internal (within school)

• Becker: important interactionist study of labelling in 1971; based on interviews with 60 Chicago high school teachers

  • He found that they judged pupils according to how closely they fitted an image of the ideal pupil - pupils' work, conduct and appearance were key factors influencing teachers’ judgements
  • they saw children from MC backgrounds as the closest to ideal, and WC children as furthest from it as they regarded them as badly behaved 
• More recent study of two English primary schools by Hempel-Jorgensen in 2009 found views vary according to the social class make-up of the school:

  • In Aspen primary school, largely WC, staff said discipline was a major problem; the ideal student was defined as quiet, passive and obedient ∴ children were defined by their behaviour, not ability 
  • Contrastingly, Rowan primary school, mainly MC, had very few discipline problems; the ideal pupil was defined by personality and academic ability rather than being a ‘non-misbehaving’ student 
• Dunne and Gazellen (2008) = schools 'persistently produce' WC underachievement by labels and assumptions of teachers

  • Interviews in 9 English state secondary schools, found that teachers normalised WC underachievement, unconcerned by it and felt they could do nothing , but believed they could overcome MC underachievement
  • Major cause = labelling WC parents as uninterested (Douglas), but labelled MC parents as supportive 
  • setting extension work for underachieving MC pupils but entering WC pupils for easier exams 
  • underestimated WC potential, those who were doing well were overachieving 
• • Ray Rist’s (1970) study of American kindergarten - labelling begins at start of education; teacher used info about children’s home background and appearance to place them in separated groups
  • Pupils viewed as fast learners were labelled tigers, and tended to be MC and of neat and clean appearance; seated them at table nearest to her and showed them greatest encouragement 
  • The two other groups were labelled as cardinals and clowns, seated further away; more likely to be WC and given lower level books and fewer chances to show their abilities, e.g. as reading as a group not individuals
• Rosenthal & Jacobson (1968, California): Teachers’ expectations can influence students’ performance, exemplifies the Pygmalion effect.

  • told school they had a test to identify pupils who would ‘spurt’, picked random 20% and identified them as ‘spurters’; a year later, they found almost half (47%) of those had made significant progress; effect was greater on young children
  • This demonstrates self-fulfilling prophecy; by accepting prediction that some children would be ‘spurters’, conveyed these beliefs to the pupils through interactions, e.g. through body language, attention, encouragement 
• • Rosenthal & Jacobson findings illustrate important interactionist principle - what people believe to be true will have real effects, even if the belief wasn’t originally true 
  • Self-fulfilling prophecy also produces under-achievement; if teachers have low expectations of children and communicate these expectations in their interactions, these children may develop a negative self concept, seeing themselves as failures and giving up, fulfilling the original prophecy 
• • Studies show self-fulfilling prophecy is more prevalent with streaming
  • Becker - teachers don't view WC as ideal pupils, more likely to be in lower stream, difficult to move up, locked into teachers’ low expectations of them, think they have written them off as having no hope
  • Douglas found that children placed in lower stream at age 8 had a decline in IQ by age 11
  • MC 'ideal pupils' benefit from streaming, likely to be placed in higher streams, gain confidence, work harder, improve grades - Douglas found that children placed in a higher stream at age 8 had improved their IQ score by age 11
• • Study of two London secondary schools by Gillborn and Youdell (2001) found teachers are less likely to see WC and black pupils as having ability, resulting in them being placed in lower streams and entered for lower-tiered GCSEs
  • They link streaming to the policy of publishing exam league tables that rank schools according to exam performance;
  • they claim it creates an A-to-C economy, where schools focus their time, effort and resources on pupils they see as having potential to get 5 grade Cs to boost the schools league table position 
• • Gillborn & Youdell argue A-to-C economy produces an educational triage, sorting students into who will pass, those with potential so are helped to pass and hopeless cases doomed to fail
  • Teachers sort students into triage using stereotypical view of WC and black pupils as lacking ability, hopeless cases, bottom sets, producing self-fulfilling prophecy and failure 
  • Gillborn and Youdell put these interactionist principles into a broader context of schools operating in education system whose marketisation policies directly effect schools' micro level processes that produce class differences
• • Lacey (1970) concepts of differentiation and polarisation explain how pupil subcultures develop:
  • Differentiation - process of teachers categorising pupils according to perceived ability, attitude and behaviour, e.g. sets/streaming gives students status based on their set
  • Polarisation - process where pupils respond to streaming by moving towards one of two opposite poles/extremes. In Hightown boys’ grammar school, Lacey’s study found that streaming polarised boys into a pro-school and anti-school subculture 
• Pro-school subculture

  • high streams, largely MC, committed to the school's values
  • gain status in the approved manner of academic success

  Anti-school subculture 

  • low streams, WC, loss of self-esteem
  • inferior status & label of failure pushes them to search for alternative status by gaining status among peers - inverting schools’ values of hard work, obedience and punctuality 
  • becomes self-fulfilling prophecy of failure
  • Hargreaves: from pov of education system, boys in the lower streams were triple failures: they had failed their 11+ exam, in low streams and labelled ‘worthless louts’
• • Ball - study of a comprehensive that was abolishing banding (streaming) for mixed ability groups 
  • without streaming, the basis for pupils to polarise into subcultures was largely removed, influence of anti-school subculture declined 
  • however differentiation continued; teachers continued to categorise pupils, more likely to label MC pupils as cooperative and able 
  • labelling was reflected in better exam results, suggesting self-fulfilling prophecy; Ball’s study shows that class inequalities still occur as a result of teachers’ labelling, even without the effect of subcultures or streaming 
• Peter Woods argues that there are more responses to streaming and labelling than just pro and anti school subcultures:

  • Ingratiation - being the teacher’s pet
  • Ritualism - going through the motions and staying out of trouble 
  • Retreatism - daydreaming and messing around
  • Rebellion - outright rejection of school values
• Evaluation of Labelling (-)

  • deterministic (assuming labelled pupils have no choice but to fulfil prophecy and fail)
  • Fuller's study: black girls rejected neg stereotypes & low expectations, channeled into academic success
  • Marxists criticise labelling theory for ignoring the wider power structures which labelling takes place in; labelling theory tends to blame teachers for labelling pupils but fails to explain why they do so
  • labels are not a mere result of teachers’ individual prejudices (too much teacher agency) but stem from wider educational system that reproduces class divisions.
• Bourdieu’s (1984) concept of habitus:

  • Habits, behaviours, ways of thinking you develop as a result of your social background
  • Can unconsciously guide your behaviour in social situations
  • Includes tastes, preferences about lifestyles and consumption, their outlook on life and their expectations about what is normal or realistic for 'people like us'
  • This links to Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital; because the school has a middle class habitus, this gives middle class pupils an advantage 
• • School devalues WC habitus so their tastes (e.g. clothing, appearance, accent) = worthless
  • Bourdieu calls this withholding of symbolic capital ‘symbolic violence’, reproduces class structure and keeps the lower classes ‘in their place’
  • clash between WC habitus and schools MC habitus, WC pupils experience education as alien and unnatural 
  • Archer - WC pupils felt that to be successful, they have to change speech & presentation
  • ∴ educational experienced as a process of losing identity; unable to access ‘posh’ MC spaces e.g. uni and professional careers
• • Due to symbolic violence experienced by WC pupils, they become conscious of how society viewed them and sought out meaningful identities, doing so through investing heavily in styles, such as branded clothing like Nike
  • heavily policed, non-conformity = ‘social suicide’; right appearance earned symbolic capital and approval, style = struggle for recognition
  • styles conflict with dress code; reflecting school’s MC habitus, teachers opposed street styles as showing bad taste or as a threat
  • also play a part in WC rejection of HE - invest in short term gratification rather than HE investment
• • 2009 study by Ingram: 2 groups of WC, Catholic boys from the same highly deprived neighbourhood. Those who failed 11+ felt intense feeling of belonging at local school, grammar school boys experienced tension between their habituses
  • e.g. ridiculed for wearing a tracksuit on non-uniform; by opting to fit in with his neighbourhood habitus, he was made to feel worthless by his MC habitus
  • example of symbolic violence - pupils forced to abandon their ‘worthless’ WC identity
  • Meg Maguire: ‘the WC cultural capital of my childhood counted for nothing in this new setting’ (grammar school)
• • The clash between WC identity and the habitus of HE is a barrier to success, partly due to self-exclusion 
  • Evans studied 21 WC girls from a south London comprehensive studying A-levels; reluctant to apply to elite unis
  • Bourdieu - WC view elite institutions like Oxbridge as being ‘not for the likes of us’; this thinking becomes part of identity
  • strong attachment to locality, e.g. only 4 of 21 girls intended to move away, narrows their options
  • ∴ WC pupils forced to choose between maintaining WC identities or abandoning them and conforming to the MC habitus