Class Differences in Education (3) Flashcards
What does DEA stand for?
Differential Educational Attainment.
What does Differential Educational Attainment mean?
Not all social groups perform equally well in education. Social groups are Social class, gender and ethnicity. These group have variations and differences from each other, but also have differences within a group.
For example, the genders achieve differently, as do the social classes (WC and MC) and ethnic groups (Indian, Chinese, Black, White).
What are the external factors that cause class differences?
- Material deprivation.
- Cultural deprivation.
- Capital (cultural, economic, educational, social).
- Social policies - Marketisation.
What is meant by external factors?
Factors that happen outside the school e.g. the home or wider society.
What is meant by internal factors?
Factors that happen inside the school or the educational system.
What are the internal factors that cause class differences?
- Labelling and the self-fulfilling prophecy.
- Pupil subcultures and streaming.
- Social policies - Marketisation / selection.
- Pupil class identities.
What does Material Deprivation mean?
Lacking material items / financial support to help with educational success.
What does Cultural Deprivation?
Lacking the attitudes, values and cultures which encourages, educational success.
The ethos of a school refers to the attitude or philosophy of a school, what might this include?
Religion. Morals. How they deal with racism, sexism etc. Parent involvement. Non tolerance of bulling. How students are rewarded and what for. Activities they participate in - visits to partner schools other countries. Enrichment activities. Uniforms. Sport facilities.
How is the ethos of the school reflected in?
The hidden curriculum in addition to the studying of formal subjects.
What do Bowles and Gintis’s view school promote?
Schools promote capitalist values and hierarchies has already been mentioned.
What do interactionaists believe about pupils and the educational system?
Interactionists believe that pupils are not passive victims of the education system but play an active part in their learning.
What do interactionaists argue about the educational achievement?
They argue that educational achievement is dependent on our interaction with others and they way we interpret and define situation.
What does Howard Becker (1971) believe about teachers?
Howard Becker (1971) believed that teachers tend to evaluate pupils in terms of an ideal student, by looking at appearance, personality, speech and class.
What did Howard Becker (1971) find about teachers?
Becker found that teachers saw middle-class children as the closest to the ideal, the lower working-class children were regarded as badly behaved. Teachers stereotype pupils and often label them. The label can be positive or negative. A positive can produce a ‘halo effect’. Both positive and negative labels can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy (pupils conform to the label they have been given and act accordingly). Teachers constantly reinforce their initial positive or negative judgements in all subsequent interactions with students, resulting in the pupil being ‘trapped’ in that perception.
What did Waterhouse (2004) argue about labelling?
Waterhouse (2004) argues that being trapped in a perception that has been created by the self-fulfilling prophecy then becomes a ‘privotel identity’ for the student/teacher relationship. This is a core identity providing a pivot which teachers use to interpret classroom behaviour. For example, if a teacher has labelled a student as deviant he/she will interpret ‘normal or good behaviour’ as a temporary episode.
What did Ray Rist’s (1970) study?
Ray Rist’s (1970) study of an American kindergarten shows how labelling occurs from the start.
What did Ray Rist’s (1970) find in his study?
He found that the teacher used information about children’s home background and appearance to place them in separate groups, seating each group at a different table. Those she decided were fast learners, whom she labeled tigers tended to be middle-class anf of neat and clean appearance. She seated these at the table nearest to her and showed them encouragement. On the other hand, ‘the clowns’ were more likely to be working class. They were given lower level books to read and fewer opportunities to demonstrate their abilities.
Who conducted a field experiment that looked at the ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’?
Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968)
What was the aims of the field experiment that looked at the ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’?
There aims were to plant int he minds of the teachers a particular set of expectations about their pupils and, secondly, to see if this had any effects on pupil performance.
What was done in the field experiment that looked at the ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’?
They labelled some children ‘spurters’ by administering a fake IQ test. This was to see whether the label given would cause a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’.
What was found a year later in the field experiment that looked at the ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’?
On returning to the school a year later they found that almost half of the ‘spurters’ had made significant progress. This was because the teachers had believed what had been told and this influenced how the children were taught.
What did Cicourel and Kitsuse (1971) study?
Cicourel and Kitsuse (1971) studied American high school careers advisers, who directed students towards different courses and career influenced by their social class, demeanour, speech and conduct reports. Students with the same grades were assigned to course of different levels because of labelling.
What are the evaluating points of the labelling theory?
- Critics regard labelling as too deterministic, as students are free agents who can reject labels if determined to do to. Parental support may be more influential.
- Teachers in Britain are now under pressure to achieve the best possible results from all students, so are less likely to neglect groups they think may have less potential.
- Studies such as the ones above have featured in teacher training, so teachers are warned against labelling and this has been reinforced by recent inclusion policies.
- However, researchers such as David Gillborn (1990) have found that well-meaning teachers unknowingly hold expectations of particular ethic groups that can lead to unfair treatment, classroom confrontations and unjustified expulsion.
What is meant by banding, setting and streaming?
A system that organises students into ‘ability’ groups, may by influenced by teachers labelling and have negative effects on the behaviour and performance of those assigned to lower groups.
Who studied into banding, streaming and setting?
David Hargreaves (1967) Nell Keddie (1973) Stephen Ball (1981)
What did David Hargreaves note about a secondary modern school?
Boys were assigned to A or B streams more on the basis of behaviour than ability. Better teachers were assigned to the A stream and expected more of these pupils. Soon pupil attitudes and behaviour patterns became polarised. Lower-stream students were virtually doomed to failure, forming anti-school and delinquent subcultures, while the A stream students felt valued and were more academically successful.
What was Nell Keddie (1973) interested in and how did he observe it?
Nell Keddie (1973) was interested in variations in the curriculum offered to comprehensive students once assigned to different groups. In humanities lessons, lower streams, mainly working class, were occupied with easy, practical activities, while higher streams, mainly middle class, were given higher-level higher streams, mainly middle class, were given higher-level information that was far more useful for passing exams.
What did Stephen Ball (1981) argue about banding, streaming and setting?
Stephen Ball (1981) argued that diving students into broad ability bands when they entered the school was based, to a large extent, on subjective reports from primary schools, so that the bands tended to reflect the pupil’s social origins. The effects of this labelling on the students’ motivation were soon apparent. The enthusiasm of the first term soon evaporated in those assigned to Band 2 and their attendance fell away, while that of Band 1 students remained good. Likewise, Ball observed much worse classroom behaviour and the formation of anti-school subcultures in Band 2.
How can you briefly summaries the studies of Hargreaves, Keddie and Ball?
Hargreaves - Behaviour ‘v’ Ability
Keddie - Curriculum (work level)
Ball - Primary report
What are the evaluating points of banding, streaming and setting studies?
Today teachers may be more determined to achieve better results lower bands. Some of this research may be quite subjective and, though Ball used positivist methods - comparing attendance figures and conducting structured observations with tick charts - it is still difficult to exclude all variables. Band 2 students may have suffered poorer health because they were working class. Their anti-school attitudes may have stemmed from their home background and not been solely a response to banding. The primary teachers’ reports may have been based on genuinely low achievement as a result of anti-school attitudes at an early age.
Peter Wood’s research (1971) can be used as a critique of Hargreaves, Keddie and Ball, as he identifies a much broader range of pupil behaviours in response to streaming.
Conformists, for example, range from unpopular teachers’ pets, through genuinely keen students, to ritualists who are not interested but lack the energy to misbehave. Deviant students include those who are directly confrontational and others who are more quietly rebellious, for example by gossiping instead of doing the task set. In addition, Woods observes that many students may work well with their firmer teachers whose lessons they like, and misbehave in others. This shows that it is too simplistic to suggest that streaming polarises students into ideal pupils and rebels.
Who studied into educational triage?
Gillbourn and Youdell (2000)
What did Gillbourn and Youdell (2000) find about how schools operate an educational triage?
Gillbourn and Youdell (2000) found that schools operate an educational triage. This means dividing students into 3 groups:
1. Students who will gain their GCSE’s without needing help.
2. Students who with a little extra help will gain their GCSE’s.
3. Students who are unlikely to get their GCSE’s no matter how much help they get.
Schools focus their attention on the first two groups in order to boost their league table position and write the last group off as no-hopers who die an educational death.
What does Young (2012) argue about identities?
Young (2012) argues identities are formed and can broadly be explained in two ways:
Structural causes - such as class and gender, that tend to govern our identities from the outset as they exist outside the individual.
Agency-based theories - emphasis the active choice made by individuals to join some social groups and not others.
Why does Young (2012) have his opinion on identity? What was the study he conducted?
Young found in a survey of 22 Scottish schools that working class boys were more likely to identity themselves as NEDS (non-educated delinquents) due to their social class. However, he also found some affluent girls chose to identity themselves as NEDS as they considered it to be ‘cool’. This suggests that both structure and agency play a part.
Who studied into pupil’s identity?
Young (2012)
Hempel-Jorgenson (2009)
What did Hempel-Jorgenson (2009) find out about pupil’s identity?
Hempel-Jorgenson (2009) found that teachers labelling also impacted on pupils learning identities and how they viewed themselves and others in the class e.g. stupid or clever. Banding, streaming and setting can also have the same impact.
What is the explanations for student progress focusing on school organisation, school processes and the teaching and learning context?
- They recognise that educational failure is not always the students fault. Teachers and schools have responsibility too.
- Negative labelling doesn’t always lead to failure and can be reversed.
- They largely ignore what happens outside of school and the impact external factors can have.
- Doesn’t explain why all teachers tend to have the same view of what constitutes an ideal pupil.
What are Children from working class backgrounds more or less likely to be?
Children from working class backgrounds:
~are less likely to be found in nursery schools or pre-School play groups.
~are more likely to start school unable to read.
~are likely to fall behind in reading, writing and number skill.
~are more likely to be placed into lower sets.
~are more likely to get fewer GCSE’s or achieve lower grades.
~are more likely to leave school at the age of 16 and are less likely to go on to sixth form or university.
~are more likely to be hyperactive, suffer anxiety and conduct disorders.
What are the possible reasons why working class children underachieve?
~Labelling and the self fulfilling prophecy.
~Economic capital.
~Cultural capital.
~Parents don’t see the point in education.
~”Immediate Gratification” - as soon as they get money they spend it. They don’t save up for an education.
~External factors - Home life.
What are the internal factors for class differences?
- Labelling/teacher expectations - streaming and setting.
- Pupil subcultures.
- Marketisation and selection policies.
What can negative labelling lead to?
Negative labelling can mean students get put into lower streams.
