Client labels depend more on setting and discretion than objective traits

Evidence

The particular difficulty with labels ascribed by street-level bureaucrats, as we have seen, is that the characteristics on which they are based are problematic. Judgments concerning the status allocated by street-level bureaucrats depend upon the discretion of the bureaucrat, which in tum depends upon many indeterminate factors, such as training, the social context in which the client is presented, and the presence or absence of similar “differences” in the client population. The fast-track students in the above illustration might have been labeled slow learners in white, middle-class schools (the students and teachers were black). A criminal offense in one setting might be overlooked in another. The social construction of the client, involving the client, others relevant to the client, and the public employees with whom they must deal is a significant process of social definition often unrelated to objective factors and therefore open to the influences of prejudice, stereotype, and ignorance as a basis for determinations. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 529

Categorization

• QUESTION: The fast-track-versus-slow-learner flip across school settings is poignant — worth chasing how often the identical child gets opposite labels purely from reference-group composition.
• XREF: Connects to tracking judgments resting on inferred class (ch43 earlier in this book) and to Erving Goffman’s work on stigma and the situational construction of identity. — connects to: Differentiation produces the evidence that retroactively justifies itself — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 834; Mass-processing management displaces the client-orientation goals that justify agencies.; Self-placement alone cannot explain conservative or liberal label evaluations — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2044 (+1 more)
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source

Broader Connections

• Self-placement alone cannot explain conservative or liberal label evaluations #complicates (0.78) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2044