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 Functionalist and New Right views of the role and purpose of
education
Functionalists
...
Therefore like the family, education is seen as functional
prerequisite because it passes on the culture of a society particularly its core values
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Parsons – Secondary Socialisation & Meritocracy – Functionalist; education is a key
component of the social body, just like the heart is integral to the functioning of the human
body, education is fundamental to the health of the social body
...


Evaluation
...
For example achievement
is greatly influenced by class background rather that ability herby creating the ‘myth of meritocracy’
...
The interactionist Dennis Wong 1961 argues that functionalist have an ‘over-socialised’
view of people as mere puppets of society
...
Unlike Davis and Moore
...
This is
because state control of education discourages efficiency, competition and choice
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Chubb and Moe – Consumer Choice – New Right; Removing guaranteed funding from
school and granting vouchers to parents which in essence means schools only receive money
depending on the amount of pupils they have
...

Conservative View – Marketisation – New Right; some people are naturally more talented
than others
...
They believe the current education system doesn’t provide this as it is run by the state
which imposes a ‘one size fits all’ uniformity approach ignoring local needs
...


Evaluation
...
Other perspectives
also argue that the real cause of low educational standards is not social inequality and lack of state
funding to schools
...


 Marxist and other conflict views of the role and purpose of
education: Social control, correspondence theory, ideology,
hegemony; ‘deschoolers’ (Illlich, Friere): socialisation into conformity
by coercion
...



Bowles and Gintis – Correspondence principle & Myth of meritocracy – Marxists;
argue that the schooling you get corresponds to your future role in production
...
There are close parallels between schooling and
working in a capitalist society
...
The
myth of meritocracy serves to justify the privileges of the higher classes, making it
seem that they gained them through open and fair competition
...




Althusser 1972 – Ideological State Apparatus – Marxists; argued that the
educational system was an 'ideological state apparatus' concerned with the cultural
reproduction of capitalism
...


Neo- Marxist
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'Learning to
Labour'
...


Evaluation
...
However post modernists criticise Bowles and Gintis’s
theory as the believe the work force is becoming increasingly diverse from the post-fordists era
which requires schools to produce a different kind of labour force who are self-motivated,
independent and diverse, education reproduces diversity not inequality
...
B&G thinks school brainwash capitalist values into pupils
passively while Willis thinks students actively accept and do not conform to school values however

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his study of 12 boys is likely to be unrepresentative
...


 Vocational education and training: the relationship between school
and work: human capital, training schemes
...
From a functionalist perspective, VET teaches individuals the
specialist skills they need to perform their role in the division of labour to meet society’s economic
needs
...
The
result has been a variety of schemes and course, including YTS, apprenticeships, NVQ and GNWQ
courses all designed to prepare young people for work
...

Evaluation
...
E
...
Phil Cohen argues YTS teaches
the attitudes and values of a subordinate work force and lowers their aspirations forcing them to
accept low paid work
...
Also instead of delivering a ‘high-wage/high-skill
society’ it forces the working class and ethnic minorities pursue courses which lead to low paid work
while middle-class students largely opt for academic courses
...


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Swann Report 1985 - Material Deprivation - Ethnicity; found that social and
economic factors were the most important explanations for some ethnic minority
groups failing in education
...

Modhood et al 1997 - Trends and Patterns - Ethnicity; Chinese, African Asians and
Indian groups were more qualified than whites
...
Bangladeshi and Pakistani women were the
least well qualified of all female groups and Bangladeshi, Pakistani and AfroCaribbean men were the least well qualified of all male ethnic groups
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Sutton Trust - Material Deprivation – Social Class - found a direct relationship
between free school meals and attainment
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5% of their intake eligible for free school meals
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Bourdieu – Cultural capital - Class Subcultures; the education system is biased
towards the MC
...
MC parents also carried cultural, economic and
educational capital themselves which not only allowed them to access the best
education for their kids but allow them to acquire the ability to grasp, analyse and
express abstract ideas
...
‘Privileged skills choosers’,
‘Disconnected-skilled choosers’ and ‘semi-skilled choosers’
...
WC lack both the understanding of the education system
as well as the money to move their kids around to the best schools
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Bernstein – Language Codes - Class Subcultures; Bernstein suggested that middle
class families were more likely to bring up their children to speak a language or
"code" which developed conceptual thought - he called this "Elaborated code" and
contrasted it with the limited vocabulary of the "Restricted code" of the working
class
...

Harker - Material Deprivation - Class Differences also found a relationship between
poor-quality housing and low attainment at school
...

Ridge – Material Deprivation – Class Differences – She found that the cost of items
such as transport, uniform, books, computers and equipment places a heavy burden
on poor families
...
Fear of stigmatisation also explains why 20% of those
eligible for free school meals don’t take up on their entitlement
...
MC
parents gave greater attention to children’s education than WC
...
The WC seen is
“culturally deprived”
...
Whereas MC children are more likely to stay in
education and attempt to get into universities
...
They also carry fatalistic values believing they are
powerless to change their status as well as believing being part of a group is more
important than the individual i
...
collectivism
...

•

Mitos and Browne – Female Overachievement – Gender - found the women’s
movement and feminism raised girls’ expectations and self-esteem the increasing
number of employment opportunities for women many girls mother are in paid
employment and act as positive role models for them girls’ priorities have changed:
Sue Sharpe ‘Just Like a Girl’ girls are better motivated and organised than boys girls at
16 are seen to be more mature than boys girls benefitted from introduction of
coursework in GCSEs/A-Levels national curriculum made more subjects compulsory
teachers less likely to gender stereotype girls into set roles or careers
...

•

•

•

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Mirza 1992 - Positive Discrimination - Ethnicity; Mirza found that negative labelling
did not necessarily lead to low self-esteem for ethnic minority students
...
Some teachers were
well meaning but paradoxically held back black girls by over compensating
Driver & Ballard 1981 - Family Life - Ethnicity; Suggest that the tight knit extended
families and high parental expectations amongst Asian communities are significant
factors in academic success
...

Lawrence - Parental Interest - Ethnicity; many Afro-Caribbean parents did take a
large interest in their children’s education and sent them to extra schooling sessions
on Saturday mornings
...
By contrast
black Caribbean culture is less cohesive and less resistant to racism so as a result have
low self-esteem and underachieve
...

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Smith and Tomlinson 1989 - Class Balance - Ethnicity; Argue that class background of
pupils was more important than ethnicity in explaining poor academic success
...

Bourdieu - Cultural Deprivation – Ethnicity; (the idea that working class and ethnic
minorities are deprived of the values needed for school success) has been cited as a
reason for the failure of some ethnic minorities
...

Gillborn and Mirza – Differences in Achievement - argue that social class factors do
not override the influence of ethnicity
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This is

•

particularly the case for black children, since even middle class black children do
comparatively poorly at GCSE
...
The
companies were more encouraging to the ‘white’ candidate which explains why
members of ethnic minorities are more likely to face unemployment and low pay
which in turn has a negative effect on their children’s prospects
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Lacey - Streaming and Setting - Class Subcultures; also studied a grammar school and
found out that streaming and setting has an effect even on students who are seen as
'clever'
...

Keddie - Streaming and Setting - Class Subcultures had also found that teachers
taught pupils in higher-streamed classes with far greater expectations than those in
lower streams; to the extent that lower streamed pupils were not given the depth of
knowledge needed to achieve at a higher level even if they wanted to
...
Acceptance of Inequality,
schools tend to band and set children into ability groups, this encourages a belief
amongst children that some people are better than others
...
School structures reinforce power hierarchies as the
norm for life and the workplace
...

Ball - Streaming and Setting - Class Subcultures; in "Beachside Comprehensive"
showed that teachers had lower expectations and therefore delivered less
challenging lessons to lower band pupils even within comprehensive schools
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 The ‘ideal pupil’; labelling; self-fulfilling prophecy
...
They then told
the teacher that 20% were potentially brighter than the others
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When the children were re-tested a year later
- these pupils had become the 'brightest'
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They saw MC
children as closer to ideal as they mostly conducted themselves better in class and
had a more positive attitude towards learning than WC children
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Evaluation
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Studies show self-fulfilling prophecy is particularly likely to occur when children are
streamed
...
Once streamed it is harder for them to move up to the higher streams meaning they
start to internalise the feeling of being ‘no hopers’ which thereby creates the self-fulfilling prophecy
...


 School subcultures (e
...
as described by Willis, Mac an Ghaill) related
to class, gender and ethnicity
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They
avoided teachers with particular reputations, kept their heads down in some lessons
and confided in other teachers whom they trusted
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Coard 1971 - Inferiority Complex - Ethnicity; He believed that schools made ethnic
minorities ‘feel inferior in every way’
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This all led to low self-esteem for ethnic minorities
...

Stanworth – Class subcultures – Girls Underachievement - found boys dominated
classroom interaction pushing girls to the margins which lowered their selfconfidence and made them feel less valued hence girls underestimating their ability
...
Streaming is a form of differentiation, polarisation however is
the process in which pupils respond by moving towards one of the two opposites
...
Forms close links with Willis’s study of the
‘lads’
...
Boys in lower streams where seen as triple
failures as they had failed their 11+, been placed in lower streams and being labelled
as ‘worthless louts’
...

Furlong – Variety of Responses – Subcultures – Pro and Anti school subcultures
aren’t the only two responses to labelling and streaming
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Fuller – Rejecting Labels – Ethnicity – A study of a London comprehensive shows how
instead of accepting negative stereotypes the girls channelled their anger about being
labelled into the pursuit of educational success
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Evaluation
...
Nevertheless the labelling theory has been
accused of determinism
...
However studies like Fuller show that this
isn’t always true
...
They argue labels aren’t merely a result of the teachers individual
prejudices but rather stem from the fact that teachers work for a system that reproduces class
divisions
...


 Teachers and the teaching hierarchy; teaching styles
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•

Spender – Teaching Styles – Girls Underachievement - found teachers gave priority
to boys giving the impression what girls said was less important
Forde – Peer influence- Boys Underachievement - boys are more likely to be
influenced by their male peer group which might devalue schoolwork and so put
them at odds with academic achievement
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 The curriculum, including student choice
...


•

Kelly – Lack of identity - Girls Underachievement - found science and the science
classroom remain ‘masculine’ environments with boys dominating science
classrooms, gender stereotyping in science classrooms as well as science text books
where women are largely invisible
Lobban – Gender Stereotypes - Girls Underachievement - found evidence of gender
stereotyping in children’s books with women occupying traditional roles
...
Over half (53%) of teachers felt
that that there was a difference between boys’ and girls’ ability to do coursework
...
Attentitativeness
and methodological working
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Boys choose graphics and girls
choose food tech
...
Vocational courses -vocational courses are more gender
segregated
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 Independent schools
...
For
example, they do not have to teach the ‘National Curriculum’, nor make their
students sits Standard Attainment Tests (SATS)
...
Moreover, resources and facilities are better than in some state schools
...
Whilst many
independent schools have an academic culture, in which academic achievement is
emphasised and examination results are extremely good
...


Evaluation
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The existence of private schools undermines the
principle of equality of educational opportunity, because social class backgrounds rather than simple
ability becomes the key to success in education
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The quality of teaching in independent
schools is no better than in state run comprehensives
...


 Selection; the tripartite system: reasons for its introduction, forms of
selection, entrance exams
...
Each child should be given equal chance to
succeed based on their ability, not their parents' ability to pay
...
Selection to schools was based on how well children achieved on
their 11+ test
...

However rather than promoting meritocracy, the tripartite system reproduced class inequality by
channelling the two social classes into two different types of school that offered unequal
opportunities
...
Also legitimized inequality through the ideology that
ability is inborn rather than the product of the child’s upbringing and environment
...


 Comprehensivisation: reasons for its introduction, debates as to its
success
...
The only restrictions are one of where you live; you
need to be in a particular catchment area in order to attend a particular school
...

Late developers can flourish in comprehensive schools better than in secondary moderns (schools
which those who failed the 11+ went to)
...

Gender no longer excluded, the abolishment of the tripartite system meant girls no longer had to
achieve higher than boys to go to some schools
...

True mixed ability teaching means classrooms are full of children of all abilities so weaker students
can learn from stronger ones
Setting and streaming within comprehensives allows students to move between sets or streams
depending on the changing abilities this makes for a more tailored education as well as allowing
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lower ability students to make better progress
They help create a common culture whereby one social group learns about the dynamics of another
and so helps pull down social barriers and so removing social-class barriers
Disadvantages
...

As comprehensive schools have such large intakes, it makes discipline more challenging in addition
the anonymity students feel in such large schools makes it difficult for teachers to get to know pupils
at an individual level
...


 Marketisation: the 1988 reforms – competition and choice; new
types of schools (CTCs, academies, specialist schools, growth of faith
schools)
...
Parents were now
also able to choose what comprehensive schools their kids went too
...

Despite the claimed benefits of marketisation, its critics argue that it has increased inequalities
between pupils as middle class parents are better placed to take advantage of the available choices
...
The funding formula also
means as lower schools attract less pupils, they get less money so are therefore less able to attract
the best teachers and attain better facilities causing them to be unsuccessful
...


 Recent policies in relation to the curriculum, testing and exam
reforms, league tables, selection, Special Educational Needs (SEN),
etc
...

Bartlett – Funding Formula – Marketisation leads to popular schools ‘creamskimming’; selecting higher ability pupils, who gain the best results and cost less to
teach
...
Unpopular schools lose income and find it difficult to match teacher skills and
facilities of their more successful rivals
...
Rather than reducing inequality this system gives advantage to middle class
parents as they are better places to take advantage of parental choice
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Sure Start – 2008 – Aim is to work with parents to promote the physical, intellectual
and social development of babies young children, particularly those who are
disadvantaged so they can flourish at home and in school and thereby break the cycle
of deprivation
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New Labour Policies – Increase in specialist schools which allowed schools to
promote its particular strength
...

Tuition Fees – 2011 – The increase in tuition fees have further marginalised the WC
from accessing higher education as the high costs of going to uni are often
unaffordable for the poor so they would much rather prefer getting into low paid
work immediately after secondary education, instead of taking the risk of higher
education
...

Whitty suggests EMAs encourage working class pupils to carry on education but they can’t get to uni
due to the high fees
...
Grammar and private schools also
still exist meaning not enough has being done to cure inequality as students from grammar and
private schools are still more likely to get into Oxbridge and higher education than their fellow
counterparts
...
The application of sociological research methods to the study of
education
...
g
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Quantitative data is data in numerical form such as official statistics on the amount
of marriages ending in divorce etc
...

Qualitative data gives a feel for what something is like for example how it feels for a
marriage to end in divorce
...
In depth
interviews can give us an insight into what it would be like to be in the persons
‘shoes’
...

Methodological perspective: - view on what society is like and how we should study it
...
Functionalists and
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Marxists often take a positivist approach
...
Interactionists favour an Interpretivists approach
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Positivists- prefer quantitative data, seek to discover patterns of behaviour and see
sociology as a science
...


 Issues, strengths and limitations and examples of the application to
the study of education of the main sources of data studied (see
Sociological Methods section): questionnaires , interviews
(formal/structured; informal/unstructured), participant and nonparticipant observation, experiments and use of documents, official
statistics and other secondary data
...

One advantage of PD is that sociologists can collect the data they specifically need
...


Social surveys take two basic forms; the questions can be put to people via:
- Written Questionnaires, respondents are asked to complete and return by post or e-mail
- Interviews, either face to face or by telephone
...
Provides quantifiable data
...

Provides qualitative data
...
Then, a pilot study needs to be conducted and a sample selected for study
...
Other surveys seek to test one or more hypotheses
...
It gives a focus to the questions asked since their purpose it
to gather information that will either prove (confirm) or disprove the hypothesis
...

Problems may arise when difference sociologists operationalize the same concept differently
...

The Pilot Study

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The aim of a pilot study is to iron out any problems, refine and clarify questions and their wording
and give interviewers practise so that the actual survey goes as smoothly as possible
...
A pilot study may reveal that some questions are
badly worded and hard to understand, or that the answers are difficult to analyse
...

Sampling
Sociologists aim to produce generalisations that apply to all cases of the topic they are interested in
...
As long as the sample is representative, you
should be able to generalise the findings to the whole population
...
Young and Willmott used the electoral register as their sample
...

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Random Sampling the simplest techniques, the sample is drawn purely by random chance,
e
...
names being drawn out of a hat
...
Young and
Willmott used every 36th name on the electoral role
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Stratified random sampling first divide the population into males and females, then take 1
% of each, you can then ensure that you have an equal amount of each
...

The social characteristics of the research population such as age, gender and class may not be
known, it would then be impossible to create a sample that was an exact cross section of the
research population
...

Potential respondents may refuse to participate in the survey
...

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Snowballing Sampling involves collecting a sample by contacting a number of key individuals
who are asked to suggest others who might be interviewed and so on adding to the sample
until enough data has been collected
...


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Opportunity Sampling – convenience sampling – choosing from those individuals who are
the easiest access such as selecting passers-by on the street
...

Cluster sample - This is a method of sampling which selects from groups (clusters) already
existing in the parent population rather than assembling a random sample
...


Theoretical Issues
Interpretivists believe that it is more important to gain valid data and an authentic understanding of
social actors’ meanings than to discover general laws of behaviours
...

Advantages of Questionnaires
Practical Advantages
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Quick and cheap when gathering large amounts of data from large numbers of people
...

No need to recruit and train interviewers or observers to collect the data because the
respondents complete and return them themselves
...


Reliability
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When the research is repeated the same questionnaire is used, so new respondents are
asked exactly the same questions, in the same order with the same choice of answers, as the
original respondents
...
Unlike interviews, where interaction with the interviewer may affect the answer
given
...
By
asking the same questions we can compare the results obtained
...
From the analysis we can make statements about the possible
causes of the topic and predictions
...


Detachment and Objectivity


Positivists favour questionnaires because they are a detached and objective (unbiased) form
of research, where the sociologist’s personal involvement with their respondents is kept to a
minimum
...

In addition, researchers who use questionnaires tend to pay more attention to the need to
obtain a representative sample
...


Ethical Issues


Questionnaires pose fewer ethical problems than most other research methods
...
Researchers should gain informed consent, guarantee the
anonymity and make it clear they have a right not to answer any of the questions if they
don’t want to
...
This limits the amount of information that can be gathered
...
This adds to the cost
...


Response Rate
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

Although questionnaires have the potential to collect data from large, representative
samples, very low response rates can be a major problem, especially with postal
questionnaires
...
5% were returned
...
such as busy people in full time employment or with young
children may fail to respond whereas the unemployed or socially isolated with time on their
hands may be more likely to fill it in and return it
...
If the respondents are
difference from the respondents, this produces distorted and unrepresentative results from
which no accurate generalisations can be made
...
Once they’re finalised, researchers stuck and can’t explore
any new areas should they come up during the research
...
g
...


Questionnaires as snapshots

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Questionnaires give a picture of social reality at 1 moment in time
...


Detachment


Interpretivist sociologists such as Aaron Cicourel (1968) argue data from questionnaires lacks
validity and don’t give true picture
...
Questionnaires fail to do this because they’re
the most dethatched of all primary methods
...
g
...
The lack of contact = no opportunity to
clarify what the questions mean to them, and to clear up any misunderstandings

Lying, forgetting, ‘Right Answerism’


Respondents may lie, forget, or not understand
...
These problems = disadvantage compared to
observational methods
...
Interpretivists argue questionnaire impose
the researchers own meaning than to reveal the respondents
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By choosing the questions to ask, they’ve already decided what’s important
...
As Marten Shipman (1997) says, when researcher’s categories aren’t the
respondents, ‘pruning and bending’ of the data in inevitable
...

 Experiments: lab experiments are rarely used by sociologists however field
experiments and the comparative method are used
...
Positivists favour the
laboratory experiment in principle because it achieves their main goal of reliability
...
It is an
artificial situation producing unnatural behaviour
...

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Can be easily reproduced to see if same results are collected
It is a very detached method: the researcher merely manipulates the variables and records
the results
...

It allows the researcher to identity and measure behaviour patterns quantitatively and to
manipulate variables to establish cause-and-effect relationships
...

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It is often impossible or unethical to control the variables
Their small scale means that results may not be representative or generalizable

Practical problems

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It would be impossible to identify, let alone control, all the variables that might exert an
influence on, say, a child’s educational achievement or a workers attitude to work
...

Difficult to investigate large-scale social phenomena such as religious or voting patterns
...
This may be difficult to obtain from groups
such as children or people with learning difficulties who may be unable to understand the nature
and purpose of the experiment
...
Milgram (1974) did in his famous studies of obedience to authority
...
In reality the purpose of the experiment was to
test people’s willingness to obey orders to inflict pain
...
This will ruin the experiment, which depends on the subjects
responding to the variables that the researcher introduces into the situation, not to the fact that
they are being observed
...
Mayo altered different variables such as lighting, heating
etc
...
When working conditions improved so did
the output go up but continued to rise even when conditions were worsened
...

Free will - Interpretivists sociologists argue that human beings are fundamentally different
...
This means our behaviour cannot be
explained in terms of cause and effect
...
Those involved are generally not aware that they
are the subjects of an experiment, in which case there is no Hawthorne Effect
...
For example Rosenthal and Jacobson manipulated
teachers' expectations about children's abilities in order to discover what effect labelling has on
achievement
...
Nevertheless, hospital staff treated them all as if they
were mentally ill
...

Rosenhan's study shows the value of field experiments
...
However, the more realistic we make the
situation, the less control we have over the variables that might be operating
...
For example while it might have
been the label schizophrenic' that led doctors and nurses to treat the pseudopatients as mentally ill,
it may in fact have been some other factor that researchers had not controlled that led the hospital
staff to behave in this way
...

The comparative method
Unlike both field experiments and laboratory experiments the comparative method is carried out
only in the mind of the sociologist
...
However, it too is designed to discover cause-and-effect
relationships
...

Then compare the two groups to see if this one difference between them has any effect
...

Durkheim's hypothesis was that low levels of integration of individuals into social groups caused high
rates of suicide
...
In seeking to discover cause-and-effect relationships, the comparative
method has three advantages over laboratory experiments:
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It avoids artificiality
...

It poses no ethical problems, such as harming or deceiving subjects
...


Secondary Data (SD) is information collected or created by another person for their purposes which
can then be used by the sociologist
...
Those who produce it may not be interested in the same questions as
sociologists and so secondary sources may not provide exactly the information that sociologists
need
...
, as well as
statistics from charities, businesses, churches and other organisations
...


 The theoretical, practical and ethical considerations influencing
choice of topic, choice of method(s) and the conduct of research on
education
...

Different methods cause different problems:

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Time and Money: Large scale surveys may need dozens of interviewers, data inputting staff
etc
...
may be cheaper but with less people could take longer to
complete
...
A well-known
professor would have more access than a young student for example
...
) for example if the business
or research institution wanted the results in numerical form so that they could be turned
into %s or put into graphs, a survey would be the better option over an observational study
...

Subject Matter: It could be hard to study a certain topic with a certain method for example
when studying those who cannot read it would be useless giving them a questionnaire to fill
in
...
An example of
this is James Patrick (1973) who was given the chance to study a gang ‘out of the blue,’ he
had little time to conduct a structured method so he had to use participant observation
...
Studies can often raise questions
...
This consent should be obtained
before the study and if it is a log study should be regularly asked at intervals throughout the
process
...

Effects on Research Participants: the sociologists should be aware of the possible effects of
their study such as police intervention, psychological damage etc
...

Vulnerable Groups: special care should be taken if the participant is vulnerable due to their
age, disability or physical or mental health
...

Covert Research: the researcher’s identity and purpose is hidden due to the attempt to gain
the persons trust or obtain information
...
Some sociologists may disagree and argue that it may be
justified in certain circumstances such as gaining access to very secretive groups
...
Our
views on the issues will affect the type of method we favour using:






Validity: a method that produces a true or genuine outcome of what something is really like
...
g
...

Reliability: a method that when repeated by another gives the same response
...

Representativeness: Representativeness refers to whether or not the people we study are a
typical cross-section of the group we are interested in e
...
it would cost a lot of time and
money to study every child of divorced parents
...
Large-scale quantitative
surveys that use sophisticated sampling techniques to select their sample are more likely to
produce representative data
...

Researching pupils
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Power and status - In school contexts, children and young people have less power and
status than adults making it more difficult for them to state their views openly, especially if
these challenge adult opinions
...
Researchers
therefore have to find ways they can overcome the power differences between adult
teachers and young participants
...
g
...
It is likely that whatever research
methods are used, some power and status differences between teachers and pupils will
remain
...
The sociologist will need to take great care in how they word their questions to make
sure they are understood clearly
...

Vulnerability - Young people are often more vulnerable to physical and psychological harm
than adults
...
Informed consent is required by
parents, teachers and the young person should also be aware of what the research entitles
...
Child protection issues are very important in not keeping
personal data unless it is vital to the research
...
The researcher must also consider
whether the participation of young people in the research is actually necessary and whether
they stand to benefit from it
...
These take the
British Sociological Association’s research guidelines even further in terms of protecting the
rights of children
...
It may also be important to match the gender of the young person
and the researcher to help achieve this
...
They also have legal responsibilities and a duty of care towards the young people they teach
...
Heads, governors, parents and pupils
all constrain what teachers may do
...
They are
experienced enough to be able to ‘put on a show’ for the researcher so as to create the best possible
impression
...
Although not as
closed as a prison or psychiatric ward, the classroom is less open than most settings
...
In classroom interaction,
teachers and pupils are very experienced at disguising their real thoughts and feelings from each
other; they may conceal these from the researcher too
...

Researching schools
Research may be seen to be part of the hierarchy of educational establishments e
...
students may
see them as teachers and teachers may see them as inspectors
...
Heads and governors may
refuse permission if they believe that the researcher will interfere with the work of the school
...
Their reaction to a
research project he wanted to carry out consulting pupils about teaching included:





It is dangerous to involve pupils in commenting on their teachers
Discipline would be very adversely affected
It would be bad for classroom relationships
Children are not competent to judge teachers

The law requires schools to collect information on pupil’s attendance, achievement and so on, and
this may be useful to sociologists
...
Beynon and Atkinson (1984) noted that
gatekeepers such as heads often steer the researcher away from sensitive situations, such as classes
where the teacher has poor classroom control
...
There is a great deal of
publically available information about it including exam results and league tables
...
Sociologists may be
able to make use of all these secondary sources in their research
...
Unlike most other
organisations in today’s society, many schools are single-sex
...


22

Researching parents
Parents may influence what goes on in education, both by the way they bring up their children and
by their involvement in school through parent-teacher contacts, parent governors, attendance at
parents’ evenings and so on
...
While classroom interactions between teachers and
pupils can often be observed easily, there are few opportunities to observe whether parents help
children with their homework
...
Unfortunately however class and ethnic differences between sociologists and some
parents may be a barrier to researching this issue
...
g
...

Method Example Studies
Structured interviews Young & Willmott – Used structured interviews in their research into the extended
family in east London
...

Group interviews Willis – Carried out unstructured group interviews to uncover the counter-school
culture of the ‘lads’
...

Field experiments Rosenthal & Jacobson – Were able to manipulate classroom interaction by labelling
some pupils as ‘spurters’ to see whether this would cause a self-fulfilling prophecy
...
Allowing him to gain insight into social
relations within school
...

Self-completion Bowles and Gintis – Measured student personality traits using questionnaires similar to
questionnaires those used to reveal traits valued by employers
...

Postal questionnaires Chubb & Moe – Carried out a survey of parental attitudes to schooling
...

Official statistics FSM (Free School Meals) – Government statistics on the exams results of children
eligible for free school meals show a correlation between material deprivation and
achievement
...
She collected a range of school documents including brochures, prospectuses
and planning reports
...
Examined 179 stories in 6 reading
schemes used in primary schools and found that females were nearly always presented
in traditional domestic roles
...

Method Strengths and Limitations
...

Unstructured cost, time, access, validity, insight, depth, rapport, sensitivity, flexibility, interviewer
interviews bias, interview effect, recording/categorising responses, unrepresentativeness,
unreliability, qualitative data, grounded theory, informed consent, small scale
...

Field experiments time, cost, access, informed consent, harm to participants, quantitative data, reliability,
representativeness, hypothesis testing, the Hawthorne effect, inflexibility, small scale,
naturalism/validity versus control
...

Non-participant time, cost, access, informed consent, validity, naturalism/non-intrusiveness, reliability,
observation quantitative and qualitative data, overt versus covert observation, data recording, small
scale, flexibility, hypothesis formation/grounded theory, Hawthorne effect
...

Official statistics reliability; cost; time; large scale; representativeness; generalisation; hypothesis
testing; lack of validity; comparability; trends and patterns; official vs sociological
definitions; problem taking
...


24



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