Label Backfire

Hey 👋

Hope your week’s going well. Another Thursday, another snack on effective inclusion…

Big idea 🍉

Labels play an important role in education. They help students access targeted support and guide us in responding to particular needs. However, they can also have unintended downsides—they are a double-edged sword.

Teachers who know a student’s diagnosis can—often unconsciously—lower their expectations, asking fewer complex questions or offering less peer collaboration. Students can also internalise these expectations—dyslexic children, for example, often report lower self-efficacy not just in literacy but in unrelated areas like math(s).

Labels also influence identity. Students with special educational needs are more likely to experience social exclusion and reduced peer acceptance. When differences are highlighted, it can reduce our sense of belonging—a key driver of motivation and wellbeing.

There are also a variety of less direct effects. Labels can prompt teachers to focus overly on associated diagnoses at the expense of core learning needs (aka diagnostic overshadowing). Students just below diagnostic thresholds can be overlooked, despite often facing equally significant challenges. And the process of labelling itself can entrench societal biases, with more vulnerable children underrepresented in early intervention (even when controlling for need).

All of this is exacerbated by the fact that some labels are poorly defined (they have low ‘construct validity’). This can lead to variability in how we conceptualise and diagnose conditions. For example, a significant proportion of professionals have multiple misconceptions regarding dyslexia.

Many of these ways that labels can backfire are not obvious. It’s vital that we are alive to such potential downsides, that we keep our focus on supporting core learning needs—including maintaining high expectations for all—and that we deploy labels with care in the classroom.

🎓 For more, check out this paper on the potential downsides of labels.

Summary

• Labels are useful in education, but they also have (often less obvious) downsides.

• Labels can inadvertently lead to lower teacher expectations, student expectations, and feelings of belonging.

• We must be alive to these downsides and wield labels with care in the classroom.

Little updates 🥕

• Study on student attention signs → finds that combos of student gaze, head movements, and facial expressions are predictive of cognitive engagement.

• Paper on snoozing in class → finds that a quick nap before lessons boosts learning, but deeper sleep can backfire if students get too groggy 🥱

• Mega-study testing email nudges to 140,000 teachers → finds weekly personalised prompts slightly boost student math(s) progress in lasting way.

• Report on how boys are doing → finds they’re falling behind girls at school, work, and home, with growing risks of crime, poor health, and isolation.

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