The Relationship Between Tracking and School Violence

Abstract

Tracking in the American education is where students are formally assigned/labeled college prep, general, or vocational. In some areas of the United States, tracking/labeling begins as early as kindergarten. IQ and early achievement tests designed to measure “ability” determine track/label placement in the elementary school years, thus setting in place an educational trajectory for the students' educational tenure. Social reaction or labeling theory holds that criminality is promoted by becoming negatively labeled by significant others. Labels such as “gifted,” “honors,” “average,” “remedial” give certification of overall ability or worth. These labels teach students that if the school does not identify them as capable in earlier grades, they should not expect to do well later. Such labels isolate kids from society and lock them into lives of antisocial behaviors. Labels create expectations that the labeled person will act in a certain way. Eventually these students begin to accept their labels as personal identities, locking them further into lives of crime and deviance.