Eduaction definitions

Question 1

Hidden Curriculum

Answer 1

All those things learnt without being formally taught and often acquired simply through the everyday working of the school, such as attitudes, obedience and competitiveness.

Question 2

Cultural Capital

Answer 2

The knowledge, attitudes, values, language, taste and abilities that the middle class transmit to their children. 
Bourdieu argues that educational success is largely due to the possession of cultural capital.

Question 3

Correspondence Principle

Answer 3

Bowles and Gintis’ concept describing the way organisation and control of schools mirrors the workplace in capitalist society.

Question 4

Compensatory Education

Answer 4

Government education policies such as Operation Headstart, that seek to tackle the problem of underachievement by providing extra support and funding to schools and families in deprived areas

Question 5

Tripartite System

Answer 5

The system of secondary education created in 1944, based on 3 types of schools. The 11+ exam was used to identify pupils abilities. Those identified as the most academic went to grammar schools, some went to technical schools and the rest went to secondary modern schools.

Question 6

Streaming

Answer 6

Where children are separated into different ability groups or classes and then each ability group is taught separately.

Question 7

Speech Codes

Answer 7

Patterns or ways of using language. Bernstein argues that working class only uses the context bound restricted code and the middle class uses the context free elaborated code. This code is the one used in education giving middle class children an advantage

Question 8

Stratification

Answer 8

The division of society into a hierarchy of unequal groups. The inequalities may be of wealth, power and status. The members of different groups may have different life chances.

Question 9

Self Fulfilling Prophecy

Answer 9

Where the prediction made about a person or group comes true simply because it is made. In predicting that some pupils will do badly, teachers will treat them in line with these low expectations. This will discourage the pupils from trying, making the prediction true.

Question 10

Ethnocentric

Answer 10

Seeing, judging something in a biased way from the view point of a certain culture. Eg, the national curriculum is said to be ethnocentric, hence the difference in ethnicity and success in education.

Question 11

Hierarchy

Answer 11

An organisation or social structure based on a pyramid of senior and junior positions and top-down control.

Question 12

Curriculum

Answer 12

Those things taught or learnt in educations institutions. The overt or official curriculum includes subjects and courses offered.

Question 13

Immediate Gratification

Answer 13

A preference for immediate pleasure or reward without regard for the longer term consequences. A value of lower class society.

Question 14

Labelling

Answer 14

The process of attaching a definition or meaning to an individual or group. Often the label is a stereotype that defines all members of a group in the same way.

Question 15

Marketization

Answer 15

The policy of introducing market forces of supply and demand into areas run by the sate such as education. The 1988 Education Reform Act began the markitization of education by encouraging competition between schools and choice of parents.

Question 16

Material Deprivation

Answer 16

Poverty, a lack of the basic needs such as an adequate diet, housing, clothing or money to buy these things. In education this explains working class underachievement as the result of the lack of resources.

Question 17

Meritocracy

Answer 17

An education or social system where everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed, and where the individuals rewards and status are by their own effort and hard work rather than ascribed to them by society.

Question 18

Myth Of Meritocracy

Answer 18

Bowles and Gintis claims that meritocracy in an ideology legitimizing inequality by falsely claiming everyone has equal chance and unequal rewards are the natural result of unequal ability.

Question 19

Parentocracy

Answer 19

‘Ruled by parents’. The concept is associated with markitization of education which is based on the ideology of parental choice.

Question 20

Deferred Gratification

Answer 20

Postponing immediate rewards or pleasures, generally with the aim of producing a greater reward at a later date. This is seen as a characteristic of middle class culture.