INTERACTIONISM

• Interactionists focus on the ways in which students are labelled in school and the effects that these labels can have on students in their later life
• Interactionists argue that teachers can label students positively or negatively then internalise the label - resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy
• SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY: students live up the the label that they’re given
• WALTERHOUSE - examined 4 primary and secondary schools and suggested that the impressions of pupils over a period of time impacted the way teachers interacted and dealt with pupils

  —> These impressions over time became “labels” and an “identity” for students