Interactionalist

• Interactionalism 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 comprehensives) are allowed to select according to talent or ability and can set entrance examinations.
  • Some areas with grammar schools select according to the 11+.
  • Interactionalists claim those who are placed in high sets or pass the exams have high levels of confidence in their own ability, those who fail or are in lower sets feel like failures.
• Interactionalist explanations of school failure:

  • interactional accounts of school failure focus on the view that children are labelled by teachers individually and by schools and education.
  • These labels are absorbed by children into their sense of self and children accept these labels.
  • If they are 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 schools.
• Interactionalism


  Teacher practise and behaviour
• self-fulfilling prophecy:

  
• Interaction and ethnicity:

  • Many studies suggest that teacher racism is the cause of ethnic minority failure. Teachers have low opinions and label some cultural groups as failures.
  • A great deal of evidence has suggested teachers are racist: Coard (1971), Mirza (1992), Sewell (1997), Gilbourn and Youdell (2000).
  • However, when most major studies were carried out, attitudes to race in general society were very different from today and most modern schools are highly sensitised to the issues.
  • In addition, some of the work was conducted by researchers from ethnic minorities.
• Evaluating the interactionalist approach to education:

  • A strength of the interactionalist approach is that it is based on evidence collected from inside schools and classrooms. The results of this research can then be used by schools and teachers to change what they do and provide a better experience for their pupils.
  • Its basis in evidence is in contrast to the theoretical emphasis of structural approaches, which aim to show how the education system fits in with their overall view of how society operates.
• Evaluating the interactionaist apprach to education:

  • Critics of interactionalism suggest that many studies are small scale and may not be representative of the education system as a whole.
  • Furthermore, schools are not isolated from the wider society and it is likely that teachers and pupils create social constructions that do not reflect the ideas of society.
  • For example, the labelling of boys and girls reflect gender stereotypes that exist outside schools.
• interactionalism: Ability grouping, resources and class size:

  • One of the prime areas of debate centres on selecting, banding and streaming. Some British schools are able to select canidates on the basis of ability or talent and according to government regulations may set entrance examinations.
  • Those areas where grammar schools still exist will accept only those who score highly at the 11+ exam.