Chapter 1: Class Differences In Achievement Flashcards
What external factors impact class and education?
Cultural deprivation
Material deprivation
Cultural capital
What are the main aspects of Cultural deprivation?
Language
Parents education
Working-class subculture
How does language contribute to Cultural deprivation?
Hubs-Tait: educated parents more likely to use challenging language. Working-class parents use simple descriptive language.
Bernstein: restricted and elaborated code.
What is Bernstein’s restricted code?
Used by working-class, simple descriptive language. Context-bound
What is Bernstein’s elaborated code?
Used by middle-class. Wider vocabulary and complex sentences. Context-free.
Why are those who use the elaborated code at an advantage?
Used by teachers and school exams. Middle-class pupils are already fluent but working-class have to learn it.
What internal factors impact class and education?
Labelling The self-fulfilling Prophecy Streaming Pupil subcultures Pupils class identities and the school
What is the Labelling theory?
Teachers’ labelling of pupils without justification impact the pupils’ educational achievement.
What did Becker find in his interactionist study of labelling?
Teachers judged pupils according to how closely they figured an image of the ‘ideal pupil’.
Based on interviews with 60 Chicago high school teachers.
How do the notions of the ideal pupil vary depending on the social class make up of the school according to Hemple-Jorgensen?
- In a largely working-class school where discipline is a major problem the ideal pupil is defined as quiet, passive, and obedient. Defined by behaviour.
- In a mainly middle-class school the ideal pupil was defined by personality and academic ability as there are few behavioural problems.
- Aspen Primary school.
- Roman Primary school.
Dunne and Gazeley argue that schools continuously produce working-class underachievement because of labels and assumptions of teachers. What do they find from their interviews with nine state secondary schools?
Teachers normalised underachievement of the working-class and thought their was nothing they could do to help them pass. They would only help the middle-class because they believed they were “worth saving”.
How did the teacher’s belief’s of the role of pupils’ home backgrounds impact pupils’ achievement?
This led to class differences in how teachers dealt with pupils who are underachieving; they would set extension work for middle-class pupils but put working-class pupils in easier or foundation tier exams.
What did Rist find in his study of an American Kindergarten?
Teachers used information about a child’s background and appearance to place them in separate groups, seating each group at a different table.
What is the interactionists argument of the self-fulfilling prophecy?
Step 1: the teacher labels a pupil and in the basis of this label, makes predictions about them.
Step 2: the teacher treats the pupil as if the prediction has already come true.
Step 3: the pupil internalises the teacher’s expectation which becomes part of his self concept or self image.
Evaluate if the study of Rosenthal and Jacobson was ethical. (The IQ test results)
• Teachers didn’t know what they were apart of. They hugely effected children’s educational career without their knowledge.
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