Education External and Internal class factors

Class – internal and external
Internal factors

1. Labelling
2. Self fulfilling prophecy
3. Streaming
4. Pupil subcultures
5. Pupils social class identities



Labelling

 The looking glass self
 Cooley
 States that a persons self grows out of society’s interactions and the perceptions of others
 For example, people shape themselves based on other peoples perceptions
 Labelling means to attach a meaning of definition to someone
 Teachers may label students as smart or dumb
 Research shows teachers attach labels regardless of the students actual abilities and
attitude
 Instead they label students based on stereotyped assumptions about class background
 MC = positive
 WC = negative Interactionalist approach studies interactions such as how people attach labels
and the effects of those labelled
 Becker – ideal pupil
 Interviewed 60 chicago high school teachers
 Teachers judged students based on how closely they fitted how they imagined the ideal
pupil was
 Judgements were made by pupils work, conduct and appearance
 MC seen as closest to ideal compared to WC who were seen as furthest to ideal pupil
 Rist – labelling in primary schools
 American kindergarten study
 Teachers used information about children’s home backgrounds and appearance to place
them into separate groups
 Tigers
 MC
 Clean and neat in appearance
 Determined as fast learners
 Seated closest to the teacher
 Gained lots of praise and encouragement
 Cardinals and Clowns
 WC
 Given lower level books
 Seated furthest away
 Gained little praise and chances to show their ability

,  Dunne and Gazeley
 Interviews in 9 english state secondary schools
 WC underachievement was normalised
 Teachers were unconcerned and believed there was little to do
 WC parents labelled as uninterested
 MC underachievement was seen as fixable
 MC parents labelled as supportive
 This lead to class differences in how teachers dealt with underachieving pupils
 MC given extension activities
 WC entered into lower tier examinations
 WC underestimated as those who were doing well were seen as overachieving

Evaluation of labelling

 Rist
 Only looked at one kindergarten in America so results are difficult to generalise and apply
to other countries and kindergartens
 Only looked at kindergarten level thus making results not generalisable to all ages in the
education system
 Mary fuller
 Studied a group of black schoolgirls who rejected their labels
 They channelled their anger about being labelled into their pursuit of educational
success



Self fulfilling prophecy

 Self-fullfilling prophecy means a prediction that comes true simply as a result of the
expectation that it will come true
 Steps of self fulfilling prophecy
 1 = the teacher labels a pupil and makes predictions based on this
 2 = teacher treats pupil accordingly, acting as if the prediction is true
 3 = pupil internalises teachers expectations and this becomes part of their self image
 They now become the pupil the teacher expected them to be in the first place
 Labelling can lead to a self-fullfilling prophecy or a self-refuting prophecy
 Rosenthal and Jacobsen – Pygmalion effect
 Field experiment in a California primary school
 Told school they had a test which could identify pupils who would ‘spurt’ ahead
 Researchers tested all the pupils (was actually a IQ test) andrandomly picked 20% and
identified them as ‘spurters’
 one year later 47% of those identified as ‘spurters’ had made significant progress
 teachers beliefs about the students had been influenced by those test results thus
interacting with their students differently leading to a self-fullfilling prophecy

Self-fulfilling prophecy evaluation

 field experiment means other factors that weren’t accounted for and controlled could’ve
influenced the results and so it cannot be determined that labelling alone caused these
improvements