Applying material from Item A, analyse two ways in which relationships and processes within schools may lead to anti-school subcultures (10 marks)

Last Updated on October 22, 2026 by Karl Thompson

This question appeared as Question 03 on AQA A-level Sociology Paper 1: Education with Theory and Methods (7192/1), in June 2022. It is a 10-mark ‘applying material from the Item’ question on relationships and processes within schools.

The item rule: in these questions, both of your two ways must be taken from the Item. Your own knowledge of studies and concepts is there to develop them, not to replace them.

Have a go at this question yourself first, then compare your answer with the one below. If you need to revise the topic, see my post on pupil subcultures.

Full question including Item A

Read Item A below and answer the question that follows.

Item A

Teachers may label and treat some groups of pupils differently from others. Schools and staff will have views about appropriate pupil behaviour and attitudes to school.

Relationships and processes within schools may lead to anti-school subcultures.

Applying material from Item A, analyse two ways in which relationships and processes within schools may lead to anti-school subcultures. [10 marks]

Item A and the question are reproduced from AQA’s June 2022 question paper for educational purposes. © AQA.

Hints for answering this question

The Item gives you two ‘hooks’, and they are the structure of your answer:

1. “Teachers may label and treat some groups of pupils differently from others” – this points you to labelling, streaming and setting, and the way some pupils are denied status by the school.
2. “Schools and staff will have views about appropriate pupil behaviour and attitudes to school” – this points you to the school’s values, and what happens when some pupils’ culture clashes with them. Bourdieu’s concept of habitus works well here.

Use one hook for each way. The biggest single reason students missed the top band on this question was that their two ways overlapped – two versions of labelling, for example. Keep them clearly separate.

The mark scheme lists a range of sources you could use, including Becker, Lacey, Ball, Willis, Mac an Ghaill, Sewell, Archer, Bourdieu, Reay, and Gillborn and Youdell. You don’t need all of them – one or two used well in each paragraph is enough.

Analysis and evaluation earn marks in this question, so finish each point by showing its limits.

A possible answer

The first way is that teachers may label some pupils negatively, which denies them status in school and leads them to find status in an anti-school subculture instead. Item A says that teachers “may label and treat some groups of pupils differently from others”. Interactionists such as Becker argue that teachers judge pupils against an image of the ‘ideal pupil’, and that pupils who don’t fit it – often working-class pupils – are more likely to be labelled as less able or badly behaved. These labels are then built into the organisation of the school through streaming and setting. Lacey called this process differentiation: the school ranks pupils and places them in groups according to its judgement of their ability and behaviour. Pupils placed in the bottom groups are, in effect, told they are failures, so they experience status frustration. One way of solving this is to reject the school’s values and form an anti-school subculture in which status comes from the opposite of what the school rewards – messing about, truanting and disrupting lessons. Hargreaves found exactly this among the lower-stream boys in a secondary modern school. The result is what Lacey called polarisation, with pro-school pupils in the top groups and anti-school pupils in the bottom ones. HOWEVER, labels don’t always work this way. Fuller found that Black girls who were aware of teachers’ low expectations worked harder to prove them wrong, so pupils can reject a negative label rather than live up to it.

The second way is that the school’s values may clash with the habitus of some pupils, so that they experience the school as rejecting them and respond by rejecting the school. Item A says that “schools and staff will have views about appropriate pupil behaviour and attitudes to school”. Bourdieu argued that schools reflect a middle-class habitus – the tastes, ways of speaking and expectations of the middle class – and treat it as the ‘right’ way to be. Working-class pupils whose habitus differs find their style and attitudes treated as inferior, which Bourdieu calls symbolic violence. Archer, Hollingworth and Halsall found that working-class pupils invested heavily in style, such as Nike clothing, as a way of gaining a sense of worth and value; but this same style-based identity helped lead them to see higher education as ‘not for me’, keeping them in a marginalised position. When pupils feel that the school looks down on who they are, an anti-school subculture offers an alternative source of identity and respect. HOWEVER, this suggests that the subculture is not created only by processes within school. Sewell argues that some Black boys bring an anti-school, hyper-masculine street culture with them from outside school, so it may be the interaction between outside influences and the school’s values, rather than school processes alone, that produces anti-school subcultures.

The mark scheme

The mark scheme uses levels of response. In summary:

• 8–10 marks: good knowledge and understanding of two ways; two developed applications of material from the Item; appropriate analysis or evaluation. The mark scheme’s examples include labelling of pupils leading to status frustration and the formation of anti-school subcultures as an alternative way of gaining status, and a clash between the habitus of schools and staff and that of some pupils. Its example of evaluation is how factors outside school interact with processes within schools.
• 4–7 marks: basic to reasonable knowledge of one or two ways; some successful application of the Item, for example labelling by teachers leading to the polarisation of students and the development of anti-school subcultures; some analysis or evaluation.
• 1–3 marks: limited knowledge of one or two ways; limited application of the Item, with some material at a tangent to the question, such as the causes of differential achievement; limited or no analysis or evaluation.
• 0 marks: no relevant points.

Sources may include: Allan; Archer; Ball; Becker; Bourdieu; Coard; Gillborn and Youdell; Lacey; Mac an Ghaill; Reay; Sewell; Willis; Young.

The full mark scheme is on AQA’s website: 7192/1 mark scheme, June 2022.

What the examiners said

According to AQA’s report on the June 2022 exam:

• Most students developed the first hook, about teachers labelling pupils, and many used Becker, Rosenthal and Jacobson and Woods. Stronger answers used concepts such as the self-fulfilling prophecy and polarisation.
• Some answers evaluated effectively by pointing out that pupils may reject labels, using Fuller’s study.
• Many answers did not reach the 8–10 band because their two ways overlapped rather than being clearly separate.
• The most successful answers used the second hook, about schools’ views of appropriate pupil behaviour, to explain symbolic violence and habitus, and pupils’ resistance through anti-school subcultures.

The full report is here: 7192/1 examiner report, June 2022.

KT’s Commentary

Having marked this paper, the thing I’d stress is the split between the two hooks. Almost everyone can write a decent labelling paragraph, and that alone will get you into the middle band. What separates the top answers is a second way that is genuinely different – and the second hook was written for Bourdieu. If you’ve learned habitus and symbolic violence for the class achievement topic, this is where they pay off.

Notice too that the evaluation in each paragraph above does a specific job. The Fuller point questions whether labels always produce anti-school subcultures; the Sewell point questions whether the subculture comes from inside school at all. That second line of evaluation is exactly what the mark scheme’s top band asks for: how factors outside school interact with processes within schools.

Finally, keep it to two ways. A third paragraph earns nothing and costs you time you need for the 30-mark essay.

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

For more on the topics in this answer, see:

• Pupil subcultures – Hargreaves, Lacey, Willis, Mac an Ghaill and more.
• Labelling theory and the self-fulfilling prophecy
• Setting and streaming
• Cultural capital and educational achievement – Bourdieu and habitus.

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

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