Evaluation of Interactionists and Education

Structural Theorists

The labelling theory attributes too much importance to ‘teacher agency’ (the autonomous power of teachers to influence and affect pupils) Structural Theorists believe that Action theories place too much importance on the individual and fail to consider how education as an institution encourages teachers to label

Deterministic - Rejection of the label

Interactionism suggests that once a label is applied it is inevitable however due to further interaction the labels can change over time. Fullers research on black girls in education who were labelled as low achievers but instead responded to this label by studying hard to prove their teachers wrong shows how students can actually reject the label given to them and it is not set in stone as it is suggested by Becker.

Representativeness during research

Because action theories are based around small interactions between individuals, it is hard to produce large scale research that represents large groups of people. As opposed to this, most research conducted for structural theorists are more likely to be representative because they are all based on large institutions that cover a lot of people.

Too generalised (BEV)

Interactionists fail to address the nature and use of power in society. Where do labels come from in the first place?