Social Class & Education: School Factors (AQA GCSE Sociology)

Interactionist perspectives on education

• Interactionist sociologists focus on small-scale interactions between individuals like those between students and teachers in the classroom

• They are not interested in developing theories about the role of education in society

Labelling and the self-fulfilling prophecy

• One explanation for class differences in education is labelling students

• Research shows that teachers inevitably make judgements about students and categorise them into types based on factors such as their appearance, ability and whether they are conformist or dissenting

• These judgements or labels may affect a child's chances of educational achievement

• Well-behaved students tend to be labelled as 'bright', while the performance of poorly-behaved students tends to be perceived negatively

  • This is known as the 'halo effect'- when a pupil is stereotyped from first impressions based on their clothing, manners, speech and information about their home life

• Labelling theory suggests that teachers label students and these labels are hard to remove

• Once a label is attached to a student, they may see themselves in terms of that label and behave accordingly; this is known as a self-fulfilling prophecy

Labelling and students' social class

• Sociologists suggest that some teachers inevitably label students based on their social class rather than their actual performance

• Middle-class students are more likely to be seen as 'ideal students' (Becker, 1970)

Effects of streaming and setting

• Streaming or setting is where students are allocated to classes based on their ability and are taught in this class for most subjects

  • Students are normally placed in classes based on their attainment in subjects such as English, maths and the sciences

Strengths

• It is considered a good way to meet the educational needs of individual students in comparison to mixed-ability groups as:

  • students will learn content that is appropriate to their needs and abilities

    • The most able students are less likely to be 'held back'

    • Lower-ability students are more likely to understand the lesson content

  • individuals will work alongside students of similar ability

  • teachers will be able to produce resources and teach lesson content to a level that will meet the needs of students more effectively

Limitations

• There may be unintended effects of setting that impact student performance because:

  • teachers expectations of those in lower sets may affect a child's chances of educational achievement due to labelling leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy

  • those in lower streams might receive less support and attention from teachers than students in higher streams

  • students in lower streams or sets often experience a decline in confidence, which discourages them from attempting to improve

  • a disproportionately high number of lower-stream students are working-class

• Some schools have overcome the limitations associated with streaming by having:

  • mixed ability groups

  • subject setting, whereby students are placed into ability groups for each individual subject they study

Key thinker: Ball (1981) on banding and expectations

Method

• Ball (1981) undertook a 3-year ethnographic case study of a mixed comprehensive school on the south coast and examined the way it was organised. He used a variety of research methods, such as:

  • participant observation where he observed lessons and taught some classes

  • interviews and questionnaires with students and teachers

  • secondary sources such as school records and registers

• Using an interactionist approach, Ball looked at two groups of students:

  • Those who were placed into one of three bands, from band 1 (the most able) to band 3 (the least able)

  • Those that were taught in mixed-ability classes

Findings

• Ball found that:

  • students from lower social classes were more likely to be placed in the lower bands and were less likely to be well-behaved

  • student behaviour changed as a result of the band they were placed in, which was linked to teacher expectations

    • For example, teachers expected band 2 students to be difficult, which is what these students became as they became increasingly disinterested in school

  • Each band was taught differently and studied for different exams

    • Students in band 1 were encouraged to aim high and to study academic courses

    • Students in band 2 were steered towards more practical subjects

  • Although there was less obvious division among the students in mixed-ability classes, teachers continued to rank middle-class students as the most capable

  • Labelling frequently created a self-fulfilling prophecy that affected students' learning and behaviour and, in turn, their exam results

Conclusions

• Children from lower-income families left school with fewer qualifications, therefore reproducing class inequalities

• Ball describes a 'downward mobility' as classifying students by ability damages working-class pupils' education and life chances

• This contrasts with Parsons' functionalist perspective, which held that education is a meritocratic system in which social class is not used to determine an individual's status

Counter-school culture

• Research suggests that one of the effects of streaming is the development of a counter-school subculture that opposes the school's learning objectives

• In response to being labelled as 'failures', some lower-stream students reject the school's academic values and rules

• Instead, they create a counter-school culture that values disobedience to authority figures and teachers. This gives the students a sense of status because their peers think highly of them for their defiance

• As a result, their educational achievement is affected

Key thinker: Willis (1977) on the counter-school subculture

• Willis (1977) writes from a different Marxist perspective on how schools prepare children for the workplace from that of Bowles and Gintis

• He agrees with the Marxist view that there is a relationship between education and capitalism but he thinks that students actively oppose the values of the ruling class through a counter-school subculture rather than passively accepting them

Method

• Willis took an interactionist approach to his research of a single-sex secondary school on a council estate in the Midlands, as he:

  • used observations and participant observations in class and around the school

  • recorded groups discussions

  • carried out unstructured interviews and used diaries

• Willis focused on a group of 12 working-class boys (which he called 'the lads') during their last 18 months at school and their first six months at work doing jobs like fitting tyres and laying carpets

• He explored the interaction between teachers and students at school and how the boys made sense of their experiences

Findings

• The lads were friends and formed a counter-school subculture, which involved:

  • resisting the values of the school and its teachers authority

  • 'dossing', 'having a laff' and generally misbehaving

  • avoiding lessons and doing as little work as possible as they saw no value in academic work

  • exuding masculinity, toughness and being able to handle oneself

• They believed that education was boring and pointless, that it would hinder their ability to find employment, and that earning qualifications were not worthwhile.

• Willis argued that the lads were able to see through the myth of meritocracy and were focused on entering the world of work as soon as possible

Conclusions

• The counter-school subculture made the lads suitable candidates for male-dominated manual work in a capitalist society

• Willis showed that the education system does lead working-class pupils into working-class jobs, but this is partly due to the student's rejection of school values, not because schools are effective agents of socialisation

• In this way, the class structure is reproduced over time

Criticisms

• Willis, according to feminists, celebrates lad culture while ignoring the experiences of girls in schools

• Other critics argue that Willis does not explore the conformist boys' experiences of education or their views on the lads

• Because of the small sample size, the results cannot be generalised

• Given that school leavers can now find far fewer manual working-class jobs, Willis' theories might not be relevant today