"Examine the ways in which teachers attitudes can affect the educational achievement of pupils"

There are many concepts that have an effect on teacher's attitudes towards a child. Teacher expectations is a term that refers to the assessment made by a teacher of a particular pupil, this could be anything from performance, behaviour or potential. This can be expressed from the teacher through language, communication, body language and the amount of work set. This concept is not that much of an issue that can have a directly dramatic effect on the achievement of a pupil, through history this issue has slightly decreased due to reasons of equality and acts as 'Parity of esteem. However different pupils react in different ways. High expectations cause pressure and lower can decrease motivation. In some situations teacher's attention can have an astounding effect on a pupil's success.

The labelling theory is a similar concept. This is used to describe the way social actors label other social actors. The normal labeller being the teacher and the labelled the pupil. Becker has proved that teachers have an image of the perfect stereotypical pupil, the courteous, hardworking, academically able polite student. Students are labelled from the moment they start school, therefore if a child is labelled to not be the perfect student this child may take on this role for the rest of their life. Labelling is difficult to escape, pupils begin to accept there labels, therefore effecting behaviour and self esteem. This all outlines the influence teachers have on not only the academic or educational achievement of a pupil, but the behaviour and attitude of pupils. This can have an effect on education in society, reinforcing ideas that may have happened to parents, therefore creating an anti-school culture. Middle-class students tend to have a greater ability to shake the label off, negotiate there label.

The anti-school or counter school subculture is a set of values and attitudes that is in opposition with the values and aims of school. This could be truancy, breaking school rules, copying or disrupting the school system in any way. This could be interpritated as resisting against school. This could have been due to 'labelling' or 'expectations'. Being labelled a failure can have a dramatic effect on the achievement of a pupil. Banding and streaming are other ideas on how teacher's attitudes perpetuate a child's education. Streaming pupils due to there intelligence and Banding due to subjects can also add to the attitudes of a teacher towards a pupil. Hargreaves argued that streaming and banding contributes to the creation of the pupil subcultures within a school. That pupils in top sets tend to create a conformist subculture within excepted schools, while those that did not often grouped together to form a non-conformist culture. However Woods believed that pupils adapted to school in a range of different ways. Some pupils deliberately irritate teachers, others just go through the motions and others rebel.

Rosenthal and Jacobson constructed a famous study in which involved a number of students being picked at random and being labelled 'spurters'. This was predicted to show a major improvement in the student's academic achievement. It turned out throughout the year that these students were in fact making considerable improvement, more so then that of pupils who had the same intellect at the start of the year. This showed how teacher's attitudes towards a pupil can completely effect the achievement of pupils. They were encouraged more, therefore building self esteem 'believing they could do it. This shows how Intellect can have no real importance and that teacher attitudes make a considerable difference.

The whole idea of teacher's attitudes having an effect on the achievement of a pupil is interesting. It is fascinating how generally the higher a pupils social class the higher the level of attainment therefore expectations, therefore achievement. How teachers tend to have low expectations of black students and how teachers spend less time with interactions between females then males. The idea of pupil subcultures and the way sociologists have pointed out the way pupils respond to values, attitudes and behaviour just shows pupil subculture usually differs to the dominant culture of the school. Bonding and setting seems in a way unjust but without another logical option is the only way. The majority of teachers preferring to teach the higher sets can also effect pupils thro a emotional way. In conclusion I believe the ways in which I have examined a teacher's attitude towards a pupil to prove correct. All the above values and terms are still very much going on everyday, with the effects affecting pupils everyday, hence, effecting there educational performance through the attitude of the teacher.