Topic 2 Class differences in achievement (2) internal factors education

Labelling

To label someone is to attach a meaning or definition to them. For example teachers may label a pupil as bright or thick, troublemaker or hardworking. Studies show that teachers often attach such labels regardless of the pupil's actual ability.

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Labelling (2)

Instead they label pupils on the basis of stereotyped assumptions about their class background, labelling working class pupils negatively and middle class pupils positively. Studies of labelling have been carried out by interactionist sociologists.

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Labelling (3)

Interactionists study small scale face-to-face interactions between individuals such as in the classroom or playground. They are interested in how people attach labels to one another and the effects that this has on those who are labelled.

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Labelling (4)

Howard Becker (1971) carried out an important interactionist study of labelling. Based on interviews with 60 Chicago high school teachers he found that they judged pupils according to how closely they fitted an image of an ideal pupil.

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Labelling (5)

Pupils' work, conduct and appearance were key factors influencing teachers' judgements. The teachers saw children from middle class backgrounds as the closet to the ideal and working class children as furthest away from it.

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Labelling (6)

However different teachers may have different notions of the ideal pupil. A more recent study of two English primary schools by Amelia Hempel-Jorgensen (2009) found that these notions vary according to the social class make up of the school.

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Labelling (7)

In the largely working class Aspen primary school where staff said discipline was a major problem the ideal pupil was defined as quiet, passive and obedient- that is children were defined in terms of their behaviour not their ability.

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Labelling (8)

By contrast the mainly middle class Rowan primary school had very few discipline problems and here the ideal pupil was defined instead in terms of personality and academic ability rather than as being a non-misbehaving pupil as at Aspen.

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Labelling in secondary schools

Mairead Dunne and Louise Gazeley (2008) argue that schools persistently produce working class underachievement because of the labels and assumptions of teachers. From interviews in 9 English state secondary schools they found that teachers normalised

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Labelling in secondary schools (2)

the underachievement of working class pupils, seemed unconcerned by it and felt they could do little or nothing about it, whereas they believed they could overcome the underachievement of middle class pupils.

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Labelling in secondary schools (3)

A major reason for this difference was the teachers' belief in the role of pupils' home backgrounds: they labelled working class parents as uninterested in their children's education but labelled middle class parents as supportive.

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Labelling in secondary schools (4)

This led to class differences in how teachers dealt with pupils they perceived as underachieving-setting extension work for underachieving middle class pupils but entering working class pupils for easier exams.

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Labelling in secondary schools (5)

Teachers also underestimated working class pupils' potential and those who were doing well were seen as overachieving. Dunne and Gazeley conclude that the way teachers explained and dealt with underachievement itself constructed class differences.

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Labelling in primary schools

Labelling occurs from the onset of a child's educational career as Ray Rist's (1970) study of an American kindergarten shows. He found that the teacher used information about children's home background and appearance to place them in separate groups

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Labelling in primary schools (2)

seating each group at a different table. Those the teacher decided were fast learners whom she labelled the 'tigers' tended to be middle class and of neat and clean appearance. She seated these at the table nearest to her.

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Labelling in primary schools (3)

The other two groups- whom she labelled the 'cardinals' and the 'clowns'- were seated further away. These groups were more likely to be working class. They were given lower-level books to read and fewer chances to show their abilities.

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The self-fulfilling prophecy

A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true simply by virtue of it having been made. Interactionists argue that labelling can affect pupil's achievement by creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Teacher's expectation

In their study of Oak community school a California primary school Robert Rosenthal and Lenora Jacobson (1968) show the self-fulfilling prophecy at work. They told the school that they had a new test specially designed to identity those pupils who

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Teacher's expectation (2)

would spurt ahead. This was untrue because the test was simply 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

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Teacher's expectation (3)

school that the test identified these children as spurters. On returning to the school a year later they found that almost half of those identified as spurters had indeed made significant progress. The effect was greater on younger children.

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Teacher's expectation (4)

Rosenthal and Jacobson suggest that teachers' beliefs about the pupils had been influenced by the supposed test results. The teachers had then conveyed these beliefs to the pupils through the way they interacted with them.

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Teacher's expectation (5)

This demonstrates the self-fulfilling prophecy: simply by accepting the prediction that some children would spurt ahead the teacher brought it about. The fact that the children were selected at random strongly suggests that if teachers believe a

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Teacher's expectation (6)

pupil to be of a certain type they can actually make them into that type. The study's findings illustrate an important intercationist principle: that what people believe to be true will have real effects even if the belief was not true originally.

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Teacher's expectation (7)

The self-fulfilling prophecy can 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.

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Streaming

Streaming involves separating children into different ability groups or classes called streams. Each ability group is then taught separately from the others for all subjects. Studies show that the self-fulfilling prophecy is particularly likely to

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Streaming (2)

occur when children are streamed. As Becker shows teachers do not usually see working class children as ideal pupils. They tend to see them as lacking ability and have low expectations of them.

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Streaming (3)

Once streamed it is usually difficult to move up to a higher stream; children are more or less locked into their teachers's 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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Streaming (4)

This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy in which the pupils live up to their teacher's low expectations by underachieving. By contrast middle class pupils tend to benefit from streaming. They are likely to be placed in higher streams, reflecting

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Streaming (5)

teachers' view of them as an ideal pupil. As a result they develop a more positive self-concept, gain confidence, work harder and improve their grades. Douglas found that children placed in a higher stream at age 8 had improved their IQ score by 11.

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Streaming and the A-to-C economy

A study of two London secondary schools by David Gillborn and Deborah Youdell (2001) shows how teachers use stereotypical notions of ability to stream pupils. They found that teachers are less likely to see working class pupils as having ability.

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Streaming and the A-to-C economy (2)

As a result these pupils are more likely to be placed in lower streams and entered for lower-tier GCSEs. This denies them the knowledge and opportunity needed to gain good grades and widens the class gap in achievement.

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Streaming and the A-to-C economy (3)

Gillborn and Youdell link streaming to the policy of publishing exam league tables. These rank each school according to its exam performance. Schools need to achieve a good league table position if they are to attract pupils and funding.

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Streaming and the A-to-C economy (4)

Publishing exam league tables creates what Gillborn and Youdell call an A-to-C economy in schools. This is a system in which schools focus their time, effort and resources on those pupils they see as having the potential to get 5 grade Cs.

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Educational triage

Gillborn and Youdell call this process educational triage. Triage means sorting. The term is normally used to describe the process on battlefields or in major disasters whereby medical staff decide who is going to be given scarce medical resources.

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Educational triage (2)

Medics have to sort casualties into three categories: 1. the walking wounded who can be ignored because they will survive 2. those who will die anyway who will also be ignored 3. those with a chance of survival who are given treatment.

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Educational triage (3)

The authors argue that the A-to-C economy produces educational triage. Schools categorise pupils into three types: 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.

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Educational triage (4)

3. Hopeless cases who are doomed to fail. Teachers do this by using a stereotypical view of working class pupils and lacking ability. As a result they are likely to be labelled as hopeless cases and simply warehoused in the bottom sets.

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Educational triage (5)

This produces a self-fulfilling prophecy and failure. Thus the need to gain a good league table position drives educational triage. This becomes the basis for streaming where teacher's beliefs about the lack of ability of working class pupils are

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Educational triage (6)

used to segregate them into lower streams or sets where they receive less attention, support and resources. This results in lower levels of achievement for working class pupils. While Gillborn and Youdell make use of interactionist concepts such as

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Educational triage (7)

teacher labelling and stereotyping in micro-level face to face interactions with pupils they also put these processes into a broader context.

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Pupil subcultures

A pupil subculture is a group of pupils who share similar values and behaviour patterns. Pupil subcultures often emerge as a response to the way pupils have been labelled and in particular as a reaction to streaming.

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Pupil subcultures (2)

We can use Colin Lacey's (1970) concept of differentiation and polarisation to explain how pupil subcultures develop.

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Differentiation

Is the process of teachers categorising pupils according to how they perceive their ability. Streaming is a form of differentiation since it categories pupils into separate classes. Those that the school deems more able are given high status by

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Differentiation (2)

being placed in a high stream whereas those deemed less able are placed in low streams and are given an inferior status.

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Polarisation

Is the process in which pupils respond to streaming by moving towards one of two opposite poles or extremes. In his study of Hightown boys' grammar school Lacey found that streaming polarised boys into a pro-school and anti-school subcultures.

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The pro-school subculture

Pupils placed in high streams tend to remain committed to the values of the school. They gain their status in the approved manner through academic success. Their values are those of the school they tend to form a pro-school subculture.

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The anti school subculture

Those placed in low streams suffer a loss of self-esteem: the school has undermined their self-worth by placing them in a position of inferior status. This label of failure pushes them to search for alternative ways of gaining status.

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The anti school subculture (2)

Usually this involves inverting the school's values of hard work, obedience and punctuality.

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The anti school subculture (3)

As Lacey says 'a boy who does badly academically is predisposed to criticse, reject or even sabotage the system where he can since it places him in an inferior position.' Such pupils form an anti-school subculture as a means of gaining status among

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The anti school subculture (4)

their peers for example by cheeking a teacher, truanting, not doing homework, smoking etc.

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The anti school subculture (5)

Unfortunately however although joining an anti school subculture may solve the problem of lack of status, it creates further problems for such pupils. As Lacey says 'the boy who takes refuge in such a group because his work is poor finds that the

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The anti school subculture (6)

group commits him to a behaviour pattern which means his work will stay poor.' In other words joining a anti school subculture is likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy of educational failure. David Hargreaves (1967) found a similar response to

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The anti school subculture (7)

labelling and streaming modern school. From the point of view of the education system, boys in the lower streams were triple failures: they had failed their 11+ exam; they had been placed in low streams and they had been labelled as worthless louts.

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The anti school subculture (8)

One solution to this status problem was for these pupils to seek each other out and form a group within which high status went to those who flouted the school's rules. In this way they formed a delinquent subculture that meant that they would fail.

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Abolishing streaming

Stephen Ball (1981) takes the analysis a step further in his study of Beachside a comprehensive that was in the process of abolishing banding in favour of teaching mixed ability groups. Ball found that when the school abolished banding the basis for

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Abolishing streaming (2)

pupils to polarise into subcultures was largely removed and the influence of the anti-school subculture declined. Nevertheless although pupil polarisation all but disappeared, differentiation continued.

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Abolishing streaming (3)

Teachers continued to categorise pupils differently and were more likely to label middle class pupils as cooperative and able. This positive labelling was reflected in their better exam results, suggesting that a self-fulfilling prophecy had occurred

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Abolishing streaming (4)

Ball's study shows that class inequalities can continue as a result of teacher's labeling even without the effect of subcultures or streaming. Since Ball's study and especially since the Education Reform Act (1988) there has been a trend towards more

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Abolishing streaming (5)

streaming and towards a variety of types of school some of which have a more academic curriculum than others. This has created new opportunities for schools and teachers to differentiate between pupils on the basis of their class, ethnicity or gender

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The variety of pupil responses

Pro and anti-school subcultures are two possible responses to labeling and streaming. However as Peter Woods (1979) argues other responses are also possible. These include: ingratiation, being the teachers pet, ritualism going through the motions and

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The variety of pupil responses (2)

staying out of trouble, retreatism daydreaming and mucking about and rebellion outright rejection of everything the school stands for. Moreover as John Furlong (1984) observes many pupils are not committed to any one response but may move between

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The variety of pupil responses (3)

different types of response, acting differently in lessons with different teachers. The theme of pupil subcultures is an important in several areas of education and there are further examples in relation to ethnicity and gender as well as class.

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Criticisms of labeling theory

Most studies are influenced by labeling theory. This starts from the idea that under-achievement is the result of pupils being negatively labeled and often placed in a lower stream. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy which pupils often joining

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Criticisms of labeling theory (2)

anti-school subcultures that help to guarantee their failure. These studies are useful in showing that schools are not neutral or fair institutions as cultural deprivation theorists assume. On the contrary the interactions within schools can actively

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Criticisms of labeling theory (3)

create social class inequalities. However labeling theory has been accused of determinism. That is it assumes that pupil who are labeled have no choice but to fulfill the prophecy and will inevitably fail. However studies such as Mary Fuller's (1984)

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Criticisms of labeling theory (4)

show that this is not always true. Marxists also criticise labeling theory for ignoring the wider structures of power within which labeling takes place. Labeling theory tends to blame teachers for labeling pupils but fails to explain why they do so.

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Criticisms of labeling theory (5)

Marxists argue that labels are not merely the result of teachers' individuals prejudices, but stem from the fact that teachers work in a system that reproduces class divisions.

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Pupils' class identities and the school

Sociologists are interested in how pupil's class identities that are formed outside school interact with the school and its values to produce educational success and failure. Louise Archer et al (2010) focus on the interaction between working-class

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Pupils' class identities and the school (2)

pupils' identities and school and how this produces underachievement. To understand this relationship they draw on Bourdieu's (1984) concept of habitus.

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Habitus

Habitus refers to the dispositions or learned, taken for granted ways of thinking, being and acting that are shared by a particular social class. It includes their tastes and preferences about lifestyles and consumption, their outlook on life and

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Habitus (2)

their expectations about what is normal or realistic for people like us. A group's habitus is formed as a response to its position in the class structure. Although one's class habitus is not intrinsically better than another's the middle class has

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Habitus (3)

the power to define its habitus as superior and to impose it on the education system. As a result the school puts a higher value on middle class tastes and preferences. This is linked to Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital.

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Habitus (4)

Because the school has a middle class habitus this gives middle class pupils an advantage while working class culture is regraded as inferior.

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Symbolic capital and symbolic violence

Because schools have middle class habitus pupils who have been socialised at home into middle class tastes and preferences gain symbolic capital or status and recognition from the school and are deemed to have worth or value.

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Symbolic capital and symbolic violence (2)

By contrast the school devalues the working class habitus so that working class pupils' tastes are deemed to be tasteless and worthless. Bourdieu calls this withholding of symbolic capital symbolic violence. By defining the working class and their

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Symbolic capital and symbolic violence (3)

tastes and lifestyles as inferior, symbolic violence reproduces the class structure and keeps the lower classes in their place. Thus there is a clash between working class pupils' habitus and the school's middle class habitus.

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Symbolic capital and symbolic violence (4)

As a result working class students may experience the world of education as alien and unnatural. For example Archer found that working class pupils felt that to be educationally successful they would have to change how they talked.

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Symbolic capital and symbolic violence (5)

Thus 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.

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Nike identities

Many pupils were conscious that society and school looked down on them. This symbolic violence led them to seek alternative ways of creating self-worth, status and value. They did so by constructing meaningful class identities for themselves by

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Nike identities (2)

investing heavily in styles especially through consuming branded clothing such as Nike. Style performance were heavily policed by peer groups and not conforming was social suicide. The right appearance earned symbolic capital and approval from peer

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Nike identities (3)

groups and brought safety from bullying. However at the same time it led to conflict with the school's dress code. Reflecting the school's middle class habitus, teachers opposed street styles as showing bad taste or even as a threat.

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Nike identities (4)

Archer argues that the school's middle class habitus stigmatises working class pupils' identities. Seen in this light the pupils' performance of style are a struggle for recognition: while the middle class see their Nike identities as tasteless.

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Nike identities (5)

Nike styles also play a part in working class pupils' rejection of higher education which they saw as both unrealistic and undesirable. Unrealistic because it was not for people like us but for richer posher cleverer people and they would not fit in.

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Nike identities (6)

Undesirable because it would not suit their preferred lifestyle or habitus. For example they did not want to live on a student loan because they would be unable to afford the street styles that gave them their identity.

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Nike identities (7)

According to Archer et al working class pupils' investment in Nike identities is not only a cause of their educational marginalisation by the school; it also expresses their positive preference for a particular lifestyle.

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Nike identities (8)

As a result working class pupils may choose self-elimination or self-exclusion from education. In other words not only do they get the message that education is not for the likes of them but they actively choose to reject.

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Working class identity and educational success

Archer's study largely deals with the relationship between working class identity and educational failure. However some working class pupils do succeed. A study by Nicola Ingram (2009) of two groups of working class Catholic boys from the same highly

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Working class identity and educational success (2)

deprived neighbourhood in Belfast offers an answer. One group had passed their 11+ exams and gone to grammar school while the other group failed and gone to a local secondary school. The grammar school had a strong middle class habitus of high

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Working class identity and educational success (3)

expectations and academic achievement while the secondary school had a habitus of low expectations of its underachieving pupils. Ingram found that having a working class identity was inseparable from belonging to a working class locality.

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Working class identity and educational success (4)

The neighbourhood's dense networks of family and friends were a key part of the boy's habitus. It gave them an intense feeling of belonging. As in Archer's study street culture and branded sportswear were a key part of the boys habitus.

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Working class identity and educational success (5)

However as Ingram notes working class communities place great emphasis on conformity. The boys experienced a great pleasure to fit in and this was a particular problem for the grammar school boys who experienced a tension between the habitus of

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Working class identity and educational success (6)

their working class neighbourhood and that of their middle class school. For example one boy Callum was ridiculed by his classmates for coming to school in a tracksuit on non-uniform day. By opting to fit in with his neigbourhood habitus by wearing

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Working class identity and educational success (7)

his tracksuit he was made to feel worthless by the schools middle class habitus. As Ingram puts it the choice is between unworthiness at school for wearing certain clothes and worthlessness at home for not.

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Class identity and self-exclusion

Despite the class inequalities in education many more working class young people now go on to university. Even here however the clash between working class identity and the habitus of higher education is a barrier to success.

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Class identity and self-exclusion (2)

This is partly due to a process of self-exclusion. For example Sara Evans (2009) studied a group of 21 working class girls from a South London comprehensive studying their A-levels. Evans found that they were reluctant to apply to elite universities

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Class identity and self-exclusion (3)

such as Oxbridge and that the few who did apply felt a sense of hidden barriers and of not fitting in.

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Class identity and self-exclusion (4)

According to Bourdieu (1984) many working class people think of places like Oxbridge as being not for the likes of us. This feeling comes from their habitus which includes beliefs about what opportunities really exist for them and whether they would

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Class identity and self-exclusion (5)

fit in. Such thinking becomes part of their identity and leads working class students to exclude themselves from elite universities. Like Archer and Ingram Evans found that the girls had a strong attachment to their locality.

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Class identity and self-exclusion (6)

As Reay et al (2005) points out self-exclusion from elite or distant universities narrows the options of many working class pupils and limits their success. Studies like those of Evans, Ingram and Archer show a consistent pattern of a middle class

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Class identity and self-exclusion (7)

education system that devalues the experiences and choices of working class people as worthless or inappropriate. As a result working class pupils are often forced to choose between maintaining their working class identities or abandoning them

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Class identity and self-exclusion (8)

and conforming to the middle class habitus of education in order to succeed.

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The relationship between internal and external factors

Working class habitus and identities formed outside school may conflict with the schools middle class habitus resulting in symbolic violence and pupils feeling that education is not for the likes of them.

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The relationship between internal and external factors (2)

Working class pupils using the restricted speech code may be labelled by teachers as less able, leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy. As Dunne and Gazeley show an internal factor actually produces underachievement.

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The relationship between internal and external factors (3)

Poverty an external factor may lead to bullying by peer groups an internal process within school. Wider external factors outside the individual school may affect processes within it such as streaming.

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Topic 2 Class differences in achievement (2) internal factors education

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