In sociology, do interactionists always view labelling and self-fulfilling prophecies as a bad thing?

Question

Do interactionists ever see negative labelling as helpful? Do they believe that it can help someone fight against that label therefore achieving more? or is that used as a criticism against the labelling theory?

Answer 1

It is more undesirable than say a "Bad" thing.  when it comes down to the negative aspects of labelling and the SFP, it is unfortunate that people do tend to get labelled not according to their ability, which some other main stream sociology theories such as Functionalism tends to claim under meritocracy, but instead social class, which backs up Marxist Theory, but of course in a micro way.  Take for example Becker's 1952 study, which focused on how teachers perceived the ability of their pupils, if a pupil came from a middle to upper class background, it would be highly likely that the teacher would label that pupil as an eager, well adjusted individual, or if a pupil came from a background that was lower middle class, they, the teacher would often see them as "nice" but not too bright, or if you are unlucky to be from a poor working class background, then chances are you would be labelled as deviant, no matter what the actual facts were or are.  The majority of cases it would live with the individual for life, though it is hard to say as an  internationalists would not want to use statistics to back anything up, though I am not one so I would (lol).

The study which the person above me is talking about is the Rosenthal, et al study into the SFP in the early 1970s, where the two researchers’ went into a classroom, and choose 20% of the class, and labelled them as gifted, posing as educational psychologists.  It was found one year on that the chosen 20% purely chosen at random were top of class.  This study clearly shows that teachers that label have a great influence over their teaching methods to certain "band" of child.

So, I would say that negative labelling is an extremely bad thing, and of course so would internationalists.  Of course there are cases where a label is put upon you, and you work hard to retract it, but labels are difficult to shrug off.

Answer 2

i guess good and bad.  i remember reading a study where a teacher was told that certain children were gifted but she was not allowed to tell anyone.  a year later, those "gifted" kids scored higher than other kids.