Relationships and Processes in Schools Flashcards
What is the hidden curriculum?
Hidden curriculum: Messages and ideas that schools do not directly teach but which children learn and which are part of the normal routines of the organisation.
What is the Marxist view of the hidden curriculum (Bowles and Gintis 1976) ?
Bowles and Gintis 1976
-Schools produce subordinate, well-disciplined, obedient workers who will submit to control from above and take orders rather than questioning them.
-Schools do this by rewarding conformity, obedience, hard-work and punctuality and penalising creativity, originality and independence.
-They externalise rewards for hard work, alienating students from their work and teaching them that work is not supposed to be enjoyable or feel satisfying in itself, but only as a means to an end.
Functionalist view of the hidden curriculum (Parsons):
-Schools teach and transmit important core values of Western society to students via the hidden curriculum. For example, the value of individual achievement and meritocracy.
-Young people are taught that if they work hard, when they take their exams (on their own), they will first be assessed and graded carefully by people in authority, and if they do well they will achieve high-status, praise, good grades and valuable qualifications.
Feminist view of the hidden curriculum:
-Spender argues that teacher’s time is spent mostly on the troublesome boys rather than the girls who are keen to learn.
-Francis 2000 agues that the classroom is still dominated by boys, girls are getting less attention.
-Francis 2005 argues that Teachers often have different expectations of pupils according to their gender, girls
are expected to be relatively quiet, conformist, obedient and conscientious compared to boys. Because of this, girls who don’t conform may be penalised more heavily than boys.
-Best Study of 132 books for pre-school aged children. There were 792 male characters and 356 female characters, 94 male heroes, 44 heroines, 75% of female characters were portrayed in family situations compared to 15 % of male characters. Men were shown in 69 different occupations, women in only 18.
How does teacher labelling interact with class?
Becker (1970) - teachers perceived middle-class pupils as closest to the ideal and working class as less able and lacking motivation and felt the best they could do is get some “basic things over to them”.
Harvey and Slatin (1975) - found that teachers identified white middle-class students as more likely to succeed and they had lower expectations of those from poorer backgrounds.
Gillborn and Youdell (2001) - working-class kids more likely to be seen as disruptive, un-motivated, and lacking in parental support and found it difficult to convince teachers that they have ability and so were placed in lower sets.
How does labelling impact students?
Rosenthal and Jacobsen (1968) – students labelled as bright (despite not necessarily being so) could be expected to make more progress than those who weren’t labelled
positively. Students labelled negatively were more likely to do worse - self-fulfilling prophecy.
Chandrasekaran & Padmakumari (2018) students would lose interest in academics, in the subject and could develop a hatred for the subject and teacher when they
realised that a teacher did not expect much from them.
What is setting and streaming?
-Gillborn and Youdell (2001) working-class kids more likely to be seen as disruptive, un-motivated, and lacking in parental support and found it difficult to convince teachers that they have ability and so were placed in lower sets.
-Smyth et. al (2006) – students in lower sets are more likely to be disaffected with school.
-Ball (1981) students in lower sets are not encouraged as much, they are “cooled down”, as opposed to kids in higher sets who are “warmed up”, this leads them to having lower-expectations and thus achieve less academically.
Evaluation of the labelling theory:
Sugarman (1970) the working class are fatalistic, want instant gratification and are collectivist.
Fuller (1980) pointed out that negative labelling doesn’t always have a negative impact, black girls in Fuller’s study did well in school in order to overcome their labels.
How does teacher labelling interact with ethnicity?
Gillborn (2011) the ideal stereotype of a student favours white children. Many teachers do not see Black students as likely academic successes. Regardless of their ambition, success, ability they were more likely to be placed in lower-sets.
Harvey and Slatin (1975) found that when teachers were presented with photographs of students from different social and ethnic backgrounds, teachers identified white middle-class students as more likely to succeed and they had lower expectations of those from poorer non-white backgrounds.
Sewell (1997) – Relationship with teachers and Black Caribbean boys was strained and difficult. Teachers had low expectations of Black Caribbean boys and stereotyped them as having anti-school subcultures.
What did Mirza find in her study?
Identified 5 types of teacher-student relationships:
1. Overt racists – (minority) girls avoided.
2. Christians – colour blind – claimed to see no difference, refused to see racism as a problem, low expectations and overly positive reports
3. Crusaders – anti-racist – tried to make lessons relevant to black students – led lessons to be confusing and irrelevant as they because they knew little about black culture / their students.
4. Liberal chauvinists – well meaning (like crusaders) but underestimated student ability.
5. Black teachers – no favouritism were liked and respected, girls found them helpful and valuable.
What is setting and streaming?
Setting: placing students in ability groups for particular subjects.
Streaming: placing students in ability groups for all subjects. The whole class becomes an ability group – often based on English/ Maths assessment.
PROS of setting and streaming:
Different abilities = different teaching, young people
have different needs which can be met differently and
more efficiently if they a grouped accordingly.
Different exams = some students will be taking
different exams to others (higher vs. foundation) and
so need to be taught differently.
Different tasks = no point giving higher-level maths
tasks to kids in foundation sets, but you can do that
with the top set.
CONS of setting and streaming:
Ability is not fixed, setting keeps students where they
are, this means students are able to individually
progress.
Setting can raise attainment for pupils in the top set,
but lower attainment for pupils in the bottom set –
increasing the class gap.
Setting and streaming could lead to a self fulfilling prophecy. Children in bottom set may think they are not smart enough and not achieve good grades.
Sometimes these sets are based on behaviour instead
of ability. As seen with Black Caribbean boys in
Gillborn and Youdell (2001).
Impact of setting and streaming on students:
Sutton Trust (2010) - Found that setting and streaming is a good way to stretch bright students from poorer backgrounds but too few made into these top sets.
-It favoured middle-class student who tend to be in
top-sets.
Boaler (2005) Looked at 2 schools similar in terms of
class and attainment.
-School A = mixed ability
-School B = students in sets for Maths; middle-class
tended to be in higher sets and vice versa.
-School A = no significant differences in exam results
by class and overall were much higher than school B.
-School B = most of the high grades were attained by
the middle-class and vice versa.
Hallam and Parsons (2014) - Grouping children by ability changes teacher expectations, what is taught to them, how it is taught and the unspoken messages that students receive about themselves.
Mac an Gahill (1994) -Teachers give priority, respect and high expectations to students in higher sets. Lower-set children are seen as low-ability, they are given inexperienced teachers that are not keen on teaching these sets.
Evaluation of impacts of setting and streaming:
Fuller (1984) Black girls in London were expected to fail.
They resented this expectation and proved it wrong by working hard and getting good results.
