Essay On Homogeneous Grouping

Introduction

All students are different in cultural background, social-economic status, past learning experience and ability to learn. In order to provide them with the learning experience that is most suitable to their ability, schools may place students into different ability groups. The two major types of grouping is named homogeneous grouping and heterogeneous grouping. Homogeneous grouping is a grouping method that used a standardised measure of students’ academic ability and achievement in school subjects, where students are allocated to classes of different ability levels (Esposito, 1973). Conversely, heterogeneous grouping refers to the grouping that students of different ability are mixed in the same class. The duration of debate between

It generally believed that the ability of students can be changed through hard work (Wilkinson et al., 2000). Since high-ability classes in homogeneous grouping or high-ability groups with advanced instructions in heterogeneous grouping may be more likely to create higher academic outcomes, students and the public would be encouraged to pursue high-ability classes. In academic rationalism, it is believed that letter learning can create a better person. In order to be a person with higher qualities in the society, students may have to compete with each other for better learning. However, this kind of competition may promote the idea of stratification in society. If the public only focuses on the receiving of academic benefits, they would regard high-ability learning groups as having power or having advantage, while low-ability learning groups as having less power and having disadvantage. There would be a clearer ranking of students’ ability that may lead to different ranks of people in society under academic rationalism. As a result, the idea of social stratification may be aroused when competition among students occurs in homogeneous grouping or heterogeneous grouping with varied instructions to students of different