Internal Factors Affecting Class Achievement Flashcards
What is labelling within the education system?
- Teachers often attach labels regardless of the pupil’s actual ability or attitude
- Label pupils based on the basis of stereotyped assumptions about their class background
What happened in Becker’s study of labelling?
- Based on interviews with high school teachers, he found they judged pupils according to how closely they fitted an image of the ‘ideal pupil’
- Pupils work, conduct and appearance were key factors influencing teachers judgement
- MC was the closest to the ‘ideal pupil’
What happened in Hempel-Jorgensen study in 2 primary schools?
- The WC school where staff said discipline was a major problem, the ideal pupil was defined as quiet, passive and obedient
- The MC school which had few discipline problems the ideal pupil was defined in terms of personality and academic ability
What did Dunne and Gazeley argue in labelling in secondary schools?
- Found schools produce WC underachievement because of teachers labels and assumptions
- Found the teachers ‘normalised’ underachievement of WC and underestimated their ability compared to MC - based the assumption on their home backgrounds and the support received from their parents
How did Rist’s study support Dunne and Gazeley’s idea that teachers base their assumptions on children’s home background?
- Those the teacher decided were fast learners were sat in the front and labelled the ‘tigers’ were mostly MC and received greatest encouragement
- The other 2 groups were labelled the ‘cardinals’ and ‘clowns’ were seated further away and tended to be WC
What is the self fulfilling prophecy and how does it take place within an education system?
A prediction that comes true simply by virtue of it having been made
1. The teacher labels a pupil and makes predictions about him
2. The teacher treats the pupil accordingly acting as if the prediction is true
3. The pupil internalises the teacher’s expectation which becomes part of his self concept/self-image
What was Rosenthal and Jacobson’s study on the self-fulfilling prophecy?
- They told the school they had a new test designed to identify those pupils who would ‘spurt’ but it was a standard IQ test
- The researchers picked 20% randomly and told the school falsely these children would ‘spurt’
- On return to the school a year later 47% of those identified as spurters made significant progress
What was the conclusion of Rosenthal and Jacobson’s study?
- It demonstrates that what people believe to be true will have real effects even if the belief was not true originally
How can a self-fulfilling prophecy be made in terms of streaming?
Streaming involves separating children into different ability groups
- Once streamed it is difficult to move up to a higher stream, children are more or less locked into their teachers’ low expectations
How did Douglas support the concept that streaming creates a self-fulfilling prophecy?
He found that children placed in a lower stream at age 8 suffered a decline in their IQ score by age 11
How does Gillborn and Youdell link streaming to the policy of publishing exam league?
- Publishing league tables is what they call an ‘A-to-C’ economy, this is where schools focus their time, effort and resources on those pupils they see as having the potential
- Schools need to achieve good league table position if they are to attract pupils and funding
What is an ‘educational triage’ highlighted by Gillborn and Youdell?
- Term used to describe the process whereby medical staff decide who is to be given scarce medical resources
- It is split into 1. those who will survive who can be ignored 2. those who will die anyway who also will be ignored 3. those with a chance of survival who are given treatment
What are pupil subcultures?
A group of pupils who share similar values and behaviour patterns, often emerge as a result to the way pupils have been labelled
How can we use Lacey’s concepts of differentiation and polarisation to explain how pupils subcultures develop?
- Differentiation: the process of teachers categorising pupils according to how they perceive their ability (e.g, streaming)
- Polarisation: the process in which pupils respond to streaming by moving towards one of the two opposite ‘poles’
What is the pro-school subculture?
- Pupils placed in high streams tend to remain committed to school’s values
- Gain their status in the approved manner, through academic success
