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Teacher labelling

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Streaming

Pupil subcultur

Pupils' class

identities

Teacher labelling:

Research - Rist (1970)AO1 K&U:Ray Rist investigated labelling in an American kindergarten school. He found that the teacher used information about children's home background and appearance to place them into separate groups, seating each group on a different table. The three groups were:

'Tigers' - these consisted of the fast learners, who tended to be middle-class and of neat and clean appearance. She seated these at the table nearest to her and showed them great encouragement.

The 'Cardinals' and the 'Clowns' - were seated further away. These groups were more likely to be working-class. They were given lower-level textbooks to read and fewer opportunities to demonstrate their abilities. For example, they had to read as a group, not as individuals.

1.AO2 Application: How can this research be used to explain the class difference in achievement between working and middle class pupils?

2.AO3 Evaluation: How can we evaluate the research methods of this study? (are there are practical, ethical or theoretical strengths and limitation of this study? - consider things the sample, the research method.

Self fulfilling prophecy:

Research - Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968)

AO1 K&U:Rosenthal and Jacobson carried out a field experiment to investigate the effects of self-fulfilling prophecies. Their study was carried out in Oak Community primary school in California. They told the school that they had a new test specially designed to identify those pupils who would 'spurt' ahead. This was untrue, because the test was in fact a standard IQ test. Importantly, however, the teachers believed what they had been told. The researchers tested all the pupils, but then picked 20% of them purely at random and told the school, again falsely, that the test had identified these children as 'spurters'. On returning to the school a year later, they found that almost half (47%) of those identified as spurters had indeed made significant progress. The effect was greater on younger children. Rosenthal and Jacobson found that the teachers' beliefs about the pupils had been influenced by the test results. The teachers then conveyed these beliefs to the pupils through the way they interested with them - for example, through their body language and the amount of attention and encouragement they gave them.

1. AO2 Application: How can this research be used to explain the class difference in achievement between working and middle class pupils?

2. Why do you think the effect was greater on younger children?

3.AO3 Evaluation: How can we evaluate the research methods of this study? (are there are practical, ethical or theoretical strengths and limitation of this study? - consider things the sample, the research method.

Pupil subcultures:Research - Lacy (1970)

AO1 K&U:

Lacy carried out a selection of participant and non-participant

observations to investigate the effects of streaming on class differences. He immersed himself in school life, teaching some lessons and observing others, as well as helping with the cricket team and going on school trips. His fieldwork took 18 months and just looked at one school.

Lacy found that pupils were placed into either high streams or low streams. The high streams (mainly middle class) tended to remain committed to the values of the school, they gained their status in the approved manner, through academic success: they tended to form a pro-school culture.

Lacy found that those placed in low streams (mainly working class) suffered a loss of self-esteem: the school had undermined their self worth by placing them in a position of inferior status. This pushed them to search for an alternative way of gaining status: a anti-school subculture. This involved rejecting the school values of hard work, obedience and punctuality. Unfortunately, by joining an anti-school subculture created problems for the boys because they took refuge in these groups because their work was poor; but by being part of these groups, their work will stay poor and get progressively worse. This can act as a SFP for the boys.

Lacey found the boys had all been successful at primary school and were among an elite of about 15% of the town's pupils who had passed the 11+ exams (an entrance exam) to get into grammar school (which delivered high quality education which m/c pupils tended to go to). However, once in the comprehensive state atmosphere, many of the boys were soon labelled as failures, showed extreme physical reactions such as bed wetting; and by their second year had formed anti-school subcultures as they adjusted to their status as failures.


2. AO3 Evaluation: How can we evaluate the research methods of this study? (are there are practical, ethical or theoretical strengths and limitation of this study? - consider things the sample, the research method.

Streaming:Research - Gillborn and Youdell (2001)

AO1 K&U:

Gillborn and Youdell (2001) found that schools use teachers' notions of 'ability' to decide which pupils have the potential to achieve five A*-C grades at GCSE. This is called the 'A-to-C economy'. This is

where schools ration their time, effort and resources on those they perceive to have the potential to get A*-C GCSEs and so boost the school's league table position.They looked two London secondary schools and found that working class and black pupils are less likely to be perceived as having ability, and more likely to be placed into lower streams and entered for lower-tier GCSEs. This denies them the knowledge and opportunity to gain good grades and so widen the class gap in achievement.



Pupils' class identities:Research - Archer (2010):

AO1 K&U:Schools have a middle-class habitus (refers to the dispositions, taken for granted ways of thinking, being and acting that are shared by a particular social class). Middle class pupils have been socialised into the middle class values, and use these to gain ‘symbolic capital’ (status or value from the school). Working-class values in contrast are seen as inferior and the class structures keeps the lower classes ‘in their place’. Archer found that working-class pupils felt that to be educationally successful, they would have to change how they talked and presented themselves. Therefore, for working class students, educational success is often experienced as a process of ‘losing yourself’.

They felt unable to access ‘posh’, middle class spaces such as university and professional careers, which were seen as ‘not for the likes of us’.

Many w-c pupils were conscious that the school looked down on them, so they found alternative ways to create self-worth, status and value. They did so by contrasting meaningful class identities for themselves by investing heavily in styles and consuming branded clothing like ‘Nike’. Wearing brands was a way of ‘being me’. This can lead to conflict with the schools’ dress code. Reflecting the schools middle-class habitus, teachers opposed ‘street’ styles as showing ‘bad taste’ are were labelled as rebels. The school’s middle class values stigmatises the working-class pupils’ identities; while the m-c see their ‘Nike’ identities are tasteless, to them it was a way of generating symbolic capital of self-worth.

Nike styles also play a role in w-c pupil’s rejection of higher education, as they saw as unrealistic and undesirable;

Unrealistic – because it was not for ‘people like us’ but for richer, posher and cleverer people. It was seen as an unaffordable and risky investment.

Undesirable – because it would not ‘suit’ their preferred style or habitus e.g. they did not want to live on a student loan because they would be unable to afford the street style that gave them their identity.



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