Internal factors effecting class and achievement Flashcards
What is interactionism?
It looks at what goes on in schools and the interactions between teachers and students and students and students.
It considers how these interactions might affect the educational performance of students.
What is meant by the term labelling?
The process of defining a person or group in a certain way and treating them accordingly.
What was Becker’s study and what did it conclude?
- Secondary school
- Interviewed 60 Chicago high school teachers and found they judged pupils against the image of an “ideal pupil”.
Factors - appearance, work, speech and conduct.
Middle class students were closest to ideal pupil and w/c students were badly behaved.
What did Rist study and what did they conclude?
- American kindergarten
- Teachers used information on student homes and backgrounds to separate them into different tables.
Tigers - m/c, neat and tidy, received most encouragement and support.
Clowns - w/c, given lower level work, read as a group rather than individual.
Dunne and Gazeley - less obvious labelling in secondary schools
- Interviewed in 9 English state schools.
- Teachers “normalise” the underachievement of w/c pupils.
- Teachers labelled w/c parents as uninterested and m/c parents as supportive which led to differences in how teachers dealt with pupils - entered w/c pupils for easier exams and setting extension tasks for underachieving m/c pupils.
What is the halo effect?
Students are treated more leniently and favourably by teachers.
What is meant by negative expression?
Viewing student as lazy or not bright/not supporting them.
What did Rosenthal and Jacobson study and what did it conclude?
- Elementary school in Cali
- Selected random sample of 20% student population.
- Beginning - all students tested IQ and after one year.
Found the randomly selected “spurter” group has gained more IQ than the other 80% and greater advances in reading.
What is the self-fulfilling prophecy?
Teachers label pupil
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Teacher treats pupil accordingly
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Pupil internalises the label and makes it part of the way they view themselves and school.
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Pupil acts on the label.
What is meant by master status?
It is the main way people are viewed - long term.
Smyth - consequences of low sets and streams
Negative attitudes to school.
Disrupt lessons
Spend less time on homework
Affects self-esteem and confidence which consequently impacts on their educational aspirations and attainment.
What does Sociologist Ball suggest?
Top stream students are “warmed up” and encouraged to follow academic courses of study.
Bottom stream students are “cooled out” and encourages to follow vocational and practical courses.
Gillborn and Youdell - educational triage
Allocating educational resources based on the perceived potential of students to succeed academically.
Pupils categorised into three types:
- Those who will pass anyway and can be left to get on with it
- Those with potential, who will be helped to get a grade C or better.
- Hopeless cases who are doomed to fail.
What can streaming and setting produce?
Anti-school subcultures
What do Gillborn and Youdell say about setting and streaming?
Pupils are put into tiers based on ability which is based on the teachers stereotype.
Setting and streaming means that….
Grouping more academic students can be taught faster.
Less academic students will be taught slower.
What does Ball say about setting and streaming?
Found there was a strong correlation between the bands that students were placed in schools and the occupational backgrounds of their parents - students with parents with m/c expectations placed higher sets than w/c pupils.
What are pupil subcultures?
A group of students who share the same values, norms and set of ideas which gives them a sense of identity and status through peer-group affirmation.
Anti-school culture (counter school culture)
Group of students who rebel against the school and have attitudes that go against those of the school.
Behaviour - truancy, breaking the rules, avoiding school work, breaching uniform codes.
Paul Willis
12 w/c lads in a comprehensive school.
Macho-lad subculture
Those who listened tot he teachers were “earoles”
Status was earned in the group by messing about and disrupting the class.
What are pro-school subcultures?
Those students who accept the school rules and willing to conform. These students are usually very academic, prepared to work hard and have high aspirations.
Mac and Gaill - found 2 different types of pro-school subculture.
The academic achievers - mainly m/c pursuing traditional A-level subjects.
The new enterprisers - mainly from w/c backgrounds and pursuing success through vocational subjects.
Lacey - differentiation and polarisation
Studied m/c grammar school.
Differentiation - schools placed a high value on hard work, good behaviour and exam success.
polarisation - this refers to the way students become divided into two opposing groups, or ‘poles’: those in the top streams who achieve highly, who more or less conform, and therefore achieve high status in the terms of the values and aims of the school, and those in the bottoms sets who are labelled as failures and therefore deprived of status
What is meant by symbolic violence? - Jenkins
Teachers may unconsciously reinforce existing social hierarchies by favouring students who conform to dominant cultural norms and expectations.
