Class differences in achievement (external) Flashcards
What does it mean by external factors affecting education?
Factors outside of the education system that impact a child’s educational success
What is Cultural deprivation?
The theory that many working class and black children are inadequately socialised and therefore lack the ‘right’ culture needed for educational success
What did the Centre Longitudinal Studies (2007) find?
By age 3, children from disadvantaged backgrounds are already up to one year behind those from more privileged homes
What are examples of basic ‘cultural equipment’ needed for educational success?
Language, self-discipline and reasoning skills
Why do many children end up culturally deprived?
Failure to socialise children adequately means the pupils lack the cultural equipment to succeed
What did Hubbs-Tait et al find?
Cognitive performance improved when parents used language that challenged their child to evaluate their own understanding+abilities» Leon Feinstein found educated parents were more likely to use this language
What do Bereiter and Engelmann claim?
The language used by the lower class homes is deficient, describing them as communicating through gestures, single words or disjointed phrases.
What is the consequences of children failing to develop necessary language skills?
They grow up incapable of abstract thinking and unable to use language to explain, describe, compare etc putting them at a disadvantage in school
Who identified two types of speech code?
Basil Bernstein
What are the two kinds of speech codes?
The restricted code and the elaborated code
What is the restricted code?
-Speech typically used by the working class
-Limited vocabulary and is based often on short grammatically simple sentences
-Context bound: assumes the listener shares the same set of experiences
What is the elaborated code?
-Speech typically used by the middle class
-Wider vocabulary and is based on longer, grammatically more complex sentences.
-Context-free: the speaker does not assume that the listener shares the same set of experiences and so use language to spell out their meaning explicitly
How do speech codes affect educational achievement?
Middle class get put at an advantage because the elaborate code is what is used by teachers, textbooks etc and is seen as the ‘correct’ way to speak and write. Due to their socialisation, they have learnt this making them more equipped and more likely to succeed.
How do critics criticise the idea of speech codes disadvantaging a pupil?
They say it suggests the working class is inadequate
What did Douglas (1964) find about working class parents?
They placed less value on education and as a result were less ambitious for their children, gave them less encouragement and took less interest in their education