Social Class & Education: The Importance of School Factors (WJEC Eduqas GCSE Sociology): Revision Note

Interactionist perspectives on education

• Interactionist sociologists study what happens in schools on a small scale — for example, how teachers and students interact in the classroom

• They believe these everyday interactions can influence how well students do at school

Labelling & the self-fulfilling prophecy

• Teachers often label students based on their appearance, behaviour, or ability

• These labels can be positive (e.g., “bright”, “hard-working”) or negative (e.g., “lazy”, “troublemaker”)

• Once a label is given, students may start to see themselves in that way and act accordingly — this is known as a self-fulfilling prophecy

  • E.g., a student labelled “clever” may try harder and improve, while one labelled “less able” may give up and fall behind

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

Labelling & social class

• Sociologists argue that teachers often label students based on social class, not just ability

• Howard Becker (1971) found that teachers saw middle-class pupils as the “ideal student” — well-behaved, motivated and tidy

• Working-class pupils, on the other hand, were more likely to be seen as less able or less ambitious

• Gillborn and Youdell (2000) found that teachers focused on middle-class students who were more likely to help the school’s exam results, while working-class pupils were often placed in lower sets and entered for easier exams

• This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy — middle-class pupils are encouraged to achieve, while working-class pupils are held back

Banding, setting & streaming

• Many schools group students by ability — this is called banding, setting, or streaming

• Stephen Ball (1981) found that students in higher bands were seen as bright and well-behaved, while those in lower bands were seen as lazy or less able

• These labels affected how teachers treated students:

  • Top-band students were encouraged to do well and take academic subjects

  • Lower-band students got less attention and were pushed towards practical subjects

• Ball found that working-class pupils were more likely to be placed in the lower bands, which reduced their confidence and motivation, fulfilling the label that was given to them

• This process can reproduce class inequalities in education

Strengths

• Setting 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, 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 subject they study

Counter-school subcultures

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

• Some students who are labelled as “failures” or placed in lower sets reject school rules and values

• They may form a counter-school subculture, where they gain status by misbehaving, disrupting lessons or refusing to work

• This helps them feel accepted by their peers, but it usually lowers their achievement.

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

• Paul Willis was a Marxist sociologist who studied how schools prepare working-class students for work

• He agreed with Bowles and Gintis that education supports capitalism, but he argued that students do not always passively accept school values

• Instead, some actively resist them by forming a counter-school subculture

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

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

  • avoiding lessons and doing as little work as possible, as they saw it as pointless

• They believed school was boring and that qualifications were not important for the jobs they expected to get

• Willis found that the lads could see through the “myth of meritocracy” — the idea that everyone has an equal chance to succeed

• They expected to go into manual labour, like their fathers, and saw school as irrelevant to that future

Conclusions

• The counter-school subculture prepared the lads for working-class, male-dominated jobs in a capitalist society

• Willis showed that schools still reproduce class inequality, but not simply because students are controlled — instead, their rejection of school values leads them into similar jobs as their parents

• In this way, the class structure continues over time

Evaluation of Willis' research

• Feminists argue that Willis focused only on boys and ignored the experiences of girls in school

• His study only looked at 12 boys, so the findings cannot be generalised to all students

• Some say Willis romanticised “lad culture”, treating rebellion as clever rather than harmful

• The study may be less relevant today, as there are fewer manual jobs for working-class boys