Education- Class and Differential Achievement Flashcards
How are pupils from professional backgrounds impacted?
They are significantly more likely to enter higher education
Who are more likely to take A-levels and who are more likely to take vocational courses?
A-levels= pupils from middle-class backgrounds, vocational courses= pupils from working-class backgrounds
How are pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds impacted when starting school?
They are less likely to start school being able to read
How are pupils from unskilled backgrounds impacted?
On average, they achieve lower skills on SATs and GCSEs and are more likely to be placed in lower streams or sets
What can negative labelling of students lead to?
A self-fulfilling prophecy of failure
What do Becker and Keddie say?
Teachers tend to evaluate pupils in comparison to an ‘ideal pupil’ by looking at their social class (as well as appearance, personality and speech)
What did Ball find?
Pupils in top streams tended to be from higher social classes
What could be a response to negative labelling and frustration with low status?
Pupils may form anti-school subcultures
What did Woods argue?
There are lots of different reactions to school but non-conformist reactions were more likely to come from working-class students
What did the Joseph Rowntree Foundation do in 1997?
Classified 1 in 10 children as poor (defined as being in a family that couldn’t afford at least 3 things other families took for granted)
What did Halsey find?
The most important factor preventing working-class students staying on at school was a lack of financial support
What did Douglas find?
Children living in unsatisfactory living conditions didn’t do well in ability tests compared to children from ‘comfortable’ backgrounds
What does unemployment or low income mean?
Less money for books, internet access and school trips, also can’t afford nurseries or private schools and they can’t afford to support children through university
What can poverty and unsatisfactory living standards cause?
May cause health problems and absence from school
What did Douglas think about cultural deprivation?
The level of parental interest was the most important factor in affecting achievement such as middle-class parents are more likely to attend open evenings but working-class parents may not go because they work inconvenient shifts, not because of lack of interest
What do some sociologists say that working-class children may lack?
Knowledge and values that help achievement- books, museum visits, home internet access and parental knowledge of education may help middle-class pupils to succeed
How do parenting styles affect educational achievement?
Some parenting styles emphasise the importance of education more than others
What did Sugerman say?
Pupils from non-manual backgrounds and manual background have different outlooks- pupils from manual backgrounds lived for immediate gratification and pupils from non-manual backgrounds were ambitious and deferred their gratification
What did Feinstein find?
Social class continued to have a significant impact on educational achievement and he argued that redistributive policies should carry on throughout a student’s entire education
What did Hyman say?
Values of the working class are a self-imposed barrier to improving their position and the working class tend to place a low value on education
What is a disadvantage of material and cultural deprivation?
They don’t explain internal factors
How can cultural deprivation be criticised?
- Generalises a lot about differences between middle-class and working-class life
- Ignores working-class families who do place a high value on education
- Tends to assume working-class families have no culture at all or working-class culture can’t be relevant to school
- Ethnocentric
What did Bernstein find?
Working-class pupils in the East End of London weren’t comfortable with the style of language required by the school as they used a restricted code
What language was used by the school?
Elaborated code which middle-class pupils know how to use so working-class pupils were put at a disadvantage
How are middle-class pupils at an advantage, according to Bourdieu?
They had the right kind of cultural capital and the more cultural capital you have, the more successful you’ll be in education
What is cultural reproduction?
Middle-class families pass on cultural capital and expectations from parents to children
What are problems with Bernstein’s theory?
- There are variations within the classes
- Working-class speech patterns could just be different, not ‘wrong’
What are problems with Bourdieu’s theory?
- Material factors are important
- Not all working-class student fail
