Great Expectations: A Consideration of the Self‐Fulfilling Prophecy in the Context of Educability

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Abstract
Neither Sociology nor Education is free from the dictates of fashion and there can be no doubt that for Sociologists of Education ‘teacher expectation’ is currently in vogue and, like all fashion, exerts a powerful influence. It has been utilised not only by opponents of all the various forms of streaming and dissenters from functionalist approaches to working‐class wider‐achievement, but also by those who salute it as the major variable of educability. The continuing interest in this area suggests that the time is opportune for a further contribution to the expectation debate, including a fresh consideration of how the phenomenon of ‘teacher expectation’ is realised. This paper seeks, firstly, to appraise the present status of ‘teacher expectation’ by posing the question ‘Are we expecting too much of expectation?’ and, secondly, to locate the self‐fulfilling prophecy in all its variant forms ‐firmly within an interactionist framework.

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