Education Insights • 2024 • Volume 2 • Issue 1 9 receive maximum learning, maximum involvement is needed from students.48 Gardner agreed explaining that learning would be forgotten without an active role from the student.49 Engagement from students is not possible without self-motivation. Hallam contended that challenging students far beyond their ability also decreases self-drive.50 Alpert and Bechar asserted that, despite the criticism and resistance toward ability grouping, it is difficult to defy. Several other researchers who have documented issues with eliminating ability grouping and its consequential influences on inequality supported their argument.51 Alpert and Bechar explored a concept called “Opening Triads” that involved periodic regrouping of three classrooms with students of the same age and studying the same subject into new groups. Their findings contend that ability grouping is difficult to eliminate, but there are alternatives that may reduce its harmful social and emotional effects. Valerie Pare emphasized that during adolescent years, circumstances will challenge selfperceptions.52 Many situations can cause similar insecurities which makes it difficult to claim that a student has low self-confidence due to a grouping practice.53 Advocates of ability grouping justify its intent to foster learning and not to decrease the emotional or social growth of students. Researcher Hallinan explained his support for ability grouping by stating that an appropriate balance between the level of instruction and the student’s ability will increase effectiveness and proficiency.54 Catasambis and Buttaro stated, “The potential effect of ability grouping on students’ psycho-social attributes and behaviors may be linked to characteristics of the classroom environment and teacher practices and expectations.”55 Perceptions of Administrators and Teachers Not only does the debate over grouping students by like ability levels center around the effects it has on students and their achievement, but it also includes research concerning administrators and teachers. Previous studies indicated that teachers who support heterogeneous grouping tend to be more 48 Hendricks, Teaching to Change Lives. 49 Morgan, “Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences,” 10. 50 Hallam, Ability Grouping in Schools, 113. 51 Jeannie Oakes, Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality, 2nd ed (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005); see also Jeannie Oakes, John Rogers, and Martin Lipton, Learning Power: Organizing for Education and Justice (New York, NY: Teachers College Press, 2006). 52 Valerie Pare, “Exploring the Conflicts Involved with Ability Grouping,” University of Connecticut, Summer (2004), https://nrcgt.uconn.edu/newsletters/summer042/. 53 Pare, “Exploring the Conflicts"; see also Kulik and Kulik, “Meta-analytic Findings on Grouping Programs,” 73-77. 54Maureen T. Hallinan, “Tracking: From Theory to Practice,” Sociology of Education 67, no. 2 (1994): 79. 55 Sophia Catsambis and Anthony Buttaro, “Revisiting ‘Kindergarten as Academic Boot Camp’: A Nationwide Study of Ability Grouping and Psycho-Social Development,” Social Psychology of Education 15, no. 4 (2012): 483–515.
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