class differences in achievement - external factors Flashcards
Tait et al and Feinstein
Tait et al found that where parents use language that challenges their children to evaluate their own understanding or abilities, cognitive performance improves.
Feirnstein found that educated parents are more likely to use language in this way.
Less educated parents tend to require children to make simple descriptive statements. This results in lower performance.
More educated parents are more likely to use praise.
Bereiter and Engelmann
- Language in lower class homes is deficient
- communicate by gestures, single words, disjointed phrases
- Children therefore fail to develop necessary language skills such as explaining, describing and comparing.
- incapable of abstract thinking
- Therefore unable to take advantages of the opportunities that school offers
Bernstein
- distinguishes between elaborated and restricted speech codes.
- Restricted = used by working class. Limited vocab, less analytical. Its particularistic (context bound) - the speaker assumes the listener shares the same set of experiences. Restricted code makes working class feel excluded and to be less successful
- Elaborated code = used by middle class. More analytical, wide vocab and complex sentences. Universalistic (context free) - speakers spell out their meaning explicitly. Gives advantage in school because used by teachers, textbooks exams. Effective tool for analysing and reasoning, essential skills in education.
Douglas and Feirnstein
- Douglas found working-class parents placed less value in education
- Therefore less ambitious for their children
- Less encouragement and took less interest e.g. doesn’t discuss school with child or teacher
- Children have lower motivation and achievement
- Feirnstein. Argues parent education is the most important factor. Middle class parents tend to be better educated so their children gain advantage. Educated parents more likely to be aware of what is needed to assist child in learning
Feinsteins conclusion about class, income and parental education
that parental education has an influence on children’s achievements in its own right, regardless of class or income. Thus, even with a given social class, better educated parents tend to have children who are more successful at school.
This may help to explain why not all children of working-class parents do equally bad and why not all children from middle-class families are equally successful.
Bernstein and Young
- Middle-class mothers are more likely to buy educational toys, books and activities that encourage reasoning skills and stimulate intellectual development. Working class homes unlikely to have these resources.
- Middle class better understanding of nutrition and its importance
Sugarman
- Working class-subculture has four key features that a barrier to educational achievement
-fatalism - cant change your status whatever
-collectivism - valuing being part of a group more than succeeding as an individual
-Immediate gratification - seeking pleasure now rather than sacrificing for rewards later
-Present, time orientation - present more important than future
-Working-class children internalise these beliefs and values through socialisation. As a result, they underachieve at school
.-Sugarman argues that these values stem from the fact that middle-class jobs are secure careers offering prospects for continual individual advancement.
Keddie (1973)
cultural deprivation is ‘victim blaming’, a child can’t be deprived of its own culture, working class children are disadvantaged by a middle-class educational system, not cultural deprivation
Troyna and Williams
language isn’t a problem - teachers have ‘speech hierarchy’ that discriminates against working class.
Blackstone and Mortimer
working class parents care but haven’t got time or opportunity to get involved in their children’s schooling due to working longer hours.
statistics that link poverty and educational underachievement
Department for Education (2012), barely a third of pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM) - a widely used measure of child poverty - achieve five or more GCSEs at A*-C including English and maths, as against nearly two thirds of other pupils
.* Nearly 90% of ‘failing’ schools are located in deprived areas.
Howard 2001)
notes that young people from poorer homes have lower intakes of energy, vitamins and minerals. Poor nutrition affects health, for example by weakening the immune system and lowering children’s energy levels. This may result in more absences from school due to illness, and difficulties concentrating in class.
Wilkinson 1996
Children from poorer homes are also more likely to have emotional or behavioural problems. According to Richard Wilkinson (1996), among ten year olds, the lower the social class, the higher the rate of hyperactivity, anxiety and conduct disorders, all of which are likely to have a negative effect on the child’s education.
Blanden and Machin 2007
found that children from low income families were more likely to engage in ‘externalising’ behaviour (such as fighting and temper tantrums), which are likely to disrupt their schooling.
Tanner 2003)
Lack of financial support means that children from poor families must do without equipment and miss out on experiences that would enhance their educational achievement.
Tanner 2003: found that the cost of items such as transport, uniforms, books, computers, calculators, and sports, music and art equipment, places a heavy burden on poor families.
As a result, poor children may have to make do with hand-me-downs and cheaper but unfashionable equipment, and this may result in being isolated, stigmatised or bullied by peers. Yet, for many children, suitable clothes are essential for self-esteem and ‘fitting in’.
