Russell Haggar

Site Owner

Parts List

Part One: Some Introductory Links Followed By Early Investigations - Click Here
Part Two: Some More Recent Investigations 
Part Three: School Effectiveness Research - Click Here
Part Four: Secondary School Choice - Click Here
Part Five: Summary and Conclusions - Click Here

 

Part Two

Some More Recent Investigations.

As mentioned, the best known interactionist studies are now rather dated but there is evidence from more recent work that negative labelling processes continue to have adverse effects on students.

As I revise this page in 2025, it is clear that the first few studies on this page are themselves now rather dated buy I di refer eventually to some studies from the 2020's. !

 

The Learning Game [ Professor Michael Barber 1996]

The Learning Game is an extensive and detailed study of the state of British Education in the 1990's. In the study Professor Barber presents information from a data base constructed by the Keele University Centre on Schools Excellence which has recorded the attitudes of over 30,000 young people to all aspects of secondary schooling in the 1990's.

From the data it is clear that pupils believe that good teachers should be:

• strict;
•  fair;
• enthusiastic;
•  able to listen;
• able to take a joke;
• always able to mark work promptly with care and attention.

However, on the negative side and very importantly, there appears still to be clear evidence of negative labelling.

Students comment that, for example:

• there should be more effort to explain;
•  teachers favour intelligent pupils too much;
•  sarcasm and put-downs are profoundly damaging;
• some of the male teachers are sexist towards the female pupils.

You could therefore use the Barber/Keele University data as evidence of the continued existence of negative labelling even by the mid 1990's although it should be noted that in this study Professor Barber does not seek to link the issue of negative labelling to issues of streaming, banding and setting.

 

Activity

1. How might the above summary conclusions derived from the Barber study be used to support the conclusions of the Hargreaves , Lacey and Ball studies?

 

Uncertain Masculinities [Mike O’Donnell and Sue Sharpe 2000]

 

In relation to the analysis of streaming/banding, labelling and self -fulfilling prophecies emphasised by sociologists such as Hargreaves , Lacey and Ball, O’Donnell and Sharpe suggest that their importance as factors explaining social class differences in educational achievement may be smaller nowadays by comparison with when the original studies were undertaken. In their study senior teachers interviewed by O’Donnell and Sharpe showed that they were committed to policies of equal educational opportunities and that they were very  familiar with the potentially adverse consequences for students of negative labelling.

 

These senior teachers suggested that a school ethos existed whereby any teachers who did engage in such negative labelling could expect criticism from their peers and censure and possible disciplinary action from senior teachers. Equally importantly the students felt that on balance they were treated fairly and respectfully by their teachers while admitting that a disruptive minority of students could still be heavily criticised by teachers.

O’ Donnell and Sharpe suggest therefore  that the findings of much earlier studies should therefore not simply be accepted as evidence of what is currently happening in secondary schools and  teachers may on balance nowadays be less likely to label students negatively especially because the teachers themselves are being more closely evaluated in terms of their students’ examination grades which are unlikely to be enhanced by negative labelling.However the authors themselves admit that their conclusions have been formed on the basis of interviews with teachers and pupils and that observational studies might still point to the existence of negative labelling much as in the earlier studies.

 

Activity 1. Why do O’Donnell and Sharpe believe that negative labelling is less likely to occur nowadays?

2. Many of O’Donnell and Sharpe’s conclusion are based upon interviews with senior teachers. Would it have been helpful if O’Donnell and Sharpe had also observed some classes?

3. What did the pupils have to say about these issues?

 

The Zombie Stalking English Schools : Social Class and Educational Inequality : Diane Reay 2006

This, in my view, is an excellent paper. It does contain detailed theoretical arguments but they are very clearly stated I believe that with a little help from their tutors AS and A2 Sociology students could usefully read and summarise this article for themselves. You could then use the conclusions in your own essay work which , in my opinion, would help you enormously .

Click here to access the article .and see below for more recent work by Professor Diane Reay.

 

Recent Research from The Universities of Manchester and Sussex.

These authors agree with the conclusions of some of the early interactionist studies mentioned above that  some pupils may be allocated to sets not entirely on the basis of ability but on the basis of characteristics related tot heir social class membership such that the setting processes may put some working class pupils at a disadvantage. Click here   for a BBC summary of some of the findings of this study. which to some extent contradict the findings of the O’Donnell and Sharpe study.

More recent work from Professor Diane Reay. [2017- 2025]

It is now very important for A Level Sociology students to familiarise themselves with the more recent work of Prodessor Diane Reay. She emphasises that the most significant factors causing class inequalities in educational achievement are the external factors associated with economic inequality and poverty but that within schools negative labelling of working-class pupils has serious adverse consequences and that the quasi marketisation of education contributed further to class inequalities of educational achievement. Professor Reay’s approach to the quasi- marketisation of education will be considered in Part 4 of these teaching notes

Diane Reay’s study Miseducation was published in 2017 with a new edition in 2025. She outlined her ideas. this lecture from the University of Winchester. She also wrote a very significant article under the auspices of the Deaton Report published on the Institute of Fiscal Studies website and  a summary of some of the ideas pf miseducation  or the LSE Blog  .

You may also read a review of the first edition of Miseducation here . You may also listen here to an interview with Diane Reay on The Sociology Show.

Professor Reay is critical also of what she considers to be the excessively authoritarian disciplinary regimes used in some schools. Discipline in schools is discussed in this BBC Radio 4 programme.

However Reforming Lessons Why English Schools Have Improved Since 2010 and How This Was Achieved was published by Nick Gibb and Robert Peal in 2025 and represents   spirited support of the Conservative education policies since 2010.which many academic sociologists oppose. Nick Gibb outlines the key arguments of his book in this podcast from the Conservative -leaning Policy Exchange website. of Obviously it is essential to address both sides this debate.

Recent Research from Professor Becky Francis and Colleagues

Click here for tracking [ lecture by Becky Francis 2019]

Click here for attainment grouping and educational inequality [ Becky Francis and colleagues 2020]

Click here for tracking and self-fulfilling prophecy [ Becky Francis and colleagues 2020]

Click here for the symbolic violence of setting [ Becky Francis and colleagues 2018]

Click here for maths setting [ Becky Francis and colleagues 2019]

Click here for Mixed attainment grouping [ Becky Francis and colleagues 2018]

Click here for Attainment grouping as self-fulfilling prophecy [ Becky Francis and colleagues 2017]

Jessie Abrahams: Schooling Inequality 2024

Click here for a podcast

Click here for a podcast

 

 

Interactionism:  Some Conclusions

 

It has been suggested in a very wide range of studies from the 1960s to the 2020s that negative labelling pf some pupils exists and that it can have an adverse effect on pupils’ subsequent educational progress. Thus, the negative labelling process can be said to embody a self-fulfilling prophecy in that labelling mainly working-class pupils as lacking in academic ability will often result in their placement in lower streams or sets and undermine their self -confidence which will help to ensure that their future educational attainments will indeed be limited. Meanwhile for mainly middle-class pupils who are mainly positively labelled. the reverse will be the case. Positive labelling generates a Halo effect which encourages mainly middle-class pupils to try harder to achieve success.

At this point it is perhaps useful to reiterate the conclusion on early interactionist studies which I made earlier.

Conclusions of Early Interactionist Studies

It is clear that the interactionist perspective adds to the understanding of social class inequalities in educational achievement. Nevertheless, interactionist sociologists’ studies attracted several criticisms on the grounds that:

• they have conducted small scale observational studies which may not generate representative or reliable data because the schools which they investigated may not be typical of schools in general.
• they may have overstated the passivity of individual students who are assumed to accept relatively unthinkingly the positive and negative labels which teachers apply to them.
• they have failed to investigate the sources of teachers’ apparent prejudicial thinking about working class students.
• they have underestimated the importance of material and cultural factors external to the schools as factors affecting educational achievement. Also, the best-known interactionist studies are now rather dated.

These criticisms must be taken seriously but at the same time it must be noted that interactionists can also provide credible defences against these criticisms.

Thus, in their defence, interactionist theorists argue that:

• small scale observational methods can be defended on the grounds that they may generate more meaningful, valid data than can be obtained via interviews or questionnaires.
•  interactionists often do recognise the extreme complexity of the labelling process and do not simply assume that pupils accept unthinkingly the positive or negative labels applied to them by their teachers.
• the fact that interactionists concentrate on processes operative within schools does not necessarily mean that they have underestimated the importance of external factors.

 

Advanced Level Sociology students are also required to assess the relative importance of the internal and external f, Stephen Ball actors affecting educational achievement. Prominent sociologists such as Professors Diane Reay, Stephen Ball, Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin and others have suggested that perhaps 80% of the differences in educational attainment between pupils can be explained by external factors although it is also argued that in principle internal factors might have more influence than this.

In any case external factors and internal factors interact on various ways to influence pupils’ educational achievement. but that it is also very important to address the interactions between external and internal factors in determining patterns of educational achievements.

On the Interaction of Internal and External Factors

It is clear in any case that internal and external factors interact in various ways to influence educational achievement. This may be illustrated as follows in the case of social class differences in educational achievement

Also click here for a very useful podcast from Kate Flatley on interaction of external and internal factors.

1. The early subcultural theories of Hyman, Sugarman, and Douglas suggested that, in comparison to middle class parents,  working class parents gave less attention to their children's education because they were subject to fatalism, a strong present time orientation and an unwillingness to defer gratification all of which meant that they were unlikely to plan for their own or their children's longer term futures. Insofar as these theories are accurate, they may inhibit working class educational progress which may mean that they are more likely to be allocated to low streams with further adverse consequences for their education. However later theorists have called these ideas into question, claimed that nowadays social class differences in attitudes to education are more limited and that social class differences in educational achievement can be better explained in terms of social class differences in the possession of cultural. economic and social capital. However insofar as teachers believed these earlier theories this may have persuaded them to label middle class and working-class pupils positively and negatively respectively
2. Bourdieu emphasised that middle class pupils were more likely to possess the kinds of cultural capital which would facilitate educational success. Here it is possible that teachers interpret the possession of socially determined cultural capital as evidence of biologically determined higher intelligence which increases the likelihood that working class pupils will be negatively but inaccurately labelled and consigned to lower sets and streams for invalid reasons.
3. Bernstein argued that working class and middle-class pupils were likely to operate with restricted and elaborated language codes respectively and middle-class students' possession of the elaborated code may mean that they can more easily understand school textbooks and follow teachers' language which is also more likely to use the elaborated code.  Although Bernstein's theories have been called into question by other theorists [e.g. William Labov] teachers might well label pupils in terms of their fluency or otherwise in the elaborated code which they mistakenly take to be evidence of higher intelligence.
4. In some cases, teachers might label working class students negatively on the basis of their dress, appearance, demeanour or behaviour none of which necessarily reflect their academic potential. Working class parents may not be able to afford new school uniforms on a regular basis; working class parents may find it difficult to interact with middle class teachers; and their possibly boisterous behaviour is not necessarily evidence of lack of intelligence.
5. Working class students’ educational attainments may be restricted due to adverse material circumstances which mean they may be more often ill and therefore absent from school and more likely to be tired at school. They may not have a quiet room for study or a home computer which means that they are unable to complete homework effectively. Such factors mean that these working-class students are more likely to be allocated to low streams which may have further adverse consequences for their progress.
6. It is also the case that if pupils are negatively labelled in school this may help to exacerbate already existing social class differences in cultural circumstances Thus , for example, if a working class child should fail the 11+ or be placed in lower sets  or receive negative school reports  s/he may well be demoralised but the working class parents  may also come to believe that their child's academic abilities are limited and they may therefore be discouraged from encouraging their child to persevere at school and/or from spending money on educational resources for their child.. Conversely if a middle-class child is negatively assessed in any way middle class parents may be less likely to take these negative assessments at face value, may question the competences of the child's teachers and /or employ private tutors to offset the child's negative performance.
7. There are substantial variations in the examination results achieved by different comprehensive schools, and it has been shown that middle class parents are able to use their greater resources of cultural, social and economic capital to secure entry for their children to more successful schools in ways not available to many working-class pupils.. Children who gain access to the more successful schools may be exposed to a more optimistic school culture which may encourage both pupils and parents to   believe that educational success is possible. The culture of the successful school is likely to reinforce an achievement- oriented middle-class culture but it may also increase the ambitions of working-class pupils and their parents. Entrance to a less successful school may have the reverse effects. Thus cultural, social and economic capital affect school choice but school choice may also influence cultural attitudes and values. [For illustrative purposes and on a brief autobiographical note when I was 10 years old neither I nor my parents would have dreamed that 3 years later they would be buying me a Latin dictionary for Xmas. Thanks Mr Browne and thanks mum and dad!]
8. Here is an exercise for you. In my Section 6 pf my earlier notes on externa cultural an material factors. I referred to Professor Louise Archer and her colleagues’ s study on Nike Identities. How do they explain pupil behaviour in terms of a combination of external and internal factors?

Clearly you will also be discussing with your teachers the interaction of external and internal factors as influences on ethnic and gender differences in educational achievement.

Part Three: School Effectiveness Research - Click Here