What’s in a Name?

Whoop’s - meant to post this yesterday, but as I was rather tired and it was a long day, by the time I posted, I’d forgotten it!

This bit of research reported by the BBC caught my eye. Teachers can apparently identify troublemakers just by looking at a list of names. Wow, great reporting BBC! - though a few qualifications are just about mentioned towards the end of the article. Thousands of sociology students (and hopefully, their teachers) will cry out ’ That’s labelling’.

But for a bonus mark or two: is it really labelling or is it just that teachers are using names as an indicator that things might go wrong? What is the difference between labelling and using indicators?

Also - bear in mind that this was from an online survey. The sample is said to have consisted of 3000 respondents - but can you identify any problems with an ‘online sample’?

That also begs the question of how useful the internet and electronic media can be for sociologists - something for students and teachers to discuss.