Streaming (Internal)

Question 1

What is streaming?

Answer 1

Separating children into different ability groups based on perceived ability. Each group is then taught separately from others for all subjects (while sets are based academically)

Question 2

What are the effects of streaming on WC pupils?

Answer 2

• More likely to be in lower streams (not ideal pupil)
• Once streamed, it’s difficult to move up; children are locked into their teachers’ low expectations. Children in lower streams ‘get the message’ that their teachers see them as no-hopers
• Creates SFP where pupils live up to low expectation by underachieving

Question 3

What are the effects of streaming on MC pupils?

Answer 3

• Likely to be placed in higher streams, due to teachers’ view of them as ideal
• They develop a more positive self-concept, gain confidence, work harder and improve grades

Question 4

What did Douglas find?

Answer 4

Children placed in lower streams at age 8 suffered a decline in their IQ by age 11, while those placed in higher streams had improved their IQ by age 11

Question 5

How does ‘The Guardian’ article support the effects of streaming?

Answer 5

• Title: ‘School streaming helps brightest pupils but nobody else’
• The article notes that streaming makes the attainment gap worse, and that children in lower streams tend to do worse than those in mixed-ability classes

Question 6

Describe a study on how teachers use stereotypical notions of ‘ability’ to stream pupils

Answer 6

• Gillborn and Youdell found teachers are less likely to see WC pupils as having ability
• As a result, they’re more likely to be put in lower steams and entered for foundation GCSEs.
• This denies them knowledge and opportunity needed to gain good grades and widens the class gap in achievement

Question 7

How do Gillborn and Youdell link streaming to policy of publishing exam league tables?

Answer 7

• League tables rank schools according to exam results, in terms of the % of pupils gaining 5 or more GCSE grades A* to C. Schools need to achieve a good league table position to attract pupils and funding
• Gillborn and Youdell argue league tables creates an ‘A-to-C economy’

Question 8

What is an ‘A-to-C economy’?

Answer 8

A system where schools focus their time, effort, resources on those pupils they see as having the potential to get 5 grade Cs (high progress 8) and boost the school’s league table position

Question 9

What is ‘educational triage’?

Answer 9

Gillborn and Youdell call the process of the A-to-C economy ‘educational triage’, meaning sorting

Question 10

How are students sorted in the educational triage?

Answer 10

• Those who will pass anyway so can be left to get on with it
• Those with potential, who will be helped to get a grade C or better
• Hopeless cases, who are doomed to fail

Question 11

What are the effects of the educational triage?

Answer 11

• The need to gain a good league table position drives educational triage.
• This becomes the basis for streaming, where teachers’ beliefs are used to segregate pupils into lower streams. Resulting in underachievement

Question 11

What is an advantage of Gillborn and Youdell’s theories?

Answer 11

• While they use interactionist concepts (e.g. labelling and face-to-face interactions with pupils) they put these processes into a broader context
• e.g. Schools operate in a wider system where marketisation polices directly affect these micro processes to produce class differences in achievement