relationships and processes within schools Flashcards
What is the hidden curriculum?
Schools pass on norms and values through the hidden curriculum.
- Turning up to lessons on time, dressing smartly and working hard to achieve rewards are all part of the hidden curriculum. These all teach students things they will need in adult life.
What is the Labelling Theory?
Labelling theory states that people decide on the characters of others and treat them accordingly, whether the label is ‘fair’ or not.
What does the labelling theory say about the education system?
labels are an important part of teacher-pupil relationships. If a student is labelled by their teacher as a ‘troublemaker’, they’re disciplined more harshly than their classmates.
What can be caused by teacher Labelling?
It can create a self-fulfilling prophecy. this is where a student internalises the label they’ve been given as part of their identity and ‘acts up’ to the label.
What did Gillborn and Youdell (2000) find about teacher labelling?
They found that black pupils were more likely to be disciplined than their white classmates for the same behaviour, and black students felt that their teachers had low expectations of them.
What is streaming?
Students are sorted into classes according to ability, and they stay in these groups for all or most of their subjects.
What is setting?
Students are sorted into classes according to ability, but on a subject-by-subject basis.
What is Mixed Ability?
Students are sorted into classes that aren’t based on ability, so that the highest and lowest achieving students are taught together.
What are some problems of setting and streaming?
- students are likely to do better at some subjects than others, so some ‘bottom stream’ students aren’t challenged enough in certain subjects, whilst some ‘top stream’ students struggle in some subjects.
- setting and streaming can lead to low self esteem for those in the lowest ability classes. Ball (1981) also found that teachers had high expectations for the highest ability classes.
- students in high ability classes got more attention and encouragement, whilst those in the lower classes suffered from negative labelling and performed poorly.
What is the main argument in favour of setting and streaming?
Students can work at their own level and pace.
Mixed ability eval point.
can avoid worsening gaps in pupil achievement, but studies have shown that teachers still hold low expectations for lower ability students, and often lower the level of their teaching to suit them. This can mean there isn’t enough challenging work for the higher ability students.
What is a subculture?
a group who share ideas and behaviour patterns which are different from the mainstream culture.
What does Lacey (1970) say about subcultures?
he claimed that subcultures were a result of streaming. He conducted his study in a grammer school. Even though all pupils had been selected as “bright” at age 11, bottom stream pupils still formed an anti-school subculture, because they were labelled as failures.
What did Fuller (1984) find in her study of Black Girls in Year 11.
Fuller looked at a group of black girls in Year 11 at a comprehensive school. They were high ability, but felt that their teachers were racist, so they didn’t work for their teachers’ approval. Instead, they formed a subculture, worked alone and succeeded.
What did Willis (1977) find in his study of boys who formed an anti-school subculture?
He found that the ‘lads’ deliberately disrupted lessons as a way of gaining respect from others within the subculture. He also observed that these boys were working-class and likely to get manual jobs after school - they seemed to believe that school was of no use to them in the future.
