Labeling Theory and schools

When I read the labeling theory in the Rist‘s “On understanding the processes of schooling: the contributions of labelling theory.”, I started thinking from my childhood to very present. The thoughts about some of my primary school class mates really match with this theory. I have a class mate in 3^rd standard and one day he took some of his class mate’s pen without asking him and kept it with him. The child who lost the pen complained to his teacher and she decided to check all children’s bags. The child who took the pen was found and was punished by the teacher in front of every other child. He again did such things later in class and was punished by teachers also. The children started calling him ‘thief’ and even teachers showed a kind of different attitude towards him. This led his transformation from a primary deviant to a secondary deviant and he was always trying to keep his identity as a kind of negative person in the class from that age. The punishments to the children when they shoe deviance are most of the times cerate negative results. The teachers’ labeling most of the times affect the children in many ways. The punishments to the children when they shoe deviance are most of the times cerate negative results. It is similar to the way our prisons, mental hospitals make the people reinforced to their deviance which we are seeing all around us. When we went to a Government school in Bangalore, the teacher asked the students to come and sit down on floor when they couldn’t answer the questions. She told us , after the class, that in this way she was giving more attention to those children. But she also said that most of these children are getting labeled as ‘not good in studies’ students and it leads them to be like that only. So it is very important that teachers should understand their students and not to label them since there is always the possibility for betterment or any other change. Teachers should observe their students to help them grow rather than put them in a very fixed frame. In some classes the teachers directly pointed some students are weak and strong in studies in front of everyone. So I believe that it may really make in impact on their future performance. It is very well shown in the Hollywood film “Dangerous Minds”. Initially the students from the Afro- American communities were labeled as they are notorious and good for nothing. The students were also trying to keep that image others have about them. There is tremendous changes happened after one teacher tried to break that ‘labeling and the students started showing their real potential. The movie really well communicated this ‘labeling factor’ in schools. If all the teachers in our country realize the consequences of labeling their students in front of everyone and modify their behavior to students it will make a great change in the performance level of our school children.

Textbooks and forces control them.

The textbooks provided to our schools are largely influenced by several factors. Sometimes it is very visible and sometimes it is not. The history which has been taught in our schools is under debate all the time whether it is saying only some biased information about our freedom struggle or not. I just mentioned it to show that the control over the textbooks may be there from the beginning of our school system due to political, religious, economic and cultural issues. And it is related to the power structure and the interests of the people who are holding these powers. Michael. W. Apple talks about this in ‘Cultural politics and the text’. He talks about the political pressures in US in implementing textbooks and the ‘knowledge’ which had been available to public for studies. If we look in to textbooks in our country we can see the struggle between different forces. The force of economy is comparatively less in India in the sense that school textbooks are mostly in the hands of Government only. So the influence by corporate publishers can be said to be minimal. In Kerala few years back the CPI (M) led government introduced a chapter in social studies which talks about the possibility of living in our country without having a religion. As soon as the textbook was released all the religious communities started protests against government to withdraw that chapter. Due to the mass protests and all the pressure, the government had to withdraw that particular chapter of the textbook. In this incident the ruling party tried to give the knowledge to younger generation which may turn to be good for the party and the religious communities protested it since it may trouble its existence in the future. So these power games play really influential role in our education systems and the knowledge provided is so much neutral rather than imparting critical thinking in the minds of children for a better civilized community. The education system and the power structure pose lots of questions to us, let’s try to get answers.

Micro Sociology

Studying Microsociology and observe social interaction with that lens is very interesting and challenging. Sometimes I feel that I forget to react and talk to people in the process of observation. For me it lies in between the sociology and psychology or a mixture of both. The idea of ‘indexicality’ is something interesting and very much related to our day to day life also. In schools teachers face these situations often and try to repair it according to their knowledge. Most of the teachers want their students to be attentive in the class and obedient to the. This is the’ index’ they have in their mind about the students and classroom. But usually students challenge the authority of the teachers in knowledge. Sometimes they show no interest in studies like not doing the assigned work and studies properly or not paying attention in the class.

I observe this thing in the last class we visited for our practicum. Some students were completely avoiding teacher and some were trying to outshine the teacher in doing mathematical calculations. But teacher was continuously trying to repair it by communicating in ways of warning and avoiding those children. The school, where we visited last week, teachers and students believe that the teachers are the authority of knowledge and even if there are some challenges from any student teachers are successful in justify their position. The students are continuously being taught that the correct things are known to teachers or higher authority and for everything students need approval from these higher authorities. It can be said that the students are controlled by a well-structured power structure.