3 processes in school that affect educational achievement
-teacher labelling
-school subcultures
-setting and streaming
Becker (labelling)
-idea of the 'idealpupil' - this pupil is well behaved, motivated and mannered.
-this ideal pupil tends to be mc and get a positive label
-wc however tend to be negatively labelled
Once the individual becomes aware of the label , their self concept begins to change and they live up to that label which is confirmed by their behaviour (SFP)
Interactionist perspective on education-
-focus small scale interactions between pupils and teachers, these interactions shape people's behaviour
Setting and streaming (Keddie and Ball)
students are sorted into classes according to their ability and stay in these groups for most of their subjects. This affects the type of knowledge they have access to
ball- w/c are more likely to be in lower streams, mc in higher
Keddie-Teachers pass on higher levels of knowledge to mc while this is withheld from w/c pupils
Willis- lads study
-studied 12 w/c boys that formed anti-school subcultures
-lads felt superior to teachers and other pupils
-attached no value to academics- more interested in having a laff
-tried to miss as much school to gain status within the group
Rosenthal and Jacobson (evidence for SFP)
A field experiment where a group of students was randomly selected and labelled as 'spurters'. After a year, this group had actually improved academically and R & J concluded that as a consequence of being labelled positively with teacher's giving them extra praise, encouragement etc. the 'spurters' had fulfilled the original prophecy.
Evaluation
-ignores external factors such as cultural and material deprivation
-labelling theory is deterministic (fuller-black w/c girls were labelled as failures, causing them to work harder)
