Social class,gender and education

Question 1

Labelling

Answer 1

Teachers attach labels based more on class rather than on ability, and attach negative labels to working class and positive to middle class

Question 2

Labelling research

Answer 2

Becker:
- carried out a study
- he intervied 60 high school teachers he found that they judged pupils according to how closely they fitted an image of the ‘ideal pupil’
- teachers often saw middle class students as the closest to ideal and working class children as furthest away

Question 3

Labelling research pt.2

Answer 3

Rist:
- study on primary school teachers
-found teachers used student’s backrounds to place them in seperate groups
-fast learners➡️ ‘tigers’, who tended to be middle class & those seen a less able➡️ ‘clowns’, tended to be working class
- the language that teachers used towards ‘tigers’ was more abstrakt and theoretical, while they spoke to ‘clowns’ in a low status language which is descriptive and common sense

Question 4

Self fulfilling prophecy

Answer 4

• lowers performance as the teacher labels the child as underachiever
• treats the student as if prediction is true
• pupil internalises the teachers expectation which become part of their self concept and lives up to the label that has been assigned to them

Question 5

Research - R & J

Answer 5

-Rosenthal and Jacobsen told a school they had a new test designed to indentify spurters this was a standard IQ test
- then they randomly selected 20% of students & told teachers they were the future spurters
-after a year, 47% of ‘spurters’ showed significant progress
-suggests that when teachers believe a child is capable they show motivation to support them and this demonstrates the Impact of self fulfilling prophecy

Question 6

Opposite effect of negative lebelling

Answer 6

Margaret Fuller’s (1984) research on black girls in a London comprehensive school
- found that the girls she researched were labelled as low-achievers,
- the girls’ response to this lable was to work and study even harder to prove teachers wrong

Question 7

Streaming

Answer 7

It involves seperating children i to different ability groups➡️streams
Each group is taught separately based on their ability
- likely to have an effect on working class students achievements as teachers see them as less able and poorly behaved so they are placed in low streams
- once in lower streams its hard for them to achieve hight grades as they don’t have access to higher exam papers
- middle class tend to be placed in high sets and do have greater self esteem and more motivation to succeed

Question 8

Pupil subculture

Answer 8

P.S- group of pupils who share similar values and behaviour patterns and often emerge as a response to labels and streams

2 types of pupil subcultures:
- pro school: tend to have a positive attitude to school and respect it
- anti school: tend to be those placed in low streams and blame school for their low self esteem

Question 9

Marketisation

Answer 9

Schools are under pressure to compete with other schools since they receiveve funding per student and have to publish league tables :
- result: popular outstanding schools can select which students they enrol ( tend to be middle class) and thus exam results are stronger
- working class students have no choice but to join unpopular failing schools with poor results