4.5 Evidence Flashcards
Social class and educational attainment
Education Reform Act
The Education Reform Act 1988 promised parents more information, through league tables, about the performance of schools and individual pupils. The conservative government’s aim with these changes was to produce better educational standards, based upon individual parents demands. Parents were encouraged to be consumers within education.
A further aspect of this consumer orientation lay in the promotion of parental choice. Parents were able to choose the best school according to their children’s educational needs.
The reality was however, very different from the policy rhetoric. Since, the inception of the policy there has been a growing body of research which demonstrates the educational market is class and race biased. ‘Parents seem to make choices based on the perceived class, and in some instances the racial composition of the school. -Gerwitz etal
Cultural Capital and Educational Attainment
Alice Sullivan
Sullivan did the research to test Bourdieu’s theory of Cultural Capital.
She surveyed 465 pupils of school-leaving age. Their class was determined by the parent in the highest-status job. Cultural capital was measured by the educational qualifications of the parents.
Sullivan questioned pupils on the books they read, the tv shows they watched, music they listen to as well as whether they played an instrument or went to galleries. They were also tested on their knowledge of cultural figures and vocab.
She found that students were more successful if they read complex fiction and watched documentaries as this helped develop wider vocabulary.
Importantly, the students whose parents had higher financial capital, also had higher cultural capital and did better.
Washbrook and Waldfogel
Sutton Trust
31% of differences in cognitive scores of 5 y/os who are between lower-income and middle-income families can be explained by material deprivation.
Children, School Choice and Social Differences
Reay etal
This study directly explores children’s experiences as they are going through the secondary school choice process in two inner London primary schools. While there were important commonalities in children’s experience, in this paper we have concentrated on the differences. These, we argue, lay in (a) children’s material and social circumstances, (b) children’s individuality, and (c) the ways in which power is played out within families.
However, despite both individual and family differences there remains a strong pattern of class-related orientations to choice. We also found that while the vast majority of children were actively involved in the choice process, the children’s accounts highlight an important distinction between making and getting a choice. In this particular urban locale, there is less choice for black and white working-class boys than for other groups of children
Emotional Capital as a Way of Understanding Mothers
Diane Reay
This article utilises the concept of emotional capital in order to explore some of the class and gender processes embedded in parental involvement in education. Drawing on fieldwork from a study of mothers’ involvement in their children’s primary schooling it examines mothers’ emotional engagement with their children’s education. Understandings of mothers’ involvement in their children’s schooling are enhanced by including an analysis of the emotions, both positive and negative, that infuse mothers’ activities. The article tentatively concludes that the relationships between educational success, emotional capital and emotional wellbeing, and the extent of overlap and difference between them, could provide new ways of understanding how a range of disadvantages which cross class barriers are being manufactured in the contemporary educational marketplace.
Reay also found that mc women were better positioned to involve themselves in the school’s decision making than wc mothers.
Sarah was a single mother and university student after teenage
years marked by turbulent relationships with family, friends and partners and a chaotic housing career. Jason was serving
his tenth term ‘inside’ – an outcome of extended and dangerous criminal and drug-using careers. In contrast, Martin was
married, in relatively steady employment and working hard for the
local youth organisation he had co-founded. In comparison
to the detailed, contrasting narratives recounted by these three – and
the other 85 people we interviewed – depictions of a unitary, ‘new
rabble’ underclass culture appear simplistic caricatures, concentrating as they do on one sort of negative response to socio-economic dislocation
(Murray, 1994).
They found no evidence of a distinct, deviant, underclass culture in their research. What they found was a complicated picture of a marginalised youth struggling to come to terms with their low status and social exclusion.
Disconnected Youth? Young People, the Underclass, and Social Exclusion
Macdonald and Marsh
Most young people in the UK make relatively ‘successful’, unproblematic transitions from school to work and adulthood. What do we call those that do not? Labels imply explanation, not just description. Terms with academic and policy currency tend to define such young people by something they are not or by their presumed social and economic distance and dislocation from ‘the rest’. How we might best describe, explain and label the experience and problem of so-called ‘socially excluded’, ‘disconnected youth’ is the focus of the paper.
It draws upon extensive qualitative research with young adults growing up in some of Britain’s poorest neighbourhoods, looking particularly at their labour market transitions. Some of the problems and inaccuracies of underclass theory and orthodox conceptualisations of social exclusion are discussed in the light of empirical findings. Following CW Mills, the youthful biographies described are set in a wider panorama of social structure and economic opportunity, particularly the rapid de-industrialisation of the locality studied. Understanding these historical processes of socio-economic change leads to the conclusion that, in short hand, ‘the economically marginal’ is the best descriptive label of the research participants and ‘economic marginalisation’ is the best explanation of their condition.
Social Relations in a Secondary School
David Hargreaves
Noted that boys were streamed on the basis of “academic ability” from their first year onwards. After their first year, the streams (five in all - A to E) took-on a rigid character, such that it was almost impossible for a boy allocated to the bottom (E) stream to move into the top (A) stream. As Hargreaves notes:”During the four years which a boy spends at Lumley school, it is quite possible for him to change streams several times. One of the boys in the present 4A began his career in the school in 1E, but such cases of movement from one extreme to the other are exceptional. It is more common for a boy to move one or two streams up or down; it is not unusual for a boy to move up or down one stream and then return to his original stream.”
Hargreaves found a close correlation between social class and streaming, with mc children at the top and wc children at the bottom streams. He also found that the experience of streaming made each child feel they were a ‘success’ or a ‘failure’. The lack of movement between streams also encouraged the development of student subcultures which not only led to teacher/student conflict but also student-student conflict.
In this respect, Hargreaves notes: “The organisation of the school imposes severe restrictions on opportunities for interaction between boys from different streams, and is thus a major factor influencing the formation of friendships.
Classroom Knowledge
Keddie
Illustrated the way classroom interaction affects both the self-perception and performance of children. In the school she studied, a humanities course was introduced, to be taught to all pupils of a particular age group. Although the school itself was streamed, no streaming by ability took-place on this particular course.
What Keddie found was that teachers brought to the classroom a range of personal, social and work-related experiences that informed their perceptions of a child’s ability. Thus, the fact that a pupil had attracted the label as an “A stream” or a “C stream” pupil informed teacher expectations of the respective abilities of each type of student. In addition, the way different pupils behaved in the classroom further served to confirm teacher expectations and behaviour.
Somewhat surprisingly, perhaps, given our everyday, taken-for-granted, assumptions about “high ability” students, Keddie observed that:”There is between teachers and A pupils a reciprocity [mutual exchange] of perspective which allows teachers to define, unchallenged by A pupils, as they may be challenged by C pupils, the nature and boundaries of what is to count as knowledge. It would seem to be the failure of high- ability pupils to question what they are taught in schools that contributes in large measure to their educational achievement.”.
What about the boys? Schooling, Class and Crisis of Masculinity.
Mac an Ghaill
The subcultural responses in the study were a more subtle outcome of class, race and sexuality. wc boys eagerly looked forward to leaving school at the earliest oppurtunity and entering paid work, but in reality this type of work had all but disappeared, creating what Mac an Ghaill called a ‘Crisis of Masculinity’. They clung to an outdated mode of masculinity focused on an outdated mode of masculinity focused on traditional forms of manual waged labour that no longer existed.
They frequently employed racist explanations to explain and rationalise the situation.
In contrast there were two groups of pro school young people; academic achievers with a strong school and work ethic who looked to academic qualifications as a route to social mobility and focused instead on developing practical skills, particularly business and IT, that they hoped would be rewarded in the changing labor market.
Identified a subculture he termed the ‘Real Englishmen’ a group of middle class students who aspired to university and the professional careers enjoyed by their parents. This group played an elaborate game of making fun of school values while simultaneously working hard, mainly in private outside school. They believed this was achieving success on their own terms.
Pygmalion Effect
Rosenthal and Jacobson
The Pygmalion effect refers to a psychological phenomenon where higher expectations lead to improved performance in others. First described by Rosenthal and Jacobson in 1968, it gets its name from the Greek myth of Pygmalion, where a sculptor’s great expectations for his statue result in it coming to life. Essentially, when teachers or leaders expect more of others, those individuals perform better.
It is a positive form of self-fulfilling prophecy wherein the objects the targeted individuals of projections internalize the optimistic labels they receive and succeed to conform to those labels. This implies that sanguine expectations on a leader’s part could lead to improved performance by followers.
Robert Rosenthal subscribed to the hypothesis that expectations can engender self-fulfilling prophecies by inducing corresponding performance.
He chose an elementary school in California for his study, and administered an IQ examination to each student (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968).
Having tested all the children’s IQ, the researchers selected a sample of children at random and informed the teachers that these were children of high academic potential.
Following the test, the teachers were given the names of the ‘intellectual bloomers,’ but no scores were disclosed. At the end of the school year, all the students retook the test. While the overall scores had risen, the purported ‘intellectual bloomers’ had improved the most.
The evidence seemed to indicate that the teachers’ expectations constituted a contributory variable in the student outcomes, especially in the youngest students (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). The teachers had bestowed more attention on the ‘intellectual bloomers.’
Though with subtlety, the teachers had treated these students differently, providing in-depth feedback etc. Rosenthal concluded that even inconspicuous factors such as attitude and mood could impact students.
It bears noting however, that this experiment was not without drawbacks. The efficacy and reliability of IQ testing have been challenged even by those supporting its administration for limited purposes. Moreover, some people can be more susceptible to labeling effects than others.
Harvey and Slatin
Harvey and Slatin (1976) examined whether teachers had preconcieved ideas about pupils of different social classes.
Harvey and Slatin used a sample of 96 teachers, each teacher was shown 18 photographs of children from different social class backgrounds. To control other variables, the photographs were equally divided in terms of gender and ethnicity.
The teachers were asked to rate the children on their performance, parental attitudes to education, aspirations and so on.
Harvey and Slatin found that lower-class children were rated less favourably, especially by more experienced teachers. Teachers based their ratings on the similarities they perceived between the children in the photographs and pupils they had taught.
This study indicates that teachers label pupils from different social classes and use these labels to pre-judge pupils’ potential.
Charkin etal
used a sample of 48 university students who each taught a lesson to a ten year old boy.
One third (high expectancy group) were told that the boy was highly motivated and intelligent.
One third (the low expectancy group) were told that he was poorly motivated with a low iq.
One third were given no information.
Charkin et al videod the lessons and found that those in the high expectancy group made more eye contact
and gave out more encouraging body language than the low expectancy group.
Beachside Comprehensive
Stephen Ball
This classic case study into secondary education sought to investigate why working-class pupils underperformed at school.
Ball spent three years in Beachside Comprehensive, carrying out a participant observation. He particularly focused on two groups of students, one who had been banded or streamed by ability, and another that was taught in mixed-ability classes. The banding was well-intentioned. There was a concern among teachers that in mixed-ability classes the brightest pupils were held back and the weakest pupils were left behind, with a tendency that it was the middle swathe of pupils who were focused on. However, Ball found that the process tended to have a negative impact on working-class pupils.
He found that pupils who started school with similar attitudes to study began to diverge when they were banded/streamed. That is when they were put in classes supposedly based on their ability. Streaming is when pupils of a similar ability are in the same, streamed class for all subjects whereas with setting pupils could be in a high set for Maths and a low set for English (for example).
Working-class pupils gravitated towards the lower bands and then became increasingly disinterested in education and “anti-school”. The net effect of this was that children from lower-income families left school with fewer qualifications, therefore reproducing class inequalities, apparently by accident. He describes a downward mobility - quite the opposite of what Parsons or Davis and Moore imagined - where attempts at differentiation damage working-class pupils’ education and life chances.
Supports the idea of the myth of meritocracy, because even when academically capable, the working class are still labelled negatively.
