Assess The View That Social Class Differences In Education Essay

Using material from Item A and elsewhere, assess the view that social class differences in educational achievement are the result of school processes such as labelling.
Labelling is a process that happens within education where a definition is attached to a pupil as being a certain way. This can then affect them in their education in one of two ways. It can either push them and put stress on the pupil to achieve highly just as the teacher labelled them to do so or it can affect them so that they do not achieve because of the negative label that was planted on them.
As Item A states, Becker found that teaches judged pupils according to how well they fitted an image of the ‘ideal pupil’. For Marxists, the ‘ideal pupil’ would be the student who could perform and work the way the Capitalist society expects and wants us to work so that the Bourgeoisie can continue rule. Middle- class students were more likely to fit
Streaming is the action of separating children into different groups based on their abilities. This means that children are taught differently depending on their ability. As Becker shows teachers do not see working-class children as ideal pupils which results in lower-class children finding themselves in lower sets. Middle-class children often benefit from streaming because they’re likely to be placed in the higher streams. The streaming enables the pupil to gain self-confidence and work harder to improve their grades. It could also give them a false ego and make the pupil think they don’t need to work to get the grades they have been predicted so streaming can have both positive and negative effects but both lead to social class differences. As Douglas found, a child placed in a higher stream at the age of 8 improved their IQ score by the time they were 11. This shows that factors such as labelling and streaming have an effect of ability within