PRO and ANTI SCHOOL YOUTH subcultures

How pupil subcultures develop:

1. Differentiation: Teachers judge and rank puipls in terms of their academic ability/behaviour. The middle class are labelled as being generally articulate, hard working and somehwat poliet, whilst the working class pupils are chained to the assumption that they are all rude, lazy and unintelligent

2. Polarisation: Pupils respond to streaming by moving towards one of two opposite 'poles'. If teachers put students into different sets, they would become polarised. Students get labelled as a success of failure and this leads to the self fulfilling prophecy, explained by Howard Becker. He believes that behaviour is socially constructed. However, everyone can reject labels!

Anti-School Subcultures: Paul Willis's 'Learning to Labour' examined the possible reasons for the development of pupils, mainly male, working class and undisciplined. He conducted a series of interviews and observations within a schoool, with the aim of discovering how and why 'working class kids get working class jobs'. He identified a group of 12 'lads' - whose main aim at…