Successful and Unsuccessful Schools: A Study in Southern Auckland

Abstract

A central question within the 'new' sociology of knowledge is whether schools act as agencies of transformation or reproduction. Allied to this question is the skeptical claim that schools do not make dramatic differences to children's behaviour, performance, or attitudes in any case. The present ethnographic, grounded theory study, which was located in working class, predominantly Polynesian schools, focusses on these two points and argues that 'successful' schools, through much modified curriculum content, through changed pedagogical techniques and through alternative organisational styles, were endeavouring to effect transformations. However, by contrast, 'unsuccessful' schools were aiming at reproducing existing structures within the community. The researchers argue that their study provides support for some of the major writers in the field, but as well caution that some writers may be overstating their cases (e.g., Anyon, 1981). The researchers are also critical of Rutter and his colleagues' (1979) work primarily because of their failure to treat curriculum content as problematical. They conclude by suggesting that the key questions which face communities like New Zealand remain within the processes elites use to legitimate and to give status to certain forms of knowledge.