Teacher Student Relationships

'Teacher labelling' in sociology

There has been a considerable amount of sociological research done on labelling in education in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Let's first look at three primary studies on the concept, before exploring how teacher-student relationships are impacted by social class, gender, and ethnicity.

Studies on teacher-labelling theory

Let's look more closely at three seminal studies on the subject.

Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968)

• This study was conducted on a Californian primary school. The researchers set out to test the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy.
• They chose a random sample of 20 percent of the students. They then told teachers that these pupils were very intelligent, and were thus expected to develop quickly academically.
• After testing all pupils for IQ at the beginning of the study and one year later, the researchers found supporting evidence for the self-fulfilling prophecy. The randomly selected group of students, who had been pointed out to teachers as being especially smart, scored higher on the IQ test on average than the rest of the pupils.

Hargreaves (1975)

• David Hargreaves interviewed teachers and conducted participant observation in the classrooms of two secondary schools.
• His focus was on the process of the teachers getting to know their first-year students. He thought this was the perfect stage for the research, as teachers did not know much about the students. This meant Hargreaves could follow the whole process of labelling students from inception.
• At the end of his research, he established three different stages of the process he had observed.

1. Speculation - At this point, teachers rely on guesses about the types of the students based on seven points of observation: appearance, conformity to discipline, ability and enthusiasm for work, likeability, relationship to other pupils, personality, and whether they are deviant.
2. Elaboration - Teachers test their first impressions multiple times and decide if they are correct. Their image of each student gets more refined and detailed.
3. Stabilisation - In the last stage, teachers feel that they already know the students and why they do certain things. They usually interpret the same actions differently, depending on whether they have a positive or negative image of the student. Negatively categorised students can't really do anything that would be viewed in a positive light, while disruptive behaviour from positively viewed students is treated lightly.

Waterhouse (2004)

• A sociological study by Waterhouse (2004) showed that teachers interact with students differently according to how they had labelled the students previously.
• These labels slowly become the ‘pivotal identity’ for students, and teachers judged the behaviours and attitudes of students in tandem. For example, a student whose pivotal identity was determined as normal, received less serious punishment for deviant behaviour than a student who was labelled negatively in the beginning.

R. C. Rist (1970) noted that kindergarten children were split into three different groups as early as the eighth day of school. Teachers made their judgements according to the children's appearances and family backgrounds, rather than their abilities. Working-class children who looked more untidy ended up in the less capable group, even if they displayed better competencies than their well-dressed middle-class peers.

Howard Becker (1970) observed that middle-class teachers looked at middle-class students as ideal pupils, as being polite, and speaking and dressing nicely. Teachers viewed these students positively while tending to hold more negative attitudes towards working-class students regardless of their intelligence.

Negative teacher labelling can have serious adverse consequences on the educational development of working-class pupils. According to Becker, this bias is one of the causes of working-class students not doing as well in school as their middle-class peers.

Teacher-student relationships and gender

Swann and Graddol (1994) found that boys are viewed as disruptive more often than girls are, by teachers. As a result, teachers spend more time disciplining than helping boys and display lower expectations towards them. Therefore, boys tend to have lower academic achievements than girls.

John Abraham’s research (1986) showed a similar trend. He asked teachers to describe the typical student of both genders. Teachers defined the typical boy as attention-seeking, disruptive, and less intelligent, while the typical girl was smart, well-behaved, quiet, and hard-working.

Fig. 2 - GIrls are more often labelled as hard-working and studious than boys.

Sociologists such as Jackson (2006) however point out that there is an emerging culture of unruly girls, so this division might change in the future.

Teacher-student relationships and ethnicity

Let's explore teacher-student relationships in the UK.

Teacher-student relationship in the UK

David Gilborn (1990) observed that despite most teachers’ attempts to treat all students equally, African-Caribbean children in the UK are controlled and disciplined much more often, even when there is no reason to do so. In theory, the teachers reject racism, but their actions are racist. As a result, African-Caribbean students are often more involved in school conflict and have little opportunity to complain about their situation.

Joining the discussion, Tony Sewell (1996) claimed that male Black students are often perceived as a threat by teachers. Due to their racist socialisation, teachers seem to be scared of the students' perceived masculinity, sexuality, and physical power. Sewell also noted that Black boys report their cultures receiving only negative recognition by school authorities.

Criticisms of the teacher labelling theory

• Rosenthal and Jacobson’s (1968) experiment, and many other teacher labelling studies, have been criticised for unreliability.

• Some sociologists claim that teacher labelling theory awards too much significance to the role of the teacher in the development of pupils’ education. Structuralist sociologists point out that the school system itself encourages labelling through entry tests, against which teachers can do little. They are even called to help those students who perform badly on tests, which immediately 'groups' pupils in teachers' minds before they have even met.

• Negative labelling does not always have negative influences on the development of students. Margaret Fuller (1984) found that Black female pupils in London were categorised as low-achievers, but instead of accepting the label, they studied hard to prove the teachers wrong. Here, Fuller argued, negative labelling had a positive effect on the development of the students. It did not follow the self-fulfilling prophecy.

• Some sociologists assert that in contemporary society, teachers have sensitivity training and are much less likely to make distinctions between their students based on their social and cultural backgrounds.