Education Studies

Becker (1952)

Becker (see also notes on Crime and Deviance/Labelling Theory) interviewed 60 school teachers in Chicago, USA, about their attitudes to students social backgrounds. He established that teachers categorised students into three groups:

· Bottom stratum

· Middle stratum

· Upper stratum

The bottom stratum were described by one teacher as:

“Lacking interest in school, learning ability and outside training… of course it’s not their fault; they aren’t brought up right… parents in a neighbourhood like that aren’t really interested…”

The middle strata were described as:

“They want to work and do well… Of course they’re not too brilliant… But they are very nice children.”

While the upper strata were praised:

“In a neighbourhood like this there’s something about the children, you just feel like you’re accomplishing so much more. You throw an idea out and you can see that it takes hold.”

These may seem like straightforward stereotypes, and indeed to an extent they are. However, Becker also found that some behaviour displayed by the middle class children displeased the teachers, for example, a reluctance to clean up after themselves, believing that to be ‘janitor’s work’.

Abbott and Wallace (1997)

Abbott and Wallace studied girls’ academic performance at school, through exam results, and compared this with social mobility in later life. While they found evidence that girls outperformed boys at GCSE (equivalent to Standard Grade level), and claimed that they also outperformed boys at A-level (Highers/Advanced Highers), they found that this wasn’t reflected in women’s social mobility once they had left school.

Using education as an example, they argued that while the vast majority of classroom teachers in primary schools are women, and primary schools are also more likely to have female head teachers, ‘the higher up the academic ladder we go, the more dominated it becomes by men… there are far fewer women [university] professors than male ones and hardly any female vice-chancellors or college principals.’

There is much evidence of the concentration of women in lower-paid service sector jobs, such as care work, and Abbot and Wallace also argued that women were less likely to be promoted once they were in the workplace.

see also xxx (1985) for an example of a qualitative study involving interviewing 10 year old girls about their experiences of discrimination.

Davis and Moore (1945)

See notes on Davis and Moore - Social Stratification

Davis and Moore's study on social stratification also has clear links to education. Education acts as a mechanism by which the most talented and able members of society can be allocated to appropriate jobs, and rewarded accordingly. These jobs are also rewarded on the basis of their functional importance to society.

In some cases, for example, medical training, Davis and Moore argue that the reward is consummate with the sacrifice of several years' arduous training, and the loss of wages during that time.

Bowles and Gintis (1976) - 'Schooling in capitalist America'

Bowles and Gintis saw a close relationship between the education system and the workplace, arguing that work 'cast a long shadow' over schooling, with the two working on a 'correspondence principle'.

Bowles and Gintis argued that the education system is set up to deliver the workers that employers need - hardworking, obedient and motivated, through the 'hidden curriculum'.

They identified four key areas of education which do this:

1) Rewarding subservience - students who were perceived as dependable, consistent and docile were awarded higher grades

2) Hierarchical structure - students must be used to receiving instruction unquestioningly

3) Motivated by rewards such as exam results, rather than the 'internal' reward of doing the job well, enjoying study for its own sake

4) Fragmentation - students move from class to class, with little overlap or connections drawn between them, which Bowles and Gintis argue is preparation for a production-line job.

Bowles and Gintis argued in 1976 that capitalism 'overeducated' workers so that it would have a supply of surplus, skilled workers - this would act to keep wages down. Since then, we have had a massive expansion of Higher Education - what would Bowles and Gintis have made of this?

Bowles and Gintis argue that educational achievement can be attributed more to class privilege than to IQ level, which they take as an indicator of ability. They based this finding on a study of individuals with 'average' IQ, reasoning that if the group had roughly the same IQ, they would - in an otherwise equal system - expect to find roughly the same level of educational achievement. Bowles and Gintis argued that this was not the case and that middle class children tended to remain in education for longer and gain higher qualifications.

Bowles and Gintis argue that the education system is not a meritocracy, but merely has a myth of meritocracy - it gives the impression of being open when it is not.

Questions for groups

Study looked at ___________________________________

1. What is this study about?

2. What theoretical perspective does the study reflect? How do you know this?

3. Summarise the main findings/conclusions of the study, using the flipchart paper provided.

4. What criticisms can be made of this study?