Education: Differences in achievement by Social Class

Question 1

What are Smith & Nobles (1995) ‘Barriers to Learning’? (Materia Out of School Factors)

Answer 1

• Isolation and and stigmatising that can come from no access to uniform, trips and equipment
• No equipment > will fall behind
• Low incomes lead to little room in the house to learn and to access resources through the internet
• Marketisation has led to high house prices near ‘good schools’. Selection through economic means
• Older students require extra work or have to look after younger siblings

Question 2

What are Hirsch’s (2007) ‘variety of advantages for the better off’ ? (Material Out of School Factors)

Answer 2

• Structured out of school activities
• Out of school activities lead to confidence, like skills, cultural literacy and specific literacy that links to the school curriculum
• More space and home, overall more likely to benefit from the specific privilege of Private Education.

Question 3

What are Sugarman’s (1970) Cultural Out of School factors?

Answer 3

• Instant gratification vs delayed gratification
• Fatalism of the working class means they do not believe they can improve their prospects through hard work
• Collectivist mindset in the WC vs individualist mindset of the MC

Question 4

What Out of School factors did Feinstein (2003) and Goodman & Gregg (2010) use to argue that ‘material factors matter but culture is more important?

Answer 4

• The quality of mother/child time
• Attitudes to the education system of a parent
• The extent of positive behaviour vs negative behaviour

Question 5

What did Bernstein (972) say about elaborate vs restricted language codes?

Answer 5

Restricted codes are often a results of language codes used in the home and life experiences they’ve had, which links to cultural capital. MC are more likely to have elaborate language codes, which make them more likely to succeed.

Question 6

Why can working class students in predominantly rich areas be considered ‘left behind’?

Answer 6

• Because of the A-C economy in the way schools are graded, it has been easier for schools with a higher middle class uptake to appear to be succeeding

Question 7

What has been done to try and improve quality of education of students from working class areas?

Answer 7

• Emphasis on OFSTED to improve failing schools
• Academisation of schools began with failing schools being taken over by businesses and schools leaders with new measures to improve standards.
• OFSTED’s outstanding grading focuses on quality and breadth of a curriculum and the extra-curricular offerings of a school.

Question 8

What do Interactionists say about how social class backgrounds affect the way pupils are labelled?

Answer 8

Hargreaves, Hester and Mellor

• Pupils’ appearance, how they respond to discipline, how likeable they are and personality can lead teachers to group them into ‘good’ or bad’. Subsequent behaviour can then be labelled either good or bad behaviour
• Middle class behaviour is more likely to reflect the teacher ‘ideal’ of how a student should be

Question 9

What were the findings of Rosenthal and Jackson (1968) study on the impact of teacher expectations?

Answer 9

After giving teachers false information about the IQ of pupils, researchers found that pupils who were ‘told’ they had a higher IQ/ were believed to have a higher IQ did better.

Question 10

What are the conclusions of research into setting and streaming?

Answer 10

• WC children were more likely to be in lower sets even if they had the same attainment as their MC peers.
• Children in higher sets have a higher sense of esteem
• Students that receive FSM are likely to be in lower sets
• Setting and streaming doesn’t matter. There were pronounced class divisions in school and students from unskilled backgrounds were hostile towards MC children.

Question 11

What was the Marxist argument about elaborate & restricted codes/ cultural capital?

Answer 11

• Speech shapes educational achievement. Restricted codes vs elaborate codes which are used in school and professional settings
• A fundamental problem for the WC is that the education system operates in terms of the culture of the middle and upper classes.
• The possession or lack of possession of different types of capital shapes your opportunity in society
• MC mothers were able to give their children a head start using their cultural capital

Question 12

What are the main in school factors affecting class differences in education?

Answer 12

Labelling Theory: Teachers subconsciously label students and will interact with them differently depending on how they label them. Teachers are more likely to label WC pupils negatively which creates low achievement
Anti-School Subcultures: Links to Paul Willis’ ‘Learning to Labour’. Particularly WC boys form subcultures within school that are hostile towards the system. Praise is bad, trouble is good.

Question 13

What are the main out of school factors affecting class differences in education?

Answer 13

Material Deprivation: The housing, diet & health, financial support and cost of education that the working class pupils experience is very likely to affect their school performance
Cultural Deprivation: WC children do not have access to the cultural capital that MC children do (Bourdieu & Bernstein). This could be due to inadequate socialisation and will lead to underachievement in exams
Immediate vs Deferred gratification: WC students expect immediate gratification where MC students understand the benefit of deferred gratification. This means that WC students tend to leave school at the earliest opportunity and head straight into employment whereas MC students delay employment and go on to higher education.