Labelling

• Labelling

  Teachers often attach labels to students based on stereotypes and assumptions of their class background, rather than their actual ability or attitude
• Labelling of students


  • Working class students are labelled negatively, while middle-class students are labelled positively
• Becker's study


  • Interviewed 60 Chicago high school teachers who judged pupils according to how closely they fit the image of an ideal pupil, with middle-class students seen as closest to the ideal and working-class students farthest away
• Hempel-Jorgensen's study


  • In a working-class primary school, the ideal pupil was defined as quiet, passive, and obedient, while in a middle-class primary school, the ideal pupil was defined in terms of personality and academic ability rather than behaviour
• Labelling and secondary schools


  Teachers normalise the underachievement of working-class students but believe they can overcome the underachievement of middle-class students, due to assumptions about parental interest in education
• Labelling and secondary schools


  Teachers underestimate the potential of working-class students and enter them for easy exams, while providing extensions for underachieving middle-class students
• Rist's study of an American kindergarten


  • The teacher used information about children's home background and appearance to place them in separate groups, with the "tigers" (middle-class) seated closest to the front and given more opportunities, while the "cardinals" and "clowns" (working-class) were seated further away and given lower-level books
• The labelling theory can be accused of


  Determinism
• The labelling theory assumes that people who are labelled have no choice, but to fulfil the prophecy and will inevitably fail
• Fullers study shows that the above assumption is not always true
• Marxists are also criticising the labelling theory for


  Ignoring the wider structures of power within which labelling takes place
• Labelling theory tends to blame teachers for labelling people and will explain why they do so
• Marxists argue that labels are not mainly the result of teachers' individual prejudice, but they stem from the fact that teachers work in a system that reproduces class division
• The labelling theory assumes that people who are labelled have no choice, but to fulfil the prophecy and will inevitably fail
• Fullers study shows that this is not always true
• Marxists are also criticising the labelling theory for


  Ignoring the wider structures of power within which labelling takes place
• Labelling theory tends to blame teachers for labelling people and will explain why they do so
• Marxists argue that labels are not mainly the result of teachers' individual prejudice, but they stem from the fact that teachers work in a system that reproduces class division