Interactionist view on education Flashcards
Becker (1971)
Labelling and the ideal pupil :
- Carried out interviews with 60 Chicago high school teachers
• they judged pupils according to how closely they fitted an image of the “ideal” pupil
• middle class as closest to ideal
Gilborn and Youdell (2001)
Educational triage and the A - C economy :
- study of two London secondary schools
- teachers use stereotypical notions of ability to stream pupils
- Less likely to see W/C and black pupils as having ability so they’re placed in lower streams and entered for lower tier GCSEs.
Educational triage (A-C economy)
- schools need to achieve a good league table position if they are to attract pupils and funding
- schools focus their time effort and resources on those pupils they see as having the pot brows to get 5 grades C so body the schools league table position
3 categories :
- Those who will pass anyways and can be left to get on with it
- Yhose with potential who will be helped to get a grade C or better
- Hopeless cases , who are doomed to fail
Dunne and Gazeley (2008)
- interviewed 9 english state secondary schools
schools persistently produce working class underachievement because of the labels and assumptions of teachers . - teachers labelled working class parents as uninterested in their children’s education
Ball (1981)
Study of beachside
- when schools abolished streaming , the basis for pupils to polarise into subcultures was largely removed and the influence of anti school subcultures declined
- nevertheless teachers continued to categorise pupils differently and label them
- Shows that class inequalities can continue as a result of teachers labelling their ben without the effect of subcultures or streaming
Rosenthal and Jacobson
Self fulfilling prophecy
Study at a California primary school
- told school that they had a new test designed to identify pupils that would “spurt “ ahead but it wasn’t true .
- Then picked 20% of them at random and lied to the teachers and said they were the “spurters”
- returned to the school a year later and found that almost half (47%) of those identified as spurters had made significant progress
- self fulfilling prophecy can produce under achievement
Douglas
-Children placed in lower streams at age 8 had suffered a decline in their IQ score by age 11
- leads to self fulfilling prophecy
Hargreaves
- Boys in the lower streams and were triple failures : they had failed their 11+ exam , they had been placed in low streams , and they had been labelled as “worthless louts”
Lacey
How pupils subcultures develop
differentiation :
- Teachers categorising pupils according to how they perceive their ability attitude or behaviour
Polarisation :
- pupils respond to streaming by moving towards one of two opposite poles or extremes
- antischool subcultures and pro school subcultures
what’s an evaluation for becker
Functionalist :
Davis and Moore - see education as a device for selection and role allocation
what’s an evaluation for rosenthal and jacobson
Fuller :
Self fulfilling prophecy not always met - some may reject teacher labels
- black ethnic girls were labelled negatively by teachers by ended up succeeding in educational attainment
- deterministic
how do you evaluate gilborn and youdell
Marxists : class based issues
althusser - education as a part of the ISA in order to help keep bourgeoisie in power
how do you evaluate ball
Class difference in achievement (external) more significantly than labelling
- Howard (material dep)
- young people from poorer homes have low intakes of energy
- poor nutrition results in poor health , affecting child’s education
