School transfer and the diffraction of learning trajectories

Abstract

School transfer acts like a prism, diffracting children's social and learning trajectories. In this paper I explore this sociological effect through two case studies of children moving from the primary to the secondary school. The impacts of the school, peer and family fields are explored using Bourdieu's theory of practice, and shifts in the relative power of these fields are traced across the primary-secondary interface. My analysis explains why, decades after Nisbet and Entwistle first linked poor school transition with social class, it is still the case that the economically and culturally more well-endowed make the most of moving school. So it is that through processes of harmonization and dissonance, of compliance and resistance, children navigate, and are steered, from their embodied social and education pasts towards future constrained possibilities. These processes are partially contextualized in the learning of school mathematics.

It matters which class you are in: student-centred teaching and the enjoyment of learning mathematics

“…From the studies of primary-secondary transition that have focused on mathematics we know that learning trajectories are socially differentiated at the primary-secondary interface (Noyes 2006), due in large part to the differential cultural and social resources that students carry in what Thomson (2002) calls their 'virtual school bags '. Elsewhere Rice (2001) has shown that transition is a point of inflection in the rate of mathematical progress of young people.…”

“…The two survey points in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS), age 9 and 13, are bisected in England by the transition from primary to secondary school, which has long been identified as a critical phase in young peoples' educational trajectories (Nisbet and Entwistle 1969, Measor and Woods 1984, Galton et al 1999, Noyes 2006. There has been a great deal of research over the years aimed at better understanding the challenges faced by students moving from primary to secondary school at the age of 11.…”

Bringing Bourdieu to mathematics education: a response to Williams and Choudry

“…Suffice to say that Bourdieu's 'theory of practice' (not capital), with its core concepts of field, habitus and capital, offers tools for sociological analysis that many have found to be tremendously helpful, including myself (for example, Noyes, 2006;Noyes, 2007).…”

Scale in education research: towards a multi-scale methodology

“…Through a combination of multilevel modelling (Goldstein, 2003) of performance data from the Department for Education's National Pupil Database, large student surveys in sixteen schools, cohort tracking and focus group interviews, the project explored the motivations of young people towards mathematical study and how schools, families and peers impact upon learner trajectories. Building on previous case study research on the learning trajectories of 10-12 year olds which theorized the socially differentiating power of schooling (Noyes, 2006), the GMAP project extended this work to older students. By investigating the impact of peers, classes, schools and neighbourhoods on learners' attainment and participation the study aimed to work on large and complex datasets, findings from which might prove more compelling to policymakers.…”

“…(Noyes, 2004b). Matt and Marie are the most able mathematically (Noyes, 2006 Although the researcher is physically situated within the locale of the classroom, multiple socio-educational scales -spatial and temporal -are present, with varying degrees of visibility, and are overlaid and entangled in complex ways. Lefebvre (1991) highlights the benefits of seeing space as hypercomplex, explaining that "the principle of the interpenetration and superimposition of social spaces…means that each fragment of space subjected to analysis masks not only one social relationship but a host of them that analysis could potentially disclose" (p. 88).…”