Education Flashcards
Durkheim view of education
FUNCTIONALIST
Social solidarity
Avoids anomie
Teaches specific skills needed for a functioning economy
Parsons view of education
FUNCTIONALIST
School is a bridge between home and society
Helps pupils move from ascribed to achieved status - in schools each pupil is judged against the same standards- same as society
Davis and Moore view of education
FUNCTIONALIST
Inequality is necessary to make sure the most important roles are failed by the most talented people- a meritocracy
Althusser view of education
Marxist
Repressive state apparatus - maintain the role of the bourgeoisie by force - police courts army
Ideological state apparatus - maintain the role of the bourgeoisie by controlling peoples ideas, values and beliefs - the education system
‘Giant myth making machine’
Myth of meritocracy - meritocracy does not exist
Bowles and gintis - Marxist
Correspondence principle
Bowles and gintis Marxists
Both schools and workplaces are hierarchies the relationships and structures found in education correspond to those found in a workplace
Hidden curriculum
Bowles and gintis
Marxist
Teach students how to survive in work through Acceptance of hierarchies Moulding of subservient workers Fragmentation of school subjects Working for external rewards
Learning to labour counter school subculture
Willis Marxist
Researched a group of 12 lads who had formed a counter school subculture
Shows how counter school subcultures prepare working class lads for shop floor culture
Lads actively rebelled against the school but were in fact preparing themselves for low paid manual labour like their fathers
Young - cultural deprivation
Middle class mothers are more likely to choose toys that encourage thinking and reasoning skills and prepare children for school
Restricted and elaborated speech codes
Bernstein
Restricted - wc- limited vocabulary, based on the use of short and often unfinished grammatically simple sentences etc
Elaborated - mc - wide vocabulary ands it’s based on grammatically more complex sentences
Self imposed barrier
Hyman - the values and beliefs of the lower class subculture are a self imposed barrier to educational and career success. Their subcultures beliefs mean that they neither want educational success or no how to get it
Four key features of the lower class subculture that act as a barrier to educational attainment
Sugerman
Fatalism - belief in fate
Collectivism - valuing being part of a group more than succeeding as an individual
Immediate gratification
Present time orientation
Cultural capital
Bordeaux
Knowledge, attitudes, values, language, tastes and abilities
Mc culture is a type of capital because it gives an advantage to those who possess it. Through their socialisation, middle class children acquire the ability to grasp, analyse and express abstract ideas giving them an advantage in school
Position theory
Boudon - where you are positioned in the social class structure will affect your life chances and opportunities
Criticism of cultural deprivation
Keddie- the idea of cultural deprivation is a myth. Also a victim blaming explanation
Criticism of restricted speech code
Tronya and Williams - the problem is not the child’s language but the schools attitude towards it. Teachers have a speech hierarchy
The impact of poor diet and housing
Howard - children from poorer homes have lower intakes of energy, vitamins and minerals. This weakens the immune system and results in more absences and difficulty concentrating
Hidden costs of schooling
Tanner - transport, uniforms, books, computers etc places a heavy burden on poor families
Gerwitz and ball - material and cultural capital
Middle class parents were able to use their cultural and material capital to ensure that their children ended up in the best schools
Sutton group 2010
Found parents income and job were the most important determinants of a child’s educational success
Rist - kindergarten
Tigers- sit closest to teacher, fast learners, middle class, clean appearance
Cardinals and clowns - wc - given lower level books and given less chance to show their abilities
Child centred education
Sharp and green - English primary school
Child centred education where kids picked activities. Those who read (middle class) were given more help and priority
Spurters
Rosenthal and Jacobson
Tested all pupils the same, picked 20% at random and told school that the test had indentified these children as spurters. On returning to the school a year later, they found that 47% of those identified spurters had made significant progress
Black girls reject the label
Margaret Fuller - girls channelled their anger about being labelled into the pursuit of educational success. Unlike other successful students they did not seek their approval from teachers
Marketisation of schools
Gerwitz
Parental choice - privileged - skilled chooser - mc parents can use their cultural mans economic capital for their children
Disconnected local choosers - wc parents choices were restricted by lack of economic and cultural capital
School policies that help girls
GIST, national curriculum- equal opportunities
Positive role models in schools for girls
Increase in female teachers and heads, showing them women can achieve positions of importance
Coursework in the curriculum
Mitsos and Browne
As girls spend more time on their work, take care with the way it is presented, are better at meeting deadlines and bring their materials
Teacher attention
Francis
Found girls got more positive attention, and while boys got more attention it was harsher
Marketisation did schools benefits girls
Slee
Boys are more likely to suffer from behavioural difficulties and are 4x more likely to be excluded
Boys may be seen as liability students - obstacles to the school improving its league table scores
How feminism helps girls
Improvements in women’s rights raises women’s expectations and self worth
Mcrobbie- magazines - 1970s - importance of getting married whereas now include images of assertive independent women
Chubb and moe consumer choice
New right
Marketisation and competition - force schools to become more responsive and better as they need to compete against other schools
Parental choice - education in the hands of consumers allows parents to shape schools to meet their own needs improving quality and efficiency
Labelling - Becker
Study of 60 Chicago high school teachers
Interviews
Found they judged pupils according to how closely they fitted the idea of the ideal pupil
Mc - closest to ideal
Work, conduct and appearance were key factors
Dunne and gazeley
Labelling
Interviews in English state secondary schools - teachers normalised the underachievement of wc pupils and seemed unconcerned by it and they could do little about it unlike with mc pupils
Labelled wc parents as uninterested in child’s education but labelled mc parents as supportive.
Change how they support them - mc underachievers got extension work, wc underachievers were placed into lower exams
Gilbourn and youdell
A to c economy
Publishing of league tables means schools focus their time, effort and resources on those pupils they see as having the potential to get five grade Cs and so boost the schools league table position
Gill bourn and youdell
Educational triage
A to c economy produces a triage
Schools categorise pupils into
Those who will pass anyway
Those on the borderline of a c
Hopeless cases
Those places in hopeless cases get put in bottom sets and then get self fulfilling prophecy
Douglas - streaming
Children placed in a lower streak at age 8 had suffered from a decline in their IQ by age 11 and vice versa
1944 education act
Tripartite system
11+ exam
Grammar schools and secondary modern schools
Problems with the tripartite system
Reproduced class inequality by channelling the two social classes into two different types of school that offered unequal opportunities
Gender inequality- required girls to gain higher marks than boys in the 11+
Legitimated inequality through the idea that ability is inborn
Labour Party 1965-1979
Comprehensive school system
Abolished 11+ and grammar and secondary modern schools and replaced with comprehensive schools.
Was left to local education authority to decide whether to go comprehensive so grammar - secondary modern divide still existed in some places
Functionalist view of comprehensive schools
Promote social integration - x-mc and wc pupils rarely mixed because of streaming
More meritocratic - gives pupils a longer time to show their abilities
Marxist view of the education system
Comprehensives are not meritocratic - the reproduce class inequality through streaming and labelling
Myth of meritocracy - legitimated class inequality by making unequal achievement seem fair and just because failure looks like it is the fault of the individual rather than the system
Education reform act 1988
Margaret thatcher
League tables
Sats
Gcses
Ofsted
The funding formula - schools are allocated funds by a formula based on how many pupils they attract.
Free schools
Open enrolment - allows successful schools to recruit more pupils
Marketisation
Consequence of education reform act 1988
The process of introducing market forces of consumer choice and competition between suppliers into areas run by the state such as education.
Reduces state control over education
Increases competition between schools and parental choice of school
Miriam David - parentocracy
Marketised education is ruled by parents. Power shifts away from the producers to the consumers and this encourages diversity among schools, gives parents more choice and raises standards
Stephen ball- reproduction of inequality
Marketisation policies such as exam league tables and the funding formula reproduce class inequalities by resting inequalities between schools
Cream skimming and silt shifting
Will bartlett
Cs - good schools can be more selective and recruit high achieving mainlymmiddle class pupils. As a result these pupils gain an adacantage
Ss- good schools can avoid taking less able pupils who are likely to get poor results and damage the schools league table position
Opposite applies in schools with poor league table positions
New labour 1997-2010
Blair and brown
Designated some deprived areas as education action zones and provided them with additional resources
Education maintenance allowances (EMAs) - payments to students from low income backgrounds to encourage them to stay on after 16 to gain better qualifications
City academies - give a fresh start to struggling inner - city schools with mainly working class pupils
Marketisation from 2010
Academies - where labours govt aimed to help disadvantaged schools, under coalition govt allowed may school to become an academy removing the focus on reducing inequality
Free schools - improve educational standards by taking the control away from the state and into the hands of the parents.
Evaluation of free schools
Allen - research from Sweden shows that they only benefit children from highly educated families.
Are socially divisive
Strict pupil selection and exclusion policies in USA
Compensatory education from 2010
Free school meals
Pupil premium - money that schools receive for each pupil from a disadvantaged background
Evaluation of compensatory education from 2010
Ofsted found pupil premiums are not actually being spent on those it is supposed to help
Abolition of the education maintenance allowance
University tuition fees tripled up to £9000 per year
Reduces opportunities for wc pupils and discourages them from continuing to higher education
Fragmented centralisation - academies and free schools
Ball
Fragmentation - the comprehensive system is being replaced by a patchwork of diverse provision, much of it involving private providers that leads to greater inequality in opportunities
Centralisation of control - central govt alone ha the power to allow or require schools to become academies or allow free schools to be set up. These schools are funded directly by central govt. this reduces role of local authorities in education
Privatisation, globalisation and commodification of education
Ball
Many private companies in the education services are foreign owned.
Pearson gcse exams marked in Sydney and Iowa
Private companies are exporting education policy to other countries and then providing the services to deliver the policies
Nation states are now becoming less important in policy making, shifting to a global level which is often privatised
The cola-isation of schools
Molnar
Schools are targeted by private companies because schools can carry product endorsement - vending machines and brand loyalty through logos and sponsorships
Commodification of education.
Ball
Education is being turned into a object of private profit making
Callender and Jackson - fear of debt
Working class students are more likely to see debt negatively and as something to be avoided - saw more cost than benefits of going to uni
Five time less likely to apply to uni
Wc students less likely to have financial support from their families
Feinstein - parents own education
Middle class parents tend to be better educated, they are able to give their children an advantage on how to socialise them
Parenting style - high expectations and encouraging learinjng
Educational behaviours -more aware of what is needed to help children in education - reading etc
Use of income - buying educational toys
Alice Sullivan - cultural capital and educational attainment
Questionnaires - pupils in schools
Found those who read complex fiction and watched documentaries developed a wider vocabulary and greater cultural knowledge indicating greater cultural capital - children of graduates - more likely to be successful in GCSEs
Differentiation and polarisation - subcultures
Lacey
D - teachers categorising pupils according to how they perceive their ability, attitude and behaviour eg streaming
P - students react to streaming by moving to one of the extremes - pro school or anti school subcultures
Failure and status-subculture
Hargreaves
Boys gained status by seeking other similar pupils out and forming a group within which high status went to those who went against school rules.
Delinquent subculture that helped guarantee their educational failure
Pupil adaptations to labelling and streaming - woods
Ingratiation - being teachers pet
Ritualism - going through the motions and staying out of trouble
Retreatism - daydreaming and mucking about
Rebellion - outright rejection of everything the school stands for
Abolishing streaming
Ball
When the school abolished banding, the basis for pupils to polarise into subcultures disappeared and the influence of the anti school subculture declined.
Differentiation continued - labelling continued leading to self fulfilling prophecy
Lads and ladettes
Carolyn Jackson
Questionnaires then interviews
Found some girls and boys became part of a subculture because of a fear of failure
Defensive mechanism that would provide them with an excuse for failure
Just wanted to be socially accepted fuelling ‘laddish’ behaviour in both boys and girls
Habitus - pupils class identities withi school
Archer
Dispositions that are shared by a particular social class
Middle class has power to define their habitus as superior and imposes it on the education system giving mc students an advantage
Nike identities
Symbolic violence led to pupils seeking alternative ways of creating self worth and status - brand wearing like Nike
Not conforming was social suicide
Led to conflict with schools dress code reflecting schools mc habitus
Led to more self exclusion from school as school didn’t fit their lifestyle choices
Girls changing ambitions
Sue sharpe
1970s - girls had low aspirations- educational success was unfeminie and ambitiousness was unattractive - prioritised marriage and children
1990s - priorities - careers and being able to support themselves, more likely to see themselves as independent women
Class, gender and ambition - biggart
Wc girls are more likely to face a precarious position in the labour market and to see motherhood as the only viable option for their futures. Hence they see less point in achieving in education.
Hyper heterosexual feminine identities
Archer
Looking the partbrought status from their female peer group and avoided them being ridiculed.
Also brought them into conflict w school. Often punished for too much jewellery or makeup
Led to school othering the girls- incapable of educational success - symbolic violence
Ideal female pupil is desexualised and a mc one that excludes wc girls
Primary socialisation affect on boys
Parents spend less time reading to sons and as mothers do most of the reading to children so it is seen as a feminine activity.
Boys leisure activities eg football do little to develop language and communication skills whereas girls have bedroom culture which consists of chatting to friends.
Industrialisation effect on boys
Mitsos and Browne
Decline in male employment opportunities has led to an identity crisis for men many boys now believe they have little prospect for getting a job undermining their motivation for education
Feminisation of education effect on boys
Sewell
Schools do not nurture masculine traits such as competitiveness and leadership
Coursework - girls do better due to traits
Shortage of male teachers effect on boys
Yougov
39% of 8-11 year old boys have no lessons with a male teacher.
Make teachers are better at controlling boys behaviour
Criticism of the feminisation of education
Barbara read
Speech
Disciplinarian discourse - teachers authority is made explicit and visible through shouting etc
Liberal - teacher speaks to pupil as if they were an adult and expects them to be kind and sensible
Most teachers favoured masculine disciplinarian discourse
Female teachers just as likely to choose this way
Laddish subcultures - Francis
Boys more concerned than girls about being labelled by peers as swots because it is a threat to masculinity
Non manual work and schoolwork is not masculine in wc culture
As girls move into more masculine work this grows as boys respond by becoming increasingly laddish so they are not seen as feminine
Moral panic about boys
Ringrose
Views that girls have succeeded at the expense of boys who are now the disadvantaged ones have contributed to a moral panic that suggest wc boys will grow up to become an unemployable underclass that threatens social stability
Huge effect on educational policy -
Narrows it to just failing boys so ignores problems of working class and ethnic minorities Ignores problems faced by girls eg sexual harassment
Gender domains - subject choice
Browne and Ross
Children’s beliefs about gender domains are shaped by their early experiences and the expectations of adults
Children are more confident when engaging in tasks that they have seen as part of their own gender domain
Single sex schooling
Leonard
Girls in all girls schools were more likely to take math and science a levels and boys in all boys schools were more likely to take English and languages at a level
Peer pressure - subject choice
Paechter
Pupils see sport as mainly within the male gender domains so girls who are sporty have to cope with the image that contradicts conventional female stereotype
Girls are more likely to opt out of sport than boys
Gendered career opportunities- subject choice
Sex-typing of occupations affect boys and girls view of what kinds of jobs are possible or acceptable
Ethnocentric curriculum
Coard
Curriculum that reflects the culture of one ethnic group
Produces underachievement -eg in history the British represented as bringing civilisation to the people they colonised - this image of black people as inferior undermines black children’s self esteem
