Reflections On Education, Labelling & Disadvantage

By Nazik Ahmed

Imagine you are presented with the following student profile:

• A refugee
• Arrived in England speaking no English
• Grew up in council housing
• Homeless at a key exam stage
• Parental illness coinciding with period of homelessness

What would be the labels that you immediately attach to this child, before meeting them? What are the factors that influence the labels you assign this child? Why is this the case? As you read this blog post, I urge you to keep these questions at the back of your mind and reflect on your answers and their impact on this child. As people, we all judge: even those of us that think we are open-minded individuals. As we go about our day-to-day working (and perhaps private) lives, we label privately in our minds; the naughty student, the smart student, the kind student. On the surface, this may not seem that bad, however sociological and educational research has found that assigning labels and pigeonholing can have detrimental effects on young people. The labelling theory Howard Becker (1963) began exploring the way in which teachers assign powerful labels to their students, stating that deviance is not about the quality of the act committed by an individual but rather “a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an ‘offender’. Deviant behaviour is behaviour that people so label.” In other words, Becker meant that what makes something deviant is not what is done, but how people react to what is done and the label assigned to them (Becker, 1971). During his research, Becker concluded that people react differently to the same action depending on the social context and that this influences the label that is placed on the act. Becker argues that labelling is a powerful process in education, occurring when behaviour is given a particular meaning, positive or negative (e.g. high achiever, slow learner). Typically, this results in working-class and students of BAME (a problematic catch-all label) backgrounds being assumed to be less well behaved and less bright. Middle and upper-class students, on the other hand, are labelled positively as ‘ideal students.’ In 1968, Rosenthal and Jacobson carried out a field experiment in a school looking into the impact of the labelling process in education. As part of their research, teachers were (falsely) told that 20% of their students were “spurters” and likely to do well academically. Interestingly, the students labelled as “spurters” did, in fact, go on to do much better, demonstrating that teacher expectations influence student performance both positively and negatively. School factors & labelling Teachers attaching meaning to behaviours and subsequently treating certain students positively or negatively, is a powerful process in students’ school experiences, leading to positive or negative self-fulfilling prophecies. Within schools, and broadly speaking, in society, the labelling of groups differs; while some groups are labelled positively, such as Chinese and white middle-class students, others are not, such as Afro-Caribbean boys, who are perceived as a threat, angry or ‘macho’ (Sewell, 1998). These labels can often result from implicit biases and racial stereotypes which shape teachers’ responses to student behaviours, labels assigned and sanctions issued. Furthermore, the lack of ethnic minority teachers and leaders, as well as institutional racism within schools, are often contributing factors to over disciplining and negative labelling of ethnic minority students, in comparison to their white middle-class counterparts. Unfortunately, the ethnocentric nature of the British curriculum (whether subtle or obvious) does little to explore cultures or figures familiar to diverse student bodies or to recognise the important contributions of ethnic groups to British culture and life. The failure of our education system to recognise such contributions and an overemphasis in the media on the ‘deviant’ actions of ethnic minorities results in ethnic minority students experiencing higher levels of isolation and segregation within than outside of school (Lupton, 2005). Having said that, labelling or grouping students is sometimes necessary, as it may help teachers to accommodate student needs (e.g. EAL or SEN). In addition, a study by Fuller found that African-American girls rejected their labels and went on to be extremely successful, despite labels that had been attributed to them, thus showing a significant level of resistance to labelling. Generally speaking, however, negative labelling of ethnic groups has shown to have a negative impact on their attainment levels. ‘Poverty of aspirations’ Diane Reay, a professor at Cambridge University wrote a research paper in 2010, concluding that working-class students underperform due to ‘poverty of aspirations’ among politicians. In recent years, we have seen the impact of austerity measures on different communities, including funding cuts to services such as youth clubs and local libraries resulting in the closure of vital local hubs. Unfortunately, current educational policies and measures do little to improve working-class students' experiences and performance in education. Dr Treanor at the University of Stirling (2018) argues that policymakers need to promote policies which open up knowledge of the operation of school processes and procedures to families from all socioeconomic backgrounds and increase access to opportunities. Concluding thoughts Remember that student at the start of this blog? That student was me. I worked against all labels assigned to me, and have achieved many academic and professional successes in spite of them. However, it shouldn’t fall on me, students at our Academy like me or students such as those in Fuller's study to resist the labels assigned to us. The education system must address its shortcomings and find suitable alternatives to ensure that all students, despite their ethnic or socioeconomic background, have equally fulfilling and successful experiences in education.