Expectation effects: Pygmalion and the initial 20 years of research1

ABSTRACT

This article reviews Rosenthal and Jacobson’s (1968) seminal study, Pygmalion in the Classroom (PC). We consider what preceded PC, the actual study, immediate criticisms of it, Rosenthal’s reactions to the criticism, and, importantly, the research that followed PC from 1968 to roughly 1990. Despite critical criticisms of it, we conclude that PC had a tremendous impact because it stimulated researchers to study expectation effects in the classroom that established that some teachers do form and communicate differential expectations to their students and that some students internalise these expectations in ways that manifest in their actual performance. The research that followed PC has yielded rich concepts and findings that are relevant for theory, practice, and social policy.     

The consequences of being labelled ‘looked‐after’: Exploring the educational experiences of looked‐after children and young people in Wales

The educational experiences and attainment of looked‐after children and young people (LACYP) remains an issue of widespread international concern. Within the UK, children and young people in care achieve poorer educational outcomes compared to individuals not in care. Despite proliferation of research documenting the reasons for educational disadvantage amongst this population, there remains limited empirical consideration of the lived experiences of the educational system, as perceived by LACYP themselves. This paper draws upon qualitative research with 67 care‐experienced children and young people in Wales. The sample was aged 6–27 years, and comprised 27 females and 40 males. Participants had experienced a range of care placements. Findings focus on how educational policies and practices alienate LACYP from dominant discourses of educational achievement through assignment of the ‘supported’ subject position, where children and young people are permitted and even encouraged not to succeed academically due to their complex and disrupted home circumstances. However, such diminished expectations are rejected by LACYP, who want to be pushed and challenged in the realisation of their potential. The paper argues that more differentiated understandings of LACYP's aspirations and capabilities need to be embedded into everyday practices, to ensure that effective educational support systems are developed.     

The hiring of academic administrators since the 1972Higher Education Guidelines

With the announcement of the 1972Higher Education Guidelines, colleges and universities were mandated to expand recruitment activities beyond the usual network approach. The intent of theGuidelines was to broaden the search process with the ultimate goal of placing more candidates from underrepresented populations. The purpose of this study was to determine if any change occurred in hiring practices and, particularly, if any change occurred in the hiring of candidates from underrepresented populations for select academic administrative positions in four-year colleges and universities as advertised in theChronicle of Higher Education during the period from 1972 to 1976. It was found that changes in recruitment had taken place but that changes in hiring appeared not to have occurred.     

Lost and Found in Translation: An Education in Narrative in Fieldwork and the Classroom

One of the most important questions I ask as both a cultural anthropologist and a university teacher is: How do people come to know what they think they know? In this article, I adopt a narrative approach to processes of learning and discovery in two very different locales, an indigenous society in the South Pacific, and a senior seminar on contemporary anthropological theory in a Canadian university. I show how I developed an exercise to “bring the field into the classroom” and how my students helped me to take what we learned in the classroom back to the field. In my conclusions, I discuss lessons I and my students learned about the link between experience and understanding, about the nature of interpretation, and about the role of reflexivity in the construction of meaning.     

Moving across physical and online spaces: a case study in a blended primary classroom

With the introduction of digital tools and online connectivity in primary schools, the shape of teaching and learning is shifting beyond the physical classroom. Drawing on the architecture of productive learning networks framework, we examine the affordances and limitations of an upper primary learning network and focus on how the digital and physical elements involved in set design shape teachers' pedagogical approaches and students' learning processes. The findings suggest that blended spaces support teachers' distributed orchestration of classroom activities across tools and resources while also leveraging students' engagement in reciprocal teaching and collaborative learning.     

Infants' Perception of Emotion From Body Movements

Adults recognize emotions conveyed by bodies with comparable accuracy to facial emotions. However, no prior study has explored infants' perception of body emotions. In Experiment 1, 6.5‐month‐olds (n = 32) preferred happy over neutral actions of actors with covered faces in upright but not inverted silent videos. In Experiment 2, infants (n = 32) matched happy and angry videos to corresponding vocalizations when the videos were upright but not when they were inverted. Experiment 3 (n = 16) demonstrated that infants' performance in Experiment 2 was not driven by information from the covered face and head. Thus, young infants are sensitive to emotions conveyed by bodies and match them to affective vocalizations, indicating sophisticated emotion processing capabilities early in life.