Evaluate the view that differences in educational achievement between social groups are the result of factors and processes within schools (30)

Last Updated on October 23, 2026 by Karl Thompson

This is a 30-mark practice essay for the Education section of AQA A-level Sociology Paper 1: Education with Theory and Methods (7192/1). It is a practice question, not an AQA past paper question, and the Item below is written by me in AQA’s style. It’s a good synoptic question because it makes you deal with class, gender and ethnicity in one essay.

An A-level sociology essay written for the AQA’s 7192 specification, Paper 1.

Real AQA questions on this topic

AQA usually asks about one social group at a time. These past paper questions all reward the same in-school material used below:

• June 2019, 30 marks: Applying material from Item B and your knowledge, evaluate sociological explanations of differences in educational achievement between ethnic groups.
• June 2020, 30 marks: Applying material from Item B and your knowledge, evaluate sociological explanations of gender differences in educational achievement.
• June 2023, 30 marks: Applying material from Item B and your knowledge, evaluate the importance of cultural factors in explaining patterns of educational achievement.

The question

Read Item B below and answer the question that follows.

Item B (practice Item written by ReviseSociology, not AQA)

Patterns of educational achievement differ by social class, gender and ethnicity. Some sociologists explain these patterns mainly through factors outside school, such as material circumstances and home background.

Others argue that what happens inside schools matters more. Teachers’ expectations, the way pupils are grouped and the responses pupils make to school may all help to produce differences in achievement.

Applying material from Item B and your knowledge, evaluate the view that differences in educational achievement between social groups are the result of factors and processes within schools. [30 marks]

The patterns to explain

Before the essay, it’s worth knowing the current patterns. In 2022/23, the average Attainment 8 score in England was 46.3. Girls scored 48.6 and boys 44.0. Pupils eligible for free school meals scored 34.8 against 49.6 for other pupils. By ethnicity, Chinese (65.5), Indian (59.4) and Bangladeshi (51.9) pupils scored above average, while White British (44.9) and Black Caribbean (40.0) pupils scored below it. The DfE’s 2025/26 figures show the gaps persisting: 27.5% of disadvantaged pupils got grade 5 or above in English and maths, against 54.3% of other pupils.

The essay

Introduction

As Item B says, patterns of educational achievement differ by social class, gender and ethnicity. The view that these differences result from factors and processes within schools is associated mainly with interactionism, which focuses on micro-level processes such as teacher labelling, setting and streaming, and pupil subcultures. This contrasts with explanations based on factors outside school, such as material deprivation and cultural differences in the home. In this essay I will argue that in-school processes do contribute to differences in achievement, especially for working-class and Black Caribbean pupils, but that they cannot explain the patterns on their own, because they interact with factors outside school.

Teacher labelling and the self-fulfilling prophecy

Point: Item B refers to “teachers’ expectations”. Interactionists argue that teachers label pupils according to their class, gender and ethnicity, and that these labels can become self-fulfilling prophecies.

Explain: Becker (1952) interviewed 60 Chicago teachers and found they judged pupils against an image of the ‘ideal pupil’ which was, in practice, middle class. Working-class pupils who didn’t fit the image were seen as less able and harder to teach. Rist (1970) found that a kindergarten teacher had seated children on ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ tables within eight days, and that the real basis was social class. Rosenthal and Jacobson’s (1968) Pygmalion experiment suggested that teacher expectations could actually change pupils’ results.

Analyse: Labelling can explain all three patterns. Labels based on class can explain working-class underachievement; Abraham (1995) found teachers expected ‘typical girls’ to be more studious than ‘typical boys’, which can help explain girls’ higher achievement; and Gillborn (1990) argued that teachers had the lowest expectations of Black boys.

Criticise: HOWEVER, Rosenthal and Jacobson’s study has not held up well, and Jussim and Harber’s (2005) review concluded that self-fulfilling prophecies in classrooms are real but usually small. Labelling theory is also deterministic: Fuller (1984) found that Black girls who knew teachers expected little of them worked harder to prove them wrong. That said, Jussim and Harber found the effects are larger for low achievers and pupils from lower-class backgrounds – the groups labelling theorists are most concerned about.

Setting, streaming and educational triage

Point: Item B also mentions “the way pupils are grouped”. Setting and streaming turn teachers’ labels into the organisation of the school.

Explain: Ball (1981) found that at Beachside Comprehensive, pupils of similar measured ability were more likely to be placed in the top band if their fathers had non-manual jobs. Gillborn and Youdell (2000) found that the pressure of league tables created an ‘A-to-C economy’ in which schools practised educational triage, focusing on borderline pupils and writing off those judged to have no hope. At one of their schools, only 5.6% of Black pupils were placed in the top ability band compared with 33.2% of white pupils.

Analyse: This matters because grouping sets limits on achievement. Pupils in lower sets are more likely to be entered for the foundation tier at GCSE, which caps the grade they can get. More recent, large-scale evidence supports this: Connolly and colleagues (2019) found that nearly a third of Year 7 pupils were in the ‘wrong’ maths set for their prior attainment, and that Black pupils’ odds of being placed too low were 2.43 times those of White pupils.

Criticise: HOWEVER, the Education Endowment Foundation’s review of the evidence finds that, on average, setting and streaming make little difference to attainment – a small negative effect for low attainers and a small positive one for high attainers. So grouping may widen gaps a little rather than create them.

Pupil subcultures and identities

Point: Item B refers to “the responses pupils make to school”. Pupils who are denied status by the school may form anti-school subcultures, which then lower their achievement further.

Explain: Lacey (1970) called this process polarisation: ranking pupils into streams produces a pro-school group at the top and an anti-school group at the bottom. Hargreaves (1967) found that boys labelled as troublemakers and put in lower streams formed a delinquent subculture that gave them status by breaking the rules.

Analyse: Subcultures help explain gender differences as well as class differences. Mac an Ghaill (1994) found that working-class ‘macho lads’ in the bottom sets saw academic work as effeminate, which helps explain why working-class boys underachieve. Bourdieu’s concept of habitus adds to this: schools reflect a middle-class habitus, so working-class pupils’ style and attitudes may be treated as inferior. Archer, Hollingworth and Halsall (2007) found that working-class pupils’ investment in style gave them a sense of worth but led them to see higher education as ‘not for me’.

Criticise: HOWEVER, it isn’t clear that subcultures are created inside school. Willis (1977) argued that his working-class ‘lads’ brought their anti-school attitudes from a shop-floor culture outside school, and Sewell argued that some Black boys’ anti-school attitudes come from peer-group street culture rather than from teachers’ racism.

Ethnocentric curriculum and institutional racism

Point: For ethnicity, some sociologists argue that the curriculum and the school as an institution disadvantage some minority ethnic pupils.

Explain: An ethnocentric curriculum reflects the culture of the dominant group – for example, history taught mainly from a white British point of view – which may leave some minority ethnic pupils feeling marginalised. Gillborn and Youdell argued that racist outcomes in schools didn’t require racist teachers: the combination of the A-to-C economy and teachers’ taken-for-granted ideas about ‘ability’ produced institutional racism.

Analyse: This could help explain why Black Caribbean pupils scored 40.0 in 2022/23, well below the national average of 46.3.

Criticise: HOWEVER, in-school explanations struggle with the full pattern. Indian, Chinese and Bangladeshi pupils go to the same schools, study the same curriculum and are taught by the same teachers, yet all score above the national average, and Black African pupils (48.7) score well above Black Caribbean pupils. If the curriculum and school organisation were the main cause, we would expect the gaps to look more similar across minority groups.

Factors outside school

The strongest evaluation of the in-school view comes from factors outside school, which Item B mentions. The free school meals gap is wider than any of the ethnic or gender gaps, which points to material deprivation and cultural capital in the home. Interestingly, though, poverty doesn’t affect all groups equally: Bangladeshi pupils eligible for free school meals scored 47.7 in 2022/23, while White British pupils eligible for free school meals scored only 30.9. Since both groups are equally disadvantaged on this measure, the difference must come from something else – which could be in-school processes, but could equally be differences in family and community attitudes to education.

Gender differences also look hard to explain through schools alone. Girls have outperformed boys for many years, and the gap in Attainment 8 was still about 3.9 points in 2025/26. In-school factors such as teacher expectations may contribute, but feminists would point to wider changes, such as women’s employment and changing ambitions, as more important.

Conclusion

Overall, in-school processes clearly play a part. The evidence on misallocation to sets and on racialised expectations is strong, and it shows that schools can widen gaps that start outside the school gate. HOWEVER, in-school processes alone cannot explain why some minority ethnic groups do so well, why poverty affects some groups far more than others, or why girls outperform boys across almost every group. The best explanation is that factors outside school create the starting differences, and that labelling, grouping and subcultures inside school then interact with them – which is why policies that only change what happens in school have had a limited effect on the gaps.

Short version of this essay

• Intro: patterns by class, gender, ethnicity; interactionism; argue that in-school processes widen gaps but don’t create them alone.
• Labelling: Becker (ideal pupil), Rist, Rosenthal and Jacobson; applied to class, gender (Abraham) and ethnicity (Gillborn). Evaluate: Jussim and Harber (small effects); Fuller (labels rejected).
• Setting and triage: Ball; Gillborn and Youdell; Connolly et al. (misallocation, 2.43 times for Black pupils). Evaluate: EEF – little average effect.
• Subcultures: Lacey (polarisation), Hargreaves, Mac an Ghaill, Bourdieu (habitus), Archer et al. Evaluate: Willis and Sewell – attitudes come from outside school.
• Ethnocentric curriculum and institutional racism. Evaluate: Indian, Chinese, Bangladeshi and Black African pupils’ higher results.
• Outside-school factors: FSM gap; Bangladeshi v White British FSM pupils; girls’ long-term lead.
• Conclusion: interaction – outside factors start the gaps, in-school processes widen them.

KT’s Commentary

This is a practice question, but it’s a useful one, because it forces you to do what the real single-group questions reward: apply the in-school material and then evaluate it against factors outside school. The mistake I saw most often in essays like this was a long list of studies with the evaluation saved for one paragraph at the end. Notice that every section above ends with a HOWEVER – that is where the AO3 marks come from.

The other thing to notice is how the statistics are used. They aren’t decoration: the Bangladeshi and White British FSM comparison does real analytical work, because it tests the explanation rather than just illustrating it. One or two well-chosen figures like that will do more for you than a paragraph of numbers.

Finally, in the real exam, check which group the question asks about. If it’s ethnicity only, cut the gender material and go deeper on Gillborn and Youdell, Sewell and the ethnocentric curriculum.

Revision bundle

If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my sociology of education revision bundle, written by Karl Thompson, who taught A-level sociology for eighteen years and spent twelve as an AQA examiner, marking all three papers on the current specification.

Signposting and related posts

The in-school processes behind this essay:

• Labelling theory and the self-fulfilling prophecy
• Setting and streaming
• Gillborn and Youdell: Rationing Education
• Pupil subcultures

In-school factors applied to each social group:

• Social class and in-school factors
• Gender and in-school factors
• Ethnicity and in-school processes

For more essays, see my main post on exam advice, short answer questions and essays.

Please click here to return to the homepage – ReviseSociology.com

Sources for the statistics

• Race Disparity Unit, Ethnicity facts and figures: GCSE results (Attainment 8), 2022/23 data (updated 7 November 2024).
• Department for Education (2026) Key stage 4 performance, 2025/26 (15 October 2026).
• Connolly, P. et al. (2019) ‘The misallocation of students to academic sets in maths’, British Educational Research Journal, 45(4).
• Education Endowment Foundation, Teaching and Learning Toolkit: Setting or streaming.
• Gillborn, D. and Youdell, D. (1998), ERIC ED424332.
• Jussim, L. and Harber, K. D. (2005) Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9(2).