By Karen
Sternheimer

My office hours have been getting busy as students get the
results from midterms and term papers. People who seldom come to class suddenly
appear at my door, as do highly motivated students who want to make sure they
can get an A. Several sociological concepts can help us understand why grades
matter on a number of levels.

First, consider the role that social institutions
play in students’ concerns about grades. Our educational system is set up to
encourage students to consider grades a primary measure of success. Going
through the college admissions process, students learn that the grades on their
transcript are more important than actual learning.

Unfortunately this often continues once students—especially
high achieving students—enter college. When students are disappointed about a
grade, I like to think of it as a learning opportunity to talk about how to
improve their written work. Because we are all encouraged to think about a
grade as the ultimate goal, many begin by asking me to raise their grade.
“Can’t I have just a few more points?” a student asked recently. I explained
that it would be more valuable in the long run to figure out how he could take
his work to the next level and how he might understand the concepts better.
This way he wouldn’t have to ask for a higher grade; he would earn one.

While students at all levels can be grade obsessed, I find
that freshman often have the most requests for a higher grade. After all, they
have just completed years of putting together a transcript to get in to
college; it is sometimes difficult to switch gears and think about education
differently.

This is a great example of goal displacement,
when we lose sight of the actual purpose of a task and instead substitute it
with another. This can happen if we have already achieved a goal (the classic
example is how the March of Dimes once focused on polio, but since the disease
has been largely eradicated the organization now focuses on birth defects more
generally). Goal displacement also happens when the goal itself might seem to
abstract or intangible, like getting an education.

Just as I have noticed that freshman seem more focused on
grades than their more advanced peers, I get quite a few seniors in my office
hours with an entirely different dilemma: wondering what to do next. They had
spent most of their lives focused on the goals of the educational system and
are about to exit this institution, often leaving them with little sense of
purpose. They have nearly completed a college transcript, but now what?

The focus on grades may detract from developing a passion
for learning or figuring out what you might like to do with your life, but
grades do serve a meaningful purpose. For example, Max Weber‘s concept of bureaucracy helps us understand why grades have become so
central within the educational system.

According to Weber, large, complex social institutions must
develop some way of organizing themselves as rationally as possible. Grades
(and standardized test scores) are attempts to measure academic success across
organizations, and they are supposed to have meaning that goes beyond an
individual school. Whether they actually achieve this is another story, but the
underlying purpose makes some sense. Grades help administrators determine who
gets admitted, who gets scholarships, who keeps their scholarships, and for
student athletes, who gets to keep playing at the collegiate level.

Grades also matter to students on a more personal level.
Sociologists also help us understand how we construct a sense of identity based
on the perceptions of others. George
Herbert Mead argued that we each come to achieve a sense of self through a process called the “I” and the
“me.” The “me” is who we think others perceive us to be, and the “I” part
of our self is our reaction to this perception.

Grades are profoundly social, as they involve a private
interchange between the student and instructor, where the student often feels
judged in the process. Keeping this in mind, I try to be extremely careful with
my wording when providing feedback, knowing that if a student feels hurt by
comments they might not be able to learn from them and instead become
defensive. Sometimes students challenge a grade not so much because they think
they did better on an exam than the grade reflects, but because they are
defending a perceived slight to the self.

A big part of how we see ourselves is based on how our
friends and family perceive us. Friends and family regularly ask students about
their grades. I notice this when handing back papers; friends will ask “how did
you do?” or “what did you get?” While I wish they wouldn’t do this—I can recall
getting a less than stellar grade and having someone immediately ask me these
questions—I understand that part of how we make sense of our own performance is
by comparisons with others. 

Parents, of course, can demand to see grades if their
children are minors, or if they decide that access to grades is a condition of
continuing to pay tuition. Fearing that their parents will be disappointed
drives many students to focus primarily on their grades.

Are you worried about grades? If so, what sociological
factors might contribute to this concern? What aspects of your education might
be overlooked in the process?