Class differences in achievement - Internal factors

• Labelling

  • To label someone is to attach a meaning or definition to them.
  • Teachers often base their labels on a students background (class, gender, ethnicity).
  • Becker (interactionalist) coined the theory.
• Hempel Jorgensen

  • English Primary School study
  • Different notions of the ideal pupil based on social class majority of the school.
  • In WC schools, the ideal pupil was a quiet and obedient student. As behaviour was a big issue, a childs behaviour was the most important factor.
  • In MC schools, the ideal pupil was defined in terms of their academia, the smartest students were ideal.
• Labelling in secondary schools

  • Dunne and Gazeley argue that schools consistently produce WC underachievement through labelling.
  • From interviews in WC schools, they found that teachers normalise the underachievement of WC pupils and believe they cannot do anything to change it whereas the MC could eventually overcome any underachievement.
• Labelling in primary schools

  • Rist found that teachers use information about students background to categorise them. In an American Kindergarten, teachers sat different class children at separate tables.
  • The teacher decided the MC were fast learners and sat them at the front whilst WC were sat  at the back and were called ‘clowns.’
• The SFP

  • A self fulfilling prophecy is where an individual lives up to their label. 
  • Step one : The teacher labels a student. 
  • Step two: the teacher treats the student accordingly. 
  • Step three : The pupil internalises the label.
• Teacher expectations

  • Rosenthal and Jacobson told a primary school in California that they developed a test to see those who would ‘spurt’ ahead. The test was not true, and they randomised the students results. The teachers believed it to be true, and a year later, almost half of the ‘spurters‘ progressed significantly. 
  • The teachers beliefs were conveyed through enthusiasm and body language with each particular child. 
• Streaming

  Separating children into separate different ability classes
• Working class students tend to be placed into the lower streams as they are not considered the 'ideal pupil'
• Children in lower streams

  Think that their teachers think very little of their academic capability
• Thinking teachers think little of their academic capability

  Can create a self fulfilling prophecy
• Douglas found that children in lower streams experience a decline in their IQ
• MC students

  Benefit from being placed into the higher streams, viewing themselves as the ideal pupil and therefore achieving academic success
• Educational triage - Gilborn and Youdell

  • Schools categorise people into three types. 
  • Those who’ll pass and can learn independently.
  • Those with potential who needs help to get a good grade.
  • Hopeless cases that are doomed to fail.
• Streaming and the A-C economy

  • A study of two secondary schools by Gilborn and Youdell shows how teachers use stereotypical notions of ability to stream pupils. Teachers usually see WC and ethnic children as lacking ability which denies them knowledge, widening the education gap as they are put into lower streams. 
  • Gilborn and Youdell link steaming to the policy of exam league tables, schools focus their time, effort, and resources on ‘borderline C/D pupils’ to boost league tables, whilst seaming lower streams as hopeless cases.
• A pupil subculture

  • A pupil subculture is a group of pupils who share similar values and behaviours. Pupil subcultures emerge as a response to labelling and streaming. 
  • Lacey describes how pupil subcultures develop. 

  Differentiation – the process of teachers categorising students based on their behaviour and ability. 

  • Polarisation – the process in which students respond to differentiation by moving to one of two extremes; an anti school and pro school subculture.
• Abolish streaming

  • Ball found that when school abolished streaming, the influence of anti-school subcultures declined as less pupils were polarised. However, polarisation and labelling continued. 
• The Subcultures

  • Pro school – Largely MC and high streams, they are committed to schools' values and gain status through educational success. 
  • Anti school – Largely WC suffer a loss of self-esteem due to streaming; they’re labelled as failures, so they look for status through rebellion. This can take form of truanting, cheating and getting in trouble. 
• Pupil responses - Woods

  • Woods found that pupils respond to labelling and streaming in other ways. 

  1. Ingratiation – being a 'teachers pet'.
  2. Ritualism – staying out of trouble and abiding by school rules.
  3. Retreatism – daydreaming and not paying attention.
  4. Rebellion – outright rejection of school  norms.
• Labelling AO3

  • Labelling has been accused of being too deterministic. Not everybody will accept their label.
  • Marxists criticise that it ignores the wider structures of power.
• Habitus

  • Habitus refers to the learned ways of thinking, acting and being shared by a particular social class. It is formed in a response to their position in class structure. The MCs habitus is seen as the superior and universal habitus.  Habitus was defined by Bourdieu. 
• Symbolic capital and symbolic violence

  • Schools have  a MC Habitus. Pupils who share this MC capital are recognised as having worth or value. This is symbolic capital. Meanwhile, the school devalues the working-class habitus and therefore they feel isolated from education. They gain symbolic violence. Working class students feel like education is not for them and feel that  in order to achieve they must lose their habitus which they are not willing to do. (Archer et al.)
• Class identity and self exclusion

  • Evans studied a group of 21 south london girls. They were reluctant to apply to oxbridge as they felt exluded. Bourdieu argues that WC people feel universities are not for them. The girls also have a sense of locality and will not move out of south london.
• WC

  Working class
• The education system deems the WC worthless


  The WC seeks worth elsewhere
• WC identities

  • They invest heavily in styles such as Nike
• Pupil identities

  • Highly gendered, females adopted a hyper-heterosexual feminine style
• Not conforming to the hyper-heterosexual feminine style

  Would be social suicide
• Conforming to the hyper-heterosexual feminine style

  Earned symbolic capital and approval
• The Nike style

  Leads to conflict with the school's dress code
• Teachers saw the Nike style

  As a threat
• Pupils wearing the Nike style


  Were labelled as rebels
• MC habitus

  Stigmatised working class identities
• The Nike style

  Plays a part in the WC's rejection of higher education
• Higher education is seen as

  • Unrealistic - it isn't for "people like us"
  • Undesirable - it would not suit their preferred habitus, if they relied on student loans they couldn't afford their nike street style
• Ingram argued that locality overpowers a MC habitus and allows WC children to overachieve