class and differential achievement

Question 1

patterns of class and differential achievement

Answer 1

children from w/c backgrounds are:
- less likely to be found in nursery schools
- more likely to fall behind in literacy and numeracy
- more likely to be placed in lower sets
- more likely to leave school at 16 in the past
- less likely to stay on and enter further education
- less likely to be found in higher education (only 1 in 5 w/c children go to university)

Question 2

examples of external factors affecting class

Answer 2

• intelligence
• material deprivation
• cultural deprivation
• linguistic deprivation
• cultural capital

Question 3

examples of material deprivation

Answer 3

• cannot afford private education
• cannot afford educational resources (books, educational toys, tutors etc)
• poor overcrowded housing
• poor diet (poor concentration)
• hidden costs of free education (trips, uniform, calculators etc)
• can’t afford to move to catchment area of better schools

Question 4

ONS statistics on material deprivation

Answer 4

found that 29% of the poorest households in Britain had no computer access but 99% of the richest households had one

Question 5

Douglas - impacts of poor housing

Answer 5

found that the group with unsatisfactory housing conditions had lower educational abilities than those with satisfactory conditions

Question 6

Howard - impacts of poor diet

Answer 6

not being able to afford nutritional food may cause children to lose concentration and do worse in education

Question 7

Tanner - hidden costs of education

Answer 7

w/c children may have to rely on second hand or unfashionable items which can lead to bullying and doing worse in education

Question 8

Leech and Campos - catchment area

Answer 8

m/c families can afford to get children to travel to better schools or move to the catchment area of a good school

Question 9

strengths of material deprivation theory

Answer 9

• highly influential in developing many compensatory education initiatives

Question 10

weaknesses of material deprivation theory

Answer 10

• lack of money does not always influence educational achievement
• does not take into account cultural factors (Phillips - may be due to poor teaching or parenting)
• policies aimed at combatting deprivation have limited success (sure start schemes, EAZs etc)

Question 11

cultural deprivation

Answer 11

the idea that the w/c do not have the language or values needed to do well in education so they are placed at a disadvantage

Question 12

Bernstein - linguistic deprivation

Answer 12

restricted code - shorthand speech consisting of a narrow vocabulary with short and broken sentences, relying on gestures and slang (w/c)
elaborated code - use of full sentences and a wider vocabulary, with explanations and details provided (m/c)

Question 13

strengths of linguistic deprivation theory

Answer 13

• takes into account how cultural factors interact with the school environment
• empirical evidence (Bernstein showed boys’ storyboards)

Question 14

weaknesses of linguistic deprivation theory

Answer 14

• out of date (Gaine + George argue differences in speech patterns have declined
• small, unrepresentative sample of boys aged 5

Question 15

Douglas - parental interest

Answer 15

suggested m/c parents were more likely to visit their children’s schools and encourage them to stay on in education when w/c parents will not

Question 16

criticism of Douglas (parental interest)

Answer 16

parents may not attend their children’s school due to shift work or not being able to afford childcare rather than not being interested

Question 17

Sugarman - characteristic of working class subculture

Answer 17

fatalistic - there is no way to change your status so there is no point trying as you will fail anyway
collectivistic - value being part of a group rather than individual success
present time orientated - seeing the present as more important than the future
immediate gratification - seeking immediate pleasure rather than making sacrifices to get bigger rewards in future

Question 18

strengths of cultural deprivation theory

Answer 18

• highly influential over government policy
• can explain why people who are materially deprived can succeed
• Feinstein found cultural deprivation was the most important factor in educational achievement

Question 19

weaknesses of cultural deprivation theory

Answer 19

• cultural deprivation is a myth (Keddie - education system is simply biased against w/c culture)
• w/c people are interested in their children’s education
• research has not measured parental interest adequately (Blackstone and Mortimore - teacher assessments are not an accurate reflection)
• material or internal factors may be the main cause of differences
• Whitty - policies focus too much on child’s background and not societal inequality as a whole

Question 20

Bourdieu - cultural capital

Answer 20

the knowledge, attitudes, values, tastes and likes of the middle class, which gives advantage to those who possess it
m/c children succeed in education because they have been socialised into this culture already

Question 21

strengths of cultural capital theory

Answer 21

• Bourdieu takes a positive view of w/c culture
• evidence of difference in cultural capital of m/c and w/c (Sullivan -tested children on their cultural knowledge and found m/c had most cultural capital)
• evidence that m/c use cultural capital to get children into the best schools (Gewirtz - m/c utilised cultural capital and knowledge of the education system)

Question 22

weaknesses of cultural capital theory

Answer 22

• weakly defined concept that may not exist
• over exaggerate differences between m/c and w/c
• fails to account for internal factors

Question 23

examples of internal factors

Answer 23

• labelling
• setting and streaming
• pupil subcultures
• school policies

Question 24

Rosenthal and Jacobson ‘Pygmalion in the Classroom’ (labelling theory)

Answer 24

carried out IQ tests on children and told teacher 20% of them (randomly selected) would be ‘spurters’ and make above average progress in the the next year
teachers accepted and utilised the label on these children, giving them more encouragement, meaning they did make above average progress

Question 25

Becker - self fulfilling prophecy (labelling theory)

Answer 25

w/c children do worse because they have negative labels attached which brings about a self fulfilling prophecy because this has been predicted

Question 26

Becker - ideal student (labelling theory)

Answer 26

found that w/c children tended to be furthest from a teacher’s ideal student image which is what may lead to the negative labelling

Question 27

Rist - tigers and clowns (labelling theory)

Answer 27

within 8 days of kindergarten children starting school they had been divided on ability into ‘tigers’ and ‘clowns’
teachers claimed that this was based on ability Rist found that it was actually based on the degree to which the students conformed to m/c standards

Question 28

Dunne - w/c children and underachievement

Answer 28

teachers saw underachievement as normal for w/c children and that w/c parents were labelled as uninterested

Question 29

Gilborn and Youdel - educational triage

Answer 29

students are sorted into 3 groups:
- those who will pas anyway
- those with potential
- no hopers
w/c pupils would more likely be no hopers and placed in lower sets, leading to self fulfilling prophecy and anti school subcultures

Question 30

Lacey - subcultures and differentiation

Answer 30

teachers differentiate students, placing them in different sets based on ability, which causes polarisation of top and bottom sets
top sets form a pro-school subculture whereas bottom sets form an anti-school subculture

Question 31

Ball - subcultures and streaming

Answer 31

found that when streaming was abolished the influence of subcultures declined, but m/c students were still labelled more positively so achieved better exam results

Question 32

strengths of labelling theory/interactionism

Answer 32

• takes into account internal factors
• less deterministic than structural theories

Question 33

weaknesses of labelling theory/interactionism

Answer 33

• does not explain stereotypes or where labels come from
• deterministic in some ways (self fulfilling prophecy etc)
• ignores external factors
• not all studies show w/c get negatively labelled (Hemel - in mainly w/c schools quiet and obedient w/c receive positive labels)

Question 34

cream skimming

Answer 34

selecting high ability m/c students as they tend to do well and are cheap to teach

Question 35

silt shifting

Answer 35

offloading w/c and SEN students as they tend to fail and cost more

Question 36

Sutton Trust - free school meals

Answer 36

found that the top 500 comprehensive schools have a proportion of children eligible for FSM less than half the national average

Question 37

Archer - symbolic capital

Answer 37

m/c cultures are given more status by others and therefore have more symbolic capital, with w/c culture being seen as worthless and this devaluing of a culture is called symbolic violence
w/c children gain symbolic capital by adopting ‘Nike identities’ which gained symbolic capital from their peers but led to them being labelled as trouble makers at school, undermining their achievement

Question 38

habitus

Answer 38

the dispositions or learned, taken for granted ways of thinking, being or acting that are shared by a social class

Question 39

strengths of symbolic capital theory

Answer 39

• useful and realistic as combines internal and external factors
• supported by research (Ingram - w/c boys had to abandon identity to fit in, Evans - w/c girls didn’t apply to Oxbridge due to fears of not fitting in)