2.2 differential educational attainment - social class

Question 1

What are some external factors that impact educational attainment for different social classes?

Answer 1

• cultural deprivation
• working class subculture
• language
• compensatory education
• material deprivation
• fear of debt
• impact of the pandemic
• parental attitudes

Question 2

What did the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (2007) argue about cultural deprivation?

Answer 2

• by the age of 3, children from disadvantaged backgrounds are already up to one year behind

Question 3

What is meant by cultural deprivation?

Answer 3

• many working class families fail to socialise their children effectively, according to some sociologists
• this leads to a lack of cultural equipment, the children are culturally deprived and so will underachieve

Question 4

What did Barry Sugarman (1970) argue about working class subcultures?

Answer 4

• the WC subculture has four key features that act as a barrier to educational achievement:
  1. fatalism = nothing you can do to change status
  2. collectivism = valuing being a part of a group more than succeeding as an individual
  3. immediate gratification = seeking pleasure now rather than making sacrifices in order to get rewards in the future
  4. present-time orientation = seeking the present as more important than the future + so not having long-term goals

Question 5

How does WC subcultures arguably lead to underachievement?

Answer 5

• WC children internalise the beliefs and values of their subculture and this results in them underachieving at school

Question 6

What does Hubbs-Tait et al (2002) argue that language can affect achievement?

Answer 6

• MC parents use language which challenges their children to evaluate their understanding e.g. asking ‘What do you think?’
• through this cognitive performance improves

Question 7

What does Leon Fernstein (2008) argue that language can affect achievement?

Answer 7

• parents from MC families are more likely to interact in this way (Hubbs-Tait et al)
• less educated parents tend to use language in ways in which require children to make simple descriptive statements

Question 8

What is meant by restricted and elaborated speech codes?

Answer 8

• Bernstein (1975) = the differences between WC language influences achievement
• restricted speech codes = limited vocabulary, may involve only a single word or gestures, context bound + typically used by the WC
• elaborated speech codes = wider vocabulary, longer grammatically more complex sentences, communicates abstract ideas, places events in context

Question 9

What does Douglas(1964) argue about parents’ education and its influence on achievement?

Answer 9

• WC parents are less ambitious for their children, less likely to discuss their children’s education with teachers

Question 10

What does Feinstein(2008) argue about parents’ education and its influence on achievement?

Answer 10

• the parents’ own education is the most important factor affecting children’s achievement
• the more highly educated WC parents are, the more they are able to encourage their children to take more of an interest in their education

Question 11

What are some criticisms of cultural deprivation as an explanation for differential educational achievement?

Answer 11

• Nell Keddie(1973) = ‘myth of cultural deprivation’, he dismisses the idea that failure at school can be blamed on culturally deprived homes, one cannot be deprived of your own culture, WC children fail because the system is dominated by MC values
• Barry Troyna and Jenny Williams(1988) = the problem is not the child’s language but the school’s attitude towards it
• Blackstone and Mortimore(1994) = WC parents attend fewer parent’s evenings because of long working hours - they may want more contact with the school but lack the knowledge of how to do so

Question 12

What was Operation Head Start?

Answer 12

• billion pound scheme for pre-school education in the 60s
• Sesame street = trying to transmit values, attitudes, skills needed for educational success - numeracy, literacy, punctuality, etc

Question 13

What were sure-start centres?

Answer 13

• aimed to close the gap for low income students before they started school
• conservative govt have closed some down

Question 14

What was the Education Maintenance Allowance?

Answer 14

• trying to get people to stay in school; would pay for travel - for those who couldn’t afford it
• BUT some people would bunk off and claim the £30 a week

Question 15

What is meant by material deprivation?

Answer 15

• refers to the lack of material necessities such as inadequate housing and income; diet and health

Question 16

How does Marylin Howard(2001) argue that material deprivation affect attainment?

Answer 16

• young people from poorer homes have lower intakes of energy, vitamins and minerals
• poor nutrition affects health: could cause more absences from school

Question 17

How does Richard Wilkinson(1991) argue that material deprivation affect attainment?

Answer 17

• the lower the social class, the higher the rate of hyper activity, anxiety and conduct disorders

Question 18

How does Jo Blanden and Stephen Machin(2007) argue that material deprivation affect attainment?

Answer 18

• children from lower income families are more likely to engage in externalising behaviour - fighting, temper tantrums which are likely to disrupt schooling

Question 19

How does David Bull(1980) argue that material deprivation affect attainment?

Answer 19

• the costs of free schooling, school is meant to be free
• students from lower income families may: lack equipment, not able to afford education trips, wear hand me downs, work too much in part time jobs

Question 20

How does Emily Tanner(2003) argue that material deprivation affect attainment?

Answer 20

• looked at the burden of school costs on poorer families as a result children may feel stigamatised, may be teased or isolated

Question 21

According to Flaherty, what percentage of those entitled to FSM do not take it up?

Answer 21

20%

Question 22

How can the fear of debt affect educational attainment?

Answer 22

• Claire Callender and Jon Jackson(2005) = data from a nationwide questionnaire of 2000 prospective students found that WC students are more averse to debt, WC students were over 5 times more likely to not apply due to fear of debt
• Diane Reay(2005) = those from WC families were more likely to go to a uni near home to save on costs - this gave them less opportunity to go to the best universities

Question 23

According to a National Union of Student Online Survey(2010), what percentage of students from higher class. backgrounds recieved support from home?

Answer 23

81%

Question 24

According to a National Union of Student Online Survey(2010), what percentage of students from higher class. backgrounds recieved support from home?

Answer 24

81%

Question 25

According to a National Union of Student Online Survey(2010), what percentage of uni students are from WC backgrounds?

Answer 25

only 30%

Question 26

What did Gillian Evans’ study, Educational Failure and WC children (2007) reveal about underachievement?

Answer 26

• 18 months of fieldwork
• most parents placed a higher value on education + encouraged their children to do well, it’s not the value placed on education that accounts for class differences in attainment BUT instead class differences in socialisation

Question 27

What does Bourdieu argue about attainment?

Answer 27

• elimination = due to their lack of cultural capital, students are more likely to fail exams, preventing higher education

Question 28

What did Alice Sullivan’s questionnaire reveal about attainment? (methods in context link)

Answer 28

• questionnaire survey of 465 16 year old students
• suggests that cultural capital, parental interest in education, and parents’ economic situation all contribute to class inequality in educational attainment

Question 29

What are some internal factors that affect WC underachievement?

Answer 29

• whether children are ‘warmed up’ or ‘cooled down’ (Ball)
• the halo effect
• access to classroom knowledge
• educational triage
• setting and streaming
• self-fulfilling prophecies
• pupil identities