Labelling theory and Education “Pygmalion in the Classroom” Rosenthal & Jacobson (1968)

Teachers’ Expectations Rosenthal and Jacobson designed an experiment to discover whether teachers’ expectations of student ability would affect attainment. They conducted their experiment in an American Primary school, (posing as educational psychologists) where approximately one sixth of the children were Mexican. The pupils were streamed into fast, medium and slow streams. The Mexican children were heavily over-represented in the slow stream.

The Experiment Their first step was to test all the children in the school with a standard intelligence test. The teachers were led to believe that this test could predict intellectual “blooming” 18 teachers from years 1 to 6 were given the names of children in their classes who were predicted to show the most intellectual growth in the coming year. The children were, actually chosen at random. The difference between the children’s ability, therefore, was only in the mind of the teacher.

The Results All the children were re-tested using the same test after 1 year and again after 2 years. The children who the teachers expected to bloom scored significantly higher in their tests than the previous year. The most marked difference was found in the younger and the Mexican children. Rosenthal and Jacobson called this the “expectancy effect” In the second year when the children had a different teacher, the older children still maintained the advantage of the expectancy effect but the younger children lost it.

The Self – Fulfilling Prophecy Rosenthal and Jacobson stated that teachers’ expectations have a significant effect on student attainment. This developed into a self-fulfilling prophecy – pupils lived up to expectations. Teachers also described the high achievers as well-adjusted, happy and more interesting than other children Those who had not been identified as potential high achievers but performed well anyway were described as showing “undesirable” behaviour by teachers.

Evaluation How do you think the teachers’ expectations were communicated to the pupils? Why did the Mexican children defined as high ability make particularly good progress? Can the self-fulfilling prophecy produce a negative effect? If Rosenthal and Jacobson are correct, how might “de-streaming” help the lower streamed student? How might this research be seen as unethical? Sociologists rarely use experiments as a research method, this therefore is a valuable source of information.