Researching in schools

Q. What is the main focus of educational research?

A. To understand how education creates inequality and shapes behaviour, achievement, identity, and access to opportunities.

Q: What does intersectionality mean in education research?

A: How class, gender, and ethnicity combine to shape educational experiences and outcomes.

Q: What is teacher labelling?

A: When teachers attach labels to students based on assumptions, affecting their identity and achievement.

Q: What is a self-fulfilling prophecy?

A: When a label or expectation leads a student to behave in a way that makes it come true.

Q: What are pupil subcultures?

A: Groups of students with shared values, such as pro-school or anti-school attitudes.

Q: What is studied in school organisation and policy?

A: Setting, streaming, league tables, marketisation, and curriculum.

Q: Why do sociologists study home background?

A: To understand how parental support, language, and cultural capital affect achievement.

Q: What are gatekeepers in educational research?

A: People (e.g. headteachers) who control access to schools.

Q: Why are classrooms useful for research?

A: They show real-time interactions between teachers and pupils.

Q: Why are playgrounds and corridors important research settings?

A: They reveal informal behaviour, peer relationships, and identity formation.

Q: What can sociologists learn from staffrooms?

A: Teacher culture and hidden aspects of school organisation.

Q: What are practical issues in researching schools?

A: Access, safeguarding, time constraints, sampling, researcher identity, and communication.

Q: Why is access to schools difficult?

A: Schools may refuse or limit access to protect their reputation.

Q: Why is safeguarding important in research?

A: Researchers must protect pupils and often need DBS checks.

Q: How does researcher identity affect research?

A: Age, gender, and ethnicity can influence how participants respond.

Q: What is informed consent?

A: Participants (and parents for under 16s) must agree to take part with full understanding.

Q: Why is confidentiality important?

A: It protects participants and encourages honest answers.

Q: What is the Hawthorne Effect?

A: When participants change behaviour because they know they are being observed.

Q: What is reliability in research?

A: The ability to repeat a study and get similar results.

Q: What is representativeness and sampling bias?

A: Representativeness = how well a sample reflects the population; bias occurs when some groups are excluded (e.g. truants).