Labelling

• Becker

  • teachers judge and label pupils based on how closely they fit the 'ideal pupil'
  • this dampens the motivation of the students who did not fit the ideal
• Self-fulfilling prophecy

  • when students are given a label, they react to it by creating a self-concept
  • e.g. negative labels lead to negative self-concepts and motivation
  • Rosenthal and Jacobson studied this: they falsely informed that students who scored highly on an IQ test were quick learners. Resulting in the teachers treating the 'spurts' differently and them making significant improvement
• Streaming

  • Gillborn and Youdell found that teachers labelled WC students as 'unintelligent', resulting in them being placed in lower streams and sets
• Pupil Subcultures

  • Lacey found 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 a anti-school subculture
  • Differentiation is a form of streaming; those who are placed in higher streams gain a higher status
• Pupil Identities

  • Archer found that WC pupils invest in 'nike' identities, leading to self-exclusion from education as it does not fit their identity and way of life
  • they see it as unrealistic (it is for richer and cleverer people)
  • they also see it as undesirable (it does not suit their habitus)