Zusammenfassung der Ressource
social class differences in
education-
interactionalists
- internal/ inside school factors
- POINT: this is a micro approach.
interactionalists believe
schools can make a difference
to the life chances of students
regardless of the class/gender/ethnicity.
- EVIDENCE: Michael Rutter
(1979) and his findings about
good schools and the impact
that they have on life chances.
- 1. teacher influence and
labelling theory
- POINT: teachers are
constantly classifying and
judging pupils in various
ways. this process is called
labelling and, according to
interactionalists, has
significant affect on students
performance.
- EVIDENCE: Suggests
that teachers are
often influenced by
social class when
judging/ classifying
pupils.
- the stereotypes held by
teachers can produce a 'halo
effect which means earlier
impressions colour future
teacher- student relations.
- Evidence of labelling based on
notions of the 'ideal pupil'
- BECKER: using interviews of 60 high
school teachers, Becker found that
teachers stereotyped students based
on their work, conduct and appearance.
- teachers saw m/c children as
the closest to their stereotype
of the ideal pupil and w/c
children as the furthest away
from this ideal. Therefore w/c
children were more likely to be
given negative labels
- CICOUREL & KITSUSE: found that the councilors
at a school were judging the w/c people and not
pushing them to go onto do further education-
they would push them towards w/c jobs
- RIST
- The teachers split the
children in the
kindergarten into 2 groups.
- tigers- fats learners, they
sat close to the teachers,
they got more
encouragement and were
m/c children.
- clowns- w/c
chidlren who
received less
attention from
the teachers
- consequences of labelling
- KEDDIE; if you are labelled as a
high ability student then you are
given the most attention.
- unequal to classroom knowledge
- explaining the labelling theory
- self fulfilling prophecy
- this is a prediction that
comes true purely on
the basis of it being
made in the first place.
- stages of self fulfilling prophecy
- 1. teacher labels a
pupil and makes
predictions about them
in relation to the label
- 2. the teacher interacts
with the pupil based on this
label and prediction
- 3. the pupil internalises the label,
prediction and the teacher'
expectations and it becomes part of
their self concept. the pupil becomes
the label and acts accordingly to the
prediction and this 'fulfils' the
original 'prophecy' (prediction).