Differences in Educational Achievement By Social Class
Differences in Educational Achievement By Social Class
Cultural Deprivation (External):
NB: Please excuse the formating for the first few topics, I don't know why it's like that and I can't fix it :(
Reasons why having free school meals may lead to underperformance in GCSEs and A-Levels:
May not be able to afford resources for revisions.
May not be able to afford a tutor.
Education curriculum made for middle-upper class students.
Treated differently for social class (teacher labelling).
Might have to work - less time to study.
Lack of socialisation, brought up with an ‘I don’t care’ attitude which reflects on their education.
Single-parent household.
School location.
Bullying.
Internal (within schools)
External (outside schools)
One of the things that sociologists are interested in when studying education is how well different groups perform in education.
Working-class underachievement is caused:
Parent’s attitude to and interest in education.
Amount of cultural capital.
Teacher labelling.
Cultural and material deprivation.
Parent’s level and knowledge of education, and confidence in dealing with schools.
Subcultural attitudes and values.
Restricted code of language use
Facts about working class children:
More likely to be poor readers when they start school.
More likely to be in low sets at school.
More likely to be suspended and excluded from school.
More likely to underachieve at GCSE and A-Level
Less likely to go to university
Stereotypes of working class:
Parents don’t raise them properly.
So many are from families who don’t have any hopes for their children.
The teachers don’t like them as much as middle-class children.
They are genetically less intelligent.
Parents don’t push them hard enough.
They lack resources at home
Self-fulfilling prophecy - When you’re told that you’re something so much, that you begin to believe it.
Cultural deprivation theory:
This is a controversial theory that blames working-class families for their underachievement.
Cultural Deprivation Theorists believe:
Working-class families fail to socialise their children adequately.
The working class are ‘culturally deprived’
They lack the cultural equipment needed to do well at school, and so they underachieve
Home background has an enormous effect on the success of children from working-class backgrounds as they are more likely to suffer from cultural deprivation where they lack the attitudes, values, knowledge and skills to succeed in schools.
Sugarmann argues that working class subcultures have for features that lead to educational underachievement:
- Fatalism - Working class had a fatalist mentality, nothing they can do to change their status
- Collectivism - Working class valued being a part of a group rather than succeeding as an individual
- Immediate gratification - Nature of jobs tended to produce differences in attitude and outlook. Less control over the future - less opportunity to improve their position
- Present-time orientation - Working-class individuals have the present more than the future. Can’t form long term goals
Material Deprivation (External)
Material Deprivation - Lack necessities such as adequate housing and a comfortable income
Key factors:
Housing can impact directly or indirectly on achievement.
Working class children have poorer diet and health (Howard); are more likely to suffer behavioural problems (Wilkinson) and behave disruptively (Blanden and Machin).
School equipment is costly (Tanner); children are embarrassed by FSM (free school meal) status (Flaherty); w/class families cannot afford tuition (Smith and Noble) and young people may be restricted by part-time work (Ridge)
Increase in tuition fees and fear of debt puts working class youths off university (Callender and Jackson)
Material:
Mortimore and Whitty - argue that material inequalities have the greatest effect on achievement and tackling inequality is the most effective way to boost achievement.
Cultural:
The fact that some poor children do achieve suggests that it is more than material deprivation
Feinstein showed that educated parents - regardless of their income - make a positive contribution to a child’s achievement.
Restricted Code - A form of language where people communicate using limited vocabulary and grammar structures; used mainly by working-class individuals.
Teachers and other students may identify this and label them - can lead to bullying
Elaborate Code - A form of language where the speaker uses complex vocabulary and grammar structures; used mainly by middle-class students.
Exams and lessons are mainly prepared in elaborate code, which can create a language barrier with students and exams.
Fatalism - A fatalist mentality - there’s nothing someone can do to change their status
Won’t form long-term goals, which creates social immobility
Immediate Gratification - Want to be rewarded straight away instead of working towards something for a long period.
Less inclined to take ambitious subjects as there is no immediate reward.
External Factor - A factor that occurs outside of school.
Diet and health, equipment
Diet and Health - Your physical and mental wellbeing, which can impact concentration and memory.
Poor Housing - A bad living environment that can impact achievement - distractions, health, geographical location.
Sure Start and Operation Head Start are two organisations for compensatory education to help improve learning of working-class children.
Promoting improvement in social mobility
Issues:
For the middle-class → If you’re poor, how can you watch TV programmes made for compensatory education?
Working-Class vs. Middle-Class
Bourdieu argues the middle-class possess ‘cultural capital’ - they are advantaged because they possess knowledge, attitudes, values, language, tastes, and abilities that are socially valued i.e a form of capital.
The middle-class also have economic capital (i.e they have well-paid careers and high levels of wealth).
They use their economic capital to pay for activities such as holidays, educational trips, resources, etc. that encourage the development of cultural capital in their children.
Cultural capital leads to educational capital: children of middle-class families possess additional skills and knowledge which enable them to perform well at school.
Internal Factors: Labelling
Starter:
Deferred - Later, in its own time
Immediate - Straight away
Gratification - Reward/reinforcement
Deprivation - Lack of
Capital - Educational, economic, cultural
Economic → Cultural → Educational
Challenge:
Compensatory education
Head Start and Sure Start
Positive Discrimination
London Schooling Effect - Focusing on lower achieving students and using their negative/deprivation and putting on a positive spin on it.
Culture Clash:
Archer et. al (2007)
Middle-class students are more likely to have a smooth transition between home and school, as expectations may just be an extension of the home.
In contrast, w/c children are likely to experience a clash between the home and school resulting in alienation or disaffection from school.
Middle-class children arrive at school with a higher cultural capital, enabling them to be more tuned in to the demands of school (eg. doing homework, getting good grades, showing good behaviour, etc.)
Consequently, they may appear to teachers as more intelligent and sophisticated.
By contrast, w/c children face conflict in the values of home and school, known as the culture clash.
Internal Factors:
Associated with interactionists and neo-marxists.
Labelling:
One important factor (internal) is labelling.
Labelling theory was developed by interactionist sociologist Howard Becker in relation to the concept of deviance.
The broad idea is that teachers subconsciously label their pupils.
Some pupils are labelled as clever, well-behaved, etc. and others are labelled as trouble, naughty or stupid.
The way the teacher interacts with the pupils differ, depending on how they label them and the student will in turn react to that labelling and one way they can react is to internist it, accept it and live up to it.
Important point here is that teachers might be more likely to label working-class pupils (especially working-class boys) negatively and therefore could create low achievement by expecting it.
Becker (1971)
Interviewed 60 Chicago high school teachers.
Found teachers judged pupils on how closely they fitted the image of the ‘ideal pupil’.
Middle-class seen as closer to the ideal due to their conduct, work, and appearance.
Working-class seen as further away from the ideal, as they were seen as badly behaved.
Pupils work, conduct and appearance were key factors influencing teachers judgements
Working-class children were seen as far away from the ideal pupil as they were badly behaved.
However,
Different teachers may have different notions about what makes an ‘ideal pupil’.
Hemel-Jorgensen (2009) - Teachers’ notions vary according to the social class make-up of the school and compare:
Working-class primary school
Middle-class primary school
Using Bernsteinian theory and the concept of the ‘ideal pupil’, it is shown that these pupils’ learner identities are more passive and dominated by issues of discipline and behaviour rather than academic performance, in contrast to those in the middle-class school.
Dunne and Gazeley (2008) - Labelling in Secondary Schools
Suggested that the teachers explained and dealt with underachievement caused class differences in attainment.
Teachers dealing with underachievement working-class pupils:
‘Normalised’ the pupils’ underachievement
Felt they had no control over their pupils’ underachievement
Entered them for easier exams (foundation paper), underestimating their abilities
Blamed pupils’ home background - uninterested and unsupportive parents
Teachers dealing with underachieving middle-class pupils:
Believed that the pupils could overcome underachievement
Would set them extension tasks
Rist (1970) - Labelling in Primary Schools
Rist’s study of an American Kindergarten (5-6 years old) found:
The teacher used information about a children’s home background and appearance to separate them into groups.
Once in groups she sat the students she viewed as brightest - the ‘tigers’ - as closest to her and those who viewed as less bright - the ‘clowns’ - further away.
‘Clowns’ were given lower level reading and less opportunity to show their abilities
Self-fulfilling prophecy - Students internalise the label and deem themselves to be a ‘failure’
Jane Elliot - Wanted to approach the problem of racism in America in the 1960s, by helping students understand what was wrong with it. Alongside doing this she illustrated the problem of teachers labelling students.
Blue eyes, Brown eyes
This applies to underachievement and discrimination towards social class because if a teacher or role-model (parent, celebrity, government) expresses an opinion/label onto onto a specific social class (working class), then all people of that social class will have a self-fulfilling prophecy and they’ll believe that they are their label, and all other social classes will reinforce that opinion.
For example, labels that w/c are more dumb/stupid because they have less cultural/economic capital.
W/C believe they are stupid and won’t care as much for education.
M/C and U/C enforce this view via discrimination (verbal/physical)
Master Status = Dominant identity of a person
eg. Ethnicity, Disability, Occupation, Sex
Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) - Pygmalion in the Classroom
Tested teachers’ expectations of students against their performance.
IQ tests were given to students before and after the study
Teachers were told that 20% of the students had a high IQ and expected to make rapid progress.
In fact, these students were chosen at random and no different from others.
Within a year, those students who the teachers believed had a high IQ made rapid progress compared to other students.
This shows evidence of labelling theory and students becoming self-fulfilling prophecies.
Has been repeated since with the same results, showing reliability.
Could also suggest that those labelled ‘not bright’ have negative consequences on their progress, showing that labelling has a two-pronged approach.
Internal Factors - Labelling by the School
Setting and Streaming
Setting - Putting pupils into group based on their ability in specific subjects (eg. Set 1, 2, 3, etc.)
Streaming - Putting pupils into the same class for all subjects based on their perceived ability (eg. houses/communities)
W/C pupils are more likely to be in lower streams
Teacher’s expectations then prevent pupils from moving to higher streams
Douglas found a decline in IQ after being placed in a lower stream
Ball (1981)
Sought to investigate why w/c pupils underperform at school.
Spent three years in Beachside Comprehensive, carrying out a participant observation.
He particularly focused on two groups of students, one who had been banded or streamed by ability, and another that was taught in mixed-ability classes.
Ball found that the process tended to have a negative impact on w/c pupils.
He found that pupils who started school with similar attitudes to study began to diverge when they were banded/streamed.
W/C pupils gravitated towards the lower bands and then became increasingly disinterested in education and ‘anti-school’.
He describes a ‘downward mobility’.
Gillborn and Youdell found teachers use stereotypes to place pupils in streams
League tables are public and show a school’s performance in comparison to others.
W/C are disadvantaged by these stereotypes.
Teachers and schools focus on m/c students to boost their league table position.
Gillborn and Youdell argued that schools use a triage system (like A&E), categorising on how pupils will achieve
Hopeless cases (lack of effort) (stereotypes to be w/c pupils)
Borderline cases who need a push (achieving 4-5 at GCSE)
Those who will achieve anyway.
Internal Factors - Subcultures
A subculture is a cultural group within a larger culture, often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture.
When discussing subcultures that pupils form as a response to labelling. Lacey (1970) refers to four key terms:
Differentiation - Teachers judging students and rank and categorise them into different groups.
Polarisation - The way students become divided into two opposing groups: those in the top streams who achieve highly and conform so achieve high status, and those in the bottom sets who are labelled as failures and therefore deprived of status.
Pro-school subculture - Those which accept the values and ethos of the school and willingly conform to its rules. Typically comprised of children from middle-class backgrounds.
Anti-school subculture - Consist of groups of students who rebel against the school for various reasons, and develop an alternative set of delinquent values, attitudes, and behaviours in opposition to the academic aims, ethos, and rules of a school.
Willis - Learning to Labour (Participant Observation)
Some students (particularly w/c boys, according to Willis) form subcultures within school that are hostile (towards themselves, the school system, pro-school students).
For them, praise from teachers is bad, getting into trouble is good (wanting to gain status for misbehaving).
The norms and values of the subculture are of messing about and avoiding work and to welcome poor grades.
The subcultures have little interest in achievement and therefore it is unsurprising that the students who are likely to form such subcultures are also statistically likely to underperform.
Hargreaves (1967)
Similar responses to labelling and streaming in a secondary modern school as LAcey.
Boys in the lower streams were ‘triple failures’
They had failed the 11+ exam.
Been placed in lower streams.
Labelled as ‘worthless louts’
Solution to this was to find each other and form their own group. They have their own ‘success’ rules within subcultures. For example, ‘Kudos’ goes to those individuals who are brilliant at going against the school rules.
W/C boys don’t bother taking the 11+ → Less boys go to grammar school, more girls go → Girls get better grades → Creates label.
Abolishing Streaming: Ball (1981)
Beachside was in the process of abolishing banding (a type of streaming) in favour of teaching mixed-ability groups.
Ball found the basis for pupils to polarise into subcultures was largely removed and the influence of the anti-school subculture declined.
Pupil polarisation disappeared but differentiation continued.
Teachers continued to categorise pupils differently and were more likely to label middle-class pupils as cooperative and able.
This positive labelling was reflected in their better exam results, suggesting that a self-fulfilling prophecy had occurred.
Ball’s study shows that class inequalities can continue as a result of teacher’s labelling, even without the effect of subcultures or streaming.
Pupil Responses: Woods (1979)
Pro- and anti-school subcultures are two possible responses to labelling and streaming. According to Woods there are also other responses to:
Integration: Being the teacher’s pet.
Ritualism: Going through the motions and staying out of trouble.
Retreatism: Daydreaming and mucking about.
Rebellion: Outright rejection of everything the school stands for.
Criticisms of Labelling Theory on Subcultures:
Negative labelling can sometimes have the opposite effect - Fuller (1984) research on black girls, they were labelled as low-achievers but their response to this negative labelling was to knuckle down and study hard to prove their teachers and the school wrong - self-refuting prophecy.
Rosenthal and Jacobson’s research has been proved unreliable - other similar experimental studies reveal no significant effects.
One has to question whether teachers today actually label along social-class lines. Surely teachers are among the most sensitively trained professionals in the world, and in the current ‘aspirational culture’ of education, it’s difficult to see how teachers would either label in such a way, or get away with it if they did.
Internal Factors - Pupil Identities.
Habitus:
A key concept in understanding the interaction between pupils’ identities and the school and how this impacts on achievement.
Habitus: ‘dispositions’ or learned, taken-for-granted ways of thinking, being and acting. Shared by a particular social class.
Put simply, it can define a person’s outlook on life and their view of what is realistic for ‘people like us’
Bourdieu (Marxist): Habitus = the ways of thinking and acting of a particular. In the education system:
The middle-class habitus → Symbolic Capital
The working-class habitus → Symbolic Violence
Archer: W/C Students would need to change how they talked and presented themselves in order to gain symbolic capital from the school. Those who don’t are devalued and judged negatively by school - and so suffer symbolic violence.
Archer et Al. (2010) ‘nike’ identities
To overcome the symbolic violence they face, w/c students gain self-worth through style/brand names
This gives a sense of ‘being me’
These identities are strongly gendered-specific to males or females.
Must conform to these styles to get social approval/status.
Approval from peers, but conflict with school habitus.
W/C see higher education as:
Unrealistic - not for ‘people like us’
Undesirable - does not suit their habitus.
W/C underachieve as they self-exclude from education, seeing it as not part of their habitus.
Ingram (2009)
She found that w/c identity was inseparable from belonging to a w/c locality.
The neighbourhood’s dense networks of family and friends were a key part of the boys’ habitus.
It gave them an intense feeling of belonging. As in Archer’s study, street culture and branded sportswear were a key part of the boys’ habitus and sense of identity.
W/C communities place great emphasis on conformity.
The boys experienced a great pressure to ‘fit in’ and this was a particular problem for their grammar school boys, who experienced a tension between the habitus of their w/c neighbourhood and that of their m/c school.
Evans (2009)
Studied a group of 21 w/c girls from a south London comprehensive studying for their A-Levels.
Evans found that they were reluctant to apply to elite universities such as Oxbridge.
The few who did apply - felt a sense of hidden barriers and of not fitting in.
The girls had a strong attachment to their locality. For example, only four of the 21 intended to move away from home to study.
W/C people think of places like Oxbridge as being ‘not for the likes of us’
This feeling comes from their habitus, which includes beliefs about what opportunities really exist for them and whether they would ‘fit in’.
Such thinking becomes part of their identity and leads w/c students to exclude themselves from elite universities.
Reasons why having free school meals may lead to underperformance in GCSEs and A-Levels:
May not be able to afford resources for revisions.
May not be able to afford a tutor.
Education curriculum made for middle-upper class students.
Treated differently for social class (teacher labelling).
Might have to work - less time to study.
Lack of socialisation, brought up with an ‘I don’t care’ attitude which reflects on their education.
Single-parent household.
School location.
Bullying.
Internal (within schools)
External (outside schools)
One of the things that sociologists are interested in when studying education is how well different groups perform in education.
Working-class underachievement is caused:
Parent’s attitude to and interest in education.
Amount of cultural capital.
Teacher labelling.
Cultural and material deprivation.
Parent’s level and knowledge of education, and confidence in dealing with schools.
Subcultural attitudes and values.
Restricted code of language use
Facts about working class children:
More likely to be poor readers when they start school.
More likely to be in low sets at school.
More likely to be suspended and excluded from school.
More likely to underachieve at GCSE and A-Level
Less likely to go to university
Stereotypes of working class:
Parents don’t raise them properly.
So many are from families who don’t have any hopes for their children.
The teachers don’t like them as much as middle-class children.
They are genetically less intelligent.
Parents don’t push them hard enough.
They lack resources at home
Self-fulfilling prophecy - When you’re told that you’re something so much, that you begin to believe it.
Cultural deprivation theory:
This is a controversial theory that blames working-class families for their underachievement.
Cultural Deprivation Theorists believe:
Working-class families fail to socialise their children adequately.
The working class are ‘culturally deprived’
They lack the cultural equipment needed to do well at school, and so they underachieve
Home background has an enormous effect on the success of children from working-class backgrounds as they are more likely to suffer from cultural deprivation where they lack the attitudes, values, knowledge and skills to succeed in schools.
Sugarmann argues that working class subcultures have for features that lead to educational underachievement:
- Fatalism - Working class had a fatalist mentality, nothing they can do to change their status
- Collectivism - Working class valued being a part of a group rather than succeeding as an individual
Material Deprivation - Lack necessities such as adequate housing and a comfortable income
Key factors:
Housing can impact directly or indirectly on achievement.
Working class children have poorer diet and health (Howard); are more likely to suffer behavioural problems (Wilkinson) and behave disruptively (Blanden and Machin).
School equipment is costly (Tanner); children are embarrassed by FSM (free school meal) status (Flaherty); w/class families cannot afford tuition (Smith and Noble) and young people may be restricted by part-time work (Ridge)
Increase in tuition fees and fear of debt puts working class youths off university (Callender and Jackson)
Material:
Mortimore and Whitty - argue that material inequalities have the greatest effect on achievement and tackling inequality is the most effective way to boost achievement.
Cultural:
The fact that some poor children do achieve suggests that it is more than material deprivation
Feinstein showed that educated parents - regardless of their income - make a positive contribution to a child’s achievement.
Restricted Code - A form of language where people communicate using limited vocabulary and grammar structures; used mainly by working-class individuals.
Teachers and other students may identify this and label them - can lead to bullying
Elaborate Code - A form of language where the speaker uses complex vocabulary and grammar structures; used mainly by middle-class students.
Exams and lessons are mainly prepared in elaborate code, which can create a language barrier with students and exams.
Fatalism - A fatalist mentality - there’s nothing someone can do to change their status
Won’t form long-term goals, which creates social immobility
Immediate Gratification - Want to be rewarded straight away instead of working towards something for a long period.
Less inclined to take ambitious subjects as there is no immediate reward.
External Factor - A factor that occurs outside of school.
Diet and health, equipment
Diet and Health - Your physical and mental wellbeing, which can impact concentration and memory.
Poor Housing - A bad living environment that can impact achievement - distractions, health, geographical location.
Sure Start and Operation Head Start are two organisations for compensatory education to help improve learning of working-class children.
Promoting improvement in social mobility
Issues:
For the middle-class → If you’re poor, how can you watch TV programmes made for compensatory education?
Working-Class vs. Middle-Class
Bourdieu argues the middle-class possess ‘cultural capital’ - they are advantaged because they possess knowledge, attitudes, values, language, tastes, and abilities that are socially valued i.e a form of capital.
The middle-class also have economic capital (i.e they have well-paid careers and high levels of wealth).
They use their economic capital to pay for activities such as holidays, educational trips, resources, etc. that encourage the development of cultural capital in their children.
Cultural capital leads to educational capital: children of middle-class families possess additional skills and knowledge which enable them to perform well at school.
Internal Factors: Labelling
Starter:
Deferred - Later, in its own time
Immediate - Straight away
Gratification - Reward/reinforcement
Deprivation - Lack of
Capital - Educational, economic, cultural
Economic → Cultural → Educational
Challenge:
Compensatory education
Head Start and Sure Start
Positive Discrimination
London Schooling Effect - Focusing on lower achieving students and using their negative/deprivation and putting on a positive spin on it.
Culture Clash:
Archer et. al (2007)
Middle-class students are more likely to have a smooth transition between home and school, as expectations may just be an extension of the home.
In contrast, w/c children are likely to experience a clash between the home and school resulting in alienation or disaffection from school.
Middle-class children arrive at school with a higher cultural capital, enabling them to be more tuned in to the demands of school (eg. doing homework, getting good grades, showing good behaviour, etc.)
Consequently, they may appear to teachers as more intelligent and sophisticated.
By contrast, w/c children face conflict in the values of home and school, known as the culture clash.
Internal Factors:
Associated with interactionists and neo-marxists.
Labelling:
One important factor (internal) is labelling.
Labelling theory was developed by interactionist sociologist Howard Becker in relation to the concept of deviance.
The broad idea is that teachers subconsciously label their pupils.
Some pupils are labelled as clever, well-behaved, etc. and others are labelled as trouble, naughty or stupid.
The way the teacher interacts with the pupils differ, depending on how they label them and the student will in turn react to that labelling and one way they can react is to internist it, accept it and live up to it.
Important point here is that teachers might be more likely to label working-class pupils (especially working-class boys) negatively and therefore could create low achievement by expecting it.
Becker (1971)
Interviewed 60 Chicago high school teachers.
Found teachers judged pupils on how closely they fitted the image of the ‘ideal pupil’.
Middle-class seen as closer to the ideal due to their conduct, work, and appearance.
Working-class seen as further away from the ideal, as they were seen as badly behaved.
Pupils work, conduct and appearance were key factors influencing teachers judgements
Working-class children were seen as far away from the ideal pupil as they were badly behaved.
However,
Different teachers may have different notions about what makes an ‘ideal pupil’.
Hemel-Jorgensen (2009) - Teachers’ notions vary according to the social class make-up of the school and compare:
Working-class primary school
Middle-class primary school
Using Bernsteinian theory and the concept of the ‘ideal pupil’, it is shown that these pupils’ learner identities are more passive and dominated by issues of discipline and behaviour rather than academic performance, in contrast to those in the middle-class school.
Dunne and Gazeley (2008) - Labelling in Secondary Schools
Suggested that the teachers explained and dealt with underachievement caused class differences in attainment.
Teachers dealing with underachievement working-class pupils:
‘Normalised’ the pupils’ underachievement
Felt they had no control over their pupils’ underachievement
Entered them for easier exams (foundation paper), underestimating their abilities
Blamed pupils’ home background - uninterested and unsupportive parents
Teachers dealing with underachieving middle-class pupils:
Believed that the pupils could overcome underachievement
Would set them extension tasks
Rist (1970) - Labelling in Primary Schools
Rist’s study of an American Kindergarten (5-6 years old) found:
The teacher used information about a children’s home background and appearance to separate them into groups.
Once in groups she sat the students she viewed as brightest - the ‘tigers’ - as closest to her and those who viewed as less bright - the ‘clowns’ - further away.
‘Clowns’ were given lower level reading and less opportunity to show their abilities
Jane Elliot - Wanted to approach the problem of racism in America in the 1960s, by helping students understand what was wrong with it. Alongside doing this she illustrated the problem of teachers labelling students.
Blue eyes, Brown eyes
This applies to underachievement and discrimination towards social class because if a teacher or role-model (parent, celebrity, government) expresses an opinion/label onto onto a specific social class (working class), then all people of that social class will have a self-fulfilling prophecy and they’ll believe that they are their label, and all other social classes will reinforce that opinion.
For example, labels that w/c are more dumb/stupid because they have less cultural/economic capital.
W/C believe they are stupid and won’t care as much for education.
M/C and U/C enforce this view via discrimination (verbal/physical)
Master Status = Dominant identity of a person
eg. Ethnicity, Disability, Occupation, Sex
Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) - Pygmalion in the Classroom
Tested teachers’ expectations of students against their performance.
IQ tests were given to students before and after the study
Teachers were told that 20% of the students had a high IQ and expected to make rapid progress.
In fact, these students were chosen at random and no different from others.
Within a year, those students who the teachers believed had a high IQ made rapid progress compared to other students.
This shows evidence of labelling theory and students becoming self-fulfilling prophecies.
Has been repeated since with the same results, showing reliability.
Could also suggest that those labelled ‘not bright’ have negative consequences on their progress, showing that labelling has a two-pronged approach.
Internal Factors - Labelling by the School
Setting and Streaming
Setting - Putting pupils into group based on their ability in specific subjects (eg. Set 1, 2, 3, etc.)
Streaming - Putting pupils into the same class for all subjects based on their perceived ability (eg. houses/communities)
W/C pupils are more likely to be in lower streams
Teacher’s expectations then prevent pupils from moving to higher streams
Douglas found a decline in IQ after being placed in a lower stream
Ball (1981)
Sought to investigate why w/c pupils underperform at school.
Spent three years in Beachside Comprehensive, carrying out a participant observation.
He particularly focused on two groups of students, one who had been banded or streamed by ability, and another that was taught in mixed-ability classes.
Ball found that the process tended to have a negative impact on w/c pupils.
He found that pupils who started school with similar attitudes to study began to diverge when they were banded/streamed.
W/C pupils gravitated towards the lower bands and then became increasingly disinterested in education and ‘anti-school’.
He describes a ‘downward mobility’.
Gillborn and Youdell found teachers use stereotypes to place pupils in streams
League tables are public and show a school’s performance in comparison to others.
W/C are disadvantaged by these stereotypes.
Teachers and schools focus on m/c students to boost their league table position.
Gillborn and Youdell argued that schools use a triage system (like A&E), categorising on how pupils will achieve
Hopeless cases (lack of effort) (stereotypes to be w/c pupils)
Borderline cases who need a push (achieving 4-5 at GCSE)
Those who will achieve anyway.
Internal Factors - Subcultures
A subculture is a cultural group within a larger culture, often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture.
When discussing subcultures that pupils form as a response to labelling. Lacey (1970) refers to four key terms:
Differentiation - Teachers judging students and rank and categorise them into different groups.
Polarisation - The way students become divided into two opposing groups: those in the top streams who achieve highly and conform so achieve high status, and those in the bottom sets who are labelled as failures and therefore deprived of status.
Pro-school subculture - Those which accept the values and ethos of the school and willingly conform to its rules. Typically comprised of children from middle-class backgrounds.
Anti-school subculture - Consist of groups of students who rebel against the school for various reasons, and develop an alternative set of delinquent values, attitudes, and behaviours in opposition to the academic aims, ethos, and rules of a school.
Willis - Learning to Labour (Participant Observation)
Some students (particularly w/c boys, according to Willis) form subcultures within school that are hostile (towards themselves, the school system, pro-school students).
For them, praise from teachers is bad, getting into trouble is good (wanting to gain status for misbehaving).
The norms and values of the subculture are of messing about and avoiding work and to welcome poor grades.
The subcultures have little interest in achievement and therefore it is unsurprising that the students who are likely to form such subcultures are also statistically likely to underperform.
Hargreaves (1967)
Similar responses to labelling and streaming in a secondary modern school as LAcey.
Boys in the lower streams were ‘triple failures’
They had failed the 11+ exam.
Been placed in lower streams.
Labelled as ‘worthless louts’
Solution to this was to find each other and form their own group. They have their own ‘success’ rules within subcultures. For example, ‘Kudos’ goes to those individuals who are brilliant at going against the school rules.
W/C boys don’t bother taking the 11+ → Less boys go to grammar school, more girls go → Girls get better grades → Creates label.
Abolishing Streaming: Ball (1981)
Beachside was in the process of abolishing banding (a type of streaming) in favour of teaching mixed-ability groups.
Ball found the basis for pupils to polarise into subcultures was largely removed and the influence of the anti-school subculture declined.
Pupil polarisation disappeared but differentiation continued.
Teachers continued to categorise pupils differently and were more likely to label middle-class pupils as cooperative and able.
This positive labelling was reflected in their better exam results, suggesting that a self-fulfilling prophecy had occurred.
Ball’s study shows that class inequalities can continue as a result of teacher’s labelling, even without the effect of subcultures or streaming.
Pupil Responses: Woods (1979)
Pro- and anti-school subcultures are two possible responses to labelling and streaming. According to Woods there are also other responses to:
Integration: Being the teacher’s pet.
Ritualism: Going through the motions and staying out of trouble.
Retreatism: Daydreaming and mucking about.
Rebellion: Outright rejection of everything the school stands for.
Criticisms of Labelling Theory on Subcultures:
Negative labelling can sometimes have the opposite effect - Fuller (1984) research on black girls, they were labelled as low-achievers but their response to this negative labelling was to knuckle down and study hard to prove their teachers and the school wrong - self-refuting prophecy.
Rosenthal and Jacobson’s research has been proved unreliable - other similar experimental studies reveal no significant effects.
Habitus:
A key concept in understanding the interaction between pupils’ identities and the school and how this impacts on achievement.
Habitus: ‘dispositions’ or learned, taken-for-granted ways of thinking, being and acting. Shared by a particular social class.
Put simply, it can define a person’s outlook on life and their view of what is realistic for ‘people like us’
Bourdieu (Marxist): Habitus = the ways of thinking and acting of a particular. In the education system:
The middle-class habitus → Symbolic Capital
The working-class habitus → Symbolic Violence
Archer: W/C Students would need to change how they talked and presented themselves in order to gain symbolic capital from the school. Those who don’t are devalued and judged negatively by school - and so suffer symbolic violence.
Archer et Al. (2010) ‘nike’ identities
To overcome the symbolic violence they face, w/c students gain self-worth through style/brand names
This gives a sense of ‘being me’
These identities are strongly gendered-specific to males or females.
Must conform to these styles to get social approval/status.
Approval from peers, but conflict with school habitus.
W/C see higher education as:
Unrealistic - not for ‘people like us’
Undesirable - does not suit their habitus.
W/C underachieve as they self-exclude from education, seeing it as not part of their habitus.
Ingram (2009)
She found that w/c identity was inseparable from belonging to a w/c locality.
The neighbourhood’s dense networks of family and friends were a key part of the boys’ habitus.
It gave them an intense feeling of belonging. As in Archer’s study, street culture and branded sportswear were a key part of the boys’ habitus and sense of identity.
W/C communities place great emphasis on conformity.
The boys experienced a great pressure to ‘fit in’ and this was a particular problem for their grammar school boys, who experienced a tension between the habitus of their w/c neighbourhood and that of their m/c school.
Evans (2009)
Studied a group of 21 w/c girls from a south London comprehensive studying for their A-Levels.
Evans found that they were reluctant to apply to elite universities such as Oxbridge.
The few who did apply - felt a sense of hidden barriers and of not fitting in.
The girls had a strong attachment to their locality. For example, only four of the 21 intended to move away from home to study.
W/C people think of places like Oxbridge as being ‘not for the likes of us’
This feeling comes from their habitus, which includes beliefs about what opportunities really exist for them and whether they would ‘fit in’.
Such thinking becomes part of their identity and leads w/c students to exclude themselves from elite universities.
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