Marxist Pierre Bourdieu argued the role in education system was to reinforce class differences, he believed that it was achieved by promoting the ‘Dominant Culture’ of the ruling classes in the classroom through use of language, ensuring working class students were less likely to understand or be understood. This disadvantages students from the working class society by creating academic success and failure reinforce class.
Another sociologist Basil Bernstein expanded on this theory with the idea that different speech codes were used by the middle and working class and this itself created a divide. The Restricted code (mainly for the working class) was context bound, and the Elaborate code which was not context bound, he purposed that the middle class students were fluent in both codes and the working class were confined to the restricted code. This places a disadvantage on the working class children as teachers used the elaborate code to communicate.
Marxists would also argue that equality was impossible in a classed based society, they said the education system exists in order to mould children into their class defined roles in order to benefit capitalism, were it serves the rich well and keeps the poor down. This relies on the idea that someone is labelled in a particular way and others will respond to their behaviour in terms of the label, and that person will act accordingly. This is known as the concept of labelling theory and self-fulfilling prophecy.
Rosenthal and Jacobson performed an experiment where they selected 20 students at random to take an I.Q. test and told their teachers that they could expect to show significant intellectual development, a year later the same students were re-tested and their theory was proved. Rosenthal and Jacobson concluded that this was a result of not only intellectual development but the children were labelled in such in a way the teachers would have high expectations of them, which they believed and here a self-fulfilling prophecy took place. Rosenthal and Jacobson indicated that children classified as being of higher ability, performed better throughout their academic years. This suggesting that because of labelling and self-fulfilling prophecy used by teachers meant the working class children had a distinctive throughout their academic years.
Streaming is another problem still found in schools, this system is used to separate children into different groups according to their predicted ability. Comprehensive schools continue to use the streaming /banding system and this has been shown to be an unfair system and harmful to the self esteem and educational performance of the bottom stream pupils. This is consistent with the those of working class or of ethnical background. Once placed in the bottom stream children become victims of the self-fulfilling prophecy and they again take on the role expected of them, leaving the middle class to dominate the higher stream.
Ethnic minority backgrounds also faced problems through the education system, for some their primary language was not English making their studies a foreign language to them. Although West Indian children do speak English at home their studies here are of different dialect. Black children have created belief in some teachers minds that they are more likely to be under achievers and slow learners, so this can influence their performance and retard their progress in schools.
Howard Becker studied the social class variations between teacher/pupil relationships, he outlined an aspect of hidden curriculum on how the teacher evaluated each pupil.
I.E. the ideal pupil
I.E. the non-ideal pupil
Those pupils that came closest to ideal where from a middle class background whereas the non-ideal pupils where from the working class background. By categorising pupils in such a way he purposed that the teacher created problems in the classroom. When the teacher labelled a child far from ideal they behaved towards the child in terms of the mental label they provided for that child. The child in turn replied with the behaviour of lack of interest, motivation and misconduct. Also purposed by Becker is that a teacher who has never taught a particular child will already have knowledge about him/her supplied through the labels attached by other teachers. Becker concluded that although the labels provided for children were difficult but not impossible to break.
David Hargreaves(1967) studied again using the various ways teachers categorised their pupils, he observed that when a teacher takes on a new class they divide the pupils into 3 categories:
- Good pupils
- Bad pupils
- Those who were not outstanding in conformity.
The implications again were clear when we think about the consequences for future achievement of each group. According to Hargreaves the assumptions made and conclusions drawn by the teachers will in the long run pay affect to the children. He noted that once the labelling process was defined that two things happened:
- Firstly, the teacher used the pupil category as a reference point to interpret the child’s behaviour.
- Secondly, because pupils needed to refer to the behaviour of others towards them so they know how successful/unsuccessful they are.
The child relies on the teacher to provide for them a self-concept to let the child know how good or badly they are playing their role of labelling.
Hargreaves study indicates much of the same as Becker observed 30 years earlier.
As we can see Labelling and self-fulfilling prophecy has go on through education throughout the centuries and through the studies and perspectives we have considered, it is undoubtedly the case that class division does exist within education, and even functionalists would not disagree that schools serve to reinforce such inequalities.
