Theories Flashcards
Fuller
Students can respond positively to labeling by rejecting school values while remaining pro-education. Based on a case study of black girls who “did their own thing” in school and succeeded in their exams.
Mac an Ghail
The effectiveness of students’ responses of labeling depends on several factors, such as gender, ethnic background, and their previous education experience. Girls who’d gone to an all-girls school responded more constructively to labeling at a college.
Gillborn and Youdell
Teachers view black pupils as being more aggressive and badly behaved. They are more likely to be excluded and therefore their achievement will suffer (only 20% of excluded pupils get 5 A*-C grades).
Mirza
Teachers are racist in three ways, and sometimes students’ strategies to avoid this are not particularly effective. Avoiding lessons, “doing your own thing” or choosing different subjects led to failure in this case.
Archer
Teachers have an image of the “ideal pupil” – naturally intelligent, middle class and white. Working class and/or black students are “demonised” and labeled as a result, whereas Asian and Eastern European students are “pathologised” as hardworking but less intelligent. Any success they achieve is downplayed as “despite themselves”!
Wright
Teachers view Asian pupils as having poor English, and so leave them out of discussion or talk to them using simple, patronising language, leading to low self-esteem and being “left behind” in lessons.
Sewell
Black male students display four responses to labeling – they rebel, conform, retreat or innovate. The problem is that teachers assume that most black males are rebels, and they get treated as such.
Harvey and Slatin (1976)
Examined whether teachers had preconceived ideas about pupils of different social classes. Lower-class children were rated less favourably, especially by more experienced teachers. (create another flashcard on how they tested this theory).
David Mason (1973)
Looked at whether negative or positive expectations had the greater effect. Mason found that the negative reports had a much greater impact than the positive ones on the teachers’ expectations. (create another flashcard on how he tested this theory).
Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968)
‘Pygmalion in the classroom’ illustrates the difficulties of using field experiments to study teachers expectations.
Becker
Labelling Theory which sometimes referred to as ‘social reaction theory’ because of its emphasis upon society’s reactions to the deviant rather than on the deviant as an individual.
