30 Marker plan - Subcultures

• INTRO:

  on the one hand it can be argued that the reason for pupils underachievement in schools is due to the subcultures they form and polarisation which is the process by which pupils respond to labelling. However on the other hand another reason why pupils fail in school could be down to ethnic differences such as teacher racism and the ethnocentric curriculum
• PARA 1:

  Point - anti school subcultures

  Item - no interest in doing well in school

  Evidence - Willis : Lads counter culture, reject school and manual labour = superior so therefore use other means to gain social status like disruption and truanting

  Explanation - values of subculture dont align with those of the school which is mainly MC -> bourgioursie stay ruling

  Evaluation - Mac+Ghail: WC macho lads= dismissive of other WC boys who sought educational achievement, refd as ‘dickhead achievers’. groups shifted overtime macho lads = lower school, real Englishmen = sixth form [mainly mc]
• Labelling theory and teacher racism are discussed in relation to subcultures today
• Subcultures today are no longer based on attitudes towards school
• Gillborn and Youdell found that in the A-C economy, negative labels placed on black pupils lead to them being more likely to be placed in lower sets and streams
• Negative labels influence achievement, with black pupils more likely to be seen as hopeless cases, resulting in less educational support (educational triage = doomed to fail anyway)
• Fuller's study showed that negative labels can be rejected; a group of black Year 11 girls turned their anger into a passion and motivation for success, demonstrating that negative stereotypes can be rejected
• PARA 3

  Point - streaming

  Item - NO ITEM REF

  Evidence - Lacey, 1970: hightown grammar boys -> streaming polarised boys into pro/anti school subcultures

  Explanation - shows the effects of labelling -> SFP and ultimately them conforming to their perceived roles

  Evaluation - Woods, 1979: different types of pupil responses, ingratiation = teachers pet, rebellion = outright rejection of schools values
• PARA 4:

  Point - ethnocentric curriculum

  Item - NO ITEM REF

  Evidence - Ball, 1994: national curriculum ignores ethnic diversity and promotes ‘little englandism’ whilst ignoring the history or BAME people

  Explanation - builds racial bias into the everyday workings of schools and colleges

  Evaluation - Coard, 2005: image presented by the brittish of the colonisation of the ‘primitive’ people may undermine black children’s self esteem -> their failure
• CONCLUSION:

  pupil subcultures play a large part in pupil underachievement due to streaming and the processes that follow [differentiation + polarisation]

  HOWEVER ethnic factors= more significant role because factors such as streaming can still occur. Other ethnic factors such as labelling and teacher racism force ethnic pupils to underachieve due to inequalities in teaching