Teacher Labelling and the self-fulfilling prophecy

Labelling theory holds that if a teacher labels a pupil a certain way, they will accept that label and it will become true.

The labels which teachers give to pupils can influence the construction and development of students’ identities, or self-concepts: how they see and define themselves and how they interact with others. This in turn can affect their attitudes towards school, their behaviour, and ultimately their level of achievement in education.

self fulfilling prophecy

Labelling refers to the process of defining a person or group in a simplified way – narrowing down the complexity of the whole person and fitting them into broad categories. At the simplest level labelling involves that first judgement you make about someone, often based on first-impressions – are they ‘worth making the effort to get to know more’, are you ‘indifferent to them’, or are they ‘to be avoided’.

According to labelling theory, teachers actively judge their pupils over a period of time, making judgments based on their behaviour in class, attitude to learning, previous school reports and interactions with them and their parents, and they eventually classifying their students according to whether they are ‘high’ or ‘low’ ability, ‘hard working’ or ‘lazy’, ‘naughty’ or ‘well-behaved’, ‘in need of support’ or ‘capable of just getting on with it’ (to give just a few possible categories, there are others!). (*See criticism one below).

According to a number of small-scale, interpretivist research studies of teacher labelling, the labels teachers give to students are sometimes based not on their behaviour but on a number of preconceived ideas teachers have about students based on their ethnic, gender or social class background, and thus labelling can be said to be grounded in stereotypes.

A closely related concept to labelling theory is the that of the self-fulfilling prophecy – where an individual accepts their label and the label becomes true in practice – for example, a student labelled as deviant actually becomes deviant as a response to being so-labelled.

Labelling theory is one of the main parts of social action, or interactionist theory, which seeks to understand human action by looking at micro-level processes, looking at social life through a microscope, from the ground-up.

Classic studies on teacher labelling in education 

Most of the work of labelling theory applied to education was done in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Three classic works, summarised below include:

  • David Hargreaves (1975) Deviance in Classrooms
  • R.C. Rist (1970) Student Social Class and Teachers’ Expectations: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Ghetto Education
  • Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) Pygmalion in the Classroom (the ‘famous’ self-fulfilling prophecy experiment!)

David Hargreaves: Speculation, Elaboration, Stabilization

Hargreaves Deviance in Classrooms

David Hargreaves et al (1975) in their classic book ‘Deviance in Classrooms’ analysed the ways in which students came to be typed, or labelled. Their study was based on interviews with secondary teachers and classroom observation in two secondary schools, focusing on how teachers ‘got to know their students’ entering the first year of the school.

Teachers have only a very limited idea about ‘who their students are’ as individuals when they first enter the school, based mainly on the area where they came from, and they thus have to build up an image of their students as the school year progresses. Hargreaves et al distinguished three stages of of typing or classification:

  1. Speculation
  2. Elaboration
  3. Stabilisation

In the first stage, that of speculation, the teachers make guesses about the types of student they are dealing with. The researchers noted that there were seven main criteria teachers used to type students:

  • their appearance
  • how far they conformed to discipline
  • their ability and enthusiasm for work
  • how likeable they were
  • their relationship with other children
  • their personality
  • whether they were deviant.

Hargreaves et al stress that in the speculation stage, teachers are tentative in their typing, and are willing to amend their views, nevertheless, they do form a working hypothesis, or a theory about with sort of child each student is.

In the elaboration phase, each hypothesis is tested and either confirmed or contradicted, and through this process the typing of each student is refined.

When the third stage, stabilisation, is reached, the teacher feels that ‘he knows’ the students and finds little difficulty in making sense of their actions, which will be interpreted in light of the general type of student the teacher thinks they are. Some students will be regarded as deviant and it will be difficult for any of their future actions to be regarded in a positive light.

Labelling and social class

A lot of the early, classic studies on labelling focused on how teachers label according to indicators of social class background, not the actual ability of the student. 

Student Social Class and Teachers’ Expectations

Research in one American Kindergarten by Ray C. Rist (1970) suggested that the process of labelling is not only much more abrupt than suggested by Hargreaves et al, but also that it is heavily influenced by social class.

Rist found that new students coming into the Kindergarten were grouped onto three tables – one for the ‘more able’, and the other two for the ‘less able’, and that students had been split into their respective tables by day eight of their early-school career. He also found that teachers made their judgments not necessarily on any evidence of ability, but on appearance (whether they were neat and tidy) and whether they were known to have come from an educated, middle class family (or not).

Aaron V. Cicourel and John I.Kitsuse (1963) conducted a study of the decisions counsellors made in one American high school.

The counsellors largely decided which students were to be placed on programmes that prepared them for college. They claimed that their decisions were based on the grades students achieved in school and the results of IQ tests, but there were discrepancies: not all students achieving high grades and IQ scores were being placed on college-preparation programmes by the counsellors.

They found that the social class backgrounds of students had an influence. Those from middle class backgrounds were more likely to be placed onto higher level courses even when they had the same grades as students from lower class backgrounds.

Cicourel and Kitsuse argued that counsellors decisions were based around a number of non academic criteria related to social class such as the clothes students wore, their manners and their general demeanour.

Similarly when deciding which students were to be classified as ‘conduct problems’ counsellors used criteria such as speech and hairstyles which were again related to social class.

In general those with middle class manners were more likely to be labelled good prospects for college while those with working class manners and style were more likely to be labelled as conduct problems.

Labelling theory and the self fulfilling prophecy 

Self Fulling Prophecy Theory argues that predictions made by teachers about the future success or failure of a student will tend to come true because that prediction has been made. Thus if a student is labelled a success, they will succeed, if they are labelled a failure, the will fail.

The reasons for this are as follows (you might call these the positive effects of labelling):

  • teachers will push students they think are brighter harder, and not expect as much from students they have labelled as less-able.
  • Building on the above point, a positive label is more likely to result in a good student being put into a higher band, and vice versa for a student pre-judged to be less able.
  • Positively labelled students are more likely to develop positive attitude towards studying, those negatively labelled an anti-school attitude.
  • The above may be reinforced by peer-group identification.

It follows that in labelling theory, the students attainment level is, at least to some degree,  a result of the interaction between the teacher and the pupil, rather than just being about their ability.

A classic study which supports the self fulfilling prophecy theory was Rosenthal and Jacobson’s (1968) study of an elementary school in California. They selected a random sample of 20% of the student population and informed teachers that these students could be expected to achieve rapid intellectual development.

They tested all students at the beginning of the experiment for IQ, and again after one year, and found that the RANDOMLY SELECTED ‘spurter’ group had, on average, gained more IQ than the other 80%, who the teachers believed to be ‘average’. They also found that the report cards for the 20% group showed that the teachers believed this group had made greater advances in reading.

Rosenthal and Jacobson speculated that the teachers had passed on their higher expectations to students which had produced a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Gender, ethnicity and labelling

A considerable amount of research has been done into the ways in which students of different genders and ethnicities are labelled by teachers.

One classic study of gender and labelling was John Abraham’s research in which he found that teachers had ideas of ‘typical boys’ and typical girls’, expecting girls to be more focused on schoolwork and better behaved than boys in general. Teachers also had higher expectations of girls than boys.

The issue of gender and labelling is covered in more depth in this post: Gender and educational achievement: in school processes.

Many studies have also focused on how teachers label differentially based on both gender and ethnicity simultaneously.

David Gilborn (1990), for example, has argued that teachers have the lowest expectations of Black boys and even see them as a threat, while Connolly (1998) found that teachers label Asian boys’s disruptive behaviour as immature rather than deliberately disruptive, so they weren’t punished as severely as Black Boys. Meanwhile Asian girls were largely ignored because they were seen as passive and not willing to engage in class discussion.

The issue of ethnicity and education is covered in more depth here: Ethnicity and differential achievement: in school processes

Contemporary research on labelling theory 

Waterhouse (2004), in case studies of four primary and secondary schools, suggests that teacher labelling of pupils as either normal/ average or deviant types, as a result of impressions formed over time, has implications for the way teachers interact with pupils.

Once these labels are applied and become the dominant categories for pupils, they can become what Waterhouse called a ‘pivotal identity’ for students – a core identity providing a pivot which teachers use to interpret and reinterpret classroom events and student behaviour.

For example, a student who has the pivotal identity of ‘normal’ is likely to have an episode of deviant behaviour interpreted as unusual, or as a ‘temporary phase’ – something which will shortly end, thus requiring no significant action to be taken; whereas as a student who has the pivotal identity of ‘deviant’ will have periods of ‘good behaviour’ treated as unusual, something which is not expected to last, and thus not worthy of recognition.

Criticisms of the labelling theory of education

Negative labelling can sometimes have the opposite effect – Margaret Fuller’s (1984) research on black girls in a London comprehensive school found that the black girls she researched were labelled as low-achievers, but their response to this negative labelling was to knuckle down and study hard to prove their teachers and the school wrong.

Given the above findings it should be no surprise that the Rosenthal and Jacobson research has been proved unreliable – other similar experimental studies reveal no significant effects.

Labelling theory attributes too much importance to ‘teacher agency’ (the autonomous power of teachers to influence and affect pupils) – structural sociologists might point out that schools themselves encourage teachers to label students. In some cases entry tests, over which teachers have no control, pre-label students into ability groups anyway, and the school will require the teacher to demonstrate that they are providing ‘extra support’ for the ‘low ability’ students as judged by the entry test.

One has to question whether teachers today actually label along social class lines. Surely teachers are among the most sensitively trained professionals in the world, and in the current ‘aspirational culture’ of education, it’s difficult to see how teachers would either label in such a way, or get away with it if they did.

Signposting

This post has been written primarily for A-level sociology students, although it will hopefully be a useful primer for anyone with a general interest in this subject.

Labelling Theory is one of the main theories taught as part of the education module, and it is one of the main ‘in-school process’ students need to understand, alongside banding and streaming and student subcultures.

Students can also use this material to illustrate some of the key ideas of social action theory more generally when they study social theory in more depth in their second year.

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

Sources/ Find out More

  • David Hargreaves (1975) Deviance in Classrooms
  • R.C. Rist (1970) Student Social Class and Teachers’ Expectations: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Ghetto Education
  • Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) Pygmalion in the Classroom (the ‘famous’ self-fulfilling prophecy experiment!)
  • Haralambos and Holborn (2013) Sociology Themes and Perspectives.

In-School Processes in Education: Knowledge Check List

Main Sub Topics

The Interactionist Perspective – Introduces the topic area, make sure you can explain the difference between Interactionism and Structural Theories

School Ethos and The Hidden Curriculum

  • The School Ethos
  • The Hidden Curriculum

Teacher Stereotyping and the halo effect

  • The ideal pupil
  • Labelling and the Self Fulfilling Prophecy

Banding, streaming and setting

  • Definitions of banding/ streaming setting
  • Summaries of evidence on the effects of banding etc
  • Unequal access to classroom knowledge

Educational triage

  • Gilborn and Youdell’s work focusing on the significance of league tables and ‘writing off students who have no chance of passing

Student responses to the experience of schooling: school subcultures

  • Differentiation and Polarisation
  • Pro-School subcultures
  • Anti-school (or counter-school) subcultures =
  • Between pro and anti-school subcultures: a range of responses

Evaluations of in-school processes

  • Determinism (labelling)
  • Evidence based on micro processes (generaliseablity?)
  • Out of school more important (90% of the difference)

 

Selected concepts and research studies you need to know
·         Labelling theory and the self-fulfilling prophecy

·         Banding and Streaming

·         Subcultures

·         The Hidden Curriculum

·         School Ethos

·         Educational Triage

·         Deterministic

·         Gilborn and Youdell

·         However Becker

·         Stephen Ball

·         Rosenthal and Jacobson

·         Paul Willis

Selected short answer questions
Outline three ways in which the curriculum might be ethnocentric (6)

Outline two criticisms of labelling theory (4)

Using material from item A, analyse two ways in which the hidden curriculum may disadvantage working class students (10)

Selected Essay Questions

Evaluate the view that it is mainly in-school processes which explain differential education achievement across different groups in society (30)

Research Studies on In-School Processes

You are expected to be able to cite named research when looking at ‘in school processes’ in an essay – below are some studies we’ve looked at already, you should know these….

Research on Teacher Labelling and pupil responses

 

1.    Howard Becker – Labelling and the Ideal Pupil

2.    Rosenthal and Jacobsen – The Self Fulfilling Prophecy (p104)

3.    David Gilborn and Cecile Wright – Found that teachers had ‘racialised expectations’ (in ethnicity hand-out

4.    Heidi Mirza (p119)  – found that there were’ three types’ of teacher racism…. And that black girls had to adopt particular strategies for dealing with this

5.    Research has also shown that teachers label boys and girls differently…. (in gender hand-out)

6.    NB – Margaret Fuller (p118) – found that not all pupils accept their labels

 

Research on Peer Pressure and Pupil Subcultures

 

7.    Paul Willis – The Counter School Culture

8.    Mac an Ghail – found there were a variety of ‘class based subcultures’… (in class hand-out)

9.    Becky Francis – found that boys were more likely to adopt ‘laddish subcultures’ (in gender hand-out)

10. Louis Archer also found that working class girls’ ‘style subcultures’ can come into conflict with the school….(in gender hand-out)

11. Tony Sewell – notes that although there is a distinct ‘anti-school culture’ amongst some African- Caribbean boys, but there are also a wider variety of African- Caribbean subcultures (p119)

 

 

Research on Banding and Streaming
1.    Stephen Ball’s 1960s work on banding in beachside comprehensive showed that…. (class hand-out

2.    Gilborn and Youdell Found that there is an ‘A-C Economy’…. (ethnicity hand-out)

 

Research on School Ethos and the Hidden Curriculum
1.    Feminists argue that Gender Regimes still exist…(this and below both in gender hand-out

2.    School Ethos can have an effect on how boys express their masculinity – independent schools tend to have fewer problems with laddish subcultures than schools in poorer areas…

3.    Stephen Strand argued that ‘institutional racism’ exists in schools

 

Labelling Theory of Crime – A Summary

People do not become criminals because of their social background, crime emerges because of labelling by authorities. Crime is the product of interactions between certain individuals and the police, rather than social background.

NB these are very brief summary notes, for a much more in-depth post on everything below please see my main post on the labelling theory of crime.

Crime is Sociology Constructed

  • There is no such thing as an inherently deviance act

  • Howard Becker (1963) “Deviancy is not a quality of the act a person commits, but rather a consequences of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an ‘offender’.”

  • Becker – The Outsiders – Malinowski – Incest example

  • Applies to drugs – compare illegal ‘legal’ highs UK to legal weed in Colorado

Not everyone who is deviant gets labelled as such

  • Whether an actor is labelled as deviant depends on: their interactions with the police, their background/ appearance, the circumstances of the offence.

  • negative labels (deviant/ criminal) are generally given to the powerless by the powerful.

  • Cicourel – first stage – working class kids more likely to be labelled as deviant by police; second stage – more likely to be prosecuted by courts, most of this is based on appearance and language, not the deviant act.

Labelling has real consequences – it can lead to deviancy amplification, the self-fulfilling prophecy and deviant careers

  • Lemert – primary and secondary deviance

  • Becker – labelling, the deviant career and the master status

  • Labelling theory applied to education – the self-fulfilling prophecy

  • Moral panics, folk devils and deviancy amplification

Labelling theory should promote policies that prevent labelling minor acts as deviant

  • Decriminalisation (of drugs for example)

  • Reintegrative shaming to label the act, not the criminal.

Evaluations

Positive

Negative

Labelling theory emphasises the following:

– That the law is not ‘set in stone’ – it is actively constructed and changes over time

– That law enforcement is often discriminatory

– That we cannot trust crime statistics

– That attempts to control crime can backfire and may make the situation worse

– That agents of social control may actually be one of the major causes of crime, so we should think twice about giving them more power.

– It tends to be determinstic, not everyone accepts their labels

– It assumes offenders are just passive – it doesn’t recognise the role of personal choice in committing crime

– It gives the offender a ‘victim status’ – Realists argue that this perspective actually ignores the actual victims of crime.

– It tends to emphasise the negativesides of labelling rather than the positive side

– It fails to explain why acts of primary deviance exist, focussing mainly on secondary deviance.

– Structural sociologists argue that there are deeper, structural explanations of crime, it isn’t all just a product of labelling and interactions.

The Labelling Theory of Crime

Labelling theory argues that criminal and deviant acts are a result of labelling by authorities – and the powerless are more likely to be negatively labelled.

The labelling Theory of Crime is associated with Interactionism – the Key ideas are that crime is socially constructed, agents of social control label the powerless as deviant and criminal based on stereotypical assumptions and this creates effects such as the self-fulfilling prophecy, the criminal career and deviancy amplification.

Interactionists argue that people do not become criminals because of their social background, but rather argue that crime emerges because of labelling by authorities. They see crime as the product of micro-level interactions between certain individuals and the police, rather than the result of external social forces such as socialisation or blocked opportunity structures.

mind map summarising labelling theory of crime

The idea of reflexivity is central to labelling theory. People define themselves differently in different situations. 

Howard Becker’s The Outsiders : becoming a marihuana user is one of the classic texts within labelling theory. This explores how becoming a marijuana user is a tentative process developing stage by stage. The user has to satisfactorily learn, master and interpret techniques, neutralise negative moral images of use and user and succeed in disguising signs of use in the presence of those who might disapprove. 

Deviance is seen a moral career consisting of interlocking phases, each has different problems and opportunities, different actors, and each phase is contingent, never inevitable or irreversible. 

Naming, or labelling is crucial to the process of an individual recognising themselves as a deviant or criminal. 

Four Key concepts associated with Interactionist theories of deviance

  1. Crime is Sociology Constructed – An act which harms an individual or society else only becomes criminal if those in power label that act as criminal.
  2. Not everyone who is deviant gets labelled as such – negative labels are generally (deviant/ criminal) are generally given to the powerless by the powerful.
  3. Labelling has real consequences – it can lead to deviancy amplification, the self-fulfilling prophecy and deviant careers.
  4. Labelling theory has a clear ‘value position’ – it should aim to promote policies that prevent labelling minor acts as deviant.

Crime is Socially Constructed

Rather than taking the definition of crime for granted, labelling theorists are interested in how certain acts come to be defined or labelled as criminal in the first place.

Interactionists argue that there is no such thing as an inherently deviant act – in other words there is nothing which is deviant in itself in all situations and at all times, certain acts only become deviant in certain situations when others label them as deviant. Deviance is not a result of an act or an individual being ‘uniquely different’, deviance is a product of society’s reaction to actions.

As Howard Becker* (1963) puts it – “Deviancy is not a quality of the act a person commits, but rather a consequences of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an ‘offender’. Deviant behaviour is behaviour that people so label.”

Howard Becker - labelling theorist
Howard Becker – One of the main theorists within Interactionism.

Howard Becker illustrates how crime is the product of social interactions by using the example of a fight between young people. In a low-income neighbourhood, a fight is more likely to be defined by the police as evidence of delinquency, but in a wealthy area as evidence of high spirits. The acts are the same, but the meanings given to them by the audience (in this case the public and the police) differ. Those who have the power to make the label stick thus create deviants or criminals.

Becker provides a more extreme example in his book The Outsiders (1963) – in this he draws on a simple illustration of a study by anthropologist Malinowski who describes how a youth killed himself because he hand been publicly accused of incest. When Malinowski had first inquired about the case, the islanders expressed their horror and disgust. But, on further investigation, it turned out that incest was not uncommon on the island, nor was it really frowned upon provided those involved were discrete. However, if an incestuous affair became too obvious and public, the islanders reacted with abuse and the offenders were ostracised and often driven to suicide.

To be clear – in the above example, everyone knows that incest goes on, but if people are too public about it (and possibly if they are just disliked for whatever reason) they get publicly shamed for being in an incestuous relationship.

You could apply the same thinking to criminal behaviour more generally in Britain – According to a recent 2015 survey of 2000 people, the average person in Britain breaks the law 17 ties per year, with 63% admitting speeding, 33% steeling and 25% taking illegal drugs – clearly the general public is tolerant of ‘ordinary’ deviance – but every now and then someone will get spotted doing ‘ordinary’ criminal activities and publicly shamed.

labelling theory and drugs

All of this has led labelling theorists to look at how and why rules and laws get made – especially the role of what Becker calls ‘moral entrepreneurs’, people who lead a moral crusade to change the law in the belief that it will benefit those to whom it is applied. However, according to Interactionists, when new laws are created, they simply create new groups of outsiders and lead to the expansion of social control agencies such as the police, and such campaigns may do little to change the underlying amount of ‘deviant activity’ taking place.

In summary – deviance is not a quality that lies in behaviour itself, but in the interaction between the person who commits an act and those who respond to it. From this point of view, deviance is produced by a process of interaction between the potential deviant and the wider public (both ordinary people and agencies of social control).

Application of the concept of ‘social constructionism’ to drug crime

Looking at how drug laws have changed over time, and how they vary from country to country to country is a very good way of looking at how the deviant act of drug-taking is socially constructed…

In the United Kingdom, a new law was recently passed which outlawed all legal highs, meaning that many ‘head-shops’ which sold them literally went from doing something legal to illegal over night (obviously they had plenty of notice!)

Meanwhile – in some states in America, such as Colorado, things seem to be moving in the other direction – it is now legal to grow, sell and smoke Weed – meaning that a whole new generation of weed entrepreneurs have suddenly gone from doing something illegal to something legal, and profitable too!

NB – There’s a lot more information about the social construction of drug use out there – think about the difference between coffee, nicotine, alcohol (all legal) and cannabis. 

Discussion Question

Do you agree with the idea that there is no such thing as an inherently deviance act? Work your way through the list of deviance acts below and try to think of contexts in which they would not be regarded as deviant.

  • Violence
  • Theft
  • Fraud
  • Drug taking
  • Public nudity
  • Paedophilia
  • Vandalism

Not Everyone Who is Deviant Gets Labelled

Those in Power are just as deviant/ criminal as actual ‘criminals’ but they are more able to negotiate themselves out of being labelled as criminals.

NB to my mind the classic song by NWA ‘Fuck Tha Police’ is basically highlighting the fact that it’s young black males in the US that typically get labelled as criminals (while young white kids generally don’t)

Back to Labelling theory proper – the key idea here is that not everyone who commits an offence is punished for it. Whether a person is arrested, charged and convicted depends on factors such as:

  1. Their interactions with agencies of social control such as the police and the courts
  2. Their appearance, background and personal biography
  3. The situation and circumstances of the offence.

This leads labelling theorists to look at how laws are applied and enforced. Their studies show that agencies of social control are more likely to label certain groups of people as deviant or criminal.

The main piece of sociological research relevant here is Aaron Cicourel’s ‘Power and The Negotiation of Justice’ (1968)

Aaron Cicourel – Power and the negotiation of justice

The process of defining a young person as a delinquent is complex, and it involves a series of interactions based on sets of meanings held by the participants. Cicourel argues that it is the meanings held by police officers and juvenile officers that explain why most delinquents come from working class backgrounds.

The first stage is the decision by the police to stop and interrogate an individual. This decision is based on meanings held by the police of what is ‘strange’, ‘unusual’ and ‘wrong’. Whether or not the police stop and interrogate an individual depends on where the behaviour is taking place and on how the police perceive the individual(s). Whether behaviour is deemed to be ‘suspicious’ will depend on where the behaviour is taking place, for example an inner city, a park, a suburb. If a young person has a demeanour like that of a ‘typical delinquent’ then the police are more likely to both interrogate and arrest that person.

The second stage is that the young person is handed over to a juvenile delinquent officer. This officer will have a picture of a ‘typical delinquent’ in his mind. Factors associated with a typical delinquent include being of dishevelled appearance, having poor posture, speaking in slang etc. It follows that Cicourel found that most delinquents come from working class backgrounds.

When middle class delinquents are arrested they are less likely to be charged with the offence as they do not fit the picture of a ‘typical delinquent’. Also, their parents are more able to present themselves as respectable and reasonable people from a nice neighbourhood and co-operate fully with the juvenile officers, assuring them that their child is truly remorseful.

As a result, the middle class delinquent is more likely to be defined as ill rather than criminal, as having accidentally strayed from the path of righteousness just the once and having a real chance of reforming.

Cicourel based his research on two Californian cities, each with a population of about 100, 000. both had similar social characteristics yet there was a significant difference in the amount of delinquents in each city. Cicourel argued that this difference can only be accounted for by the size, organisation, policies and practices of the juvenile and police bureaus. It is the societal reaction that affects the rate of delinquency. It is the agencies of social control that produce delinquents.

Discussion Questions

Q1 – Do you agree that the whole criminal justice system is basically biased against the working classes, and towards to middle classes?

Q2 – From a research methods point of view, what research methods could you use to test this theory?

The Consequences of Labelling

Labelling theorists are interested in the effects of labelling on those labelled. They claim that by labelling certain people as criminal or deviant society actually encourages them to become more so.

In this section I cover:

  • Primary and Secondary Deviance (Edwin Lemert)
  • The Deviant Career, the Master Status and Subcultures (Howard Becker)
  • Labelling and the Self-Fulling Prophecy applied to education (Howard Becker and Rosenthal and Jacobson)
  • Labelling theory applied to the Media – Moral Panics, Folk Devils and Deviancy Amplification (Stan Cohen)

If the material below seems a little samely – that’s because it’s all subtle variations on the same theme!

Primary and Secondary Deviance

Many deviant acts are not witnessed. When people are witnessed they can usually resist attempts to avoid being defined as a deviant. (Most of us do this all the time, resisting advertising for example). However there are special occasions when the ability of the self to resist such definitions is circumscribed. Most fateful may be an encounter with formal agents of social control, because criminal justice agents work with the full power of the state. 

In such meetings, criminals and deviants are forced to confront their own primary deviance (and others fleeting and insubstantial reactions) BUT ALSO content publicly with the formal reaction of others.  Then deviance becomes a response to a response, it is secondary

“When a person begins to employ his deviant behaviour as a role based upon it as a means of defence, attack, or adjustment to the overt and covert problems created by the consequent societal reaction to him, his deviation is secondary.” Lemur 1951, 76.

What is significant about secondary deviance is that it may also incorporate the myths, professional knowledge, stereotypes and working assumptions of the professionals and lay people who have interactions with the actual or alleged rule-breakers. Thus labelled drug users and mental patients may be obliged to organise their significant gestures and character around the public symbols and interpretations of their behaviour. 

Thus public response and measures of control come to be written into the fabric of their identities. 

Secondary deviance can also entail confrontations with new obstacles that foreclose future choices. For example Gary Marx (1988) lists a number of ironic consequences of undercover policing. 

  • Generating a market for illegal goods
  • Provision of motives for illegal actions
  • Entrapping people
  • Retaliatory action against informants 

And once labelled it becomes more difficult for the deviant to slip back into ordinary life. 

Edwin Lemert’s study of the Coastal Inuit

Edwin Lemert (1972) developed the concepts of primary and secondary deviance to emphasise the fact that everyone engages in deviant acts, but only some people are caught being deviant and labelled as deviant.

Primary deviance refers to acts which have not been publicly labelled, and are thus of little consequence, while secondary deviance refers to deviance which is the consequence of the response of others, which is significant.

To illustrate this, Lemert studied the the coastal Inuit of Canada, who had a long-rooted problem of chronic stuttering or stammering. Lemert suggested that the problem was ’caused’ by the great importance attached to ceremonial speech-making. Failure to speak well was a great humiliation. Children with the slightest speech difficulty were so conscious of their parents’ desire to have well-speaking children that they became over anxious about their own abilities. It was this anxiety which lead to chronic stuttering.

Lemert compared the coastal Inuit which emphasised the importance of public speaking to other similar cultures in the area which did not attach status to public-speaking, and found that in such culture, stuttering was largely non-existence, thus Lemert concluded that it was the social pressure to speak well (societal reaction) which led to some people developing problems with stuttering

In this example, chronic stuttering (secondary deviance) is a response to parents’ reaction to initial minor speech defects (primary deviance).

Labelling, The Deviant Career and the Master Status

This is Howard Becker’s classic statement of how labelling theory can be applied across the whole criminal justice system to demonstrated how criminals emerge, possibly over the course of many years. Basically the public, the police and the courts selectively label the already marginalised as deviant, which the then labelled deviant responds to by being more deviant.

Howard Becker argued that the deviant label can become a ‘master status’ in which the individual’s deviant identity overrules all other identities. Becker argues that there are 5 stages in this process:

  1. The Individual is publicly labelled as a deviant, which may lead to rejection from several social groups. For example, if someone is labelled a junkie they may be rejected by their family.
  2. This may encourage further deviance. For example, drug addicts may turn to crime to finance their habit.
  3. The official treatment of deviance may have similar effects. EG convicted criminals find it difficult to find jobs.
  4. A deviant career may emerge. The deviant career is completed when individuals join an organised deviant group. This is the stage when an individual confirms and accepts their deviant identity. 
  5. This is the stage at which the label may become a master status, overriding all other forms of relationship outside the deviant group. 

Labelling Theory Applied to Education

Labelling theory has been applied to the context of the school to explain differences in educational achievement (this should sound familiar from year 1!)

Within Schools, Howard Becker (1970) argued that middle class teachers have an idea of an ‘ideal pupil’ that is middle class. This pupil speaks in elaborated speech code, is polite, and smartly dressed, He argued that middle class teachers are likely view middle class pupils more positively than working class pupils irrespective of their intelligence. Thus teachers positively label the students most like them.

There is also evidence of a similar process happening with African Caribbean children. Sociologists such as David Gilborn argue that teachers hold negative stereotypes of young black boys, believing them to be more threatening and aggressive than White and Asian children. They are thus more likely to interpret minor rule breaking by black children in a more serious manner than when White and Asian children break minor rules.

Rosenthal and Jacobsen (1968) argued that positive teacher labelling can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy in which the student believes the label given to them and the label becomes true in practise. They concluded this on the basis of a classic ‘Field Experiment’ to test the effects of teacher labels, which consisted of the following:

  • Stage one – tested the IQ (intelligence) of all pupils in the school 
  • Stage two – gave teachers a list of the top 20% most intelligent pupils. However, this list was actually just a random selection of student names
  • Stage three –One year later those students who teachers believed to be the most intelligent had improved the most. 
  • Stage four –Concluded that high teacher expectation had resulted in improvement (= the self-fulfilling prophecy)

For a more in-depth post on the material in this section you might like: Teacher Labelling and the Self Fulfilling Prophecy.

Labelling Theory Applied to the Media

Key Terms: Moral Panics, Folk Devils and The Deviancy Amplification Spiral

Labelling theory has been applied to the representation of certain groups in the mainstream media – Interactionists argue that the media has a long history of exaggerating the deviance of youth subcultures in particular, making them seem more deviant than they actually are, which creates a ‘moral panic’ among the general public, which in turn leads to the authorities clamping down on the activities of those subcultures, and finally to the individuals within those subcultures responding with more deviance.

A moral panic is “an exaggerated outburst of public concern over the morality or behaviour of a group in society.” Deviant subcultures have often been the focus of moral panics. According to Interactionists, the Mass Media has a crucial role to play in creating moral panics through exaggerating the extent to which certain groups and turning them into ‘Folk Devils’ – people who are threatening to public order.

In order for a moral panic to break out, the public need to believe what they see in the media, and respond disproportionately, which could be expressed in heightened levels of concern in opinion polls or pressure groups springing up that campaign for action against the deviants. The fact that the public are concerned about ‘youth crime’ suggest they are more than willing to subscribe to the media view that young people are a threat to social order.

The final part of a moral panic is when the authorities respond to the public’s fear, which will normally involve tougher laws, initiatives and sentencing designed to prevent and punish the deviant group question.

The term ‘moral panic’ was first used in Britain by Stan Cohen in a classic study of two youth subcultures of the 1960s – ‘Mods’ and ‘Rockers’. Cohen showed how the media, for lack of other stories exaggerated the violence which sometimes took place between them. The effect of the media coverage was to make the young people categorise themselves as either mods or rockers which actually helped to create the violence that took place between them, which further helped to confirm them as violent in the eyes of the general public.

Find out More: Moral Panics and the Media.

Labelling and Criminal Justice Policy

Labelling theory believes that deviance is made worse by labelling and punishment by the authorities, and it follows that in order to reduce deviance we should make fewer rules for people to break, and have less-serious punishments for those that do break the rules.An example of an Interactionist inspired policy would be the decriminalisation of drugs.

According to Interactionist theory, decriminalisation should reduce the number of people with criminal convictions and hence the risk of secondary deviance, an argument which might make particular sense for many drugs offences because these are often linked to addiction, which may be more effectively treated medically rather than criminally. (The logic here is that drug-related crime isn’t intentionally nasty, drug-addicts do it because they are addicted, hence better to treat the addiction rather than further stigmatise the addict with a criminal label).

Similarly, labelling theory implies that we should avoid ‘naming and shaming’ offenders since this is likely to create a perception of them as evil outsiders and, by excluding them from mainstream society, push them into further deviance.

Reintegrative Shaming

Most interactionist theory focuses on the negative consequences of labelling, but John Braithwaite (1989) identifies a more positive role for the labelling process. He distinguishes between two types of shaming:

  • Disintegrative shaming where not only the crime, but also the criminal, is labelled as bad and the offender is excluded from society.
  • Reintegrative shaming by contrast labels the act, but not the actor – as if to say ‘he has done a bad thing’ – rather an ‘he is a bad person’. 

A policy of reintegrative shaming avoids stigmatising the offender as evil while at the same time making them aware of the negative impact of their actions on others. Victims are encouraged to forgive the person, but not the act, and the offender is welcomed back into the community, thus avoiding the negative consequences associated with secondary deviance.

Braithwaite argues that crime rates are lower where policies of reintegrative shaming are employed.

Evaluation of Labelling Theory

Labelling theory emphasises the following

  • That the law is not ‘set in stone’ – it is actively constructed and changes over time
  • That law enforcement is often discriminatory
  • That we cannot trust crime statistics
  • That attempts to control crime can backfire and may make the situation worse
  • That agents of social control may actually be one of the major causes of crime, so we should think twice about giving them more power.

Criticisms of Labelling Theory

  • It tends to be deterministic, not everyone accepts their labels
  • It assumes offenders are just passive – it doesn’t recognise the role of personal choice in committing crime
  • It gives the offender a ‘victim status’ – Realists argue that this perspective actually ignores the actual victims of crime.
  • It tends to emphasise the negative sides of labelling rather than the positive side
  • It fails to explain why acts of primary deviance exist, focussing mainly on secondary deviance.
  • Structural sociologists argue that there are deeper, structural explanations of crime, it isn’t all just a product of labelling and interactions.

Revision Bundle for Sale

If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my Crime and Deviance Revision Bundle

picture of crime and deviance revision bundle for A-level sociology.

It contains

  • 12 exam practice questions including short answer, 10 mark and essay question exemplars.
  • 32 pages of revision notes covering the entire A-level sociology crime and deviance specification
  • Seven colour mind maps covering sociological perspective on crime and deviance

Written specifically for the AQA sociology A-level specification.

Signposting/ Related Posts

My main page of links to crime and deviance posts.

The labelling theory of crime was initially a reaction against consensus theories of crime, such as subcultural theory 

Labelling theory is one of the major in-school processes which explains differential educational achievement – see here for in-school processes in relation to class differences in education.

Labelling Theory is related to Interpretivism in that it focuses on the small-scale aspects of social life.

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

 

Ethnicity and Differential Educational Achievement: In School Processes

In school factors include teacher labelling, pupil subcultures, the A-C economy, the ethnocentric curriculum and institutional racism.

In school process which may explain differential educational achievement by ethnicity include:

  • Teacher labelling which can be both positive and negative (high and low expectations depending on the ethnic group)
  • Pupil reactions to teacher labelling and pupil subcultures.
  • Banding and Streaming, with some minority pupils being overrepresented in lower sets.
  • The Ethnocentric Curriculum where what is taught in schools marginalises ethnic minorities.
  • Institutional Racism, where Racism is endemic at the level of policy.

Some people might regard racist banding and streaming and the ethnocentric curriculum as part of Institutional Racism, it’s just a matter of how you define it!

As a general rule Chinese and Indian students achieve the highest in education, and most ethnic minority groups achieve at a similar level to White children, with the exception of Black Caribbean students and Gypsy-Roma students.

This post provides an overview of the statistics on achievement by ethnicity.

Teacher labelling

Teacher pupil relationships may explain some of the differences in educational achievement by ethnicity, and since it is teachers who have the power in school, teacher labelling is something we need to consider.

There are a number of classic research studies which have found evidence of teacher labelling of ethnic minorities based on ethnic stereotypes…

Cecile Wright: labelling in primary schools

Cecile Wright (1992) Found that teachers perceived ethnic minority children differently from white children. Asian children were seen as a problem that could be ignored, receiving the least attention and often being excluded from classroom discussion and rarely asked to answer questions.

Teachers assumed their command of the English language was poor but they were highly disciplined and well motivated. African Caribbean children were expected to behave badly and received considerable attention, nearly always negative. They were seen as aggressive and disruptive. They were often singled out for criticism even in action ignored in other children.

David Gilborn: African-Caribbean children as a threat

David Gilborn (1990) Found that while the vast majority of teachers tried to treat all students fairly, they tended to see African-Caribbean children as a threat when no threat was intended and reacted accordingly with measures of control. Despite the fact that teachers rejected racism their ethnocentric perceptions meant that their actions were racist in consequence.

African-Caribbean children experienced more conflict in relationships with pupils, were more subjected to the schools detention system and were denied any legitimate voice of complaint.

Tony Sewell: Teachers threatened by Black masculinities

Tony Sewell (Black Masulinities and Schooling, 1996): Sewell was primarily interested in the experiences of black boys in education and he found that some black students were disciplined excessively by teachers who felt threatened by these students’ masculinity, sexuality and physical prowess because they had been socialised into racist attitudes. He also found that the boys in the study found that their culture received little or no positive recognition in the school.

NB: Tony Sewell ultimately holds black boys themselves responsible for their underachievement: it is their negative attitudes to schools that are mostly to blame in his opinion, but he does at least recognise that negative teacher labelling doesn’t help!

Connolly: Stereotyping of Asian students

Connolly (1998) found that teachers generally had (stereotypical) high expectations that South Asian British boys would perform well in school and if they were deviant they interpreted this behaviour as immature rather than deliberately disruptive. They were thus not punished to the extent that Black British boys were.

Connolly also found that while Asian girls were generally successful in the education system, teachers tended to overlook them in class discussions because they held stereotypical assumptions about them being passive and reluctant to discuss issues relating to family life and gender roles specifically.

Do teachers label ethnic minorities today?

Many of the above research studies are now 30 years old and focus on labelling of black-boys. There is much less evidence that teachers negatively label black boys today. Moreover black African boys to better than white boys in school and black Caribbean boys have been closing the gap, so it’s unlikely that teacher labelling can play a role in explaining differential educational achievement.

PREVENT policy and labelling

Since 2015 PREVENT policy has required teachers to monitor extremist behaviour in schools to prevent students becoming terrorists. There is some evidence that teachers have labelled the behaviour of Muslim children as indicating they are being radicalised into extremist views.

For example in one case a Muslim child was referred to authorities because he asked how to make a bomb in a physics class, whereas the same treatment didn’t happen to white children. If a child is passed onto authorities for invasive questioning about radicalisation it could have a negative impact on their attitude towards school.

Also PREVENT doesn’t specify that Muslim children should be targeted (rather than say White extremists) but it is Muslims who make up the majority of referrals under PREVENT, suggesting racist labelling is occurring.

However, statistically this kind of labelling probably doesn’t affect the achievement of Muslim students who are mainly of Pakistanis and Bangladeshi origin, as overall the achievement of both these groups has been improving.

Chinese students labelled as hyper-achievers

Chinese students may well be disadvantaged by teachers labelling them as hyper-achievers (3).

Either they are perceived by teachers as valuing education, spurred on by pushy parents, which puts added pressure on them to perform, or teachers think they work too hard, meaning they are unlikely to be pushed while some of them may need just that. Either way the ‘hyper-achiever’ label given to Chinese students may not benefit them!

Pupil Subcultures

Some (now quite dated) participant observation research has found that anti-school subcultures among black boys may be responsible for their historic underachievement .

Some of the research below sees the emergence of subcultures as a response to teacher labelling and so the two factors: teacher labelling and collective pupil responses may work together.

Tony Sewell: A culture of anti-school black masculinity

Tony Sewell (1997) observes that Black Caribbean boys may experience considerable pressure by their peers to adopt the norms of an ‘urban’ or ‘street’ subculture. More importance is given to unruly behaviour with teachers and antagonistic behaviour with other students than to high achievement or effort to succeed, particularly at secondary school.

According to Sewell, among many black boys, academic success is associated with femininity and success may mark them out for bullying from their peers whereas academic failure is seen as a badge of honour.

Fordham and Ogbu (1986) further argue that notions of ‘acting White’ or ‘acting Black’ become identified in opposition to one another. Hence because acting White includes doing well at school, acting Black necessarily implies not doing well in school.

Mac an Ghail: Young, Gifted and Black

Mac an Ghail (1998) Young, Gifted and Black – Mac an Ghail was a teacher in two inner city colleges. He looked at three subcultures – the Asian Warriors, the African- Caribbean Rasta Heads and the Black Sisters. He used mainly participant observation both in the school and through befriending the students and socialising with them outside of the school.

What he found was that the African Caribbean community experienced the world in very different ways to white people – namely because of institutional racism in the college and he argued that any anti-school attitudes were reactions against this racism. He mainly blamed the school rather than the students for this.

Mirza: Black Girls’ Responses to Teacher Labelling

Mirza (992) found that teachers had stereotypically low expectations of black girls and thus didn’t push them too hard in lessons and entered them for lower tier exams.

The black girls Mirza studied did value education and wanted to work hard and do well, but they responded negatively to their teacher’s negative labelling by outwardly appearing to not care about school and care more about appearance.

This ultimately meant they were less likely to ask for help in lessons, less likely to get it and thus this reaction harmed their achievement.

Banding and Streaming

The organisation of teacher learning at the level of school may disadvantaged some ethnic minority groups.

Steve Strand (2012) Used data from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE) and found that African Caribbean pupils did worse than their white peers in education even when we control for socio-economic disadvantage and cultural factors in the family.

Strand suggested that the higher exclusion rates of Black Caribbean students could explain some of the difference, as could the fact that they were more likely to have SEN statements, but this still didn’t explain all of the difference.

He noted that Black Caribbean students were less likely to be put into higher sets/ bands/ streams than their white peers and less likely to be entered for higher tier exams, and it is teachers who make decisions about banding and streaming and so ultimately teacher labelling is to blame here.

The Ethnocentric Curriculum

The ethnocentric curriculum is where the range and content of subjects taught in schools as part of the formal curriculum are biased towards the majority ethnic group and marginalise minority ethnic groups. In the case of the curriculum in English schools an ethnocentric curriculum would have a focus on White British culture and less of a focus on Black and Asian cultures.

Historically the Swann Report (1985) criticised the curriculum for being ethnocentric. Historical examples of the ethnocentric curriculum include:

  • British history being taught from the European point of view, possibly even putting a postive spin on colonialism.
  • White European languages such as French being taught as the main language subjects rather than Asian or African languages.
  • Symbolic annihilation of White and Asian people through their under-representation in textbooks.
  • Assemblies having a Christian focus, as well as the school holidays (Easter and Christmas).

However, the above examples are historic and you need to ask yourself whether the curriculum today is actually ethnocentric. A much higher proportion of pupils today are Black and Asian and schools have made progress towards making their curriculums more multicultural.

One example of this is the requirement by OFSTED that schools actively promote cultural diversity, and one visible manifestation of this is Black History Month.

Having said this some relatively recent research by Tikly et al (2006) studied 30 comprehensive schools and found that Asian students felt relatively invisible in the Curriculum.

Institutional Racism

Below is a summary of some of the evidence that suggests schools may be institutionally racist. For a more in-dept look at the issue please see this post: Are Schools Institutionally Racist?

When we step back and take a look at the statistics we find that Black Caribbean students are:

  • two and a half times more likely to be permanently excluded than White children.
  • more like to be identified with behavioural related special needs
  • less likely to be identified as gifted and talented
  • more likely to be put into lower sets.

Taken together these statistics may raise our suspicions about whether schools are institutionally racist, and there have been some sociologists who have argued that they are.

Exclusion Rates by Ethnicity

The permanent exclusion (2) rates for Black Caribbean and mixed White Black/ Caribbean are two and half times higher than for White children. The respective exclusion rates are:

  • 2.5 children per 10 000 Black Caribbean pupils
  • 2.4 children per 10 000 mixed Black Caribbean and White pupils
  • 1 child per 10 000 White pupils.

Gypsy and Roma children have the highest exclusion rates of all minority groups with 3.9 children per 10 000 pupils being permanently excluded, four times as many exclusions compared to White children.

But in order to find out whether these statistics reflect institutional racism we would need to look more at the specific cases to see if there is differential treatment leading up to the exclusions for different ethnic groups.

Racism in Banding and Streaming

Gilborn and Youdell (1999) analysed statistics on banding and streaming by ethnicity. They found that Black-Caribbean students were less likely to be put in higher sets even if they had the ability to be there.

This meant Black-African children were disproportionately represented in lower sets in relation to their ability, which meant they weren’t pushed as hard and were not entered for higher tiered exam papers which ultimately meant lower GCSE results.

Experiences of Racism among pupils

Crozier (2004) found that Pakistani pupils ‘keep to themselves’ in school because they feel excluded by their white peers and marginalized by the school practices. Pakistani and Bangladeshi pupils had experienced the following – Anxieties about their safety; Racist abuse was a lived experience of their schooling; Careers advisors at school believed South Asian girls were bound by tradition and it was a waste of time advising them; Not being allowed off during Ramadan; Not feeling that assemblies were relevant.

More recently, surveys conducted by Human Rights Watch found that 60% of Muslim students feel alienated by the way PREVENT polices are implemented in schools. They felt as if they couldn’t freely discuss politics or religion in classes because PREVENT was being interpreted through and Islamophobic lens.

Institutional Racism in University Entry?

Tariq Modood (2005) says – If we look at the best universities Whites are more likely to get an offer than other identical candidates. For example, while a White student has a 75% chance of receiving an invitation to study, a Pakistani candidate, identical in every way, has only a 57% chance of an offer.

This post explores the concept of institutional racism in schools in more depth.

Signposting and related posts

This material is relevant to the Sociology of Education option, usually taught in the first year of A-level Sociology.

In-school factors are usually considered alongside home based cultural factors in explaining differential educational achievement by ethnicity.

Related posts are linked above in this post and via the education page.

Sources

(1) The Swann Report (1985) – Education For All.

(2) GOV UK (Accessed January 2023) Permanent Exclusions.

(3) Francis et Al (2010) The Construction of British-Chinese Educational Success

Some material in this post was adapted from Chapman et al (2015) Sociology: AQA A-Level Year 1 and AS.