relationships and processes

• Pupil subcultures (Mac An Ghail)

  Pro school subcultures-

  The academic achievers- seek to achieve academic success by focusing on traditional academic subjects

  The new enterprisers- reject the traditional academic curriculum but motivated to study subjects like business and computer science

  Characteristics of anti-school subcultures- lower streams, rejection of school values, disruption etc
• Formation of pupil subcultures (Lacey)

  Differentiation- process of teachers categorising pupils according to how they percieve their ability, attitude and behaviour e.g. streaming

  Polarisation- process by which pupils respond to differentiation by moving towards one of two opposite poles (anti or pro)
• How schools shape pupil identities- peer groups and symbolic capital

  reinforcing acceptable behaviours by ostracising those who don't conform and giving status to those who do
• How schools shape pupil identities - Symbolic violence (Archer)

  Schools impose forms of symbolic violence against students whose identities are shaped by designer clothing or hyper-sexual feminine behaviour (usually W/C) -> education isn't for them
• How schools shape pupil identities - school environments (Reay)

  students allign their ability with the type of school that they attend
• How schools shape pupil identities - Ethnocentric curriculum (Ball)

  curriculum in turn makes both EMs and girls feel excluded
• How schools shape pupil identities - Subject choice

  Subject choice reinforces gender stereotypes by pushing girls into expressive subjects and boys into instrumental ones -> reinforces gender identity
• How schools shape pupil identities - uniforms

  Reinforces gender identities e.g. girls are expected to wear skirts
• How schools shape pupil identities - sub-cultures

  Can lead to EMs and W/C being rejecting of authority
• How schools shape pupil identities - Labelling

  Positive and negative labelling impacts self esteem and self image of students
• Hidden curriculum transmitted

  • Hierarchy management tendency- higher proportion of head teachers white male (normal for men to be dominant)
  • Insistence on punctuality within rigid pattern of the day. (Conformity to strict rules)
  • Uniform imposes identity school over the individual. (Passive workers)
• Hargreaves - male subcultures

  • Anti-school working class are predominantly in bottom streams of secondary schools
  • Unable achieve status of mainstream values of school so they substitute their own set delinquent values achieve success eyes of peers.
• Mac An Ghail - male subcultures

  • Macho lads - hostile to authority
  • Real Englishmen - middle class seeing their own culture knowledge as superior and aspire to go university for a professional career.
• Sewell - type of subcultures (study at an all boys school)

  • conformists-accepted values and tried to succeed
  • innovators-wanted to succeed but disliked the process of schooling
  • retreatists-individuals who kept to themselves and didn’t form a subculture
  • rebels-strongly rejected the school and were aggressively masculine
• Becker

  ideal pupil
• Rosenthal and Jacobson

  self-fulfilling prophecy
• Ball

  • Found that pupils who were in higher sets and streams were 'warmed up' to achieve highly
  • while those in lower streams and set were 'cooled out' to encourage them to follow lower status vocational and practical courses that require lower levels of academic success.
• Keddie

  Found hat lower-stream pupils were often not given the same access to knowledge as those in higher streams, leading to further underachievement.