Flashcards on Education: The Research Context (3.2)

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There are five main groups and settings in education, each of which have their own distinctive characteristics. Name them:	Pupils, teachers, parents, classrooms, and schools.
In education, many of the people that sociologists study are children and young people. Which sociologist suggests that there are three major differences between studying young people and studying adults?	Malcolm Hill.
What are the three differences Hill suggests exist?	Power and status, ability and understanding, and vulnerability and ethical issues.
What does Hill mean by 'power and status'?	Children and youths typically have less power and status than adults, making it harder for them to be open about their views. This is even more so in school environments, as schools are hierarchal environments.
What does Hill mean by 'ability and understanding'?	Children and youths' vocabulary and power of self-expression are likely to be more limited than those of adults, especially when trying to express abstract ideas, which are often key to sociological investigations. In addition, children use language differently to adults. This makes it hard to gain informed consent.
What does Hill mean by 'vulnerability and ethical issues'?	Young people are often more vulnerable to physical and psychological harm than adults, which raises ethical issues. It must be shown that the child's involvement is necessary, and whether they stand to benefit from it.
What is one major advantage of studying pupils?	Sociologists will know exactly where to find their target research group, thanks to compulsory education.
Why may teachers be less than fully cooperative, even when they want to be helpful to researchers?	Because they often feel overworked.
As a result of teachers being less than fully cooperative, what may sociologists need to do to their interviews and questionnaires? How does this negatively impact the research?	Keep them short. However, this restricts the amount of information that can be gathered.
There are practical, ethical and theoretical problems that arise when researching teachers. One problem, which overlaps with problems arising in studying students, is power and status. What is meant by this?	As stated when discussing in relation to studying students, power relationships in schools aren't equal; teachers have more power. However, this also applies to relationships between teachers and researchers, who can be seen as intruders.
Another issue is 'impression management'. Which sociologist coined this term, and what does it refer to?	Erving Goffman uses the term to refer to the way in which teachers 'put on an act' for those observing them. In putting on this act, they are manipulating our view of them. The research will then have to find a way to see through this charade.
Is the classroom an open or closed social setting?	It's closed, with clear physical and social boundaries.
The classroom is also a highly controlled setting. How?	The teacher and school will have control over layout and access, as well as pupils' time, activities, noise levels, dress and language while in the classroom. This is a rare extent of surveillance, so classroom behaviour may not be an accurate representation of true behaviour.
Unlike many other social environments, access to classrooms is controlled by a wide range of gatekeepers. Give examples of said gatekeepers:	Head teachers, teachers, governors, parents, and child protection agencies.
Young people are often insecure about their identity and status and may be more sensitive to peer pressure. This can affect their responses to research. What may it therefore be necessary to do?	Supervise pupils when completing questionnaires, especially when done in groups.
There are tens of thousands of schools of many different kinds within the UK alone. If a sociologist uses observational methods, what will happen?	They're unlikely to have the time to investigate more than a very few schools, making their research unrepresentative.
Using large-scale surveys can overcome the difficulties involved in gaining a representative sample, but what can the sociologist risk losing?	The insight that can be gained from the detailed observation of a single school.
The functioning of the education system is highly scrutinised and marketised, and there is thus a large amount of secondary data available about schools. Give examples:	Exam results and league tables, figures on truancy and subject choice, Ofsted reports, government inquiries, and school policy documents.
Although schools are data-rich places, why may researchers be unable to access data?	Confidentiality.
School data is not always correct. Why?	Schools may falsify or downplay statistics and events in order to maintain an acceptable image.
All children under the age of 18 are required to attend school. How can the school population be described?	As a 'captive population'.
Why is studying a captive population a positive?	The researcher will know exactly where everyone is (or should be) at any given time.
Why is studying a captive population a negative?	Teachers may see researchers as interfering with the school's primary function - to educate.
Head teachers can refuse researchers access to their school. What do Roland Meighan and Clive Harber note?	Head teachers occasionally view research in a negative light.
Some situations and school settings may be 'off limits' to a researcher. What do John Beynon and Paul Atkinson note?	Researchers are directed away from sensitive situations, such as classes where the teacher has poor control.
Schools are relatively large-scale, complex, highly-organised social institutions, with daily and yearly timetables, management structures, meeting schedules and so on, and these can do what to a study?	Affect the way in which it is conducted.
Parents also have a major impact on what occurs within education. However, as a group, that aren't always easy to study. Why?	They aren't a single homogeneous group, with many traits affecting their willingness or ability to participate in research.
What concept applied to the study of teachers can also apply to the study of parents?	Impression management.
How will the researcher's own experience of education impact their research?	Virtually everyone has an experience of education, and this will inevitably alter their perspective on the matter. A researcher will typically be well educated, and will therefore have a positive view of education. However, they must not assume that everyone shares this view, nor that the view can be applied universally.

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