subcultures

Question 1

what is a pupil subculture?

Answer 1

Smaller groups of pupils who have different norms and values from the rest of the school

Question 2

anti-school subculture

Answer 2

Those who rebel against the school for various reasons, and develop and alternative set of delinquent values, attitudes and behaviours in opposition to the academic aims, ethos and rules of a school

Question 3

pro-school subculture

Answer 3

those which accept the values and ethos of the school and willingly conform to its rules

pupils who are very committed to school, they do all their work on time, they are always on time for lessons and never truant. It is argued that girls are more likely to be in these subcultures than boys.

Question 4

what is ’homogenous’?

Answer 4

the same throughout, undifferentiated, sharing own uniform set of values.

Question 5

Lacey

Answer 5

Lacey’s concept of differentiation and polarisation are used to explain how pupil subcultures develop.

Differentiation is the process of teachers categorising pupils according to how they perceive their ability, attitude and behaviour

Streaming is a form of differentiation, as it categorises pupils into different classes

Polarisation is the process which pupils respond to streaming by moving towards one of two opposite poles or extremes

Question 6

Mac an Ghaill - ‘The making of Men’

what subcultures did Mac an Ghail identify?

Answer 6

1. The ‘Macho lads’
2. The academic achievers
3. The ‘new enterprisers’
4. ‘Real Englishmen’
5. Gay students

Question 7

describe the subcultures Mac an Ghail identified

Answer 7

• Macho Lads - academic failures who had been placed in the bottom sets and were much like the lads in Willis’ classic study. They saw school as a ‘hostile authority’ and making pointless demands on them. They formed an anti-school culture which was based around acting tough, having a laugh and looking after your mates. Messing around in lessons was a norm
• Academic Achievers - These had been put in top sets by teachers and were well regarded by them as they were positive about school, the subjects they were studying. They were mostly from skilled manual WC backgrounds and sought to achieve academic success by focusing on traditional academic subjects. They were positive about their prospectives of being upwardly socially mobile.
• New Enterprisers - typically from WC backgrounds and rejected the traditional academic curriculum, which they saw as a waste of time, but were motivated to study subjects such as business and computing and were able to achieve upward mobility by exploiting school-industry links to their advantage.
• Real Englishmen - small group of MC students typically from liberal professional backgrounds who rejected what teachers had to offer, believing their own culture and knowledge to be superior

Question 8

Carolyn Jackson

Female subcultures

Answer 8

• Identified a growing culture of ‘laddishness’ among school girls
• Found that laddish behaviour had important benefits – it made students seem cool and thus popular
• Argued that it was a response to the fear of failure – it made students seem unbothered about failing, so if they did FAIL they would not look bad
• Furthermore, if lads and ladettes did well, they would be labelled as a genius – doing well with apparently no effort

Question 9

Gillborn

BAME subcultures

Answer 9

• Found that Afro-Carribean boys were more likely to be given detention than other pupils.
• Teachers misinterpreted dress and manner of Afro-Caribbean pupils as presenting a challenge to authority. (He calls this “the myth of the Black challenge”)
• Thus, in turn these pupils responded in accordance with their labels as being unruly and difficult to control.

Question 10

Sewell

BAME subcultures

Answer 10

Suggested that, due to their socialisation into negative stereotypes, some teachers were actually ‘fearful’ of black pupils.

Question 11

Mirza

subcultures

Answer 11

Studied 62 black girls and found that they had positive attitudes towards achieving success in school.

However many also thought that some teachers were racist and so formed subcultures based on their ethnicity which valued education but had little respect for the school which was seen as a racist institution.

Question 12

Willis

subcultures

Question 13

Hollingworth and Williams

Answer 13

Found that working class male anti-school subcultures still exist, but are now labelled as ‘chavs’ rather than ‘lads’

Middle class males tended to include ‘skaters’ and ‘emos’, but may do better at school due to material and cultural advantage

Question 14

Archer et al

Answer 14

Found that the ppl in her study had constructed identities based upon the wearing of branded sportswear that differentiated them from middle class pupils

The working class identified themselves as ‘Nike’ is comparison to the middle class ‘Gucci’

The W/C students drew symbolic capital (status) from wearing these clothes despite the views of middle-class pupils and teachers as being tasteless.

Question 15

what is symbolic violence?

Answer 15

Symbolically attacking a group’s culture, norms and values

In this instance attacking working class culture at school by systematically criticising and ridiculing it’s values, and portraying middle class culture as superior

Question 16

Using sociological evidence and examples, explain the SUBCULTURES that teacher labelling may have on attainment in education

Answer 16

CLASS - W/C children underachieve because of teacher prejudice - Bernstein, Archer et al (symbolic violence), Becker

ETHNICITY - Gillborn, Sewell

GENDER - Francis, Stanworth