Processes within school

• Peer groups: Male and female peer groups reinforce gender appropriate behaviour and punish behaviour that seems to belong to the opposite gender. E.g. boys who do work are more likely to be called gay.
• Subject choice: Schools reinforce gender stereotypes in subjects choice by pushing girls to choose communication subjects and boys to choose technological subjects. This reinforces gender identity.
• Uniform: Uniform reinforces gender roles as girls are expected to wear skirts and blouses whereas boys are expected to wear trousers and shirts. This can also shape class identity as schools demand certain standards which might be too expensive for some students to achieve.
• Nike identities (Archer): Schools impose a form of symbolic violence against the working class whose identities are shaped by wearing designer sportswear, schools reject these students which forces the working class to not see education as a thing for them.
• School environment (Reay): Working class students identify themselves as being unworthy of attending high achieving schools and associate themselves as only being good enough to attend poor schools.
• Sub-cultures: Rejection by school can lead to working class and minority ethnic groups to identify with an anti-school subculture and therefore reject authority is all walks of life.
• Labelling: Positive and negative labelling impacts self esteem and self image of students. If labeled negatively then students may assume that academic achievement is not a part of their identity and therefore look towards more vocational courses in the future.
• Ethnocentric curriculum: Focus on one ethnic group (white British) which may lead to students from other ethnic groups to feel rejected by the educational system.
• Interactionalism: Interaction and meaning are the basis of society.
• Blumer: Social action theory - the idea that people are active agents in their own lives and that they have the power to change their own lives.
• Hargreaves et al:

  Three stages of labelling-

  1. Speculation- Appearance, relationships and personality.
  2. Elaboration- Teachers test the hypothesis.
  3. Stabilization- Label becomes firmly attached
• Self-fulfilling prophecy: The individual lives up to their label.
• Ideal pupil: Teacher has a list of characteristics they look for in a student, e.g middle class.
• Labelling research (Rosenthal and Jacobson):

  • Teachers wore told the scores of students IQ tests and how likely the students were to do well.
  • The names had being selected at random.
  • When they returned after 18 months they found that the named children had improved significantly.
  • Shows that teacher expectation is a central variable in pupil attainment.
• Streaming: Separating students into different ability classes which leads to different access to knowledge and expectations. This combined with labelling can lead to subcultures being formed.
• Willis:

  • Says education doesn't turn out an obedient workforce.
  • 'Lads' rejects school and form anti-school subcultures.
  • Working class kids cope with school by having a laugh and then get working class jobs.
  • Working class boys behaviour leads to them failing in school.
• Hidden curriculum: Indirect teaching of attitudes and motivation to work. Teaches obedience and how to act in a workplace.
• Becker: Studied labelling interviewed 60 teachers and found they did judge students based on appearance and how they fit the image of an ideal student.
• Becker (Evaluation):

  • Geographically limited to teachers in America.
  • Small scale study, not representive.
  • Not all teachers hold these views.
  • Study may be out of date.
• Rosenthal and Jacobson (Evaluation):

  • Small scale study.
  • External factors may have made an impact such as parents.
  • Out-dated.
  • Unethical.
• Lacey: Explained how subcultures developed. Differentiation which is the process of categorizing the students and polarization which is the way in which pupils respond to it.
• Lacey (Evaluation):

  • Study may have gender bias (exclusive to boys).
  • Pupils react differently to streaming.
• Ball: Found that when schools abolished banding the influence of anti-school subcultures declined however differentiation still continued.
• Ball (Evaluation):

  • Outside school factors such as social class may be bigger factors in subcultures.
  • Study is deterministic, students can rejects labels.
• Hargreaves (Evaluation):

  • Tripartite no longer exists to label students.
  • Research is useful for teachers to demonstrate impact of labelling.
• Willis (Evaluation):

  • Study is gender bias because its only focuses on boys.
  • Takes into consideration that it wasn't the schools fault but the students.