Pupil identities and subcultures

• Subcultures

  A subculture is a group of people within culture that differentiates itself from parents culture often maintaining some principles but mostly developing its own norms and values
• Symbolic capital

  The status, recognition and sense of worth that students get from others
• Symbolic violence

  Using symbolic capital in a violent way, e.g. demonstrating superiority through values, beliefs and attitudes
• Working class dilemma

  The dilemma faced by working class pupils to achieve symbolic capital from their friends or from academic capital (through rejecting working class identity)
• Pro-school subcultures:

  • Committed to school values, gain status through academic success, involved in wider life of school
  • Mac and Ghaill (1994) suggest two types of pro-school subcultures;
  • The academic achievers- aim to achieve academic success through focusing on traditional academic subjects e.g. English, math, science
  • The new enterprises- Rejected the traditional national curriculum but were motivated to study subjects such as business and computer science which they see as a route to economic success
• Anti school subculture characteristics:

  • Lower streams, rejection of school values, truanting, disruption, not doing homework/ school work
• How schools shape pupil identities:

  • Peer groups/symbolic capital- reinforcing acceptable behaviour by ostracising those who don't conform and giving status to those who do
  • Symbolic violence (Archer)
  • School environments (Reay)
  • Ethnocentric curriculum (Ball)
  • Subject choice- subject choices reinforced by gender stereotypes e.g. pushing girls to do expressive subject, boys to do instrumental ones
  • Uniforms- Uniforms reinforce gender roles, can also shape class identities with schools demanding certain types of dress, uniforms can also exclude ethnic minorities e.g. hijabs, certain haircuts
• How schools shape pupil identities part 2:

  • Sub cultures- rejection by school can lead to W/C or ethnic minorities to identify as being antiauthoritarian
  • Labelling- Positive and negative labelling impacts self esteem and self image, negatively labelled students may feel academic success is not apart of their identity and therefore look towards more vocational subjects
• Symbolic violence Archer:

  • Schools impose forms of violence against students whose identities are shapes by designer clothing or hyper sexual feminine behaviour (usually w/c)
  • This suggests to those students that education is not for them
• School environments Reay:

  • Students align their ability with the type of school they attend
  • Students who attend a poor performing school identify as poor performing students and are more likely to form anti-school subcultures
  • Students attending high performing schools identify as high performing students and are more likely to form pro-school subcultures
• Ethnocentric curriculum (ball):

  • The current curriculum (arguably) is very focused on middle class white British culture
  • Ball refers to this as 'little Englandism'
  • This can mean that ethnic minorities, girls, the working class can feel excluded in the curriculum