Sociologizing Ability Grouping in Public Schools: Governmentality, Rituals and Violence (Theoretical sketches)

JOHN N. ABLETIS Instructor 1, Department of Sociology Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Sta. Mesa

...Noon namang hayskul, maraming kakulangan ang hindi napunan ng aming guro dahil napupunta ang pribilehiyong matutukan ang pag-aaral sa mga higher sections lamang. Palibhasa nasa lower section ako kaya di ko pansin ang mga bagay na iyon. Pinapangarap ko rin minsang mapabilang sa mga higher sections pero di kaya ng aking kakayahan kaya nanatiling kulang ang aking mga kaalaman hanggang sa akoy makapagtapos ng hayskul.
-Jeric F. Jimenez
Kakilala System, The Catalyst, 22 (1), 2007, p. 14

...It was a matter of honor for those in the premier section to maintain their standing there or for those in the lower sections to be promoted to join them, replacing those who had fallen behind. Reassignment to a lower section was a disgrace. Naturally, those in the brightest class were despised by those in the lower sections, but this was probably out of envy only... -Isagani A. Cruz
Quality Education as Key to Success, PDI, May 3, 1999, p. 8

... Larger forces... set limits and impose constrains on people, regardless of their individual abilities and attitudes... This is not to deny the significance of individual differences in talent, ambition, and effort in creating social inequality... But they come into play only within the context of a much wider societaland globalstructure that is far outside the realm of the individual... If societies were divided only along horizontal lines, there would be little social conflict, for although people might be assigned to different groupings and perhaps even be segregated, there would not necessarily be invidious differences among them. That is, there would be no basis for envy or feelings of injustice so long as no differential rewards were accorded the different groupings... -Martin Marger Social Inequality: Patterns and Processes, 1999, pp. 10-12

Ability grouping is a form of Governmentality

Ability grouping [Homogenous student-section/Tracking] implies the creation of sections with students having most likely similar mental abilities and capabilities in learning. (Abletis, 2009, p. 14) A way of managing the population of the students in relation to the resources of the school (Ballantine, 1997)

Clustering students into sections Allocating resources (books, chairs, room assignment, teachers, programs etc.) through sections

This is the traditional way of sorting students around the world because most teachers feel it is easier to teach a group of like-ability students (Ballantine, 1997, p. 71).

A way of managing the population of the students...

Selection and Allocationschools are like gardeners; they sift, weed, sort, and cultivate their products... Standards of achievement are used to channel students into different programs on the basis of their measured abilities... (Colon, 2002, p. 131) Gradation of students based on perceived ability and as a system of reward. Grades depend on how students perform in class. Each subject is given a weight which is dependent on how significant it is in relation to the hegemonic power relations in society(e.g. In the BEC curriculum, Science, 2 units, English and Math, 1.5, Filipino, 1.2, MAKABAYAN 3.7) However, performance of students depends on how they do their activities/practices in the field in relation to their acquired species of capital (i.e. Bourdieus economic, cultural & social [Bourdieu, 1987])

[Renewed] interest in IQ, the NewIQism (Gillborn & Youdell, 2001)

Ability is seen as relatively fixed. (p. 77) It is widely assumed that ability can be measured. (p. 78)

A distinction is drawn traditionally between intelligence and achievement tests. A naive statement of the difference is that the intelligence test measures capacity to learn and the achievement test measures what has been learned. But items in all psychological and educational tests measure acquired behavior. -The Clearly Committee of the APA, 1970s (Ibid, p. 80) We are subjected to the production of truth through power and we cannot exercise power except through the production of truth [Power-Knowledge nexus, disciplinary mechanisms, technology power] (Foucault, 1976, p. 93)

The consequence is an insidious school system that produces individualized yet disciplined students. Hegemonic power relations outside and especially inside the school produce practices that are sometimes legitimately outspoken in stratifying students (and citizens) but mostly implicit in their workings. These practices are negotiated, configured, constrained, and embedded in value systems and practices that are shared in degrees by members of society.

Nature of Organizing Norms (Ralph Turner, 1960)

Organizing folk norm defining the accepted mode of upward mobility

Contest mobility is a system in which elite status is the prize in an open contest and is taken by the aspirants own efforts. While the contest is governed by some rules of fair play, the contestants have wide latitude in the strategies they may employ. (p. 208) Under sponsored mobility elite recruits are chosen by the established elite or their agents, and elite status is given on the basis of some criterion of supposed merit and cannot be taken by any amount of effort or strategy. Upward mobility is like entry into a private club where each candidate must be sponsored by one or more of the members. (Ibid) [apprenticeship, status conscious, covering up mistakes to protect image]

(Beneficial for us to treat these concepts as opposite poles of a continuum)

Masses are dumb. Control under this system is maintained by training the masses to regard themselves as relatively incompetent to manage society, by restricting access to the skills and manners of the elite, and by cultivating belief in the superior competence of the elite. (pp. 209-210) [elites however are nurtured to be good at their inferiors paternalism] Early sponsored mobility refers to sort[ing] out early in the educational program the promising from the unpromising so that the former may be segregated and given a special form of training to fit them for higher standing in their adult years (p. 212) Good grades can be a basis for recruitment. Sponsored recruits are given special trainings and privileges. Cultural capital cumulates through time, giving the trained an advantage over the untrained.

These processes then create a kind of social environment that separates those who have acquired more cultural capital from those who are least of it, a situation that is analytically similar to practices separating the sacred from the profane.

Theoretical exploration

Religion and collective representations are expressions of society.

A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbiddenbeliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them (Durkheim, 1915, p. 47).

Religion Education/Merit system; Mana/Totemic principle Legitimate knowledge & skills, cultural capital; Sacred things Principal and teachers, higher section (and lower section) students; Profane ordinary students (middle and lower section); Rites and rituals school programs, distribution of scarce resources

Ritual and Stratification

There is a degree of sacredness (Durkheim, 1912). The more close you are to the source of mana (i.e. Totem), the more sacred you are (this could be a source of authority [Collins, 1994])

Similar to the acquisition and accumulation of cultural capital through continuous specialized training. Who has the power to define truth, legitimate knowledge and make groups (symbolic power)?

The sacred is separated from the profane to maintain its sacredness. Its sacred character is contagious (Durkheim, 1912).

Similar to the distance maintained between a supervisor and an employee, a teacher and a student, a higher section student and an ordinary/lower section student.

Ritual and Stratification

Separation between the sacred from the profane in collective practices (positive and negative cultsrites and rituals) create collective representations of beliefs, myths and categories (Durkheim, 1912).

Similar to labels, categories, beliefs about Higher and Lower section students.

(e.g. matalino, cream of the crop, model students, leaders, masipag, bobo,magugulo, bastos, tamad, tanga, mahina, wala daw utak etc.)

Labeling perspective

[The act of labeling] is a process of tagging, identifying, segregating, describing, emphasizing, making conscious and self-conscious; it becomes a way of stimulating, suggesting, emphasizing, and evoking the very traits complained of... -Frank Tannembaum (quoted in Hawkins & Tiedeman, 1975, p. 44

Labels are structurally inspired, produced and reproduced in mundane processes at schools (a vicious cycle, a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy)

Labels affect teacherstudent relationships and studentstudent relationships

They affect the self-concept, motivation, aspiration, and interaction of students

Method: FGD, 15 HSS, Feb. 25, 2010 at a Public HS in QC Kailangan po namin tanggapin kasi parang naging challenge narin po sa amin yung tinawag kaming cream of the crop... parang kailangan naming mameet iyon kasi kung hindi... parang mada-down kami ng... ibang section [tapos sasabihin] ah mas matalino pa kami dyan, mas magaling pa kami dyan, kaya parang naging challenge narin po samin yung mga sinasabi ng teacher namin. kapag nasa section 1 ka o nasa higher section ka nakakaimpluwensya po yung ginagawa ng mga kaklase mo. Kung masipag po sila, magsisipag ka, eh kapag nasa lower [section] makikita mo na yung mga kaklase mo tinatamad, syempre tatamarin ka rin po. kapag nasa higher section kasi syempre iisipin mo yung mga classmates mo magagaling kaya gagalingan mo rin kasi ayaw mong mapag-iwanan. Pag yung mga classmate mo naman mga tamad, syempre sabi nga nila pag yung kamatis, isang bulok na kamatis na[ka]hawa sa ibang kamatis, syempre lahat mabubulok na.

Method: FGD, 10 LSS, Feb. 25, 2010 at a Public HS in QC ...sa panahon ngayon, hindi na po nila alam yung mga sitwasyon na nangyayari kaya lagi nilang hinuhusgahan kaagad na kesyo mabubuntis ka kaagad, mag-aasawa ka kaagad, hindi muna nila tinitignan kung ano yung dapat na tignan po nila kung ganoon ba yung pananaw nung para sa amin, ganun ba yung pananaw namin na kahit ginagawa na namin lahat, yun parin yung hinuhusga samin... ...sasabihin wag...nyo na gawin ito, mahihirapan lang kayo eh, yung mga matataas na section nahihirapan, [kayo pa kaya? Sila po [ang ayaw makihalubilo], syempre kami naman... Always open, sila lang. Para kaming...duming ayaw dikitan.

Homogenization among groups create attributes, expectations and labels that are passed on from one generation of students to another (Abletis, 2010, p. 10). Through time, these labels and categorizations objectify (Berger & Luckmann, 1966) and are internalized, configured, negotiated, regulatedly improvised, reproduced by social actors in different fields. Charles H. Cooley (as cited in Ronquillo et. al., 1989, p. 56) offered a theory on the principal conditions that favor social stratification: (1) little communication and enlightenment, (2) a slow rate of social change, and (3) marked difference in the constituent parts of the population.

Differential treatment

Method: FGD, 15 HSS, Feb. 25, 2010 at a Public HS in QC Parang meron na ngayon [discrimination sa location ng room] kasi yung mga higher section, dyan na kami nakaano sa taas tapos pinaayos pa nila yan. Yung mga lower section ngayon nandoon na sila sa lumang building...yun na yung ginagamit nila. Kailangan po kasi kami dyan para malayo sa ingay [at] makapagconcentrate. Last year, isa lang po yung teacher ng computer [hindi katulad] ngayon dalawa na kaya meron narin pong [computer elective] sa lower section... tulad ng Faraday, section 11... sa tingin ko po kasi masyado pong bias yung utak ng tao, pinanganak po tayo na pinapili po tayo na may choices tayo ganito, lumaki po tayo sa may mga levels. Kung ako yung teacher, syempre ano yung pipiliin ko? Yung sinasabi nilang level na mataas na section 1 o yung sinasabi nilang level na mababa na section 24? Ang iisipin ko anong makukuha ko sa section 24, wala, anong makukuha ko sa section 1, syempre nadoon daw lahat ng best, syempre doon ako kukuha, doon maseset yung utak ko na kailangan doon ako kumuha kasi alam ko lahat sila magaling.

Differential treatment

Method: FGD, 10 LSS, Feb. 25, 2010 at a Public HS in QC [May baka sa ilalim ng upuan namin] Para hindi namin kayang iano, magugulo daw kami...at saka ang pangit po ng building namin kasi para kaming preso. Kasi po ano, kunwari ako teacher, kunwari ganito yung tuturuan ko Pythagoras at saka Rutherford, Roentgen... Yun lang po yung aanuhin namin, hindi na po kami pwedeng ay doon ako sa computer, gusto ko sa ano, hindi kami pwedeng mamili. Kung ano po yung napili ng teacher doon kami. Tulad ng nanghahampas...yung parang maiba lang ng tanong mo tapos lagi nyang bibigyan ng malisya tapos yun nanghahampas na, nagmumura, lahat Hindi rin, kasi minsan yung mga estudyante rin naman yung nagpupush sa mga teacher para sabihin [at] gawin sa kanila yun eh, kaya nakadepende rin talaga sa mga estudyante kung ano yung magiging disisyon ng mga teachers.

Legitimation

Disciplinary mechanisms (room assignment, class schedules, chairs and tables, tests, grades, IQism, identity and bureaucratic forms etc.) Submission to categories, engaging in othering until there is to little communication (Cooley) Being used to the status quo and being consumed to everyday concerns (see also Lenski, 1966, p. 54)
Parang wala lang kaming pakialam sa kanila... hindi, kasi po nakikita naman namin na kaya naman ng section 1 ihandle [kaya] po pinapabayaan na lang po namin sila na ano. ...sanay naman po kami na yung section 1 yung laging nasa ibabaw since 1st year pa po kami...

Who controls the means of mental production?

Most campus papers and student governing bodies are led by higher section students.

Who controls the means of ritual production?

Most school organizations, especially academic ones, are controlled by higher section students. Hence, school programs are mostly led by these students, in association with school authorities, in front of ordinary students. Association to and control of symbolic representations of ritual like events, such as school programs, academic contests and flagraising ceremonies, among others, promote legitimation of power relations and renewal of solidarity to the system (Collins, 1994)

What do we need to do?

Create more studies about these processes in the Philippines Critique and be sensitive to categories and disciplinary mechanisms imposed by the system We need to learn how to listen to students Talk about these processes to people and create spaces for discussion about possible alternatives

References

Abletis, J. (2009). Labeling as a Consequence of Homogenous Student Sectioning at Justice Cecilia Munoz Palma High School and its subsequent effects to selected student-related variables. Unpublished undergraduate thesis: Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Sta. Mesa Abletis, J. (2010). Sociologizing Ability Grouping in Public Schools: Aptitude, Stratification, Meanings, and Legitimation. Unpublished seminar paper for Socio 228: University of the Philippines, Diliman Ballantine, J. H. (1997). The Sociology of Education: A Systematic Analysis, 4th ed., NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc. Berger, P. & Luckmann, T. (1966). The Social Construction of Realities: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, NY: Double Day Bourdieu, P. (1987, April 9-10). What Makes a Social Class? On The Theoretical and Practical Existence of Groups. Lecture delivered in a symposium entitled :Gender, Age, Ethnicity and Class: Analytical Constructs or Folk Categories? at the University of Chicago. Collins, R. (1994). Four Sociological Traditions: Revised and expanded edition of Three Sociological Traditions, NY: Oxford University Press Colon, S. M. (2002). General Sociology: A Simplified Approach, QC: National Book Store, Inc.

Cruz, I. A. (1999, May 3). Quality Education as Key to Success. Philippine Daily Inquirer, p. 8 Durkheim, E. (1912/1915). Elementary Forms of the Religious Life: A Study in Religious Sociology translated by Joseph Swain, NY: The MacMillan Company Foucault, M. (1980/1976, January 14). Lecture Two. In C. Gordon (Ed.). Powerk/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 19721977, pp. 78-108 Gillbourn, D. & Youdell, D. (2001). The New IQism: Intelligence, Ability and the Rationing of Education. In J. Demaine (Ed.). Sociology of Education Today, NY: Palgrave Publishers Ltd., pp. 65-99 Jimenez, J. F. (2007). Kakilala System, The Catalyst, 22 (1), p. 14 Lenski, G. (1966). Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification, NY: McGraw-Hill Marger, M. N. (1999). Social Inequality: Patterns and Processes, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company Turner, R. (2006/1960). Sponsored and Contest Mobility and the School System. In D. Grusky & S. Szelenyi (Eds). Inequality: Classic Readings in Race, Class and Gender, Colorado: Westview Press, pp. 207-215

Thank you!

Sociologizing Ability Grouping in Public Schools: Governmentality, Rituals and Violence (Theoretical sketches)

JOHN N. ABLETIS Instructor 1, Department of Sociology Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Sta. Mesa

Ritual

A ritual is a moment of extremely high social density. Usually the more people that are brought together, the more intense the ritual. But it also heightens the contact; by going through common gestures, chants and the like, people focus their attention on the same thing. They are not only assembled, but they become overwhelmingly conscious of the group around them. As a result, certain ideas come to represent the group itself by becoming its symbols. -Randall Collins Four Sociological Traditions, 1994, p. 190