Class and Achievement Labelling - Internal

Question 1

Define labelling and who are the sociologists for it?

Answer 1

Labelling is the process of attaching meanings (judgements) to individuals or groups.
Interactionism , the 20th century Sociological perspective developed the labelling theory.
Becker
Dunne and Gazeley
Rist
Keddie

Question 2

Becker

Answer 2

Interviewed 60 high school teachers in Chicago.
Teachers have an image of what is ‘an ideal pupil’ and they judge pupils on how closely they fit this ideal.
Middle class pupils tended to be seen as closest to the teachers’ image of an ideal pupil, working class pupils were seen as badly behaved putting them further away from the ideal.

Question 3

Criticism of Becker

Answer 3

However, British studies by Hempel-Jorgensen show that teachers have different notions of an ideal pupil and it is not always linked to the class background of the pupil. For example, in a mainly working class school where there was a lot of behavioural problems, teachers saw the ideal pupil as quiet and obedient.

Question 4

Dunne and Gazeley

Answer 4

Studied 9 state secondary schools in England and found that teacher labelling leads to the underachievement of working class students. 
Teachers ‘normalise’ the underachievement of working class students, are unconcerned about it and feel they can’t do anything about it. 
This is because teachers believe the working class students’ home background is a major factor in holding back their progress. For example, teacher believe working class parents are not interested in their child’s education.
This leads to different treatment of underachieving working and middle class students. For example, the underachieving middle class students got extra work to help them progress, while working class students get entered for foundation tier exams.

Question 5

Rist

Answer 5

Studied US kindergartens (nursery schools).
Within 8 days of starting school, children were seated around tables in groups.
The judgements about where to place the children were made by the teacher based on the information the teacher had about their home background and the judgements the teacher made based on the children’s appearance.
Middle class children and those of neat appearance (‘tigers’) were seated at the front near the teacher. They received the most attention and encouragement.
Working class children sat at the back and were given low level reading books (‘cardinals’, ‘clowns’).

Question 6

Keddie

Answer 6

Labelling can be applied not just to students, but to the knowledge they are taught.
Keddie argues that knowledge can be labelled as high or low status.
She observed lessons in comprehensive schools where children were streamed – put in classes by ability. (e.g. X and Y band).
Keddie found that, when teaching higher streams, teachers taught them high status knowledge, while when teaching lower streams, teachers taught low status knowledge.
Most students in lower streams came from w/c class backgrounds.

Question 7

Define the ‘self-fulfilling’ prophecy

Answer 7

Self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true simply because it was made.
Interactionists argue that labelling of students by teachers can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Question 8

Rosenthal and Jacobson

Answer 8

Carried out a study of labelling and self-fulfilling prophecy in a Californian primary school.
It was a covert study in which they told the teachers they had a test which would identify the students with the highest potential to succeed (‘spurt’). However, the tests were just standard IQ tests.
The students were tested and then R&J chose 20% of them at random. The teachers were told that these were the ‘spurters’.
A year later, R&J returned to the school to find that from the 20% of randomly chosen students, 47% had made significant progress.