internal causes of social class differences

• what is labelling?


  this is to attach a meaning or definition to someone

  • this theory is an interactionist idea developed by Becker
  • positive or negative labels can be given by teachers
  • this is an internal factor that explain differences in achievement for class, ethnicity or gender
• the self-fulfilling prophecy


  this is a prediction that comes true

  3 stages to this:

  1. the teacher labels a pupil and on the basis of this label makes a prediction
  2. teacher then treats pupil based on this label as if prediction is true
  3. the pupil internalises teachers expectations which becomes part of their self-concept so they become what they were told
• effects of labelling

  • self fulfilling prophecy
  • looking glass self - Cooley
• setting and streaming


  steaming - splitting pupils into groups based on their ability across all their subjects

  setting - refers to when pupils are placed in different ability groups for different subjects

  • beneficial because all students can go at the same pace
  • students are challenged to their full potential
• sociological evidence on setting/streaming

  • Keddie - argues that comprehensive school she observed which streamed students, teachers gave top stream students abstract, theoretical, high status knowledge whereas 'less able' stream pupils descriptive, common sense, low status knowledge
  • Gillbourn and Youdell - found that schools use teachers' ideas of ability to decide if they can achieve 5 A*-C GCSE's - w/class students = low sets and lower tier exams
• Lacey (1970)


  found that streaming polarised boys into pro-school and anti-school subcultures

  • PS - higher stream students, who gain academic status are committed
  • AS - lower streams therefore lose self esteem - school has given them inferior status

  this is a result of positive and negative labels being placed on them based on their class
• Ball (1981)


  he did a study of Beachside comprehensive, and found that when they abolished banding, the anti-school subculture declined

  • however teachers continued to categorise pupils differently and this reflected in their exam results as m/class performed better
  • this shows that streaming is not a leading factor when compared to labelling when it comes to students achieving and social class division
  • % of pupils from w/class homes - 36% top band, 78% for middle band
• evaluation subcultural theories


  Woods (1979)- there are a wider variety of different responses and subcultures than what Lacey claims:

  • rebels - those who reject all school values
  • retreatists - those who daydream and muck about
  • ritualists - go through the motions and stay out of trouble
  • integrationists - teachers 'pet'

  pupils are not committed to any one response - may adapt and move
• Rosenthal and Jacobson - research study

  • Rosenthal had seen an experiment done on rats in 1963, and realised the rats performed better when they were pushed harder
  • he and Jacobson later reflected on this discovery with the 'pygmalion in the classroom' experiment he performed on teachers and students in a class. This helped him to prove his idea that the students who were pushed more, ended the school year on a better grade based on how the teacher labelled them
• Becker 'ideal student'

  • he interviewed 60 high school teachers in Chicago to describe their ideal student
  • participants emphasised many characteristic's (work, attitude, appearance) before they described the ability of the student
  • concluded it was much easier for m/class students - well spoken and better dressed to match this ideal than w/class
  • w/class therefore are less likely to be seen as academic
  • affects the opportunities presented to them
• labelling in schools


  primary schools - research by Rist (1970) shows that in American kindergartens the teachers used info about children's backgrounds and appearance to place them into groups - tigers = m/class

  secondary schools - Dunne and Gazeley (2008) argue schools persistently produce w/class underachievement because of the label and assumptions of teachers

  • teachers believed only m/class underachievement can be overcome
  • teachers believed w/class parents are uninterested and m/class parents are supportive - links to cultural deprivation
• pupils' class identities


  Archer (2010) found that many w/class pupils used branded clothing as a means of expressing their class status

  • used this to gain status amongst peers, but this led to conflict with schools
  • 'Nike identities' cause the marginalisation of of some working class pupils and contributes to their educational failure

  Habitus - this is the learned, taken for granted ways of thinking, being and acting that are shared for a particular class

  • schools place much higher value on the m/class habitus because they have the power to define theirs as superior - gives them an advantage