internal

• Labelling


  Teachers judge and label pupils according to how closely they fit the "ideal pupil"
• Becker "ideal pupil"

  • Teachers judge and label pupils according to how closely they fitt the “ideal pupil”. This would therefore dampen the motivation of students who did not suit the ideal pupil, due to how teachers deferred their time away from them and were unwilling to help.
• Self-fulfilling prophecy


  When students are given a positive label, they react to it by creating a positive self-concept, which means they are motivated to work hard and improve their grades. This also works in reverse, with negative labels leading to negative self-concepts and less motivation.
• Rosenthal and Jacobson study- self fulfilling prophecy 


  • Informed teachers of students who scored highly on an IQ test and would be a quick learner, when the test results were fabricated. Teachers treated those who were falsely identified as 'spurts' differently, and 47% of those made significant improvement due to teachers paying more attention to them and giving them more feedback.
• Streaming - Gillborn and youdell

  • Teachers label working-class students as unintelligent
  • Results in them being placed in lower streams and sets
• Pupil subcultures

  Lacey found that there were 2 ways in which pupil subcultures developed:

  • polarisation and differentiation. Polarisation is when pupils respond to streaming by either moving to a pro-school subculture or an anti-school subculture.
  • Differentiation is a form of streaming, those who are placed in higher streams gain a higher status.
• Hargreaves stud - pupil subcultures 


  • Boys in lower streams were triple failures: they failed their 11+ exam; had been placed in lower streams; and then labelled as "worthless louts" - their solution was to form a group which provided status to those who flouted the school rules and guaranteed their educational failure.
• Pupil identities- Archer et al 


  Working-class pupils invest in 'nike' identities, leading to self-exclusion from education because it does not fit their identity and way of life; they see it as unrealistic (it is for richer and cleverer people) and they also see it as undesirable (it does not suit their habitus).