During the late 1920s and into 1930s sociologists, Bogardus (1928) and Moreno (1934), stemming from their attention to intergroup conflict and interpersonal affiliation, developed methodologies involving quantifiable measures which later came to be known as the sub-discipline “sociometric”. Essentially Sociometrics is a mathematically-inclined approach to classroom dynamics. It can be used by professional researchers and educational professionals like teachers to assess how integrated or not, popular or not, individuals are among their peer group. For example, participants are asked to write or select those who they prefer or do not prefer to share time with. These insights were used to map out a grouping or metric related to social status for each person. In terms of its disciplinary commitments, sociometric may straddle cognitive science, psychology, and sociology (and education studies which subtend all three).
In North America, many of these quantifiable measures were modified for school classroom contexts and by the late 1950s, a couple of influential academic works became the leading texts for those wishing to inquire into the aggregate classroom process. These include Redl and Wattenberg’s (1959) chapter Mental Hygiene In Teaching in their work “Group Life in the Classroom” and Gronlund’s (1959), Sociometry in the Classroom, another important work.
For example, following the “Equality of Educational Opportunity Report” (1966), sometimes referred to by the name of the “Coleman Report,” several courts at the federal and state levels in the United States ruled in favour of racial integration in schools across the country, fuelling research interest in intergroup relations in newly integrated classrooms.
Especially during, and from, the 1980s many research publications have offered greater attention to the tools of sociometric measurement that they use and have provided continued relevance into the study of both individuals and group processes. Asher and Gottman’s book, The Development of Children’s Friendships (1981), and the Summer issue of the Merrill-Palmer Quarterly (1983) offers worthwhile theoretical and empirical details about this sub-discipline.
Although sociometric methods consider classes in the aggregate, rather than individual students, their methodologies have yielded worthwhile insights to relations between friends, peers, and social status within individual teachers’ classes. Past research has suggested such classroom environments are also likely to contribute to greater academic achievement in the class (Schmuck & Schmuck, 1988). Some curricula have been constructed to improve classroom climates: see Coburn & Black’s (1979).
Does social status across a student’s school years remain unchanged?
Coie and Dodge (1983) suggest pupil’s social status across their school years remains relatively unchanged especially among those who are rejected in one way or another by their peers. This social rejection is a reliable measure of future absence at school, as well as school withdrawal and several related, socio-emotional issues. Two “meta-analyses” from Newcomb, Bukowski & Pattee (1993) and Newcomb & Bagwell (1995) synthesize a substantial number of prior conclusions about children designated “vulnerable” or on the attention of safeguarding officers within schools.
Some of these conclusions have directed research in the direction of creating a number of intervention strategies, aimed at classes and individual pupils. Assessment over basic social skills or competencies, which looks as though it correlates strongly with social attraction among peers, has led to intervention approaches with great potential.
There can little doubt that recognizing young people who are more probable recipients of social rejection or indifference from peers is worthwhile. This is often done with the identification of developmentally handicapped children – on occasion referred to by the term “children at risk” – those rejected by their peers can be considered socially vulnerable as well. Because of this sociometric may be able to reveal something about the nature of stigma, or the nature of undesirable qualities, too. Child and Nind (2013) discuss the politics of disability concerning sociometric. They argue that sociometric approaches are based on assuming that young people require and desire a particular number of friends instead of considering the varying nature of social experiences. The paper itself contains a more general ethical critique about the pitfalls of using sociometry with young people too.
Furthermore, sociometric’s willingness to categorize people as having more or less social status may construct and reproduce social difficulties, especially for disabled children. It pretty much fails to consider the environment in creating these difficulties, instead may blame the individual. Rather than being a methodology for good, they add that it may cause yet a further detrimental impact on behaviour and interactions and affect the social context.
No two individuals are alike
Most educational professionals recognize that the groups they encounter in the school environment are not just a number of individuals together. They recognize that they consist of particular dynamics. Some pupils are more popular than others and some often face rejection from the group entirely. The patterns of friendship and rejection are decisively influential in the group’s reaction to a number of certain educational scenarios, and to certain group management strategies that education professionals think are best deployed in the classroom.
Although teachers recognize the seen and heard aspects of their group structure, less visible aspects of interpersonal relationships may be less obvious. Several sociometric methods can construct some of the salient ways members of the group relate to each other or do not.
A sociogram chart can support the sociometry puzzle
For example, a sociogram charts the inter-relationships within a group with the intention of mapping group affiliations creating a “network” map of affiliation and friendship patterns. The relations of any one class member to the whole are another kind of data that can be taken from a sociogram. The value of a sociogram to a teaching professional teacher is its power to elucidate a more informed view of how groups operate so that they can be informed about insights relevant to the management of the class and curriculum development. Sociograms are composed of “positive” and “negative” selection methods and social distance techniques (not dealt with in this summary).
In general, educational professionals should use sociometric techniques to check their findings, and then use these new insights to inform improved grouping and learning practices for their classes. If teachers make the objective of improving classroom climate then sociometric methods can be one to assess whether or not this objective has been realized or requires continued work.
While this document is only a summary and does not present too many sociometric methods, some examples of how teachers might analyze the data once collection has happened are presented. You can get a deeper understanding of how to create a sociogram here.
Sociograms may be designed in many ways, to capture different aspects of the class dynamic. The methods below are ones that are fairly uncomplicated and do not take too much to collect and analyze for the busy educational professional.
Sociogram uses questions from group members who may answer:
- Who are your three closest friends in this class?
- Name a trio in this class do you most look up to?
- Name a trio in this class that you would prefer most to go on a hike with?
These three are examples of “positive nomination” questions: positive, meaning that others would “like” or would “like to do…” something with their peer group. When choices are limited to a fixed quantity selection – in this example they are restricted to only three choices- this is known as a “fixed positive nomination”.
On the other hand, discovering interpersonal resistance would require a “negative nomination” question such as “Which three people in this class do you like the least? This would be known as “Fixed Negative nomination”. If members of the class were called on to order peers from “most” to “least” disliked, it would be called a “Fixed rank, Negative Nomination” technique. Answering such questions is often accompanied by negative emotions on the part of the question takers, which can make sociometric methods within school settings difficult. Nevertheless, negative nomination information can be very valuable, most obviously when it comes to teachers creating seating plans for their classrooms.
Lawrence H. Sherman (2003) of the University of Miami describes and prescribes how an amateur researcher might create more elaborate sociograms here.
Bibliography
Asher, S. R., and Gottman, J. M., The Development of Children’s Friendships. Cambridge ; New York, Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Bogardus, E. S. (1928). Immigration and race attitudes. Health.
Child, S., & Nind, M., (2013). Sociometric methods and difference: A force for good – or yet more harm. Disability & Society. 28. 10.1080/09687599.2012.741517.
Coleman, J. S., Campbell, E., J. Hobson C., McPartland, J., Mood A. M., Weinfeld F.D., and York, R.L, (1966). Equality of Educational Opportunity. Washington: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education.
Moreno, J. L., (1934). Nervous and mental disease monograph series, no 58. Who shall survive?: A new approach to the problem of human interrelations. Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing Co. https://doi.org/10.1037/10648-000.
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Gronlund, N., (1972). Sociometry in the Classroom. New York: Harper.
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Schneider, B. H, et al. Children’s Peer Relations : Issues in Assessment and Intervention. (1985). New York: Springer.
Schneider B.H., Rubin K.H., Ledingham J.E. (1985). (eds) Children’s Peer Relations: Issues in Assessment and Intervention. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-6325-5_11.
Schmuck, R.A., and Schmuck, P.A., Group Processes in the Classroom, (1988) 5th edn. William C. Brown: Dubuque, IA.
Sherman, L. H., (2003). “SOCIOMETRY IN THE CLASSROOM.” Www.Users.Miamioh.Edu, 2003 www.users.miamioh.edu/shermalw/sociometryfiles/socio_are.htmlx. Accessed 23 Dec. 2020.
Vacha, E.F., McDonald, W.A., Coburn, J.M., & Black, H.E. (1979). Improving classroom social climate: Teacher’s handbook (Rev. ed.). Orcutt, CA: Orcutt Union School District.