Roles and Process in Schools

• Setting

  Means placing students in groups according to ability in individual subjects.
• Streaming

  Means placing students in groups according to ability in all subjects.
• Ideal Pupil


  Means the characteristics that a teacher that a teacher subconsciously looks for in a 'good' pupil.
• Self Fulfilling Prophecy


  Means when a pupil takes on the label they have been given by school and acts accordingly.
• Bernstein - Language Codes


  Restricted v. Elaborated Code

  
  

  Restricted = WC; Limited Vocab; Short unfinished sentences; Grammatically simple; Context bound

  
  

  Elaborate = MC;Wide vocab; Grammatically complex; Varied and abstract; Context-free
• Labelling theory (Overview)


  Labelling theory suggests that teachers often attach a label to a pupil that has little to do with their actual ability or aptitude. Instead they form an opinion of the student based on how close the student's characteristics fit that of an 'ideal pupil'.

  
  

  Becker suggests that teacher/pupil interactions are based upon these labels and can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy where the students take on the label and act accordingly.
• Labelling theory (Evaluation)

  Deterministic: Focuses on the negative effects

  - Labelling theory attributes too much importance to 'teacher agency' (the autonomous power of teachers to influence and affect pupils) -structural sociologists might point out that schools themselves encourage teachers to label students.

  - Teacher training.
• Labelling theory (Reactions)

  Self fulfilling prophecy

  
  

  Rejection of the label -Margaret Fuller's (1984) research on black girls in a London comprehensive school found that the black girls she researched were labelled as low-achievers, but their response to this negative labelling was to knuckle down and study hard to prove their teachers and the school wrong.
• Labelling- Case Studies (Rosenthal and Jacobson)


  :Pygmalion in the Classroom

  
  

  Fake IQ Test given to the students. Random 20% of the students were identified as bright (bloomers), they went back after a year and found that those students had made more progress than the others.
• Labelling- Case Studies (Ray Rist)


  :US Primary school study.

  A Teacher used home background to group/segregate students.

  Tigers - Neat M/C, fast students. Cardinals - W/C middling ability. Clowns - W/C troublesome.

  
  

  -Labels carried through later years
• Labelling- Case Studies (Hempel Jorgenson)


  Found that the Ideal pupil varies depending on the makeup of the school.

  
  

  Aspen- W/C School, discipline was a problem, ideal pupil was quiet, passive and obedient.

  
  

  Rowan- M/C school, few discipline problems, the ideal pupil was defined by personality and academic ability rather than behaviour.