Class Differences In Education

Question 1

What percentage of Britain’s children attend private schools?

Answer 1

7%

Question 2

How many entrants to Oxford and Cambridge come from private schools?

Answer 2

Nearly half

Question 3

What are internal factors?

Answer 3

Factors within schools and the education system.

Question 4

Give two examples of internal factors

Answer 4

• Interactions between pupils and teachers

- Inequalities between schools

Question 5

What are external factors?

Answer 5

Factors outside of the education system.

Question 6

Give two examples of external factors.

Answer 6

The influence of home and family background and wider society.

Question 7

What did a nationwide study by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (2007) discover? (cultural deprivation)

Answer 7

By the age of three, children from disadvantaged backgrounds are already up to one year behind those from more privileged homes and the gap widens with age. Some sociologists claim this is the result of cultural deprivation.

Question 8

According to cultural deprivation theorists, why do many w/c underachieve in education?

Answer 8

Many w/c families fail to socialise their children adequately. One of the main skills required to achieve in education.

Question 9

What does it mean if a child is ‘culturally deprived’?

Answer 9

They lack the cultural equipment needed to do well at school and so they underachieve.

Question 10

What are the three main aspects of cultural deprivation?

Answer 10

Language, parents’ education and w/c subculture.

Question 11

What did Hubbs-Tait et al found out about language?

Answer 11

They found that where parents use language that challenges their children to evaluate their own understanding or abilities (e.g what do you think?), cognitive performance improves.

Question 12

What is Feinsteins theory of language codes?

Answer 12

• Educated parents are more likely to use language which challenges their children to evaluate their own understanding or abilities.
• By contrast, less educated parents tend to use language in ways that require children to make simple descriptive statements. This results in lower performance.
• M/c parents are more likely to use praise. This encourages children to develop a sense of their own competence.

Question 13

Why do cultural deprivation theorists, such as Bereiter and Engelmann, see differences in how parents use language as linked to social class?

Answer 13

They claim that language used in lower-class is deficient. They describe l/c families as communicating by gestures, single words or disjointed phrases.

As a result, their children fail to develop the necessary language skills. They grow up incapable of abstract thinking and unable to use language to explain, describe, enquire or compare. Because of this, they’re unable to take advantage of the opportunities that school offers.

Question 14

What is the restricted code? (Bernstein)

Answer 14

• Speech code typically used by w/c.
• Limited vocab.
• Based on the use of short, often unfinished, grammatically simple sentences.
• Speech is predictable + may involve only a single word or gesture
• Descriptive not analytic
• Context-bound: the speaker assumes that the listener shares the same set of experiences.

Question 15

What is the elaborated code? (Bernstein)

Answer 15

• Speech code typically used by m/c.
• Wider vocab.
• Based on longer, grammatically complex sentences.
• Speech is more varied + communicates abstract ideas.
• Context-free: the speaker doesn’t assume that the listener shares the same set of experiences + so they use language to spell out their meanings explicitly for the listener.

Question 16

What is Bernstein’s view on the elaborated code?

Answer 16

Not only is it the ‘correct’ way to speak, it is also a more effective tool for analysing and reasoning and expressing thoughts clearly and effectively - essential skills for education.

Question 17

Why does early socialisation into the elaborated code give m/c kids an advantage in education?

Answer 17

They are already fluent users of the code when they start school. Thus they feel ‘at home’ in school and are more likely to succeed. By contrast, w/c children, lacking the code in which schooling takes place, are likely to feel excluded and to be less successful.

Question 18

Why do critics argue that Bernstein is a cultural deprivation theorist?

Answer 18

Bc he describes w/c speech as inadequate. However, unlike most cultural deprivation theorists, Bernstein recognises that the school - not just the home - influences children’s achievement. He argues that w/c pupils fail not bc they are culturally deprived, but bc schools fail to teach them how to use the elaborated code.

Question 19

What do cultural deprivation theorists argue is the key factor affecting children education?

Answer 19

Parents attitudes to education.

Question 20

What did Douglas (1964) discover?

Answer 20

W/c parents placed less value on education. As a result they were less ambitious for their children, gave them less encouragement + took less interest in their education. They visited schools less often + were less likely to discuss their children’s progress w/ teachers. A as result, their children had lower levels of motivation + achievement.