Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Internal Factors for Class
Differences in Achievement
- Labelling
- Teachers stereotype based on class
background. Working class are negative,
middle is positive
- Interactionist Howard Becker (1971)
- Interviews 60 High School teachers, found the
judged based on the image of an 'ideal pupil'.
- Pupil's appearance, performance and
conduct influence their perception with
teachers.
- Depending on the class of students, teacher have
different view of ideal (Hempel-Jorgensen, 2009)
- Working-class primary = quiet,
passive and obedient.
- Middle-Class = Personality
and Academic ability.
- Criticisms
- Labelling theory assumes
pupils have no choice but to
fulfil the prophecies.
- Marxists say labelling blames teacher but doesn't explain
why the label. They work in a system that reproduces class
divisions.
- Secondary Schools
- Dunne and Gazely (2008)
- Labels and teacher assumptions lead to working class
underachievement as they normalise it. They believed
there was nothing they could do due to home
background and 'unsupportive' parents. Instead, they
focused on raising middle-class under achievement
with extension work.
- Primary School
- American kindergarten: Teachers use home life
information to group pupils. Fast learners labelled
'tigers', seated near teacher. Slow learners labelled
'clowns', sit further away. Less chance to show abilities
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (Interactionist)
- Teacher labels pupil, teacher treats pupil as
labelled, pupil acts towards this and fulfils the
prophecy
- Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968)
- Falsely told a primary school some pupils would "spurt". Upon
returning a year later, 47% had made significant progress after
teachers had labelled them.
- Streaming
- Working class pupils are more likely to be put in a
lower set.
- Middle-class pupils tend to be placed in
higher sets. Gain confidence and improve
academically.
- Gilborn and Youdell ( 2001)
- Publishing league tables creates an A - C
economy
- Schools focus time and effort on pupils who will achieve 5 A*-C
- Educational Triage
- Those who will pass
- Borderline C/D - Given help
- Hopeless cases
- Working class and black pupils
- Eliminating streaming still leads to
differentiation (Ball, 1981)
- Pupil Subcultures
- Differentiation
- Teachers Categorising and labelling
- Polarisation
- Pupil's response to labelling
- Pro-school subculture
- Higher sets, gain academic status
and success.
- Anti-School Subculture
- Low sets, gain status amongst peers by
drinking, smoking ect.
- Creates an SFP of academic failure.
- Other responses (Peter Woods, 1979)
- Integration: Teachers pet
- Ritualism: Staying
out of trouble
- Retreatism:
Daydreaming/mucking
about
- Rebellion
- Furlong: Pupil response differs
between lessons and teachers
- Pupil's Class Identities
- Habitus
- Refers to taken-for-granted shared ways of thinking
by social classes. Including tastes and consumption.
Habitus is formed by response to class structure
- Middle-class has power to make its habitus dominant.
School place higher values on these.
- Symbolic Capital and Violence.
- Pupils with middle-class values have symbolic
capital. Symbolic capital not given to working
class pupils. This is symbolic violence.
- Archer: Working class pupils felt that to be successful
they would have to change and lose themselves.
- 'Nike Identities'
- Working class pupils developed style to combat self worth.
Archer suggests this is stigmatised by schools.
- Plays a part in working class rejection of
higher education
- Unrealistic: "not for people like us"
- Undesirable: It wouldn't suit a
preferred identity.