this?
What is Setting? What is streaming?
What form of education is streaming?
Lacey.
-A way of separating the sheep from the goats and then educating them differently. Streaming often creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.
-Setting is when pupils are put into subject groups based on their ability. They may be in top set for English and bottom set for Maths for instance.
-Streaming is when pupils are put into ability groups for all subjects, based on prior attainment. This is less flexible than setting.
-Streaming is selective education but under one roof.
What are the criticisms for the interactionist approach?
-It is very hard to measure how often teachers label their pupils, how much pupils are aware of it and the extent to which one impacts the other.
-Interactionists tend to not consider structural reasons for why some pupils are negatively labelled and other are not (or are more likley to join subcultures.) Neo-Marxists i.e. Paul Willis have developed this.
-They also do not explain why some pupils are more likely to internalise a label and other reject it.
