Relationships and processes in education Flashcards
What is the hidden curriculum?
Unwritten rules, values and normative patterns of behavior that students are expected to conform to and learn in school
- contrasts to the ‘formal’ curriculum of subjects and lessons designed by government, exam boards etc.
What is taught through the hidden curriculum?
- Respecting authority
- Respect for other pupils opinions
- Punctuality
- Aspiring to achieve
- Having a ‘work ethic’
What’s a critique of hidden curriculum?
Most of the expected patterns of behavior are formally encoded in school rules = not hidden
- students have to formally agree through the school tutorial system
- school ethos may be a more relevant concept
What do marxists think about the hidden curriculum?
Mentioned by Bowles and Gintis in correspondence principle
> norms taught got children ready for future exploitation at work
> accepting teachers authority got children ready for accepting managers authority later in work
> Learning values part of ideological control
What is school ethos?
Refer to the character, atmosphere or ‘climate of the school’
What’s an example of school ethos?
- emphasis on academic success and/or artistic or sport achievements
- emphasis on equal opportunities = focus on helping disadvantaged students
- emphasis on respect for diversity = promote multiculturalism, anti racism and sexism
When is school ethos most relevant?
When trying to understand what’s different about elite education in the very top public schools such as Eton and Harrow
What is the school ethos of elite schools?
Teach pupils that they’re part of the ruling elite
- pupils come to the end of their schooling feeling as if they belong in the global elite = middle/upper class jobs
Who conducted marketing research?
Gillborn and Youdell
What did G&Y argue?
Publishing league tables leads to A-C economy (system which schools ration their time and effort on pupils seen as having potential to get A-C’s at GCSE = boosted league table position)
What are 3 types of students identified by G&Y?
1) Students that are going to fail regardless
2) Students that need work but have potential
3) Students that are going to excel and need less attention
What is labelling?
Attach a meaning or definition to someone
What does labelling look like in education?
Teachers may label someone as intelligent or troublesome
- students show that teachers attach labels based on class rather than actual ability
- Negative labels to working class and positive to middle class
Who speaks about self fulfilling prophecy and teachers?
Hargreaves et al
What did Hargreaves et al say?
Teachers have a very limited idea about their students identity when they first enroll based on the area they came from = have to build an image throughout school year
What are the 3 stages of classification?
Speculation: make guesses about the type of student (tentative about typing, willing to amend views)
Elaboration: hypothesis tested, confirmed or contradicted - typing refined
Stabilization: teacher feels they know the students, little difficulty making sense of their actions (interpreted based on general type of student)
What was the study Rosenthal and Jacobsen conducted?
Pygmalion in the classroom
- field experiment
- told a school they had a new test (standard IQ test) designed to identify spurters
- selected 20% students at random and claimed they were future spurters
- returned a year later = 47% of spurters shown significant progress
What’s a critique of negative labelling?
Can sometimes have an opposite effect
- Margaret Fuller: research on black girls in London comprehensive school found that they were labelled as low achievers
- response: was to study hard to prove their teachers and the school wrong
How does teacher stereotyping work?
Sex, ethnicity and class can all affect whether the teacher sees the student as an ‘ideal pupil’
What are the effects of teacher stereotyping?
Can contribute to the molding of students identity and affect educational achievement
- can produce a halo effect or negative self fulfilling prophecy and anti school subculture
- Black working class boys most likely to suffer teacher stereotyping
Who spoke about teachers interactions?
Spender and French
What did spender say?
Teachers spend more time interacting with boys = advantage
What does french say?
Boys tend to receive more negative attention for poor behavior and girls receive more positive, work related attention = achievement
Who spoke about differentiation and polarization?
Lacey
What study did Lacey conduct?
Mixed methodology of a middle class grammar school and found 2 related processes at work in schools = differentiation and polarization
What is differentiation?
Most schools place a high value on things like hard work, good behavior, exam success
- teachers judge student’s rank and categorize them into different groups according to such criteria
What is polarization?
The way students become divided into 2 opposing groups or poles
- those in top streams: achieve highly, mostly conform = high status in terms of values and aims in the school
- those in the bottom sets who are labelled as failures and deprived of status
What did studies in relation to D&F find?
by Hargreaves, Ball and Abraham
- found that teachers perception of students academic ability and the process of D&F influenced how students behaved and formation of pro/anti school subcultures
Who spoke about setting and streaming?
Smyth et al
What did Smyth et al find?
Students in lower streams/sets had more negative views toward school
What is setting and streaming?
A way of grouping students according to their ability
- taught separately based on ability
- leads to unequal access to classroom knowledge and causes an inevitable fall in the students ability
How does streaming affect social class?
Working class students seen as less able and poorly behaved = lower streams
- In lower streams: harder for them to achieve high grades due to no access to higher exam papers
- Middle class tend to be placed in high sets = greater self esteem and motivation to succeed
What are pupil subcultures based on?
- social class, gender and ethnicity
- much research focused on the educational significance of working class, male and ethnic minority subcultures especially
What is the debate surrounding pupil subcultures formation?
- Some think it’s a ‘response’ to in school processes such as teacher labelling
- Others, such as Sewell, argue that its more complex as pupils in anti school subcultures gain that attitude from outside of school
(cannot simply be a response to processes within schools)
What are pro schools made of?
Children from middle class backgrounds but not in all cases
Who looked into pro school subcultures?
Mac an Ghaill
What are the academic achievers found by Mac n Ghaill?
skilled manual working class backgrounds, gain academic achievement by focusing on traditional academic subjects (English, maths and sciences)
What are the new enterprises found by Mac n Ghaill?
typically from working class backgrounds and rejected the traditional academic curriculum (seen as a waste of time)
- motivated to study subjects like business and computing = upward mobility by exploiting school industry links to their advantage such as placements and career fairs etc.
Who critiqued pro and anti school subcultures?
Peter Woods
What are anti school subcultures?
Cultures of resistance against learning, consists of mainly causing trouble as revenge against the system and gaining status among peers
- more deviant an act = more status gained
What was the study Willis conducted?
- An ethnographic study of 12 working class ‘lads’ from a school
- All white in a school containing many pupils of multiple ethnicites
- Participant observation and interviews
- Lads prioritized having a ‘laff’ over their education
- Aimed to work in factories (no formal qualifications needed = school is pointless)
What did Peter Woods suggest?
Suggested that pro/anti school subcultures are too simple instead there’s a wide variety of responses to school and pupils can switch between different adaptations as they progress through school
What are the 8 different phases?
- Ingratiation
- Compliance
- Opportunism
- Ritualism
- Retreatism
- Colonization
- Intransigence
- Rebellion
Explain what consists of each of the 6 phases?
TRY REMEMBER AT LEAST 2/3
1)ingratiation: eager to please teachers, favorable attitudes towards school, conformist pro school
2)compliance: accept school rules and discipline, school: useful to gain qualifications. no positive nor negative attitude to school (1st yr students)
3)opportunism: fluctuate between seeking teacher approval and forming peer groups
4)ritualism: motions of attending school but without great engagement or enthusiasm
5)retreatism: indifferent to school values and exam success, mess about but don’t challenge school authority
6)colonization: try to get away with as much as possible, express hostility but avoid trouble (later years)
7)intransigence: troublemakers - indifferent about school, not bothered about conformity
8)rebellion: goals of schools rejected, devotion to achieving deviant goals
