Ability Grouping and Students

Essay # 5515

Education > Teaching Methods
Education > Theory
Psychology > Child and Adolescent

How ability grouping relates to students and denies them the opportunity to achieve their full potential.

2,500 words () | 11 sources | MLA | 2001 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper studies the issue of grouping students into different levels for the purpose of academic study. It provides research for and against the idea, as well as raising sociological issues such as the effects on children from disadvantaged backgrounds and parental opposition to such a policy.

From the Paper:

"The questions at the core of the ability grouping and 'tracking' dispute is how to best educate large numbers of students with different backgrounds and aptitudes. It is hard to determine validity, for every opponent of ability grouping and tracking there is a supporter. For every research study contradicting ability grouping or tracking, there is research stating that the idea is best for all students. It seems that logic, emotions, research, and bureaucracy all clash on the advantages and disadvantages of this issue. For the purposes of this paper ability grouping relates to when students are clustered together within classes based on their skill, such as Level 1 readers and Level 2 readers. Tracking refers to the cluster of students between classes that take courses in subjects that convey a difference in a child's' talent. Classes that are considered in the tracking realm would be Advanced Placement (AP) English, College Prep (CP) English, and Regular English. Classes that follow that pattern are also referred to as Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. Parents of students involved in higher-level classes think that those classes are the only ones in which their child can succeed. Parents of children in lower level classes sing a different tune. In the end who is right? It becomes a tennis match; sadly the students are the ones who lose. "