The Fragility of Children in Education
School is widely considered one of – if not the – most important areas of a child’s life. The friends they make, interests they develop, and manners they learn grow with them as they progress from one year to another, and this significance is extended to how each individual is treated in that environment, and it often differs from child to child.
Inequalities between children begin as a result of external influences; government funding, housing conditions, capital from parents etc – the recent debate over free school meals has drawn attention to this more than usual. Allocation of government funding and policies has always been at want for discussion and there are few institutions that feel the consequences heavier than education. Beginning with the policies introduced during the coalition government, things such as free meals and Pupil Premium schemes imply a more just system with equal access to adequate resources, but studies by Ofsted in 2012 demonstrated how the money from these schemes is not always spent on those that need help, maintaining the disadvantage to students from less advantaged backgrounds. And here in 2021, the vote by the Conservative government to not extend free school meals shows no change.
Something often glossed over is how much this affects children far beyond their lunchtimes. Being denied proper meals and fair resources – with families at home having to choose between paying their bills or buying their children new schoolbooks – shows itself in their grades, a big decider in college and university placements. Lack of funding in education risks affecting children beyond school and into employment prospects, with potential generational effects of them not being able to supply their children with the cultural capital to progress alongside classmates whose parents had opposite situations growing up.
And these inequalities are not limited to external factors. Inequalities among gender, race, and class are rife inside of schools.
One commonality in the classroom that can actually lead to harmful results is labelling. The way children are labelled in the classroom is something many carry with them for a long time, whether it is consciously or subconsciously.
There is a general idea among teachers of what the ‘ideal’ pupil consists of; quiet, passive, and respectful of classroom authority, and a number of studies have shown how teachers will label their students based not off of their ability, but stereotypes. Using names to display faster or slower groups of learners such as ‘cheetahs’ or ‘tortoises’ maintains these stereotypes as the pupils chosen will generally be a result of judgement against their appearance – higher sets being middle class children with a ‘cleaner’ appearance. The lower set students are then given easier tasks, unable to challenge their abilities and keeping them stagnant in progress. Similarly, teacher racism is a detrimental aspect of the education system and closely reflects the society it inhabits.
Concepts of the ‘ideal pupil’ extends to ethnic discrimination also. Racialised expectations of pupils mean that Black students are considered to pose more opposition to authority and are the victim to more disciplinary punishment from teachers. This then causes Black students to feel as though their abilities are underestimated. Opinions of young students are easily internalised, and the way figures of authority perceive them can quickly weave its way into how they think of themselves, perhaps making them seek less validation from academic success and find other means to pertain it, such as in social scenarios and friendship groups, which is fulfilling but does not guarantee them equal to their peers. As mentioned earlier, these inequalities in treatment have the potential to cause long term effects in education and employment which – alongside other systemic discriminations – contribute to large gaps in progress.
We often view issues such as government funding and discriminatory language as a ‘big picture’ issue that requires inspection but can neglect how these things filter into areas as small as the classroom. But when these safe spaces are a major factor into how the children of society are socialised and heavily influenced, it becomes clear how fragile students in the education system really are.
