Social Class & Education: School Factors | Sociology for GCSE/IGCSE - Year 11 PDF Download

Interactionist Perspectives on Education

Interactionist sociologists emphasize micro-level interactions, such as those between students and teachers in classrooms, rather than broader theories about education’s societal role.

Labelling and the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy:

• One factor explaining class-based educational disparities is labelling. Research indicates teachers judge and categorize students based on appearance, ability, and behavior (conformist or rebellious), impacting their academic outcomes. 
• Well-mannered students are often labeled as "bright," while misbehaving students face negative perceptions, a phenomenon called the "halo effect." This stereotyping stems from initial impressions based on clothing, manners, speech, or home background. 
• Labelling theory posits that these labels are difficult to shed, leading students to internalize and act according to them, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Labelling and Students’ Social Class:

• Sociologists argue that teachers sometimes label students based on social class rather than performance. Middle-class students are often viewed as "ideal students" (Becker, 1970). 
• Gillborn and Youdell (2000) note that teachers associate middle-class students with achieving five A*-C (now 9–4) GCSE grades, while working-class students are labeled as "less able," placed in lower sets, and entered for lower-tier exams. 
• Teachers prioritize improving middle-class students’ performance, seen as "more able," to boost school league table rankings, while working-class students’ potential is often overlooked, reinforcing a self-fulfilling prophecy. 
• Middle-class students receive positive expectations (e.g., "My teacher believes I can achieve a 9"), while working-class students face negative ones (e.g., "My teacher thinks I’m hopeless").

Effects of Streaming and Setting

Streaming or setting involves grouping students by ability for most subjects, typically based on performance in subjects like English, math, and sciences.

Strengths

• Tailors content to students’ needs and abilities.
• Prevents high-ability students from being held back.
• Ensures lower-ability students can grasp lesson content.
• Allows students to work with peers of similar ability.
• Enables teachers to create targeted resources and teach at an appropriate level.

Limitations

• Teachers’ lower expectations for students in lower sets can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy, hindering achievement.
• Lower-stream students often receive less teacher support than those in higher streams.
• Students in lower sets may lose confidence, discouraging improvement efforts.
• Working-class students are disproportionately placed in lower streams.

Some schools address these issues by using mixed-ability groups or subject-specific setting, where students are grouped by ability for each subject.

Key Thinker: Ball (1981) on Banding and Expectations

Method

• Ball (1981) conducted a three-year ethnographic case study at a mixed comprehensive school on the south coast, using an interactionist approach. 
• His methods included participant observation (observing and teaching classes), interviews, questionnaires, and analysis of school records. 
• He studied two groups: students in three ability-based bands (band 1: most able; band 3: least able) and those in mixed-ability classes.

Findings

• Lower-class students were more likely to be placed in lower bands and exhibited poorer behavior.
• Student behavior was influenced by their band placement and teacher expectations. For example, band 2 students, expected to be difficult, became disinterested and disruptive.
• Bands were taught differently, with band 1 students encouraged to pursue academic courses and band 2 students directed toward practical subjects.
• In mixed-ability classes, teachers still perceived middle-class students as more capable.
• Labelling often led to a self-fulfilling prophecy, affecting students’ behavior and exam results.

Conclusions
Lower-income students left school with fewer qualifications, perpetuating class inequalities. Ball described this as "downward mobility," where ability-based classification harms working-class students’ education and life chances, challenging Parsons’ functionalist view of education as meritocratic.

Counter-School Culture

Streaming can foster a counter-school subculture that rejects the school’s academic goals. Labelled as "failures," some lower-stream students oppose school values and rules, creating a subculture that values defiance and disobedience, gaining peer status but harming academic achievement.

Key Thinker: Willis (1977) on the Counter-School Subculture

Willis (1977), writing from a Marxist perspective distinct from Bowles and Gintis, agrees that education relates to capitalism but argues students actively resist ruling-class values through a counter-school subculture, rather than passively accepting them.

Method

• Using an interactionist approach, Willis studied a single-sex secondary school on a Midlands council estate, focusing on 12 working-class boys ("the lads") during their final 18 months at school and first six months in manual jobs (e.g., tyre fitting, carpet laying). 
• His methods included observations, participant observations, group discussions, unstructured interviews, and diaries, exploring teacher-student interactions and the lads’ perceptions.

Findings
The lads formed a counter-school subculture characterized by:

• Rejecting school values and teacher authority.
• Engaging in "dossing," "having a laff," and misbehaving.
• Skipping lessons and minimizing academic effort, viewing education as irrelevant.
• Valuing masculinity, toughness, and physical prowess.

They saw education as boring and unhelpful for employment, dismissing qualifications. Willis argued they recognized the "myth of meritocracy" and prioritized entering the workforce.

Conclusions
The counter-school subculture prepared the lads for male-dominated manual jobs in a capitalist system. Willis showed that the education system channels working-class students into working-class jobs, partly due to their rejection of school values, not just socialization. This reproduces the class structure over time.

Criticisms

• Feminists argue Willis glorifies "lad culture" while ignoring girls’ experiences.
• Critics note he overlooks conformist boys’ perspectives.
• The small sample size limits generalizability.
• With fewer manual jobs available today, Willis’ findings may lack relevance.