Education Key Terms Flashcards
Anti-school subculture/counterculture (Lacey)
Groups of students who rebel against educational institutions, developing an alternative set of delinquent values, attitudes and behaviours
Ascribed status
A person’s social position that is determined from birth, using factors such as gender, class and ethnicity
Bourgeoisie
The ruling social class in society, typically the middle-class, who maintain control over the working-class.
Comprehensive education
An education system where any student is accepted into school, regardless of academic achievement or merit.
Correspondence principle (Bowles and Gintis)
The Marxist belief that the norms and values taught in schools mirror the norms and values of the workplace.
Crisis of masculinity (Mac an Ghaill)
Due to a decrease in manual labour, men have less opportunities in society so boys thus become demotivated in school and adopt a hegemonic masculine identity to regain their status.
Cultural capital (Bourdieu)
The notion that middle-class children are more likely to have the necessary cultural assets to achieve educational success, e.g. intelligence.
Cultural deprivation
When children lack the cultural assets that enable educational achievement, often a result of poor socialisation.
Educational triage (Gillborn and Youdell)
Similarly to how hospital patients are triaged based on the extent of their injury, specific educational resources are allocated to a pupil based on the extent of their potential.
Ethnocentric curriculum (Troyna and Williams)
The notion that the national curriculum focuses solely on the dominant ethnic group in society, marginalising the ethnic minority.
False class consciousness
The Marxist belief that the proletariat are deceived into having a misguided view of their place in society.
Feminisation of education
The notion that schools no longer nurture masculine traits amongst pupils.
Hidden curriculum
The unspoken/implicit values, behaviours and norms that are taught through the education system.
Ideal pupil (Becker)
The model that teachers have constructed, based on their idea of an ideal student: hardworking, studious, helpful and articulate. This is used to help create labels for certain students, e.g. those who contradict this model are labelled as “troublemakers”.
Ideological state apparatus (Althusser)
The Marxist belief that school is an institution that transmits bourgeoisie ideology.
Labelling (Becker)
The process of categorising pupils based on the teacher’s own perception.
League tables
The documents that are published and made accessible to the public which outline a school’s performance.
Learning to Labour
Paul Willis’s famous study of working-class boys and the countercultures they form.
Material deprivation
The inability to afford basic resources, which can impact a pupil’s educational achievements.
Meritocracy (Parsons)
The functionalist belief that we all have equal opportunity to succeed as a result of merit and ability, rather than through our ascribed status.
Myth of meritocracy
The Marxist belief that meritocracy deceives the proletariat into thinking society is equal, enabling the bourgeoisie to maintain power through this state of false class consciousness.
“Nike” identities (Archer et al)
Archer et al found that working-class pupils found status through wearing branded clothing, e.g. Nike tracksuits.
Parental attitudes (Douglas)
The idea that working-class parents place on schooling and education, compared to middle-class parents.
Parentocracy
Parental choice
Polarisation (Lacey)
The way in which pupils gravitate towards one end of the ‘poles’, joining either a pro-school or anti-school subculture.
Privatisation
The process of transferring state ownership to private entities.
Pro-school subculture (Lacey)
The groups of students who buy into the ethos and identity of school, supporting its rules and principles and placing a high value on good behaviour/hard work.
Pupil subcultures (Sewell)
The identified responses that black pupils have in response to negative labels (e.g. conformists, retreatists, ritualists and rebels)
Role allocation (Davis and Moore)
The functionalists belief that schools go through a process of sifting and sorting pupils into roles they’ll later perform in adult life.
Secondary socialisation (Durkheim)
The functionalist belief that schools help students learn the universalistic values of wider society.
Self-fulfilling prophecy (Merton)
The process where pupils accept the label they’re given and change their behaviour to reflect it, potentially leading to them joining a subculture.
Social solidarity (Durkheim)
The functionalist belief that socialisation into a value consensus can lead to a cohesive, functioning society.
Speech codes (Bernstein)
The different ways in which people communicate within society which Bernstein refers to as the restricted and the elaborated code.
Streaming (Gillborn and Youdel)
The process of splitting pupils into groups based on their ability, which they stay in across all their subjects
Tripartite system
A school system that has three main types of secondary schools: technical, secondary modern and grammar schools.
Value consensus (Durkheim)
The functionalist belief that society has an agreed and shared set of norms and values.
Working-class subcultures (Sugarman)
There are four subcultures that working-class pupils adopt that are unique to their social class: fatalism, collectivism, present time orientation and immediate gratification.
