Pupil Identities And Subculture Sociologists

Question 1

Lacey’s (1970) concepts of differentiation and polarisation

Answer 1

• The process of teachers categorising pupils according to how they perceive their ability attitude and or behaviour
• Streaming is a form of differentiation since it categorises children into separate classes
• Those that the school deems as moral are given high status by being places into a high stream whereas those deemed less able, are put in low streams and given inferior status

Question 2

Lacey and how boys develop and anti school subculture

Answer 2

He argued that a boy who dies badly academically is predisposed to criticise, reject or even sabotage the system where he can, because ur places him in an inferior position

Question 3

Ball’s study of comprehensive school that was banishing banding

Answer 3

The school was in favour of teaching mixed ability groups because banding cause the polarisation described by Lacey

Question 4

Ball and what happened when the school abolished banding

Answer 4

The basis for pupils to polarise into subcultures was largely removed and the influence of the anti-school culture declined

Question 5

Ball and what happened even through polarisation was gone

Answer 5

There was still differentiation, teachers still categorised pupils differently and were more likely to label middle class students as cooperative and able

Question 6

Ball and what happened with the continuation of differentiation and positive labelling for the m/c

Answer 6

• the m/c got better exam results, meaning that we,ful-filling prophecy happened
• it shows that class inequalities can continue as a result of teachers labelling, even without the effect of subcultures of streaming.

Question 7

What has happened since ball’s study

Answer 7

• Since his study and especially since the education reform at (1988) there has been a trend toward streaming and towards a variety of types of school.
• Some have more academic curriculum than others
• This has given new opportunities for schools and teachers to differentiate between pupils in the basis of their class, ethnicity and gender, and treat them unequally

Question 8

Archer and what w/c students felt

Answer 8

• They felt that to be educationally successful, they would have to change how they talked and presented themselves
• So for them, educational success involves losing yourself
• They are unable to access posh m/c spaces like university and professional careers which were seen as not for them

Question 9

Why the w/c wore brands

Answer 9

• They we’re ways of being themselves without it they would feel inauthentic
• Pupils identities were also strongly gendered, so girls adopted the hyper heterosexual feminine style

Question 10

Not conforming to Nike identity

Answer 10

-It was social suicide, the right appearance earned the symbolic capital and approval from peer groups and brought safety from bullying

Question 11

Nike identity conflict with the dress code

Answer 11

• the school dress code reflected the schools middle class habits and teachers opposed the street styles and thought they showed bad taste or saw it as a threat
• Pupils who had these styles were seen as rebels

Question 12

Archer and how m/c habits in school stigmatises the w/c identities

Answer 12

-The m/c see the Nike identities as tasteless, but to the w/c they are seen as a means of generating self worth and symbolic capital

Question 13

Nike identities part in w/c pupils rejection of higher education

Answer 13

UNREALISTIC: they didn’t believe it was for people like them, but for richer, posher, cleverer people and they would not fit in, it is also unaffordable and a risky investment

UNDESIRABLE: because it would not suit their preferred lifestyle or habitus
E.G They did not want to be on a student loan because they were unable to afford the street styles that gave them their identity

Question 14

Archer et all and w/c investment in Nike identities

Answer 14

• Their investment in Nike identities are not just because of marginalisation by school
• it also expressed their preference for a particular lifestyle
• So w/c pupils may choose self elimination or self exclusion from school
• They don’t choose higher education because it is not for people like them and also because it doesn’t fit on with their identity or way of life

Question 15

Nicola Ingram (2009) study on two w/c Catholic boy groups from the same deprived area

Answer 15

• They were from Belfast
• One group passed their 11+ exam and gone to grammar school
• The other failed and went to secondary school
• the grammar school had m/c habitus and high expectations or academic achievement and the secondary school had the opposite

Question 16

What Ingram (2009) found from the two boys

Answer 16

• The w/c identity was inseparable from belonging to a w/c locality
• The neighbourhoods dense networks of family and friends were part of the boys habitus
• it gave them a feeling of belonging
• Like archer said, street culture and branded sportswear is part of the boys habits and identity

Question 17

Ingram (2009) and w/c communities emphasis on conformity

Answer 17

-The boys experienced a great pressure to fit in, this was a problem for the grammar school boys because they experienced tension between the habitus of the w/c neighbourhood and the m/c habitus of their school

Question 18

Ingram (2009) example of one boy, Callum

Answer 18

• He was ridiculed by his classmates for coming into school in a tracksuit on a non-school-uniform day.
• By opting to fit in its his neighbourhood habitus by wearing a tracksuit he was made to feel worthless by the m/c habitus
• it is an example of symbolic violence where pupils are forced to abandon their worth (from the schools POV) w/c identity if they want to succeed

Question 19

Mac an Gmail (1994)

Answer 19

Found a conformist pro-school subculture emerged in 2 male groups which he called ‘academic achievers’ and ‘new enterprisers’