Education

Question 1

Topic 1:Class and Achievement
EXTERNAL FACTORS
Cultural deprivation

Answer 1

CD theorists - we acquire our norms and attitudes through primary socialisation - WC do not
socialise their children adequately w/ basic cultural equipment - leads to cultural deprivation
1.) Language
● Hubbs-Tait et al - MC use language that challenges children to evaluate understanding which
improves cognitive performance.
● Bernstein - Restricted and Elaborated Code
➔ Restricted= limited vocabulary, grammatically simplistic sentences which is often context bound
(WC).
➔ Elaborated= wide vocabulary, used to express abstract concepts (MC)
➔ Teacher, textbooks and tests use elaborated code
★ Compensatory education - Put in place to resolve this issue by providing resources to schools
and communities in deprived areas eg.) Headstart & Surestart

Question 2

2.) Parents Education

Answer 2

● Douglas - WC parents place less value on education
➔ Less encouragement for homework and revision
➔ Resent own educational experience / system failed them
● Feinstein - WC have a negative attitude toward education
★ Blackstone and Mortimore - WC parents are interested in education
➔ Unable to attend parent’s evenings due to working unsociable / longer hours

Question 3

3.) Working Class Subculture

Answer 3

● Sugarman - WC attitudes and values differ from the mainstream culture
● 4 main features
➔ Fatalism
➔ Collectivism
➔ Immediate gratification vs deferred gratification of MC
➔ Present time orientation
● Keddie - cultural deprivation is a myth / victim blaming
➔ WC are culturally different

Question 4

Material Deprivation

Answer 4

1.) Housing
➔ Poor housing affects achievement directly and indirectly
➔ Directly= overcrowding
➔ Indirectly= health and welfare due to poor standard of living

Question 5

2.) Diet and health

Answer 5

Howard - children from poorer homes have low energy, vitamins and minerals which leads to a
weaker immune system

Question 6

3.) Financial support

Answer 6

➔ Hidden cost of education
➔ WC children miss equipment and things to enhance education eg.) trips
➔ Children may need part-time jobs - distraction

Question 7

4.) Fear of deb

Answer 7

➔ Working class less likely to apply for university as parents can’t alleviate the cost.
➔ More likely to go to local unis=less opportunities
➔ WC = more debt adverse

Question 8

Difference between Cultural and Material deprivation

Answer 8

1. Cultural
   ● Feinstein-educated parents make a positive contribution to their child’s achievement regardless
   of income meaning cultural deprivation has the biggest impact
2. Material
   ● Robinson - most effective way to tackle underachievement would be to eradicate child poverty
   and remove material barriers to success

Question 9

Cultural Capital

Answer 9

Capital= individual’s wealth, assets and resources
Financial capital + Cultural capital = educational capital
● Bourdieu - this is central to educational achievement
● Sullivan - those who read complex fiction and serious T.V. developed a wider vocab/ greater
cultural knowledge and are more successful at GCSE
➔ Demonstrates high impact of cultural capital
➔ Material deprivation may affect it further

Question 10

INTERNAL FACTORS

Answer 10

Labelling and the self-fulfilling prophecy
● Becker - US teachers judged pupils based on how closely they fitted the ‘ideal’ pupil which
included factors including pupil’s work, conduct and appearance.
➔ WC often receive negative labels.
➔ Teachers saw MC as the closet to the ‘ideal’ pupil, with correct manners, language skills and
behaviour whereas working class are troublemakers
● Becker - leads to a pupil internalising this label = self-fulfilling prophecy.
● Rosenthal and Jacobson - Randomly labelled 20% of pupils in a primary school as naturally
intelligent from a fake test , in a year the ‘spurters’ were outperforming other pupils
➔ Demonstrating how labelling a pupil can affect their achieve
★ Not all accept label

Question 11

Setting and streaming

Answer 11

● Gillborn and Youdell- league tables created an ‘A to C Economy’ - schools feel pressure to
achieve high results.
➔ Schools categorise students in sets to focus more on those with potential.
➔ Pupils achievement is negatively affected, particularly when there is a cap on the maximum
grade.
● Ball- analysed a school that abolished this system and and this helped improve achievement of
WC pupils

Question 12

Pupil subcultures

Answer 12

Groups of pupils who share similar values, attitudes and patterns of behaviour were labelled in school
● Woods- 4 types of subcultures alongside Lacey’s pro-school and anti-school.
➔ These include; ingratiation (teacher’s pet), ritualism (going through motions and staying out of
trouble), retreatism and rebellion
➔ A pupil that falls in a negative subculture place less importance on education
★ Process of labelling is very deterministic- assumes all pupils with a label fulfill it.

Question 13

Effect of pupils’ class identities and in school

Answer 13

● Pupils identities outside of school interact within school.
● Persons’ habitus= dispositions (ways of seeing the world that are largely taken for granted that
are shared by a particular social class and varies in amount of capital)
● MC habitus = high cultural, economic and education capital- comfortable in school.
● WC habitus = Low capital - undervalues habitus.
➔ WC experience symbolic violence where they are kept in place by their inferior view, leads to a
feeling of alienation in the education system.
➔ In response, WC develop ‘Nike identities’ to create a distinction from MC

Question 14

Topic 3: Ethnicity and Achievement

Answer 14

Statistics show ethnic differences in achievement
● 50-60% white pupils attain 5 or more A-C GCSEs
● On average, over 75% of Chinese pupils attain 5 or more A-C GCSEs
● 40-50 % of Pakistani and Black pupils attain A*-C GCSEs

Question 15

EXTERNAL FACTORS

Answer 15

1.) Intellectual and linguistic skills
● Cultural deprivation theory- children from low income families lack intellectual stimulation leads
to a failure to develop reasoning and problem-solving skills
● Bereiter and Engelmann - language spoken by low income black American families - inadequate,
ungrammatical, disjointed and incapable of expressing abstract ideas.
➔ Linguistic capabilities of a pupil can affect the way they understand educational content
★ Compensatory education aims to combat this cultural deprivation eg.) Headstart & Surestart

Question 16

2.) Attitudes and values

Answer 16

● Difference in attitudes and values are a result of differences in socialisation within a family
structure.
● Most children socialised into mainstream culture, some socialised into subcultures which places
less value on succeeding in education e.g)black pupils and fatalism
➔ This attitude results in a lack of motivation to succeed, therefore leads to some black pupils to
underachieve.
★ Keddie - that it is victim-blaming, schools biased in favour of ethnocentric curriculum

Question 17

3.) Family and structure

Answer 17

● Sewell - Within many African Caribbean families the family structure is matrifocal - lack of a
male figure
➔ Results in less ‘tough love’ for many young boys, turns them to gang culture to seek ‘tough love’
➔ Asian families instil children with an Asian Work Ethic where high value is placed on education.

Question 18

How can material deprivation lead to underachievement for ethnic minority pupils?

Answer 18

● Lack of basic necessities
● Palmer- common in ethnic minority households, ½ of ethnic minority children in lived-in
low-income households compared to ¼ of white children.
★ Compensatory education introduced in America and the UK is aimed to combat this eg.)

Question 19

How can racism in wider society lead to underachievement?

Answer 19

● Rex - racial discrimination leads to social exclusion which progresses into unemployment, low
pay and inadequate housing.
● Wood et al- sent 3 closely matched applications with fictional names related to different
ethnicities, found 1 in 9 ‘white’ applicants got an interview while only 1 in 16 ethnic minority
applicants got an interview.
➔ Demonstrates how racial discrimination in wider society can lead to material deprivation within
the home.
★ This idea does not consider other roots of poverty such as social class.

Question 20

INTERNAL FACTORS

How does labelling and teacher racism lead to underachievement?

Answer 20

Teachers will place certain labels on pupils
● Gillborn and Youdell - teachers expected black students to present more disciplinary issues
➔ Misinterpreted behaviour to be challenging to authority based on stereotypical labels
➔ Led to teachers picking on the pupils more often resulting in less focus on lessons.
➔ Racialised expectations will lead to more confrontation - black pupils will be absent more -
undermine educational success.
★ Not all black pupils conform to these labels

Question 21

What did Wright’s study find?

Answer 21

● Asian pupils are victims of teacher labelling.
➔ Teachers hold ethnocentric views - often see British culture and standard English as superior.
➔ They are judged against English language and its culture.

Question 22

How can streaming lead to underachievement?

Answer 22

Another way which can affect a pupil’s opportunity to succeed is streaming.
● Gillborn and Youdell, within the A-C Economy - teacher’s focus on students who will most likely
achieve a C or above
➔ Disregarding those who they believe will not

Question 23

What is institutional racism?

Answer 23

● Troyna and Williams - to explain ethnic differences in achievement we need go beyond
examining individual teacher racism - look at how schools routinely and unconsciously
discriminate against ethnic minorities
● Critical Race Theory - sees racism as a deeply ingrained feature of society - not just an
intentional act of an individual, but an institution
➔ Locked-in inequality - scale of historical discrimination is so large there no longer needs to be
any conscience intent to discriminate - becomes self-perpetuating

Question 24

How does marketisation and segregation affect a pupil’s achievement?

Answer 24

● Gillborn - marketisation gives schools more scope to select pupils
➔ More likely to select pupils who show academic success - usually white MC girls
➔ Ethnic minority pupils - less likely to be selected - lack of opportunities given to them due to the
label given.

Question 25

The effect of an ethnocentric curriculum?

Answer 25

Ethnocentric describes an attitude that gives priority to the culture or view point of one particular ethnic
group
● Can undermine a pupil’s achievement if they don’t belong to the prioritised culture
● Ball - history curriculum in British schools as recreating a ‘mythical age of empire and past
glories’
➔ Ignoring the history of black and Asian people.
➔ Detrimental effect on a pupil’s achievement - not having the advantage of belonging to the
culture that is taught in schools
★ Over 75% of Asian pupils achieve 5 or more A*-C GCSE grades compared to 50-60% of white
pupil

Question 26

Evidence of improvements or disadvantages in access to opportunities for ethnic minority students?

Answer 26

1.) ‘Gifted and talented’ programme
● Meets needs of more able students in inner city schools
➔ Benefitting bright pupils from minority groups

Question 27

2.) Exam tiers

Answer 27

● Tikly, 30 schools in the ‘Aiming High’ initiative to raise Black Caribbean achievement
➔ But black students were more likely to be entered into foundation or lower exam tiers

Question 28

3.) New IQism

Answer 28

● Gillborn - teachers and policy makers make false assumptions about the nature of pupil’s ability
or potential
➔ Access to opportunities (high sets or talented programmes) depends heavily on teachers which
works against black pupils due to institutional racism
★ Only focuses on two issues – underachievement of black pupils and over achievement of Indian
and Chinese pupils

Question 29

4.) Ethnicity, class and gender

Answer 29

● Evans - we need to look at how ethnicity interacts with gender and class.
➔ In examining black children’s achievement, sociologists tend to look at their culture and
ethnicity but rarely class
➔ There is a bigger gap in achievements of white middle class and white working class than there is
between black middle class and black working class

Question 30

Archer and pupil identities

Answer 30

● Archer - teachers often define pupils as having stereotypical identities, a teacher’s dominant
discourse defines ethnic minority pupil’s identities
➔ 3 identities - ideal, pathologized and demonised.
➔ Typically black or white working class, hypersexualised identities and culturally deprived are
placed into ‘demonised’
● Archer - even those minority pupils who perform successfully can be pathologized (seen as
abnormal) for example, Chinese pupils were simultaneously praised and viewed negatively by
their teachers.
➔ Puts the pupils at a disadvantage within the education system due to the racialised opinions and
expectations placed on them.
★ Fuller - high ach

Question 31

Negative pupil responses and subcultures to teacher labelling

Answer 31

1.) Failed strategies for avoiding racism
● Mirza - majority of teachers held racist attitudes
➔ 3 main types; colour blind (all equal but don’t challenge racist behaviour), liberal chauvinist
(sees black pupils as deprived and have low expectations) and overt racist (believe black pupils
are inferior)

Question 32

2.) Variety of boys’ responses

Answer 32

● Sewell
➔ Rebels - visible and influential subculture - reject goals of school
➔ Conformists - keen to succeed and accept rules
➔ Retreatists - isolated from both school and black subcultures
➔ Innovators - pro-education and want to succeed but anti-school and disruptive on the surface

Question 33

Topic 3: Gender and Achievement

Answer 33

In the past 40 years - shift in patterns of achievement according to gender; with recent studies showing
girls outperforming boys at GCSE and A level. However, whilst girls on average achieve more highly than
they did in the past this does not mean that all girls are successful (especially those of lower social
structures)

Question 34

EXTERNAL FACTORS - Girls

Answer 34

1.) Impact of Feminism
● McRobbie - girl’s magazines in the 1970’s - emphasis was on marriage.
➔ Nowadays magazines contain messages of assertiveness and independence
● Feminism has made girls see their future in terms of careers and therefore has had a
knock-on impact on female success in education as girls strive to do well in order to gain
careers
★ Does not account for the difference in achievement between working class girls and middle
class.

Question 35

2.) Changes in the Family

Answer 35

● Major changes in structure in the past 40 years - increase in divorce, cohabitation and lone
parent families
● Increase in lone parent female-headed families which can lead to a girl’s determination to be
able to provide
➔ Promoting the independence a girl can have providing more career driven futures.

Question 36

3.) Changes in Female Employment

Answer 36

● Important changes in the law have allowed women to take on a greater role within the
workplace.
● Policies have benefited women - Equal Pay Act 1970 and Sex Discrimination Act 1975
➔ encouraged girls to see their future in terms
★ Some feminists - ‘glass ceiling’ is still a barrier - keeps women out of high-level
professions

Question 37

4.) Changing Ambitions and Perceptions

Answer 37

● Sharpe - investigated changing female aspirations - in 1974 ‘love’ and marriage were the
top aspirations for girls
➔ In 1994 jobs and a career were the top aspirations
● Positive female role models in education and the media, laws, policies and the movement of
feminism
● O’Connor - 14-17-year-old girls did not see marriage and children as a major part of life
plans
● changing ambitions - huge impact on girl’s attitudes towards education - recognise that if
they want a successful career, education must be taken seriously
● Reay - WC girls perceive they have limited job opportunities - Being in a couple or a mother
seen as more attainable

Question 38

INTERNAL FACTORS - Girls

Answer 38

1.) Equal opportunities
● Those who run the education system are now much more aware of gender issues and the
importance of equality
➔ belief that boys and girls are equally capable and entitled to the same opportunities =
mainstream
➔ Programmes like GIST and WISE that encourage girls into science and technology or engineering
for equal opportunities
➔ Schools have become more meritocratic
● Boaler - girls generally worker harder to boys and therefore achieve highly
★ Girls are still not equal in engineering with only 3% of apprenticeship roles

Question 39

2.) Role models

Answer 39

● Increasing proportion of women in positions of authority in education - positive role models for
female pupils
➔ Girls feel comfortable in education - surrounded by ‘motherly’ figures from the ‘feminisation’ of
education
➔ 1992 to 2012 the increase of female head teachers increased by 21%
➔ More confidence for girls to succeed
➔ Gender domain within education - negative impact on boys - not feeling ‘at home’ within the
system

Question 40

3.) GCSE and coursework

Answer 40

Gorard - gender difference in education remained consistent before the introduction of GCSEs
and coursework in 1989
➔ greatly benefitted girls - girls often take more care in presentation, better at meeting
deadlines and often spend more time on the work
➔ Girls have a bedroom culture & boys play out
➔ Subjects such as English and Art which are coursework heavy
➔ Changes in assessment have played to female skills - easier for girls to achieve
★ Changes in GCSE and A level have decreased the amount of coursework - implies male students
may start achieving more highly

Question 41

4.) Teacher attention

Answer 41

● French and French’s - the way teachers interact with female and male pupils differ
➔ Boys received more attention because they attracted more reprimands
➔ Girls being labelled positively & boys are often seen by teachers as disruptive
➔ Being labelled by teachers positively raises a girl’s achievement and confidence & negative effect
on a boy’s achievement

Question 42

5.) Challenging stereotypes

Answer 42

● Stereotypes within the curriculum have been challenged
➔ Removal of stereotypes in textbooks, reading schemes and other learning materials
➔ eg.) 1970-80s sexist educational material in physics showing women as frightened of such
subject
➔ Removing the materials which portray women as inferior - offers more opportunities for girls to
succeed
● Weiner - educational materials have removed gender stereotypes - girls are presented with
positive images of what women can do

Question 43

6.) Selection and league tables

Answer 43

● Marketisation of education - schools now compete for the most desirable students
➔ impacts a girl’s achievement positively due to girls outperforming boys
➔ Slee - boys are less attractive to schools as they are more likely to have behavioural issues and
seen as a liability - 4 times more likely to be excluded
➔ Girls are more likely to attend high performing schools

Question 44

How does identity and class affect a girl’s achievement?

Answer 44

● Symbolic capital - WC girls gain status from their peer group by performing WC female identities
● Educational capital - status is gained from teachers by acting like the ideal pupil
➔ working class girls display hyper-heterosexual identity - spend time, effort and money on
constructing a glamorous appearance
➔ rather than spending the same amount of time on their education
➔ Some working-class girls aspire to gain symbolic capital from peers but in doing so lose
educational capital
● Evans - many of the girls wanted to go to university and increase their earning power not just to
benefit themselves but their family

Question 45

Types of female identities

Answer 45

1.) Hyper-heterosexual feminine identities
Considerable time spent on constructing a glamorous appearance. eg.) ‘sexy clothing’, makeup,
fake tan and excess jewellery.
➔ Lose educational capital as teachers see them as rebellious for gaining symbolic capital

Question 46

2.) Boyfriends

Answer 46

Brought symbolic capital , distractions and lowered girls’ aspirations.

Question 47

3.) Successful working-class girls (Evans study)

Answer 47

● 21 girls - South London comprehensive school
● Girls wanted to go university to increase their earning power.
➔ Not for themselves but to help their families
➔ Girls’ motivation reflected in their w/c feminine identities

Question 48

EXTERNAL FACTORS - Boys

Answer 48

1.) Boys and literacy
● Gender gap in achievement is a result of a boy’s poor literacy and language skills.
● Parents spend less time reading to their sons in comparison to daughters
➔ When a boy is read to, it is often by the mother showing reading as a feminine quality
➔ Less able to express themselves in lessons and convey ideas and knowledge in essays or exams
★ Compensatory education aims to resolve issues

Question 49

2.) Globalisation

Answer 49

● Resulted in a decline in masculine industries such as iron, steel and mining
➔ Many jobs boys would ‘naturally’ drift into no longer exist and are replaced by more feminine
work eg.)service industry
➔ creates a ‘crisis of masculinity’ - boys do not have a clear long-term focus or goal
➔ education loses its meaning to some boys resulting in less incentive to do well
★ Good education wasn’t necessary for those jobs

Question 50

INTERNAL FACTORS - Boys

Answer 50

1.) Feminisation of education
● Sewell - schools have become increasingly feminised and female centred
➔ increase in coursework, policies and role models - boys have been left out
➔ eg.) GIST and WISE - help girls into science and engineering.
➔ boys associate doing well at school as being girly and will resist in order to appear masculine
➔ GCSE level - boys achievement is averaged 9% lower than girls

Question 51

2.) Shortage of male primary school teachers

Answer 51

● Lack of strong positive role models
➔ With positive male role models’ boys are more likely to feel at home and have the confidence to
do well
● YouGov - boys stated a male teacher made them behave better and 42% stated it made them
work harder
➔ Many boys perceive education as a female domain
★ Francis - 2/3 of 7 to 8-year olds believed gender of a teacher did not affect their learning
3.) ‘Laddish’ subcultures
● Epstein - boys who worked hard in school were labelled by peers as ‘sissies’
➔ boys turning to anti-school subculture to demonstrate clear masculine values and in doing so
their performance in education will suffer.
★ Messerschmidt - less likely for white middle-class boys due to wanting a successful career
➔ Resort to minor misbehaving outside of education eg.) underaged drinking

Question 52

How gender and subject choice affect achievement?

Answer 52

1.) Gender role socialisation
● Specific norms and values expected of us according to gender
➔ enforced from an early age by what we wear, games we play and the behaviours encouraged by
parents and teachers - explains differences in subject choice
● Browne and Ross - children are taught beliefs about gender domains which are tasks and
activities that boys and girls see as male or female ‘territory’ (e.g. mending a car is male domain
and caring for children is a female domain)
➔ boys feel more confident in practical subjects such as engineering due to the ‘hands on’ demand
➔ girls feel more confident in health and social care to provide support
➔ Apprenticeships where only 1% of those who are in health and social industries are male

Question 53

2.) Gendered subject images

Answer 53

● Gender image of a subject will affect which students want to choose it
➔ subject is considered feminine such as health and social care, boys are less likely to pick it to
appear masculine.
● Kelly - science, which is portrayed as a boy’s subject due to teachers more likely to be male
➔ single sex schools there tends to be less stereotyped subject images - less traditional subject
choices

Question 54

3.) Gender identity and peer pressure

Answer 54

● Subject choice can be influenced by peer pressure
● Paechter - girls see sport as part of the male gender domain
➔ ‘sporty’ girls receive a label from their peers - unconventional female
➔ Girls are likely to opt out of subjects like sport
➔ Boys perhaps opt out of subjects like dance and music - fall outside the male gender domain

Question 55

4.) Gendered career opportunities

Answer 55

● Employment is highly gendered.
➔ women’s jobs often involve work similar housewives eg.) childcare or nursing
➔ girls often still aspire to have career which link to the emotional, caring expressive role
➔ boys are more likely to aspire high earning careers which link to the breadwinner, instrumental
role
➔ Girls and boys often pick subjects which match career opportunities
★ GIST and WISE have been introduced to have a positive impact on females in traditionally male
industries

Question 56

How pupil’s gender and sexual identities affect achievement?

Answer 56

1.) Double standards
● Lee - double standard of sexual morality - boys boast about sexual exploits and receive praise
➔ Girls are often called ‘slags’ if they boast about their sexual exploits
● Radical feminists - example of patriarchy in education - girls are treated differently for the same
behaviour

Question 57

2.) Teachers discipline

Answer 57

● Teachers play a role in reinforcing dominant definitions of gender identity.
● Haywood and Mac an Ghaill - male teachers told boys off for behaving like girls & teased for not
outperforming girls
➔ reinforces the patriarchal view that girls are subordinate to boys

Question 58

3.) Male gaze

Answer 58

● Girls are judged based upon their appearance by male pupils and teachers
● Mac an Ghaill - form of surveillance through which dominant heterosexual masculinity is
enforced and femininity devalued
➔ girls being seen primarily as sexual objects

Question 59

4.)Verbal abuse

Answer 59

● Heterosexual being promoted as ideal.
➔ Identities are enforced by a ‘rich vocabulary of abuse’
➔ labels like gay and queer often are meant as insults enforcing the superiority of the heterosexual
identity

Question 60

5.) Male peer groups

Answer 60

● Male peer groups use verbal abuse to reinforce definition of masculinity
● Willis - boys in an anti-school subculture often accused boys who wanted to do well in school as
gay
★ Emergence of middle-class subcultures promotes intellectual ability