Relationships And Processes Within Schools (Education) Flashcards
What is the Interactionist Perspective?
They look at what actually goes on in schools and classrooms rather than looking at the overall function of the education system (macro approach)
- e.g. the interactions between teachers and pupils, the interaction between pupils and other pupils and the ways schools are organised
What kind of things would be included in ‘school organisation, school processes and the teaching and learning context’?
- school ethos and the hidden curriculum
- teachers’ expectations, labelling and the self fulfilling prophecy
- setting and streaming
- pupil subcultures
What is meant by the ‘ethos’ of a school?
The character, values, atmosphere or climate of a school
Ethos of a school and the hidden curriculum
- ethos of a school is usually supported and reproduced through the hidden curriculum
- e.g. the school will reward and punish particular behaviours which they see as important
What do Functionalist think about the hidden curriculum?
- they see the transmission of society’s core values as one of the main functions of the education system which is seen as part of the hidden curriculum
- it is hidden in a sense that teachers and pupils are often unaware of the process
What do Marxists say about the hidden curriculum? Give an example of a sociologist
- argue the main job of school is social reproduction —> producing the next generation of workers schooled to accept their roles in capitalist society
- Bowles & Gintis (1976) —> believe it is done through the hidden curriculum and claim that schools produce subordinate, well-disciplined workers who will submit to control from above and take orders rather than question them
What do Feminists say about the hidden curriculum? Include statistics
- schools transmit patriarchal ideology —> the idea that male dominance in society is reasonable and acceptable
- 59% of girls + young women surveyed for Girlguiding UK said they had faced some form of sexual harassment at school or college
What do Postmodernists say about the hidden curriculum?
- Giroux (2011) argues that there is a ideen curriculum in American and increasingly global education, based on neoliberal ideology
- schools compete in an educational market place and aim to be top of the educational league tables
- job of school —> mainly to promote economic growth in an increasingly competitive global market
- students educated to acquire market-oriented skills to compete in global economy
What did Ball (1981) find about banding, setting and streaming?
- study at ‘Beachside Comprehensive’ —> found top stream students were encouraged to achieve highly and follow academic courses of study
- whilst lower stream students were encouraged to follow lower status vocational courses
What did Smyth et al (2006) find about banding, setting and streaming?
- students in lower stream class = more negative attitudes to school, find teaching pace too slow, spend less time on homework, more likely to disengage from school life and become disaffected with school
- therefore streaming could be having a negative effect on their educational aspirations and attainment
What did Keddie find about banding, setting and streaming?
- one problem with streaming is that not all students are given access to the same knowledge
- teachers taught higher stream pupils differently to the lower stream pupils and were expected to do more work and behave better
- lower stream pupils may underachieve because they are not being given access to the same knowledge
What did Gillborn and Youdell (2000) find about banding, setting and streaming?
- w/c and black pupils are more likely to be placed in the bottom streams
- they are unlikely to be entered for higher tier GCSE papers —> meaning that teachers are limiting what they can achieve
Evaluation of Ball’s, Smyth’s, Keddie’s, Gillborn and Youdell’s finding on banding, setting and streaming
- their explanations do not make it clear why it is the working class who are labelled negatively and the middle class who are labelled positively
- their research is mostly based on very small samples and do not representative e.g. only looked at 1 or 2 schools
What is a subculture?
A smaller group of people within a larger one that shares different norms and values e.g. fashion, beliefs, interests and behaviour
What are examples of behaviour you might see in a pro school subculture?
- being punctual
- following dress code
- doing homework on time
- taking part in clubs after school
- being a prefect
What are examples of behaviour you might see in an anti-school subculture?
- truancy/bunking lessons
- not doing homework
- swearing
- back chatting teachers
- not wearing uniform
- messing around
- fighting
