Ability grouping in the secondary school: attitudes of teachers of practically based subjects

Ability grouping in the secondary school: attitudes of teachers of
practically based subjects

Introduction

Historically, in the United Kingdom (UK), the secondary education system has largely
been based on ability grouping, either between or within schools. Underlying such
structured grouping policies are fundamental assumptions relating to the nature of
intelligence - broadly, that pupils have different levels of ability which are relatively
immutable and unchanging. Despite a growing body of research which challenges these
ideas stressing the importance of experience and prior knowledge in human development
indicating that what is conceptualised as intelligence is learned, policy makers in the UK
have continued to promote the grouping of pupils by ‘ability’, despite the evidence that
structured ability grouping, of itself, does not lead to consistently better or worse
attainment for any particular group of pupils and can have negative effects on the
personal and social outcomes for particular groups of children (for reviews see
Hallam, 2002, Ireson and Hallam, 2001; Sukhnandan and Lee, 1998; Harlen and
Malcolm, 1997). Most secondary schools in the UK adopt some form of structured
ability grouping, usually setting (pupils being put into ability groups for specific
subjects), for at least some subjects (Benn and Chitty, 1996).

A further explanation for the continued adoption of ability grouping structures,
despite the evidence indicating their disadvantages, may be the beliefs that teachers
hold about ability grouping. Studies of teachers' attitudes towards structured ability
grouping in the USA (NEA, 1968; McDermott, 1976; Wilson & Schmidts, 1978),
Sweden (Husen and Boalt, 1967), the UK, (Daniels, 1961a, 1961b; Jackson, 1964,
Barker-Lunn, 1970) and Israel (Ministry of Education, 1965; Guttman et al, 1972) have

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