Out of the three sociocultural dimensions of education, I find symbolic interactionist the most appealing. I always believed that actions and improvements of learners are highly influenced by their environmental interactions, specifically interactions related to learning. Symbolic interactionist theoretical perspective in education focuses on the interaction between students, students and teachers and the labelling of students that result into differential achievements for different labelled groups. There are a few instances I would like to highlight that are based on my experiences related to labelling in learning. As a child, I never opted for competitive sports. I used to play games like hide and seek, swing but resisted to play monkey climb, football and other games of similar nature. It was implicitly obvious from our school environment that girls were supposed to be a part of relatively light and soft natured games. I avoided the karate and judo classes and wanted to take up dancing classes solely because of the concept of what girls do. This is highly influenced by the socio-cultural environment and the labelling created by mostly society but also the school and the teachers. As I grew up, I was always labelled by my parents, teachers or friends. My parents came out blunt when assigning tasks and reinforcing it. If I would not be able to ask as per instructed, I would be labelled incompetent. As a child, the labelling made me turn into an introvert and insecure person. The negative labels stopped me from improving in that particular sector. There were also instances of positive labels which influenced and encouraged me to do better. I was labelled good in Mathematics by my friends and teachers during schools days which motivated me to do better. I have also faced labelling due to my social status, family relationship with a particular teacher, facial deformities and many more. All these labelling came from the societal and cultural interactions I had in my school, society and environment. This obviously changed as I entered adulthood but the learning process could have been a lot easier, fun and fulfilling had there been no negative labels.

One of my students from secondary school shared with me that he is not capable of understanding or studying because his brain is weak and underdeveloped. His physique and mental ability is perfectly fine. He is good at basketball, story-telling and cycling. But, the notion created by his teachers, parents, friends and close circle about him due to his weak academic performance made him think poorly of himself eventually affecting his performance. I myself have labelled students based on standards I set for them and made them feel incompetent during my early days of teaching. As a teacher, while reflecting upon my practice, there has been instances when I have consciously or sub-consciously labelled students not just based on their academics, but the social background, behaviour, activity and interaction with me. As I progressed in my journey and learned emotional intelligence, these instances have made me inclined towards understanding labelling and how it affects the growth of learners, especially high school students. Symbolic interactionist theory studies the social interaction in the classroom and how the expectation of teacher can influence performance, perceptions and attitudes of students. Pygmalion effect, or the self-fulfilling prophecy refers to the influence labelling of others has in fulfilment of the label even if the label is inaccurate. This primarily results due to acceptance of the label by both labelling and labelled individual. Two similar research conducted by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson in 1968 and Ray Rist in 1970 found out that particular performance or growth of a student expected by the teachers occurs on the basis of labelling done by the teachers. Labelling can also be highly influenced by social class. Teachers can be taking multiple factors such as behaviour, manner, and social class apart from academics during the labelling. This can create a high sense of self-consciousness among students. The positive labelling can be empowering to students. But negative, wide repercussions can also occur and impact student’s schooling significantly (Green). Symbolic interaction focuses on the construction of personal identity through interactions of individuals. Meanings are thus socially constructed and interrelate with actions. It does not have to be limited to the context of schooling and teaching. Society and family also impact a lot in identity creations of a person. I could reflect upon many instances of my childhood experience and the sharing of students I have worked with that related to the symbolic interactionist sociocultural theoretical perspective. My research topic is also related to identity formation of adolescent students. Hence, I found it the most appealing.

Reference

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