sliv dore
Class differences in achievement
Labelling in secondary schools
Howard Becker (1971)
Becker carried out an important interactionist study of labelling. Based on interviews with 60 Chicago high school teachers, he found that they judged pupils according to how closely they fitted an image of the ‘ideal’ pupil. The quality, appearance and conduct were key factors in teacher’s judgements. Teachers found that students from middle class backgrounds were closest to the ‘ideal’ student than that of the working class. The working class students were regarded as ‘badly behaved’ and had low expectations for their achievements.
Aaron Cicourel and John Kitsuse (1963)
Cicourel and Kitsuse study of educational counsellors in an American high school shows how labelling can disadvantage students from working class backgrounds. Counsellors play an important role in deciding which students will get on to the courses that prepare them for further education. They found inconsistencies in the way counsellors assessed students’ suitability for courses. Although they claimed to judge students on their ability, in practice they judged them on the basis of their social class and race. When students have similar grades, counsellors were more likely to label middle class students as having college potential and to place them on higher-level courses.
High and low status knowledge
Nell Keddie (1971)
Keddie found that both pupils and knowledge can be labelled as high or low status. The comprehensive schools that she observed were streamed by ability, but all streams followed the same humanities course and covered the same course content. However, Keddie found that although teachers believed they were teaching all pupils in the same way, in practice when they taught the A stream; they gave them abstract, theoretical, high status knowledge.
The ‘less able’ C stream pupils, on the other hand, were given descriptive, common sense, low status knowledge related more to everyday
Labelling in secondary schools
Howard Becker (1971)
Becker carried out an important interactionist study of labelling. Based on interviews with 60 Chicago high school teachers, he found that they judged pupils according to how closely they fitted an image of the ‘ideal’ pupil. The quality, appearance and conduct were key factors in teacher’s judgements. Teachers found that students from middle class backgrounds were closest to the ‘ideal’ student than that of the working class. The working class students were regarded as ‘badly behaved’ and had low expectations for their achievements.
Aaron Cicourel and John Kitsuse (1963)
Cicourel and Kitsuse study of educational counsellors in an American high school shows how labelling can disadvantage students from working class backgrounds. Counsellors play an important role in deciding which students will get on to the courses that prepare them for further education. They found inconsistencies in the way counsellors assessed students’ suitability for courses. Although they claimed to judge students on their ability, in practice they judged them on the basis of their social class and race. When students have similar grades, counsellors were more likely to label middle class students as having college potential and to place them on higher-level courses.
High and low status knowledge
Nell Keddie (1971)
Keddie found that both pupils and knowledge can be labelled as high or low status. The comprehensive schools that she observed were streamed by ability, but all streams followed the same humanities course and covered the same course content. However, Keddie found that although teachers believed they were teaching all pupils in the same way, in practice when they taught the A stream; they gave them abstract, theoretical, high status knowledge.
The ‘less able’ C stream pupils, on the other hand, were given descriptive, common sense, low status knowledge related more to everyday