Double standard in the classroom: analysis of socio-semantic categorization networks operated by teachers

Abstract

This article analyzes categories operated by bureaucrats when classifying types of users and their effects on the distribution of services, observing contexts of high inequality and universal policies. We analyze how teachers, as street-level bureaucrats, implement the policy by categorizing different types of students. We adopt an analytical lens of cultural schemes, which considers that individuals internalize associations between official and social (informal) categories from their experiences. The analyzed data were collected through vignettes applied to 40 teachers from the municipal education system of São Paulo, Brazil. We analyzed the use of categories through socio-semantic and semantic networks of categorizations and the construction of referral networks. The results show that teachers simultaneously mobilize political and social categories and that the introduction of the variable vulnerability in cases opens space for the introduction of social categories that generate different types of treatment for students with similar behaviors.

Keywords:
street-level bureaucrats; categorization; socio-semantic networks; teachers; education