Pupil sub-cultures

Lacey's (1970) study of a middle-class grammar school found that there were two related processes at work in schools - differentiation and polarization. Most schools generally placed a high value on things such as hard work, good behaviour and exam success, and teachers judge students and rank and categorise them into different groups  (streams and sets) according to criteria.

Consequences: - Polarization

Refers to the way students become dived into two opposing groups - "poles"

• Top streams - achieve highly 
• Lower streams - labelled as failures and therefore deprived of status

Studies that have found that teachers' perception of students' academic ability and the process of differentiation and polarization influenced how students behaved - 

• Hargreaves (1967, 1976)
• Ball (1981)
• Abraham (1989)

Pro-School Subculture

Accept values and ethos of the school and willingly conform to its rules - tend to be students that are in higher sets. 

Pro-school subcultures are typically compromised of children from middle-class backgrounds.

Anti-school Subculture

Consists of groups of students who rebel against the school for various reasons

• develop an alternative set of rules and values
• gain status 
• show off different behavioural traits