Class differences in achievement

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  • Created by: elisha7
  • Created on: 14-03-18 16:27
What does it mean to label someone? What is an example of this?
To attach a meaning or definition to them. E.G. teachers may label a pupil as brought or thick, troublemaker or hardworking.
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What do studies show that teachers base labels on?
On the basis of stereotyped assumptions about their class background; labelling w/c negatively and m/c positively.
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What do interactionists study? What are they interested in?
Small-scale face-to-face interactions between individuals such as in the classroom or playground. How people attach labels labels to one another and the effects this has on those who are labelled.
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What important study did Howard Becker (1971) carry out, and what did he find?
Based on interviews with 60 Chicago High school teachers, he found that they judged pupils according to how closely they fitted the image of the 'ideal pupil'. Pupils work, conduct and appearance were key factors influencing teachers judgements.
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What did sociologist Amelia Hempel Jorgenson (2009) find in her study of 2 English primary schools?
Different teachers have different notions of the ideal pupil, and they vary according to the social class make-up of the school.
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How did Aspen and Rowan primary school differ in Amelia Hempel Jorgenson's (2009) study?
Aspen- largely w/c, discipline= major problem. Ideal pupil= quiet,obedient,passive- kids defined in terms of behaviour, not ability. Rowan- m/c, very few discipline problems, ideal pupil-defined instead in terms of personality and academic ability.
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What do Dunne and Gazeley (2008) argue?
'Schools persistently produce working class under-achievement' because of the labels and assumptions of teachers.
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What did Dunne and Gazeley (2008) find from their interviews in 9 English state secondary schools?
Teachers normalised underachievement of w/c, seemed unconcerned by it and felt they could do little/nothing about it: m/c under- achievement could be overcome.
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What was a major reason for the difference in teachers attitudes towards m/c and w/c underachievement?
The teachers belief in the role of home backgrounds:w/c parents labelled as uninterested in childs education. M/c parents labelled as supportive e.g attending parents eves and paying for music lessons
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How are there class differences in how teachers deal with underachieving pupils?
Extension work set for underachieving m/c, w/c entered for easier exams.
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What do Dunne and Gazeley (2008) conclude?
The way teachers explained and dealt with underachievement itself constructed class differences in levels of attainment.
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What does Ray Rists (1970) study of an American kindergarten show?
Teacher used info about childs home background and appearance to place them in separate groups, seating each at a different table.
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What were the characteristics of the 'tiger' group identified by Ray Rist (1970)?
-fast learners, tended to be m/c, neat, clean apperance. seated at table next to female teacher, shown greatest encouragement
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What were the characteristics of the 'cardinals' and 'clown' groups as identified by Ray Rist (1970)?
seated further away, more likely to be w/c, given low level books to read and fewer chances to show their abilities. had to read as a group, not individually.
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What is a self-fulfilling prophecy?
A prediction that comes true simply by virtue of it having been made.
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How did Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) show the self-fulfilling prophecy at work?
Told the school they had a test designed to identify pupils who would 'spurt' ahead: was actually standard IQ test. Tested all pupils, picked 20% at random as 'sputters', returned a year later, 47% of 'spurters' made significant progress.
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How do Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) suggest that the teachers beliefs about the pupils had been influenced by the supposed test results?
Teachers had conveyed their beliefs to pupils through the way they interacted with them-e.g body language and amount of attention and encouragement given.
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How does Rosenthal and Jacobson's (1968) study demonstrate the self-fulfilling prophecy?
Simply by accepting the prediction that some children would spurt ahead, the teachers brought it about. Fact the children were picked at random suggest if teachers believe a pupil to be of a certain type, they can make them into that type.
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What important interactionist principle does Rosenthal and Jacobson's 1968 study illustrate?
That what people believe to be true will have real effects- even if the belief was not true originally.
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How can the self-fulfilling prophecy also produce under achievement?
If teachers have low expectations of certain children and communicate these expectations in their interaction, these children may develop a negative self-concept. They may come to see themselves as failures and give up trying, thereby fulfilling sfp.
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What does streaming involve?
Separating children into different ability groups/ classes called 'streams'. Each ability group is then taught separately from the others for all subjects. This is particularly likely to lead to a SFP.
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What does sociologist Becker show that relates to streaming?
Teachers don't see w/c as ideal pupils, tend to see them as lacking ability and have low expectations of them}more likely to find themselves in a lower stream
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Why is it difficult to move to a higher stream?
Once streamed, children are more or less locked into their teachers low expectations of them. Children in the lower streams 'get the message' that their teachers have written them off as no-hopers.
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What did sociologist Douglas find about the w/c?
Children placed in a lower stream at age 8 had suffered a decline in their IQ score by age 11; therefore evidencing the SFP as the pupils have lived up to their teachers low expectations by under-achieving.
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How do m/c children tend to benefit from streaming?
Are placed in higher streams which reflects teachers view of them as ideal pupils, will develop a more positive self concept, gain confidence, work harder and improve grades.
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What did sociologist Douglas find about the m/c placed in higher streams?
Children placed in a higher streams at age 8 had improved their IQ score by age 11.
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What did Gillborn and Youdell (2001) study of 2 London secondary schools show?
How teachers use stereotypical notions of 'ability' to stream pupils.Teachers=less likely to see w/c and black pupils as having ability}more likely to be placed in lower streams and lower-tier GCSE's
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What does being placed in lower streams deny w/c and black pupils of according to Gillborn and Youdell (2001)?
The knowledge and opportunities needed to gain good grades; therefore widening the class gap in achievement.
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What do exam league tables do?
Rank each school according to its exam performance. For example, in terms of the % of pupils gaining 5 or more GCSE's A*-C.
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Why do schools need to achieve a good league table position?
To attract pupils and funding (funding formula)
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What does publishing exam league tables create according to Gillborn and Youdell (2001)?
An A-C economy in schools; which is a system in which schools focus their time, effort and resources on those pupils the see as having the potential to get 5 C's and so boost the schools league table position.
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What do Gillborn and Youdell (2001) also refer to the A-C economy as?
'Educational triage', with triage literally meaning 'sorting'
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What is the term 'triage' normally used for?
To describe the process on battlefields in major disasters whereby medical staff decide who is given scarce medical resources.
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What 3 categories do medics have to sort the wounded into?
1) the walking wounded- who can be ignored because they will survive 2) those who will die anyway (also ignored) 3) those with chance of survival, given treatment in hopes of saving them.
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What 3 categories do Gillborn and Youdell (2001) argue schools categorise pupils into?
1)those who will pass anyway and can be left to get on with it 2)those with potential who will be helped to get a grade c or better 3) hopeless cases, doomed to fail
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How does educational triage become the basis for streaming?
Teachers beliefs about the lack of ability of w/c pupils are used to segregate them into lower streams/sets, where they receive less attention, support and resources; resulting in lower achievement levels for w/c.
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What is a pupil subculture?
A group of pupils who share similar beliefs/ behaviour patterns. Often emerging as a response to the way pupils have been labelled, and in particular as a reaction to streaming.
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What does sociologist Colin Lacey (1970) put forward to help explain how pupil subcultures develop?
The concepts of differentiation and polarisation
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What is differentiation? (Colin Lacey 1970)
The process of teachers categorising pupils based on how they perceive their ability, attitude and/or behaviour.
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How is streaming a form of differentiation?
Since it categorises pupils into separate classes.
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How are those that the school deems 'more able' given high status? How does this differ to 'less able' students?
By being placed in a high stream. 'less able' placed in low streams given inferior status.
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What is Colin Lacey's concept of polarisation (1970)?
The process in which pupils respond to streaming by moving towards one of two opposite 'poles'/extremes.
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What did Lacey (1970) find in his study of Hightown boys grammar school?
Streaming polarised boys into a pro-school and anti-school subculture.
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What are the characteristics of a pro-school subculture?
Pupils placed in high streams, largely m/c, tend to remain committed to values of school. Gain status in an approved manner( through academic success), their values are those of the school.
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What are the characteristics of an anti-school subculture/how is one formed?
Those placed in lower streams (w/c) suffer a loss of self-esteem as the school has undermined their self-worth by placing them in a position of inferior status. label 'failure'> search for alternative ways of gaining status> invert values of school
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What does sociologist Colin Lacey (1970) say?
' a boy who does badly academically is predisposed too criticise, reject, or even sabotage the system where he can, since it places him in an inferior position.
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Why do w/c pupils form an anti-school subculture? How do they gain status?
As a means of obtaining status from peers e.g through smoking, not doing homework, checking a teacher, truanting etc.
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What does Lacey (1970) quote about the joining of anti-school subcultures by w/c boys?
'The boy who takes refuge in such a group because his work is poor finds that the group commit to him a behaviour pattern which means that his work will stay poor- and in fact often get progressively worse'
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What did sociologist David Hargreaves (1967) find?
A similar response to labelling and streaming in a secondary modern school. From the POV of the education system, boys in lower streams were triple failures; failed 11+, placed in lower streams, labelled 'worthless louts'
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What was a solution to the problems encountered in Hargreaves (1967) study?
For these pupils to seek each other out and form a group within which higher status went to those who flouted schools rules. In this way, they formed a delinquent subculture that helped guarantee their educational failure.
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What did Stephen Ball find in his 1981 study of Beachside comprehensive school?
The school was abolishing banding in favour of teaching mixed-ability groups. when it was abolished, the basis for pupils to polarise into subcultures was largely removed and the influence of the anti-school subculture declined.
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What did Stephen Ball (1981) find happened despite the abolishment of banding?
Although pupil differentiation all but disappeared, differentiation continued. Teachers continued to categorise pupils differently and were more likely to label m/c as able and cooperative.
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How was the positive labelling of m/c pupils reflected? What does this suggest?
in their better exam results, suggesting SFP had occurred.
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What does Balls' 1981 study show overall?
That class inequalities can continue as a result of teachers labelling, even without the effect of subcultures or streaming.
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What has happened since Ball's 1981 study and the 1988 Education Reform Act?
has been a trend towards more streaming and towards a variety of types of school, some of which have a more academic curriculum than others.
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What has an increase in streaming and a variety of school types resulted in?
has created new opportunities for teachers and schools to differentiate between pupils on the basis of their class, gender, or ethnicity and treat them unequally, as studies such as Gillborn and Youdell (2003) show.
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What other responses to labelling and streaming does Peter Woods (1979) put forwards besides pro&ant-school subcultures?
Ingratiation- being the 'teachers pet' Ritualism- going through the motions and staying out of trouble Retreatism- day-dreaming and mucking about Rebellion-ourright rejection of everything school stands for
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What does John Furlong (1984) observe about Peter Woods other responses to labelling and streaming?
Many pupils are not committed permanently to any one response, but may move between responses, acting differently in lessons with different teachers.
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How are the studies associated with labelling theory useful?
they show that schools are not neutral or fair institutions as cultural deprivation theorists argue but that the interactions within schools can actively create social class inequalities.
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How is labelling theory criticised?
Deterministic- assumes that all pupils who are labelled have no choice but to fulfil the prophecy and will inevitably fail. studies such as Fuller (1984) show this is not always true.
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How do marxists criticise labelling theory?
Labelling theory ignores the wider structures of power within which labelling takes place. it tends to blame teachers for labelling pupils, but fails to explain why they do so.
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What do marxists argue about labels?
They are not merely the result of teachers individual prejudices, but stem from the fact that teachers work in a system that reproduces class divisions.
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What do Louise Archer et al (2010) focus on?
The interaction between w/c pupils identities within the school, and how this produces underachievement . They draw on Bourdieu's (1984) concept of habits to understand this relationship.
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What does habitus refer to?
The 'dispositions' or learned, taken for granted ways of thinking, being and acting that are shared by a particular social class.
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What does habitus include?
Tastes and preferences about lifestyles and consumption (such as fashion and leisure pursuits), their outlook on life and their expectations about what is normal or realistic for 'people like us'
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What is a groups habitus formed as a response to?
It's position in the class structure.
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How is m/c habitus used in schools?
Whilst one classes habitus is not intrinsically better than another, m/c has the power to define theirs as superior and to impose it on ed.system; the school therefore puts higher value on their tastes, preferences etc.
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How does habitus link to Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital?
Because the school has a middle class habitus, this gives m/c pupils an advantage, while w/c habitus is regarded as inferior.
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What happens as a result of schools having a middle class habitus?
Pupils who have been socialised at home into middle class tastes and preferences gain a 'symbolic capital' or status and recognition from the school and are deemed to have worth or value.
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What does the school do with w/c habitus?
Devalues it so w/c tastes e.g in clothing,apperance and accent are deemed to be tasteless and worthless.
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What does Bourdieu call the withholding of symbolic capital?
'Symbolic violence'
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What did sociologist Archer find?
W/c pupils felt that to be successful, they would have to change how they talked and presented themselves.
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How does symbolic violence reproduce the class system within education?
By defining the w/c and their tastes and lifestyles as inferior, symbolic violence thus reproduces the class system and keeps the lower classes 'in their place'
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What is the result of the clash between w/c and m/c habitus?
working class students may experience the world as alien and unnatural.
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What did w/c students feel they were unable to do because of their habitus?
access 'posh' m/c spaces such as university and professional careers which were seen as 'not for the likes of us'
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How did pupils gain a new sense of self-worth, status and value as a result of symbolic violence?
By constructing meaningful class identities for themselves by investing heavily in styles, especially through consuming brands like Nike.
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What did having the right appearance do for pupils?
Earned symbolic capital and approval from peer groups and brought safety from bullying.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

What do studies show that teachers base labels on?

Back

On the basis of stereotyped assumptions about their class background; labelling w/c negatively and m/c positively.

Card 3

Front

What do interactionists study? What are they interested in?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

What important study did Howard Becker (1971) carry out, and what did he find?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

What did sociologist Amelia Hempel Jorgenson (2009) find in her study of 2 English primary schools?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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