Education: Class differences in achievement (External factors) Flashcards
Explaining class differences: info
Social class background has a powerful influence on a child’s chances of success in the education system. Children from middle-class families on average perform better than working-class children, and the gap in achievement grows wider as children get older.
Cultural deprivation: info
Some sociologists claim that most of us begin to acquire the basic values, attitudes and skills are needed for educational success through primary socialisation in the family. This basic ‘cultural equipment’ includes things such as language, self-discipline and reasoning skills.
However, according to cultural deprivation theorists, many working-class families fail to socialise their children adequately. These children grow up ‘culturally deprived’. That is, they lack cultural equipment needed to do well at school and so they underachieve. There are 3 main aspects of cultural deprivation:
-Language
-Parent’s education
-Working class-subcultures
Cultural deprivation- Language (speech codes)
Bernstein identifies differences between working-class and middle-class language that influence achievement. He distinguishes between two types of speech codes:
- The restricted code: is the speech code typically used by the working class. It has a limited vocabulary and is based on the use of short, often unfinished, grammatically simple sentences.
-The elaborated code: is typically used by the middle class. It has a wider vocabulary and is based on longer, grammatically more complex sentences. Speech is more varied and communicates abstract ideas.
These differences in speech codes give middle-class children an advantage at school and put working-class children at a disadvantage. This is because the elaborated code is the language used by teachers, textbooks and exams. Not only it is taken as the ‘correct; way to speak and write, but in Bernstein’s view it is also a more effective tool for analysing and reasoning and for expressing thoughts clearly and effectively- essential skills in education.
Early socialisation into the elaborated code means that middle-class children are already fluent users of the code when they start school. Thus they feel ‘at home’ in school and are more likely to succeed. By contrast, working-class children, lacking the code in which schooling takes place are likely to feel excluded and to be less successful.
Critics argue that Bernstein is a cultural deprivation theorist because he describes working-class speech as inadequate. However, unlike most cultural deprivation theorists, Bernstein recognises that the school- and not just the home- influences children’s achievement. He argues that working-class pupils fail not because they are culturally deprived, but because schools fail to teach them how to use the elaborated code.
Cultural deprivation- Parents education info
Cultural deprivation theorists argue that parents’ attitudes to education are a key factor affecting children’s achievement. For example, a major early study by Douglas found that working-class parents placed less value on education. As a result, they were less ambitious for their children, gave them less encouragement and took less interest in their education. They visited schools less often and were likely to discuss their children’s progress with teachers. As a result, their children had lower levels of motivation and achievement.
Cultural deprivation- Parents education
(1. Parenting style)
Educated parent’s parenting style emphasises consistent discipline and high expectations of their children, and this supports achievement by encouraging active learning and exploration.
By contrast, less educated parents’ parenting styles is marked by harsh or inconsistent discipline that emphasises ‘doing as you’re told’ and ‘behaving yourself’. This prevents the child from learning independence and self-control, leading to poorer motivation at school and problems interacting with teachers.
Cultural deprivation- Parents education
(2. Parents’ educational behaviours)
Educated parents are more aware of what is needed to assist their children’s educational progress. As a result, they engage in behaviour such as reading to their children, teaching them letters, numbers, songs, poems and nursery rhymes.
Educated parents are also better able to get expert advice on childrearing, more successful in establishing good relationships with teachers and better at guiding their children’s interactions with school. These parents also recognise the educational value of activities such as visits to museums and libraries.
Cultural deprivation- Parents education
(3. Use of income)
Better educated parents not only tend to have higher incomes. They also spend their income in ways that promote their children’s educational success. For example, as Bernstein and Young found, middle-class mothers are more likely to buy educational toys, books and activities that encourage reasoning skills and stimulate intellectual development. Working-class homes are more likely to lack these resources and this means children from such homes start school without the intellectual skills needed to progress.
Educated parents also have a better understanding of nutrition and its importance in child development and a higher income with which to buy more nutritious food.
Cultural deprivation- Parents education
(Class, income and parental education)
While better-paid, middle-class parents tend to be better educated than lower-paid, working-class parents, Feinstein notes that parental education has an influence on children’s achievement in its own right, regardless of class or income. Thus, even within a given social class, better educated parents tend to have children who are more successful at school. This may help to explain why not all children of working-class parents do equally badly, and why not all children from middle-class families are equally successful.
Cultural deprivation- Working-class subculture info
Sugarman takes this view. He argues that working-class subculture has four key features that act as a barrier to educational achievement.
-Fatalism: a belief in fate- that ‘whatever will be, will be’ and there is nothing you can do to change your status. This contrasts with middle-class values, which emphasise that you can change your position through your own efforts.
-Collectivism: valuing being part of a group more than succeeding as an individual. This contrasts with the middle-class view that an individual should not be held back by group loyalties.
-Immediate gratification: seeking pleasure now rather than making sacrifices in order to get rewards in the future. By contrast, middle-class values emphasise deferred gratification, making sacrifices now for greater rewards later.
- Present-time orientation: seeing the present as more important than the future and so not having long-term goals or plans. By contrast, middle-class culture has a future-time orientation that sees planning for the future as important.
Working-class children internalise the beliefs and values of their subculture through the socialisation process and this results in them underachieving in school.
But why do these differences in values exist? Sugarman argues that they stem from the fact that middle-class jobs are secure careers offering prospects for continuous individual advancement. This encourages ambition, long-term planning and a willingness to invest time and effort in gaining qualifications. By contrast, working-class jobs are less secure and have no career structure through which individuals can advance. There are a few promotion opportunities and earnings peak at an early age.
Cultural deprivation theorists argue that parents pass on the values on their class to their children through primary socialisation. Middle-class values equip children for success, whereas working-class values fail to do so.
Cultural deprivation- Working class subculture: Compensatory education
Compensatory education programmes aim to tackle the problem of cultural deprivation by providing extra resources to schools and communities in deprived areas. They intervene early in the socialisation process to compensate children for the deprivation they experience at home.
In Britain, there has been several compensatory education programmes, such as Educational Priority Areas, Education Action Zones and Sure Start, a nationwide programme aimed at pre-school children and their parents.
Cultural deprivation- Working class subculture: The myth of cultural deprivation?
Although it draws our attention to the role of the child’s social background, cultural deprivation theory has been widely criticised as an explanation of class differences in achievement.
Keddie describes cultural deprivation as a ‘myth’ and sees it as a victim-blaming explanation. She dismisses the idea that failure at school can be blamed on a culturally deprived home background. She points out that a child cannot be deprived of its own culture and argues that working-class children are simply culturally different, not culturally deprived. They fail because they are put at an disadvantage by an education system that is dominated by middle-class values.
Troyna and Williams argue that the problem is not the child’s language but the school’s attitude towards it. Teachers have a ‘speech hierarchy’: they label middle-class speech highest, followed by working-class and then black speech.
Material deprivation- info
refers to poverty and a lack of material necessities such as adequate housing and income.
-Nearly 90% of ‘failing’ schools are located in deprived areas.
Material deprivation: Housing
Poor housing can affect pupil’s achievement both directly and indirectly. For example, overcrowding can have a direct effect by making it harder for the child to study. Overcrowding means less room for educational activities, nowhere to do homework, distributed sleep from sharing beds or bedrooms and so on.
For young children especially, development can be impaired through lack of space for safe play and exploration. Families living in temporary (bed and breakfast) accommodation may find themselves having to move frequently, resulting in constant changes of school and disrupted education.
Poor housing can have indirect effects, notably on the child’s health and welfare. For example, children in crowded homes run a greater risk of accidents. Cold or damp housing can also cause ill health. Families in temporary accommodation suffer more psychological distress, infections and accidents. Such health problems mean more absences from school.
Material deprivation: Diet and health
Howard notes that young people from poorer homes have lower intakes of energy, vitamins and minerals. Poor nutrition effects health, for example by weakening the immune system and lowering children’s energy levels. This may result in more absences from school due to illness, and difficulties concentrating in class.
Children from poorer homes are also more likely to have emotional or behavioural problems. According to Wilkinson, among 10 year olds, the lower the social class, the higher the rate of hyperactivity, anxiety and conduct disorders, all of which are likely to have a negative effect on the child’s education.
Material deprivation: Financial support and the costs of education
Lack of financial support means that children from poor families have to do without equipment and miss out on experiences that would enhance their educational achievement. Bull refers to this as ‘the costs of free schooling’. A study in the Oxford area by Tanner et al found that the cost of items such as transport, uniforms, books, computers, calculators, and sports, music and art equipment, places a heavy burden on poor families.
As a result, poor children may have to make do with hand-me-downs and cheaper but unfashionable equipment, and this may result in being isolated, stigmatised or bullied by peers. Yet, for many children, suitable clothes are essential for self-esteem and ‘fitting in’.
Lack of funds means that children from low-income families often need to work. Ridge found that children in poverty take on jobs such as baby sitting, cleaning and paper rounds, and that this often has a negative impact on their schoolwork.
Financial support to poorer students staying on in education after 16 that had previously been available through Education Maintenance Allowances (EMAs) was abolished in England by the Coalition Government in 2011.
