It was the evidence which supported these kinds of observations provided by J. W. B. Douglas (The Home and the School, 1961.), for example, and Brian Jackson (Streaming, The Education System in Miniature, 1962.), in the 1960s that did much to enhance the arguments for comprehensive reorganisation in the 1970s, as a way of equalising the educational opportunities for working-class (and black) children.
It was possible to demonstrate in the 1970s that the proportion of working-class children going on to university had not changed in fifty years, and that working-class children were much less likely than middle-class children to find themselves in the then grammar schools, top streams and examination classes, or staying on past the official school-leaving age. Explanations for this phenomenon were sought in the characteristics of different children, their upbringing and environment, and in the selection procedures and underlying assumptions which were employed by teachers and schools. But whoever was responsible, the facts were inescapable. Schools were seen to be reflecting and reinforcing the social class divisions of the wider society.
In the 1980s and 1990s the education debate was greatly influenced by the return to power of successive Conservative Governments and the emergence of the New Right. This development has been described as new vocationalism, and is associated with the reintroduction of arguments about increased parental choice, competition and standards in education, the introduction of the national curriculum and a renewed emphasis on training and links with industry.
Until the 1950s discussions were dominated by the ideas of functionalist
sociology, especially the legacy of Durkheim. It was Durkheim who saw
education as a means of preserving social order. Mannheim took a related
view, describing education as a way of ensuring social harmony and
resolving social problems. Functionalists believe that: the education system does what it claims to do; it selects people according to their abilities and qualifies them accordingly; there is a rough correspondence between intelligence and achievement; and that education is the device which ensures that the most able people get the most responsible and best paid work.
Marxists agree with functionalists that education operates to socialize
individuals and groups into the requirements and demands of society. But
because, in our society, this means capitalism, and because Marxists are
opposed to capitalism, they are immensely critical of the ways in which
young people are schooled into conforming to the requirements of a
capitalist society. Bowles and Gintis, for example, argue that schools are
not meant to maximize potential but to produce uncritical, passive, docile
workers who accept their lot in life. Rather than teaching children specific vocational skills, the ‘hidden’ purpose of education is to prepare children for the tedium of work.
It is therefore a function of the education system to reproduce existing social class inequalities in which the ruling class and middle-class (who are often portrayed by Marxists as the agents of the capitalist ruling class) dominate positions of power and wealth whilst the working-class remain stranded at the bottom end of the socio-economic hierarchy. In other words, working-class underachievement is taken-for-granted but it is shaped in such an ideological way that the education system and the capitalist system are rarely blamed by the working-class for their failure. The Marxist, Pierre Bourdieu (1974) has developed the 'cultural capital' theory of achievement and underachievement in order to explain some of these processes.
Like other Marxists, Bourdieu argues that the main function of education is to
reproduce and legitimate ruling class culture (i.e. cultural reproduction) and
power. Another important function of education is to socialise the working-class
into a culture of failure so that they take-up, without protest, unrewarding and
relatively boring jobs in the factory system. Bourdieu argues that working-class failure is not due to them being handicapped by cultural and linguistic deprivation. Rather it the product of entering an educational system shaped and dominated by the culture of the capitalist class. Bourdieu notes that dominant classes are able to define what is defined as knowledge and culture and this is enshrined within the educational system. Moreover they are able to define the knowledge and culture of subordinate groups such as the working-class as less worthy of attention and study. Bourdieu refers to this as 'symbolic violence'.
The children of the dominant classes come to school equipped with 'cultural
capital'; they subscribe to values, norms, experiences, linguistic skills and
forms of knowledge, which fit into the ruling class ethos of the school. This
cultural capital is the product of their home environment in which their daily experience results in them internalising particular ways of thinking which come to be taken-for-granted such as going to university one day. Such children normally achieve their educational goals especially as their parents can also offer material supports such as paying for extras such as books, courses, trips, or private education. The children of the working-classes, on the other hand, experience a 'cultural deficit'; they soon realise that the school and teachers attach little value to their experiences and values. In order to succeed, such children have to rapidly acquire the sorts of skills associated with cultural capital. Most fail to do this and are alienated by the middle-class nature of schooling. Such pupils often come into conflict with the school and end up either losing interest or eliminating themselves or, are eliminated by public examinations. The dominant social class promotes education as a meritocracy; it is assumed that education is open to all (equality of opportunity) and that all are judged according to the same criteria of academic skills. However, Bourdieu argues that meritocracy is an ideological myth aimed at convincing working-class pupils that their failure is self-inflicted.
The research of Gewirtz, Ball and Bowe (1995) supports some elements of cultural capital theory in that they found that middle-class parents possessed more cultural capital than working-class parents in terms of knowledge about recent reforms in education and parental choice. In particular, they found that middle-class parents were consequently more willing to invest energy in researching and visiting schools, making multiple applications, or going through appeals procedures.
Bourdieu is rather vague in his opinion of ‘cultural capital' and precisely how it impacts on educational achievement is unclear. Bourdieu's focus on cultural reproduction and the elimination of the working-class from education can be seen as over-deterministic. It implies that the working-class are doomed to failure and therefore does not account for working-class success. Moreover it does not acknowledge that working-class pupils may choose to negotiate their way through the education system or even reject the value system of education altogether. The work of Paul Willis, for example, suggests that educational 'failure' may be partly the product of some working-class pupils resisting dominant definitions of what constitutes 'success' and 'failure'.
Interactionist theory focuses on what goes on in the classroom between teachers and pupils rather than social factors external to the school. Interactionist approaches have concentrated on the processes of surveillance and evaluation adopted by teachers when they interact with children. It is claimed that
teacher observation of pupils and the judgements about pupil ability and attitude
which result, can have profound effects on the future performance of pupils.
Interactionists argue that the labels that teachers attach to pupils are often not
based on objective criteria. Rather, they are based on commonsensical
belief about what constitutes an 'ideal pupil'. This ideal may be constructed around stereotypes; teachers may subscribe to mistaken ideas about working-class families, council estates, or broken homes.
Becker's (1971) research suggests that teachers see middle-class pupils as closest to the 'ideal pupil' in terms of performance, conduct, attitude and appearance, whilst working-class pupils are seen as furthest from it. Becker went as far as suggesting that for many teachers, attitude, conduct and appearance were more important in making judgements about pupils, than ability or intelligence. Interactionist research confirms the existence of the 'hidden curriculum’; ideal pupils generally meet all the requirements of conformity that the hidden curriculum demands. Interactionists argue that the labels applied by teachers to pupils shape the nature and quality of the interaction between pupil and teacher. The teacher, consciously or unconsciously, communicates the label to the pupil. Pupils react positively or negatively to teacher judgements and this may have a 'self fulfilling prophecy'.
The concept of the 'self fulfilling prophecy' was developed by the social experiment carried out by Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968). They randomly selected 20% of the new intake of an elementary school in the USA and told the teachers that these children had scored highly on intelligence tests. This was untrue. However, when they returned to the school one year later, Rosenthal and Jacobson found that their sample had forged ahead of the other 80% of pupils. They concluded that teachers had somehow communicated positive labels to these pupils through the quality of their interaction and the pupils had responded accordingly. However Rosenthal and Jacobson's research has some serious flaws. They did not actually watch classroom interaction to see if teachers did behave differently to the pupils they had identified as intellectual 'sputters'. Other attempts to replicate their research have not had the same results as Rosenthal and Jacobson claimed to have found. Their interpretation of the results of the experiment also ignored certain data which did not fit their research hypothesis.
With regards to streaming, there is evidence that teachers expect less of those in
bottom streams and this undermines the quality of their teaching. Keddie (1971)
found that streaming had a profound effect upon teacher attitudes and practices;
'A' streamers were trusted to work with the minimum of supervision and to
make a contribution to class discussion whilst teachers believed that 'C' streamers were in need of constant social control and rarely left on their own.
A range of studies including those conducted by Hargreaves (1967), Ball (1981) suggest that those in the bottom streams may socially react to their perceived inferior status by forming delinquent or anti-school subcultures which award status to their members on the basis of anti-school activity, by being disruptive. Such behaviour, indeed, confirms the prophecy of the teacher; the label.
Interactionism has drawn our attention to the micro-processes operating within the education system which may be impacting on achievement levels. It implies that achievement may not be impartially determined by social factors beyond our control; success and failure may involve making choices which develop from interaction. In this sense, success and failure may not be fixed; they may be adaptable reactions which can be changed for the better by changing the quality of the interaction.
The interpretivist Marxist, Paul Willis suggests that labelling theory under-estimates the influence of working-class culture. In his study, 'Leaning to Labour', he concludes that working-class boys 'failed' because they rejected middle-class definitions of success and failure. The ‘Lads’ valued factory jobs and therefore regarded educational qualifications as largely irrelevant. The lads in Willis' study took little notice of teacher labelling. Willis', study of 'the Lads' was 'Marxist ethnography'; participant observation and unstructured interviewing interpreted within an overall Marxist structure. The problem with this approach as with all interpretivism however, is that of interpretation; Willis interprets the behaviour of 'the Lads' through a Marxist perspective, therefore other perspective interpretations would very probably produce different conclusions.
Interpretivists have made a substantial contribution to a sociological understanding of education. In particular they have provided a very useful focus on classroom interaction and we have a much better understanding of the processes of labelling and negotiation, which take place between
teachers and pupils.
This focus on the way meanings are constructed through classroom interaction offers another perspective on education in addition to the structuralist concerns with the social role and function of education. The weaknesses of the Interpretivist approach lie primarily in its failure to fully recognise the way external social structures influence the meanings negotiated in the classroom. Those approaches which attempt to relate classroom interaction to the wider social structure have their own difficulties but offer a useful way to apply the strengths of an Interpretivist approach.
In considering most of the evidence presented by sociologists, it is clear that a
two-tier system of education exists, in which those parents with economic resources and appropriate cultural capital can ensure that their children get the best possible start in life. Parents who are less well informed, lacking in social power or merely poor have little choice other than to send their children to the nearest school ; always supposing that the school is prepared to accept them. In schools in which children come from poor homes, in areas of multiple deprivation and poverty it is highly unlikely that the test and examination results will compare favourably with those of more privileged schools. The morale of pupils and teachers in such schools has deteriorated, making them increasingly difficult to manage. As long as these issues continue to exist the present school system reinforces social class divisions among our children of the future.
