**5.5 The mechanisms of differentiation effects**

If we take the cognitive effects of differentiation for more-or-less proven, how can we explain them? What mechanisms underlie differentiation? There are three main theories in this respect: instructional, social and institutional (Lucas, 2008; Pallas et al., 1994).

According to the instructional theory, which seems to rely on the most solid empirical foundation, variation is caused by varying quantity and quality of educational content as well as varying pace of instruction in different educational tracks. Above all, it is apparent that students of academic tracks are taught based on a more demanding and extensive curriculum, compared to students of other tracks (Gamoran, 1989). Sometimes, the lower overall volume of instruction is quite explicit. For example, many schools spread the same algebra curriculum over one year in academic tracks and two years in non-academic tracks (Kelly, 2007). Thus, non-academic programs provide less education and slower pace of instruction. This fact is hardly surprising because "providing different students with varied education according to their needs" is the main idea of differentiation. Nevertheless, some recent research (e.g., Gamoran, 1993) suggests that even students of non-academic tracks might improve their educational achievement if they were approached like those of academic tracks. Since some tracks *a priori* reduce educational content and slow down pace of instruction, permanent differences between students arise and the students' education track flexibility is undermined.

It is not only educational content but also educational methods that matters. At first sight, the academic and non-academic programs seem to apply similar methods of instruction. For example, Nystrand & Gamoran (1997) found that the number of discussions basically does not vary across educational tracks. At the same time, however, they found that discussions in non-academic tracks often lacked focus. They also found that students in non-academic tracks, much more frequently than those in academic tracks, were given tasks like filling in blanks in a text, answering yes-or-no questions or correcting grammar and punctuation. Teaching methods in non-academic tracks were much more structured and placed high emphasis on formal rules and sanctions. This was supposed to help teachers better cope with and "control" the student population in less academic programs, yet it also bore the

226 Sociological Landscape – Theories, Realities and Trends

been controlled statistically for family socioeconomic background and numerous other

The effects of differentiation on factors like self-esteem, positive attachment to school and delinquency have been studied as well. Quantitative research has failed to provide a clear answer, which was to a great extent due to the above-mentioned methodological issues. Nevertheless, ethnographic research (see review by Gamoran & Berends, 1987) has demonstrated that differentiation does substantially influence students' identity and selfesteem. For example, Schwartz (1981) showed that differentiation caused students to start

Other effects of differentiation have been proven as well. For example, differentiation may undermine social cohesion. It influences political attitudes and participation (Paulsen, 1991). It also widens the gaps between different social groups because students tend to make friends with other students of the same programs (Eckert, 1989). This is based on shared

If we take the cognitive effects of differentiation for more-or-less proven, how can we explain them? What mechanisms underlie differentiation? There are three main theories in

According to the instructional theory, which seems to rely on the most solid empirical foundation, variation is caused by varying quantity and quality of educational content as well as varying pace of instruction in different educational tracks. Above all, it is apparent that students of academic tracks are taught based on a more demanding and extensive curriculum, compared to students of other tracks (Gamoran, 1989). Sometimes, the lower overall volume of instruction is quite explicit. For example, many schools spread the same algebra curriculum over one year in academic tracks and two years in non-academic tracks (Kelly, 2007). Thus, non-academic programs provide less education and slower pace of instruction. This fact is hardly surprising because "providing different students with varied education according to their needs" is the main idea of differentiation. Nevertheless, some recent research (e.g., Gamoran, 1993) suggests that even students of non-academic tracks might improve their educational achievement if they were approached like those of academic tracks. Since some tracks *a priori* reduce educational content and slow down pace of instruction, permanent differences between students arise and the students' education

It is not only educational content but also educational methods that matters. At first sight, the academic and non-academic programs seem to apply similar methods of instruction. For example, Nystrand & Gamoran (1997) found that the number of discussions basically does not vary across educational tracks. At the same time, however, they found that discussions in non-academic tracks often lacked focus. They also found that students in non-academic tracks, much more frequently than those in academic tracks, were given tasks like filling in blanks in a text, answering yes-or-no questions or correcting grammar and punctuation. Teaching methods in non-academic tracks were much more structured and placed high emphasis on formal rules and sanctions. This was supposed to help teachers better cope with and "control" the student population in less academic programs, yet it also bore the

this respect: instructional, social and institutional (Lucas, 2008; Pallas et al., 1994).

calling themselves "smart", "dumb", "slow" or "bright" (see also Riordan 2003: 189).

experience and values as well as shared attitudes to school.

**5.5 The mechanisms of differentiation effects** 

track flexibility is undermined.

factors.

risk of fragmenting instruction and especially making learning much less enjoyable for students. Strong structuring of instructional methods may mitigate teachers' fears and insecurities, yet it deprives instruction of its meaning, making it boring and tiresome and often diverting attention to unrelated issues (Page, 1991).

Teachers play a specific role as well. Beginners, less experienced and less motivated teachers are traditionally recruited for non-academic tracks (Kelly, 2008: 986). Thus, not only students but also teachers are differentiated in many schools (teacher tracking). Two less successful groups are paired here: "Teachers with less education, experience, and motivation are more likely to be assigned to low-track classrooms. Thus, teacher tracking pairs students who are the most difficult to teach with teachers who, in some ways, are least equipped to be successful" (ibid.). It is hardly surprising that teachers in non-academic tracks score less in satisfaction and self-actualization.

In general, teachers react negatively when assigned to a non-academic track. This is also because this group of students is more difficult to teach. For example, Caughlan & Kelly (2004) demonstrated that teachers who are very successful in academic tracks may be much less successful in non-academic tracks. They partially explain this finding by the fact that teachers in non-academic tracks tend to be recruited from different socioeconomic environments than their students, and thus have trouble identifying their needs, perspectives and interests. They are also prejudiced about their family background. This causes a "self-fulfilling prophecy" whereby children from disadvantaged families are considered *incapable* of success, teachers treat them as such and this, in turn, makes those children unsuccessful. Some teachers also take family background as an excuse and explanation for their students' weak educational achievement. Instead of designing instruction to compensate the disadvantages children bring from their homes, instruction is adapted to those children's *limitations* (Kelly, 2008: 986).

It cannot be argued that education in non-academic tracks has always a low quality and effectiveness. Gamoran (1993) identified three factors of success in non-academic tracks: when (a) instruction in non-academic tracks is not assigned to inexperienced teachers, (b) teachers do not use worksheets as their basic method of instruction and instead, work based on oral speech and discussion, (c) teachers have high expectations of all students.

The second type of explanations of tracking effects are based on the idea that different education programs provide different social contexts and social climates for learning, thus socializing students of different tracks in line with different norms and values and giving them different identities, attitudes and expectations. Above all, one must realize that by taking a non-academic track that prepares directly for entering the labor market, students become discouraged from getting good grades from the very beginning. For them, as opposed to students in academic tracks, it does not matter if they have A's or C's. Little effort is basically a rational strategy (Attewell, 2001; Kelly, 2008). In contrast, students in academic tracks are not necessarily better-behaved or more accommodating but their actions are much more ambitious and planned in subjects affecting their future careers25.

<sup>25</sup> Schwartz (1981) exemplified this phenomenon neatly by describing the behavior of students in different programs. He found that students in high-track programs showed the same kind of misbehavior as low-track students, yet they did so outside classtime when their future educational

market is differentiated and thus, various occupations are needed and few people are fit for every occupation. Consequently, schools should prepare students for the different labor market sectors and provide them with the exact skills they are going to need in life. To people holding these seemingly rational opinions, school differentiation in line with labor market differentiation appears as a logical solution and an effective practice (Oakes, 1992). Political barriers constitute the third and final problem of differentiation. Differentiation causes the school to distinguish between "winners and losers". The winners are recruited from students in academic tracks whose parents usually have a higher socioeconomic status and, in turn, a stronger political stance. Those parents often have a personal stake in differentiation and lobby against detracking (Loveless, 1999b: 29), often arguing that they are not obliged to sacrifice their children's education for some ideological agenda or unverified education theory (Rochester, 1998). Parents may threaten to take their children out of the schools that are contemplating detracking. Such an exodus of better achieving students may lower the school's academic average and thus jeopardize its reputation. Ethnographic research on detracking also shows that parents with a higher SES tend to oppose detracking until some advantages for their children are preserved (Wells & Serna, 1996). Nevertheless, if

such advantages continue to exist then the entire idea of detracking is undermined.

effects of education systems on the reproduction of education inequalities.

In awareness of the fact that short statements are somewhat simplifying, we will now attempt to formulate several conclusions arising out of state-of-art knowledge about the

1. Despite persistent illusions about the ways education contributes to social justice, it is clear that education systems rather reproduce education inequalities (as well as other, education-related inequalities). However, different systems reproduce inequalities at varying rates and feature different inbuilt mechanisms of reproduction. Therefore, some changes are possible in this respect. At the same time, we must admit the fact that education reforms in many countries have often completely failed to reduce inequalities or even produced unintended effects. This, however, cannot give us an excuse for doing nothing. In contrast, it should stimulate our thinking about the kinds of measures that might be really effective. Arguably, some examples of successful reforms exist: Sweden, Finland and Spain that underwent transitions from differentiated to undifferentiated education have strongly under-average levels of variance in the educational achievement of 15-year-olds, compared to the rest of

2. Education systems are highly resistant to any attempted reforms towards reducing education inequalities. Actors with stakes in existing situation are usually able to find other mechanisms of reproduction if existing ones are constrained by reform27. This also means that whenever a public policy to reduce education inequalities is prepared, one

27 Lucas's (2001) theory of effectively maintained inequality should be mentioned here. According to the theory, elites will always find a way of offering better educational tracks to their children. If no *quantitative* advantages are available (i.e., higher educational attainment such as tertiary education in a society where most people attain lower levels) then they are bound to assert *qualitative* advantages, i.e., place their children in schools of higher quality and prestige that receive better ratings and offer better

**6. Conclusions** 

OECD countries (OECD, 2007).

educational and professional career prospects.

The above-mentioned fact is accompanied by peer pressure and peer group norms. According to the so-called differentiation-polarization theory (Hargreaves, 1967; Lacey, 1966), interactions within peer groups in non-academic tracks aggravate antischool attitudes. When the school labels students as "academically insufficient", they begin to seek another source of positive identity. If they are fortunate, they can find it in sports, cars etc. Peer groups have their own dynamic here. Members monitor each other's actions, guarding against and punishing for those actions and attitudes that are in conflict with the group's dominant norms, for instance, expressions of interest in schoolwork.

Finally, the third type of explanations of differentiation effects is based on institutional theories. They define institutions as cognitive constructions and permanent models of human behavior people take for granted and undisputed (Pallas et al., 1994). They hold that when a student is assigned to a certain education track, it becomes part of his/her "education history" and this assigning seems to suggest information about his/her abilities (Sorensen, 1984). While the act of assigning to an education track may bear no effect on his/her abilities, skills or attitudes, it continues to be present throughout his/her life because the act is generally believed to be justified26. In other words, if a student takes a certain track then this symbolically and publicly labels and classifies the students' qualities and abilities, from a collective perspective, and this label in turn, influences the perceptions and expectations of other members of the society, including teachers and parents (Pallas et al., 1994). More specifically, in making decisions about assigning to a certain program, people consider what education program the candidate comes from, rather than his/her real academic achievement.
