O’ Donnell and Sewell showed in there study how various ethnic groups joined in the anti school subcultures. For example Afro Caribbean males are more likely to join an anti school subculture in order to reject white domination within school systems. Whereas it showed that Indians where more likely to join pro school subcultures as they have a very high will to succeed. Afro Caribbean girls also tended to form pro school sub cultures by rejecting there negative label and therefore academically achieve. These studies suggest that anti school sub cultures within education environments are if not one of the main causes of under achieving within school.
Subcultures are not the only argument that suggests they cause under achievement within schooling. Some other sociologist would argue that there are more important factors that can influence under achievement within education. An example of this is labelling.
The labelling theory was introduced by Becker and has been supported by Cicourel, Kitsuse and Hargreave’s, as they also believe that people are labelled a lot within schooling environments. Beckers study of labelling suggest teachers within a class room label their students with either a positive or negative label very early on within their education. The teacher then treats them according to their label by using the hidden curriculum. The hidden curriculum is what we are taught in school and is not within the hidden curriculum. For example behaviour and manners. The teacher then constantly treats the children as their labels until the child becomes their label. This process of the child becoming their label is called the self-fulfilling prophecy. So if you are given a negative label you start behaving badly because of the way you are treated you begin to believe that you should act against the norms and values. Because they then become there negative label they are set and streamed into the bottom sets within subjects meaning they cannot achieve grades and don’t achieve grades so they then become under achievers within education. So it would therefore be wrong to suggest that the key to understanding educational under achievements is subcultures within schools as labelling and the self-fulfilling prophesy clearly have an impact on attainment.
Leading on from setting and streaming Ball in his study of setting demonstrated how working class boys are wrongly placed in bottom sets within subjects and he felt that this leads to educational under achievement. Being in the bottom sets for subjects lead to under achieving as you are entered into lower exams purely because of what set you are placed in within that subject. If you are set the lower paper there is a maximum grade usually of a grade C at gcse level meaning that there is a higher chance of people failing and under achieving. Another form of someone under achieving in a lower exam is them gaining 100percent of correct marks meaning or could suggest that they have been wrongly entered into the lower paper and would have gained better grades and achieved if they were in the higher paper.
This idea is also supported by Keddie who suggested that being in the bottom sets disadvantages pupils as they are not taught the full course within this bottom set and this subject. Also he believes that within the bottom set you are allowed to misbehave and agrees that you are entered into the lower tiered exams and this therefore creates under achievements. Again this evidence suggests that pupil subcultures are not the key to under achievement within schools and education.
Hargreave’s theory suggested that all the above processes linked together to create under achieving within education. For example he believed negative labelling would lead to the pupil self fulfilling that label and therefore get set and streamed into lower ability groups therefore meaning they will not gain the grades they are capable of. Therefore meaning that they are underachieving.
In conclusion to this I feel that yes anti school subcultures are a key part of educational under achievement as they strive to break the rules of the schooling system. This then causes under achievement, as it is there subcultures norm to under achieve. So in this respect anti school sub cultures are one of the factors for under achievements within education but I feel there are also many other important contributions to this as well. For example I feel that teachers negatively labelling students also creates the self-fulfilling prophecy and then means there are more students likely to underachieve. Also I feel another contributing factor is setting and streaming as it limits the pupils maximum potential. So in conclusion I feel that sub cultures within schooling are a factor but there are many others that also affect underachievement on an equal basis.