CLASS DIFFERENCES IN ACHIEVEMENT (EXTERNAL FACTORS) Flashcards
What did the Sutton Trust (2011) report about Eton and state schools?
Eton sent 211 pupils to Oxbridge, while over 1,300 state schools sent no pupils at all.
This highlights class differences in educational achievement.
What is cultural deprivation?
Cultural deprivation refers to the lack of basic values, attitudes, and skills needed for educational success, often due to inadequate socialisation in working-class families.
What are the three main aspects of cultural deprivation?
According to cultural deprivation theorists, many working-class families fail to socialise their children adequately. These children grow up ‘culturally deprived’. That is, they lack the cultural equipment needed to do well at school and so they underachieve. The three main aspects are language, parents’ education, and working-class subculture.
What are the two types of speech code identified by Bernstein (1975)?
- The elaborated code is typically used by the middle class. It has wider vocabulary and is based on longer, grammatically more complex sentences. Speech is more varied and communicates abstract ideas.
- The restricted code is typically used by the working class. It has limited vocabulary and is based on the use of short , often unfinished, grammatically simple sentences. Speech is predictable and may involve only a single word, or even just a gesture instead.
How does the differences in speech code benefit M/C children?
These differences in speech code give middle-class children an advantage at school and put working-class children at a disadvantage. This is because the elaborated code is the language used by teachers, textbooks and exams. Not only is it taken as the ‘correct’ way to speak and write, but in Bernstein’s view it is also a more effective tool for analysing and reasoning and for expressing thoughts clearly effectively-essential skills in education.
By contrast, working-class children, lacking the code in which cooling takes place, are likely to feel excluded and to be less successful.
What is a evaluations of the speech code?
Bernstein recognises that the school-and not just the home-influences children’s achievement. He argues that working-class pupils fail not because they are culturally deprived, but because schools fail to teach them how to use the elaborated code.
How do speech codes affect educational achievement?
Middle-class children benefit from the elaborated code used in schools, while working-class children may struggle with the restricted code.
What did Douglas (1964) find about working-class parents’ attitudes towards education?
Working-class parents placed less value on education, leading to lower ambition and encouragement for their children.
What did Leon Feinstein (2008) argue about parents’ education?
Parents’ own education is the most important factor affecting children’s achievement and, since middle-class parents tend to be better educated, they are able to give their children an advantage by how they socialise them. .
How do better-educated parents contribute to their children’s success?
Better educated parents not only tend to have higher incomes. They also spend their income in ways that promote their children’s educational success. For example, as Bernstein and Young (1967) found, middle-class mothers are more likely to buy educational toys, books,and activities that encourage reasoning skills and stimulate intellectual development.
What are the four key features of working-class subculture according to Barry Sugarman (1970)?
- Fatalism: a belief in fate- that ‘whatever will be, will be’ and there is nothing you can do to change your status. This contrasts with middle-class values, which emphasis that you can change your position through your own efforts
- Collectivism: valuing being part of a group more than succeeding as an individual. This contrasts with the middle-class view that an individual should not be held back by group loyalties.
- Immediate gratification: seeking pleasure now rather than making sacrifices in order to get rewards in the future.
- Present-time orientation: seeing the present as more important than the future and so not having long-term goals or plans. By contrast, middle-class culture has a future-time orientation.
What is the myth of cultural deprivation according to Nell Keddie (1973)?
Cultural deprivation is a victim-blaming explanation; working-class children are culturally different, not deprived. They fail because they are put at a disadvantage by an education system that is dominated by middle-class values.
What is material deprivation?
Material deprivation refers to poverty and lack of material necessities that impact educational achievement e.g textbooks, Wifi, technology.
How does poor housing affect pupils’ achievement?
Living in overcrowding contions and a home with poor ventilation can make studying difficult, impair development, and lead to health issues that cause school absences.
What did Marilyn Howard (2001) note about nutrition in poorer homes?
Young people from poorer homes have lower intakes of essential nutrients, affecting their health and school attendance.
What are the costs of education according to David Bll (1980)?
Poor families face costs for transport, uniforms, and educational materials that burden their financial situation.
What is cultural capital according to Pierre Bourdieu (1984)?
Cultural capital refers to the knowledge, attitudes, values, language, and abilities that give M/C children an advantage in education as it acts as a capital.
Like Bernstein, he argues that through their socialisation, M/C children acquire the ability to grasp, analyse and express abstract ideas. They are more likely to develop intellectual interests and an understanding of what the education system requires for success.
For example, M/C parents are more likely to take their children to museums, read to them and take them on holiday to aid their their education.
