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Flashcards by Em Maskrey, updated more than 1 year ago
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Created by Em Maskrey
about 6 years ago
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| Question | Answer |
| What does it mean to 'label' someone? | To label someone is to attach a meaning or definition to them. |
| Studies show that teachers often attach labels to pupils. However, studies show that labels are not based on pupils' actual ability. Rather, what are labels based on? | Stereotypical assumptions based on the child's social class and/or home life. |
| Howard Becker conducted a study of labelling. Based on interviews with 60 Chicago high school teachers, what did he find? | Teachers judged pupils according to how closely they fitted their image of the 'ideal pupil'. |
| What did Amelia Hempel-Jorgensen find when studying the concept of the 'ideal' pupil? | In a largely working-class school, the ideal pupil was defined as passive, quiet and obedient. In a largely middle-class school, the ideal pupil was defined in terms of academic ability. |
| Which sociologists argue that schools persistently produce working-class underachievement because of labels and assumptions made by teachers? | Máiréad Dunne and Louise Gazeley. |
| According to Dunne and Gazeley, how do state secondary schools normalise the underachievement of working-class pupils? | They see it as inevitable and to be expected and so they take little action to counteract it. |
| What is a major reason for the difference in the way teachers respond to the underachievement of students from different classes? | Teachers believe they will have more support from middle-class parents in raising a child's educational performance than from working-class parents. This gives them further incentive to improve a child's academic performance. |
| What do Dunne and Gazeley conclude about the way teachers explain and deal with underachievement? | It constructs class differences in levels of achievement. |
| What is a self-fulfilling prophecy? | A prediction that becomes true simply by virtue of it having been made. |
| Which sociological perspective is particularly in favour of the self-fulfilling prophecy? | Interactionists. |
| Explain the three steps of the self-fulfilling prophecy with regards to teachers' labelling? | 1. The teacher labels the student. 2. The teacher treats the student according to the label they have, acting as if the prediction is infallibly correct. 3. The student internalises the teacher's expectation. It becomes part of their self-image, and they actually become their label. The prediction is fulfilled. |
| How do Robert Rosenthal and Leonora Jacobson show the self-fulfilling prophecy? | They told a school that they had identified some children as 'gifted' academically. These students were selected at random and showed no sign of additional talent. They were subsequently given extra attention from teachers and, as a result, their educational performance significantly improved. |
| Rosenthal and Jacobson's study illustrates which important interactionist principle? | What people believe to be true will have very real effects - even if the belief is incorrect. |
| What does 'streaming' involve? | Separating children into different ability groups, also known as 'streams', and then teaching them according to their stream's 'capability'. |
| Studies show that when children have been streamed, what is likely to occur? | The self-fulfilling prophecy. |
| Once streamed, what can it be difficult to do? | Move up to a higher stream; children are essentially 'stuck' in their stream. |
| Which sociologist found that children placed in lower streams at age 8 suffer a declined IQ score by the age of 11? | J.W.B Douglas. |
| Which social class is more likely to be placed in lower streams? | The working class. This extends the class gap in educational achievement. |
| What do David Gillborn and Deborah Youdell link streaming to? | The marketisation policy of publishing league tables. |
| What is the relationship between streaming and the publication of exam league tables? | - League tables rank schools according to their exam performance. - Schools need to place high on the table to attract students and funding. - The need to gain a high placement creates an A-to-C economy in schools. - The A-to-C economy results in streaming. |
| What do Gillborn and Youdell mean by 'educational triage'? | The educational triage is a way of sorting students, who will either be categorised as: (a) Capable of succeeding on their own, or (b) those with potential who need additional support to succeed, or (c) those who are 'lost causes'. |
| According to Gillborn and Youdell, which students are most likely to fall into the 'lost cause' category? | Working-class and Black students. |
| What is meant by 'pupil subculture'? | This refers to a group of pupils who share similar values and behaviour patterns. |
| Why do pupil subcultures emerge? | Typically they emerge as a response to the way pupils have been labelled and particularly in response to streaming. |
| Which sociologist identifies two concepts to explain how pupil subcultures develop? | Colin Lacey. |
| What are the two concepts Lacey defines? | 1. Differentiation (the process of teachers categorising pupils according to their assumptions). 2. Polarisation (the way students respond to being categorised by teachers). |
| What are the two subcultures Lacey identifies? | The pro-school subculture and the anti-school subculture. |
| Who typically enters the pro-school subculture? | Pupils placed in higher streams (who are also typically middle class). |
| How is the pro-school subculture characterised? | The pro-school subculture remains committed to the values of the school. Status is gained in the 'approved' manner - through academic success. Values are typically the same as those held by the school. |
| Who typically enters the anti-school subculture? | Those placed in lower streams (who typically tend to be working-class and/or black). |
| How is the anti-school subculture characterised? | The anti-school subculture inverts the values held by the school. Status cannot be gained through academic success, so members of the subculture have to seek out status through other means, e.g. acting out, not completing homework, etc. |
| However, although joining the anti-school subculture can solve the issue of lack of status, it can also result in the deterioration of the student's behaviour and grades. In short, what can joining the subculture result in? | A self-fulfilling prophecy. |
| Which sociologist studied Beachside, a comprehensive school in the process of abolishing streaming in favour of teaching mixed-ability groups? | Stephen Ball. |
| Ball found that when the school abolished streaming, the basis for pupils to polarise into subcultures was largely removed and the influence of the anti-school subculture declined. However, although polarisation essentially disappeared, what continued? | Differentiation - teachers continued to categorise pupils differently and were more likely to label middle-class pupils as cooperative and able. |
| Teachers' positive labelling of students, despite the abolition of streaming, was reflected in exam results, suggesting that a self-fulfilling prophecy had occurred. What does Ball's study therefore show? | Class inequalities can continue as a result of teachers' labelling, even without the effect of subcultures or streaming. |
| What are the four other possible responses identified by Peter Woods? | 1. Ingratiation (being the teacher's pet). 2. Ritualism (going through the motion of school and staying out of trouble). 3. Retreatism (daydreaming and/or misbehaving). 4. Rebellion (acting out). |
| The self-fulfilling prophecy, streaming and pupil subcultures are all the result of what process? | The labelling process. |
| However, the labelling theory has received heavy criticism. Why has it been described as deterministic? | Because it assumes that labelled students will inevitably become their label. In reality, many students are able to reject their label. |
| Which study shows that label does not always lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy? | Mary Fuller's study of Black girls in year 11 at a London school. |
| Why do Marxists criticise the labelling theory? | They argue that it ignores the wider structures of power within which labelling occurs. The theory blames teachers for labelling pupils but doesn't explain why they do so. |
| Louise Archer et al focus on the interaction between working-class pupils' identities and school, and how this produces underachievement. What concept do they refer to? | Pierre Bourdieu's concept of habitus. |
| What does the term 'habitus' refer to? | The dispositions of a particular social class, including their tastes and preferences about lifestyle and consumption, outlook on life and expectations. |
| Why is a group's habitus formed? | Habitus is formed as a response to the group's position in the class structure. |
| Although one class's habitus is not intrinsically better than another's, why is middle-class habitus regarded as 'better'? | The middle class has the power to define its habitus as superior and impose it on the education system. |
| Because schools have a middle-class habitus, pupils who have been socialised into middle-class tastes gain what? | 'Symbolic capital' - status and recognition from the school. |
| By contrast, the school devalues the working-class habitus and deems it 'inferior'. What does Bourdieu call this withholding of symbolic capital? | 'Symbolic violence'. |
| It can therefore be argued that there is a clash between working-class pupils' habitus and the school's middle-class habitus. What impact may this have on working-class pupils? | They may feel alienated from the education system. |
| According to Louise Archer et al, working-class pupils believe that to be educationally successful, they have to do what? | Change the way in which they presented themselves. Essentially, they feel like they have to 'lose themselves'. |
| Symbolic violence can lead to pupils seeking out alternative ways to gain status. How do they do so? | By constructing meaningful class identities for themselves by heavily investing in 'styles' especially by consuming branded clothing. |
| Because of the consumption of branded clothing, what are these identities known as? | 'Nike identities'. |
| Nike identities are strongly gendered. For example, what style do many girls adopt? | A hyper-heterosexual feminine style. |
| Style performances are heavily policed by peer groups. Not conforming can be seen as what? | 'Social suicide'. |
| However, although conforming to Nike identities can gain status for working-class children, what negative impact does it have? | Conforming with Nike identities means going against schools' dress codes and being regarded by teachers as 'rebels'. |
| Louise Archer et al argues that the education system's middle-class habitus stigmatises working-class pupils' identities. Seen in this light, how can pupils' performances of style be described? | As struggles for recognition, a means of generating symbolic capital and self-worth. |
| Nike styles also play a part in working-class pupils' rejection of higher education, which they see as what? | Both undesirable and unrealistic. |
| Archer et al argue that working-class pupils' investment in Nike identities isn't only a cause of educational marginalisation but also expresses their positive preference for a particular lifestyle. As a result, what may working-class pupils chose to do? | Exclude themselves from education - they may actively choose to reject it because it fails to fit in with their identity and way of life. |
| Archer's study deals with the relationship between working-class identity and educational failure. Which study deals with the relationship between working-class identity and educational success? | Nicola Ingram's study of working-class Catholic boys from a highly deprived neighbourhood in Belfast who passed their 11+ and were accepted into a middle-class grammar school. |
| What did Ingram find? | Having a working-class identity was inseparable from belonging to a working-class locality. The neighbourhood's dense networks of family and friends were a key part of the boys' habitus. |
| However, according to Louise Archer et al, what do working-class communities place great emphasis on? How did this impact the boys? | Conformity. The boys experienced great pressure to 'fit in' and felt a tension between their home life and their school life. |
| Despite class inequalities in education, many more working-class young people now choose to go to university. However, even here, there is a tension between working-class identity and the habitus of higher education. What did Sarah Evans find when studying 21 working-class A Level students? | Only 4 of them intended to move away from home to study. |
| Which sociologist points out that self-exclusion from elite and/or distant universities limits many working-class pupils' opportunities for success? | Diane Reay et al. |
| Finally, what should be noted about the cause of the class difference in educational achievement? | Internal and external factors should be considered in conjunction with one another because they are interrelated rather than isolated. |
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