interactionist views

• interactionist explanations


  focus on labelling, success and failure

  ability grouping, resources and class sizes

  debate in British schools focuses on selecting, banding and streaming

  some British schools (not comprehensive) are allowed to select according to talent or ability and can set entrance examinations
• interactionists believe success and failure is just a label
• cassen and kingdon 2007


  attempted to define low attainment in education and listed four separate measures of school failure:

  • no passes at gcse
  • no passes above a grade D in gcse
  • failure to attain a pass in either English or mathematics
  • failure to gain at least five passes at any grade including English and maths
• interactionist explanations of school failure


  view that children are labelled by teachers individually and by schools as organisations

  these labels are absorbed by children into their sense of self and children accept these labels

  if labelled as failures, they will form anti school subcultures but if they are labelled as a success, then they will go on to achieve good results and become approved of by the schools
• ability, grouping, resources and class size


  some British schools are able to select candidates on the basis of ability or talent and according to government regulations may set entrance examinations

  grammar schools will still only accept those who score hdigjky at the 11+ exam

  interactionists would criticise this on the basis that those in the top streams gain confidence and do well, whereas those in lower streams absorb the message that they are failures
• ability grouping, resources and class size 2


  it was discovered by more than one study that the top sets in secondary modern schools often out performed the lower sets in the grammar schools- supporting labelling theory

  ireson et al 1999 found no link between ability grouping and performance

  Duckworth et al 2009 suggested that the effect of ability grouping on pupil attainment is limited; however they also note that it is policy in large numbers of English and welsh schools to set children
• Self-fulfilling prophecy


  When a teacher's expectations of a student's performance influence the student's actual performance
• Rosenthal and Jacobson 1968 study


  1. Administered an intelligence test to children in a deprived inner city neighbourhood

  2. Told teachers that certain children would experience a sudden boost of intelligence and perform better

  3. Tested children a year later

  4. Some children performed better on the test

  The argument was that teachers believing something to be true made it happen

  Despite obvious problems with reliability, ethics and validity, this became an enormously influential study

  teacher expectations impact outcome
• interaction and gender


  when labelling theory was at its most popular as an approach in the 1970s feminists often used the techniques to look at gender and labelling. discovered significant differences in behaviour of teachers towards boys and girls