education Flashcards
Identify three ways in which parents’ education may influence how they socialise their children.
- Parenting style
Educated parents use consistent discipline and high expectations while less educated parents use harsh, inconsistent discipline. - Parent’s educational behaviours
Educated parents are aware of what they need to do in order to help their child progress and engage in activities such as reading to them and helping with their homework. - Use of income
BERNSTEIN AND YOUNG- m/c mothers are more likely to buy their children educational resources while w/c homes are more likely to lack these resources.
Describe the four features of working class subculture described by Sugarman as well as the middle class equivalent.
- Fatalism
The belief in fate, “what will be will be” and nothing can be done to change their status. m/c equiv: the idea that one can change their position through effort. - Collectivism
Valuing being part of a group more than succeeding as an individual. m/c equiv: individualism- the idea that an individual shouldn’t be held back by group loyalties. - Immediate gratification
Seeking pleasure now rather than making sacrifices to get rewards in the future. m/c equiv: deferred gratification- making sacrifices now for future rewards. - Present time orientation
Seeing the present as more important than the future and so not having long term goals. m/c equiv: future time orientation- the idea that planning for the future is important.
Identify 5 differences between the elaborated code and the restricted code as explained by Bernstein
- Restricted code is used by the working class, elaborated code is used by the middle class.
- Restricted code has a limited vocabulary while the elaborated code has a wider vocabulary.
- Restricted code involves grammatically simple sentences, elaborated code involves grammatically complete sentences.
- Elaborated code is analytic, restricted code is descriptive.
- Elaborated code is context free, restricted code is context bound.
What is meant by compensatory education? Give examples.
These are programmes which aim to tackle the problem of cultural deprivation by providing extra resources to schools and communities in deprived areas.
examples: operation head start, sure start, sesame street.
Give a criticism of the cultural deprivation theory. (class)
One from:
x Keddie: CD is a myth and a victim blaming explanation. W/c pupils are culturally different, not culturally deprived.
x Troyna & Williams: it’s not the child’s language which is the problem but rather the schools attitude towards it.
x Blackstone and Mortimore: w/c parents may want to help their child progress but lack the knowledge and education in order to do so.
Suggest 4 ways in which material deprivation may affect achievement. (class)
- Issues with housing such as overcrowding may lead to less space to work or illnesses which can cause more absences and therefore lead to underachievement.
- Poor diet and health can lead to health issues or difficulties concentrating in class, leading to underachievement. (Howard)
- The costs of education place a high burden on poor families (Tanner et al) and so poor children may have to have hand-me-downs which may lead to isolation or bullying which can lead to underachievement.
- Fear of debt
Debt averse students are more likely to be working class and are over 5x less likely to apply to uni than debt tolerant students, which leads to their underachievement due to less opportunities for them to enter higher education.
Suggest a criticism of the material deprivation theory. (class)
x Feinstein shows that educated parents have a positive contribution on their children’s education regardless of their income level.
Identify and define the three types of capital described by Bordieu.
Cultural capital: the knowledge, attitudes and tastes of the middle class.
Educational capital: parents educational knowledge
Economic capital: wealth
How were Bordieu’s ideas tested and what did they find?
Sullivan gave 465 students in 4 schools questionnaires to asses their cultural capital.
They were asked questions about activites, whether they visited museums and their knowledge of cultural figures.
Those who engaged in activities such as reading complex fiction had greater cultural capital and tended to be the children of graduates.
Where children of different classes had the same level of capital, middle class pupils still did better due to the greater resources and aspirations of middle class families.
What did Becker find out about how teachers label pupils?
He interviewed 60 Chicago high school teachers and found that they judged pupils based on how closely they fitted the image of the ideal pupil. M/c pupils were seen as closest to it and w/c pupils seen as furthest away.
Explain the difference between labelling and the self fulfilling prophecy.
Labelling means to attach a meaning to someone.
A self fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true just by virtue of it having been made. It is a result of labelling.
Explain the difference between differentiation and polarisation.
LACEY says:
- differentiation is the process of teachers categorising pupils according to how they perceive their ability, attitude or behaviour.
- polarisation is the process where pupils respond to streaming by moving towards one of two opposite extremes (pro/anti school subculture)
Identify 4 differences between a pro-school subculture and an anti-school subculture.
- pro-school: middle class, anti-school: working class
- pro-school: gain self esteem, anti-school: lose self esteem
- pro-school: committed to school values, anti-school: invert school values
- pro-school: gain status through academic success,
anti-school: gain status from peers
Identify two criticisms of labelling theory. (class)
x Deterministic
It assumes that people who are labelled have no choice but to fulfil the prophecy and will fail. However studies like that of Fuller show this isn’t the case.
x Marxist critiques
The theory ignores the wider structures of power within which labelling takes place. Labels aren’t the result of teacher prejudice but stem from the fact that teachers work in a system that reproduces class divisions.
What is habitus?
The dispositions of thinking, being and acting that are shared by a particular social class.
What is symbolic capital?
Status students gain from the school when they are deemed to have worth or value.
Summarise the studies of labelling in secondary and primary schools.
DUNNE & GAZELEY studied
- Secondary schools
For w/c pupils they normalised and were unconcerned by their underachievement. They labelled their parents as uninterested in their child’s education. They entered these pupils for easier exams and underestimated their potential.
RIST studied
- Primary schools
The teacher used information about children’s home background and appearance to place them in separate groups:
- tigers were those the teacher decided were fast learners. They were m/c and of neat appearance. The teacher sat them closest to her and showed them the greatest encouragement.
- cardinals and clowns were seated further away and were more likely to be w/c. They were given lower-level books to read and fewer chances to show their abilities.
What did Rosenthal and Jacobson’s study into the self fulfilling prophecy reveal?
They gave a school an IQ test and told the teachers it was designed to identify which pupils would spurt ahead. They picked 20% of the pupils at random and said the test had identified them as spurters. A year later they found that 47% of them had made significant progress. This is because the teachers interacted with them in line with their beliefs and gave them extra encouragement. This shows the SFP- accepting the prediction that the children would spurt ahead enabled the teachers to make it a reality.
What is the A-C economy?
GILLBORN AND YOUDELL describe this as a system in which schools focus their time, effort and resources on those pupils they see as having the potential to five grade Cs and so boost the schools’ league table position.
What is educational triage?
GILLBORN and YOUDELL describe it as the sorting process by which pupils are categorised into one of three groups:
- those who will pass and can be left to get on with it
- those with potential who can be helped to get a grade C or above
- hopeless cases who are doomed to fail
What did Ball’s study about the attempt to abolish streaming show?
Ball studied a comprehensive school which was in the process of abolishing banding. When banding was banned, the basis for pupils to polarise into subcultures was removed. However, differentiation continued. M/c pupils were still labelled positively and did better due to the SFP. The study showed that class inequalities can continue due to labelling even without subcultures or streaming.
What are the four pupil responses to labelling and streaming?
- Ingratiation: teachers’ pet
- Ritualism: doing what they’re told and staying out of trouble
- Retreatism: daydreaming and messing around
- Rebellion: rejecting the values of the school
What is symbolic violence?
The withholding of symbolic capital.
By defining the working class and their lifestyles as inferior, symbolic violence reproduces the class structure and keeps the lower classes in their place.
What are Nike identities?
ARCHER: The symbolic violence experienced by w/c pupils led to them making identities for themselves through investing in styles such as Nike. It showed their rejection of higher education which they saw as unrealistic because it wasn’t for ‘people like them’ and undesirable because it wouldn’t ‘suit’ their preferred lifestyle or habitus.
What did Ingram’s study reveal about working class identity and educational success?
There were two groups of working class boys. One group passed the 11+ and went to a grammar school with a middle class habitus of high expectations while the other group failed he went to a local secondary school with a habitus of low expectations of its underachieving pupils.
Having a w/c identity was inseparable from belonging to a w/c locality. However the boys felt pressure to conform, especially the grammar school boys who felt a tension between their w/c habitus and the m/c habitus of their school.
For example, Callum opted to fit in with his m/c habitus by wearing a tracksuit on non-uniform day but instead was made to feel worthless by the school’s m/c habitus- symbolic violence.
What did Evans find regarding class identity and self exclusion?
Evans studied a group of 21 w/c girls from a London comprehensive school and found that they were reluctant to apply to elite universities like Oxbridge and the few who did apply felt a sense of hidden barriers and not fitting in.
Name the three aspects of the cultural deprivation theory as an explanation for ethnic differences in achievement.
- Intellectual and linguistic skills
- Attitudes and values
- Family structure and parental support
How do intellectual and linguistic skills contribute to ethnic differences in achievement? What is a critique of the ideas presented?
- CD theorists argue that children from low income black families lack intellectual stimulation, leaving them poorly equipped for school.
- BEREITER & ENGELMANN say that the language spoken by these families is inadequate for educational success as it is ungrammatical, disjointed and incapable of expressing abstract ideas.
x However, statistics show that in 2010, pupils with English as their first language were only 3.2 points ahead of pupils without English as their first language when it came to attaining 5 A*-C grades at gcse.
How do attitudes and values contribute to ethnic differences in achievement?
CD theorists see lack of motivation as a cause of the failure of black children because they are socialised into a subculture that instils a fatalistic ‘live for today’ attitude that doesn’t value education and leaves them unequipped for success.
How does family structure and parental support contribute to ethnic differences in achievement? What are critiques/supports of these ideas?
- MOYNIHAN: black families are headed by a lone mother which means their children are deprived of adequate care and boys lack a role model.
x DRIVER: the black caribbean family is far from dysfunctional and it provides girls with a positive role model of an independent woman; which is why black girls do better at school than black boys. - PRYCE: Asians achieve higher because their culture is more resistant to racism. Black caribbeans are less resistant to racism and achieve lower due to low self esteem.
x LAWRENCE: says that black pupils don’t fail because of a weak culture and low self esteem but because of racism. - SEWELL: lack of a father figure means black boys find it hard to overcome the emotional and behavioural difficulties of adolescence so they turn to street gangs. An interview found that black boys saw peer pressure as the biggest barrier to their educational success.
x GILLBORN: it’s not peer pressure but institutional racism which makes black boys fail. - SEWELL
Indian and Chinese pupils benefit from supportive families that have an ‘Asian work ethic’ and place a high value on education.
+ LUPTON: adult authority in asian families is similar to that in schools, with respectful behaviour towards adults having a knock on effect in school. - MCCULLOCH: white pupils often underachieve and have lower aspirations. A survey of 16000 pupils found that ethnic minority pupils are more likely to aspire to go to university than white British pupils.
+ EVANS: school can become a place where the power games that young white students engage in on the street are played out again, bringing disruption and making educational success harder. - Compensatory education has been developed to tackle CD. eg operation head start
x Critcs of compensatory education say it is an attempt to impose white culture on students who have a culture of their own. They propose two alternatives:
1. multicultural education
2. anti-racist education
x Keddie criticises cultural deprivation theory as a whole and says it’s a victim-blaming explanation. EM children are culturally different not culturally deprived and they underachieve because the education system is ethnocentric.
What are some of the statistics regarding material deprivation for ethnic minorities? What are some of the reasons for this?
PALMER:
- 1/2 of EMs live in low income households compared to 1/4 white kids
- EMs are 2x as likely to be unemployed than whites
- EM households are 3x as likely to be homeless
- 1/2 of Bangladeshi and Pakistani workers earn under £7/hour compared to 1/4 of white british workers
Reasons:
- Living in economically depressed areas
- Lack of language skills
- Asylum seekers may not be allowed to take work
- Racial discrimination
How does racism in wider society contribute to ethnic differences in achievement?
- MASON: discrimination is a continuing and persistent feature of the experience of Britain’s EM citizens
- REX: racial discrimination leads to social exclusion and worsens the poverty that EMs deal with
- WOOD et al: sent 3 closely matched job applications to 1000 job vacancies using names associated with different ethnic groups (1 from a ‘white’ person , 2 from ‘minority groups’). They found that
1/16 ‘EM’ applications were offered a job compared to 1/9 ‘white’ applications
Summarise labelling and teacher racism as an internal factor affecting ethnic differences in achievement.
- GILLBORN AND YOUDELL: teachers disciplined black pupils for the same behaviour as other students because of racialised expectations where they expect black pupils to have behavioural issues.
- FOSTER: teachers stereotyping black pupils as badly behaved can lead to them being placed in lower streams and create a SFP of underachievement.
- WRIGHT’s study of a multi ethnic primary school found that teachers labelled asian pupils negatively. They felt isolated when teachers expressed disapproval of their customs or mispronounced their names.
Summarise pupil identities as an internal factor affecting ethnic differences in achievement.
ARCHER: identified 3 pupil identities:
- Ideal pupil identity
white, m/c, masculine, normal sexuality, achieve the ‘right’ way through natural ability
- Pathologised pupil identity
Asian, ‘deserving poor’, feminine, asexual or oppressed sexuality, conformist over-achiever who achieved through hard work
- Demonised pupil identity
black/white, w/c, hyper sexualised identity, dumb, peer-led, culturally deprived underachiever
ARCHER AND FRANCIS: teachers view chinese pupils with a ‘negative positive stereotype’. Even though they are successful, they are seen as achieving success in the wrong way so they can never legitimately occupy the ideal pupil identity.
What did Fuller’s study find about rejecting negative labels?
The study involved a group of black girls in a year 11 comprehensive school. They:
- were high achievers
- channeled their anger about being labelled into pursuit of educational success
- only conformed as far as schoolwork and relied on their own efforts
- regarded teachers as racist and didn’t seek their approval
- were friends with black girls from lower streams
The study shows that pupils may still succeed when they refuse to conform and that negative labelling doesn’t always lead to failure.
What did Mac an Ghaill find about rejecting negative labels?
The study involved black and asian A-Level students. Students didn’t accept negative labels and how they responded was based on factors like their ethnicity, gender and the nature of their previous schools. This shows that labels don’t inevitably produce a SFP.
Explain the three types of teacher racism identified by Mirza
- The colour blind
Teachers who believe all students are equal but allow racism to go unchallenged - The liberal chauvinists
Teachers who believe black students are culturally deprived and have low expectations of them - The overt racists
Believe black people are inferior and actively discriminate
What are the four pupil responses identified by Sewell?
- Conformists
Majority, keen to succeed, accept the schools’ goals and don’t want to be stereotyped. - Innovators
Second largest group, pro-education, anti-school, conformed as far as school work but didn’t seek teacher approval, distanced from conformists but had credibility with rebels - Rebels
Most influential and visible, minority, excluded and rejected school goals, conformed to the ‘black macho lad’, contemptuous of white boys and dismissive of conformist black boys - Retreatists
Minority, disconnected from both school and black subcultures, despised by rebels
Evaluate labelling and pupil responses (ethnicity)
- Labelling theory sees stereotypes as a result of the prejudices of individual teachers but Marxists would say it should be seen as a result of racism in the education system as a whole
- It’s wrong to assume that once labelled, pupils automatically fall victim to the SFP and fail, which Fuller shows isn’t always the case
What is the difference between individual racism and institutional racism?
TROYNA AND WILLIAMS:
- individual racism results from the prejudiced views of individual teachers and others
- institutional racism is discrimination that is built into the way institutions operate
What is the critical race theory?
CRT sees racism as an ingrained feature of society. GILLBORN uses the locked in inequality concept to explain that ethnic inequality is so deep rooted and large that it’s an inevitable feature of the education system.
What are the 5 key ways in which the education system is racist, as explained by Gillborn?
- Marketisation and segregation
GILLBORN says that because marketisation gives schools more scope to select pupils, it allows negative stereotypes to influence decisions about school admissions. - The ethnocentric curriculum
Ethnocentrism describes the attitude or policies that give priority to the culture and viewpoint of one ethnic group. Examples include:
- Languages, literature and music
TROYNA AND WILLIAMS: there is meagre provision for teaching asian languages compared to european languages
- History
COARD says the image of black people as inferior in history undermined black children’s self esteem and leads to their failure
x STONE argues that black children don’t suffer from low self esteem - Assessment
The assessment game was rigged by replacing baseline tests with the foundation stage profile which made black pupils appear to be doing worse than white pupils. - Access to opportunities
- The gifted and talented programme was created to meet the needs of more able pupils but GILLBORN argues that official stats show whites are 2x more likely than blacks to be identified as gifted and talented.
- TIKLY et al found that blacks were more likely than whites to be entered for lower tier gcse exams despite the ‘aiming high’ initiative aimed at raising the achievement of black caribbean students. - The new IQism
GILLBORN argues that teachers and policy makers make false assumptions about the nature of pupils’ ability and use IQ tests to allocate pupils to different streams on entry. They say that there is no genuine measure for potential and tests can’t tell us anything about the future.
What are the criticisms of Gillborn’s ideas about institutional racism?
x black boys’ underachievement
SEWELL argues that racism isn’t powerful enough to prevent individuals from succeeding and we need to focus on external factors
x model minorities: indian and chinese achievement
If there was institutional racism in the education system, how come indian and chinese students perform better than the white majority?
What are some statistics about the gender gap in achievement?
- on starting school
in 2013, at the end of year one, girls were ahead of boys by 7-17% in all subjects - at key stages 1-3
girls do consistently better than boys, especially in english - at gcse
the gender gap is about 10% - at AS and A level
girls are more likely to sit, pass and get higher grades than boys - on vocational courses
more girls achieve distinctions in every subject
Explain the 4 external factors affecting gender differences in achievement.
- The impact of feminism
The feminist movement has improved women’s rights and challenged traditional stereotypes of women as housewives. MCROBBIE studied magazines which used to emphasise marriage but now focus on women’s independence. - Changes in the family
- increases in divorce rate
- increase in lone parent families
- increase in cohabitation
- smaller families
have all affected girls attitudes towards education. - Changes in women’s employment
- the gender pay gap has gone from 30% to 15% since 1975
- 1970 equal pay act
- 1975 sex discrimination act
- women are breaking through the glass ceiling
- the number of employed women has risen from 53% to 67% - Girls’ changing ambitions
SHARPE: in 1974, girls were unambitious and saw education as unfeminine. By the 1990s, girls prioritised careers and independence.
Explain equal opportunities policies as an internal factor affecting gender differences in achievement.
Feminist ideas have made people believe that boys and girls are entitled to equal opportunities. This has led to policies like GIST and WISE which encourage girls to pursue non traditional careers.
BOALER: these policies have removed barriers to girls’ achievement no made schools more meritocratic.
Explain positive role models as an internal factor affecting gender differences in achievement.
There are more female teachers and heads who act as role models for girls. Teachers respond more positively to girls than to boys, creating a SFP of achievement.
Explain GCSE and coursework as an internal factor affecting gender differences in achievement.
MITSOS & BROWNE: girls spend more time on their work, take more care with presentation, are better at meeting deadlines and bring the right equipment to lessons. They therefore benefit from doing coursework.
x ELWOOD: coursework isn’t the only factor because exams have more influence on final grades
Explain teacher attention as an internal factor affecting gender differences in achievement.
FRANCIS: boys got more attention from teachers than girls because they were picked on more and disciplined more harshly due to teachers’ low expectations of them.
Explain challenging stereotypes in the curriculum as an internal factor affecting gender differences in achievement.
WEINER: Teachers have challenged stereotypes which have removed barriers to girls’ achievement by presenting them with more positive models of what girls can do.
Explain selection and league tables as an internal factor affecting gender differences in achievement.
- Marketisation policies create competition where schools desire girls because they get good grades.
- JACKSON: high achieving girls are attractive to schools while low achieving boys aren’t. This gives girls a SFP of achievement.
How do liberal feminists view girls achievement?
They celebrate the progress so far and believe more progress will be made by
- having more equal opportunities policies
- encouraging positive role models
- overcoming sexist attitudes and stereotypes
