Education - key theorists Flashcards
What did Althusser say about the role of education in society?
> The education system reproduces class inequality by failing each generation of workign class pupils in turn, and thereby ensuring they end up in the same kinds of jobs as their parents
Education justifies class inequality as by producing sets of ideas and beliefs that disguise its true cause. Education tried to convince peopel that inequality is inevitable and failure is the fault of the individual, not the capitalist system
What did Bowles and Gintis say about the role of education in society?
School mirrors work in many ways:
>Alienation and lack of control over work
>Hierarchy of authority
>Extrinsic satisfaction
>Fragmentation
>Competition
What did Chubb and Moe say about the role of education in society?
> Argued state education is not meritocratic as it does not repond to pupils needs
Argue a market system shodul be introduced into state education
Give control to parents and consumers
Introduce a voucher system in which each family can spend on buying education from a school of their choice
What did Davis and Moore say about the role of education in society?
> The main function of education is role allocation - the selction and allocation of people to their future work roles, based on their talent and skills
Higher rewards are offered for more important jobs to motivate everyone to strive for them
Society is more productive as the most able people do the most important jobs
What did Parsons say about the role of education in society?
> School is the focal socialising agency of modern society
Education teached universalistic standards and acts as a bridge between family and wider society
It socialises individuals into the shared values of a meritocratic society
What did Archer say about differential educational achievement?
> Habitus is a social class’s habitual way of thinkingm, being and acting
The middle class has the power to define its habitus as superior
School commits symbolic violence by devaluing working-class pupils’ habitus, judging their clothing, accent, interests etc as tasteless and inferior
Symbolic violence leads pupils to create alternative class (Nike) identities and gain symbolic capital from peers. This leads to conflict with the school’s middle class habitus
What did Bhopal say about differential educational achievement?
> Argued that white privilege and a hierarchy of oppression has resulted in competing identities where gender has been given more importance than ethnicity.
Argues that stererotypes about ethnic minority staff, students and and pupils results in marginalisation.
What did Bourdieu say about differential educational achievement?
Middle class pupils are more successful than working class pupils because their parents possessmore capital or assets. The capital comes in two forms:
>Economic capital - the wealth that middle class parents own
>Cultural capital - the attitudes, values, skills, knowledge etc of the middle class
The middle class use these to give their children an advantage by using it to obtain educational capital - qualifications.
This allows them to get middle class jpobs and economic capital, thus reproducing the advantages of the middle class from generation to generation.
What did Reay say about differential educational achievement?
> Girls who want to be successful educationally may feel the need to conform to the school’s notion of the ideal feminine pupil identity.
This involved the girls having to perform an asexual identity, presenting themselves as lacking any interest in boyfriends or popular fashion. As a result, they risk being given the identity of ‘boffin’ and excluded by other girls (as well as boys).
What did Ball say about relationships and processes in schools?
> Competition between schools benefits the middle class, who can use their cultural and economic capital to gain access to more desirable schools
Top band pupils saw middle band pupils as thick; rough; boring; simple.Middle band pupils saw top band pupils as brainy; unfriendly; stuck-up; arrogant.
Found that when the school abolished banding, the basis for pupils to polarise into subcultures was largely removed and the influence of the anti-school subculture declined.
the National Curriculum ignores ethnic diversity and promotes an attitude of ‘little Englandism’. For example, the history curriculum tries to recreate a ‘mythical age of empire and past glories’, while ignoring the history of black and Asian people.
What did Becker say about relationships and processes in schools?
> teachers do not usually see working-class children as ideal pupils. They tend to see them as lacking ability and have low expectations of them. As a result, working-class children are more likely to find themselves put in a lower stream.
What did Francis say about relationships and processes in schools?
> Teachers stereotyped Chinese families as ‘tight’ and ‘close’ and used this to explain the girls’ supposed passivity (similar to the way teachers often see South Asian girls as victims of oppressive family situations). Teachers also tended wrongly to stereotype their Chinese students as middle-class.
found that while boys got more attention, they were disciplined more harshly and felt picked on by teachers, who tended to have lower expectations of them.
found that two-thirds of 7-8 year olds believed the gender of teachers does not matter.
found that boys were more concerned than girls about being labelled by peers as swots, because this label is more of a threat to their masculinity than it is to girls’ femininity.
laddish culture is becoming increasingly widespread. She argues that this is because, as girls move into traditional masculine areas such as careers, boys respond by “becoming increasingly laddish in their effort to construct themselves as non-feminine”.
What did Gillborne and Youdell say about relationships and processes in schools?
> Teachers use stereotypical notions of ‘ability’ to stream pupils. They found that teachers are less likely to see working-class (and black) pupils as having ability. As a result, these pupils are more likely to be placed in lower streams and entered for lower-tier GCSEs
Argue that teachers have ‘racialised expectations’. They found that teachers expected black pupils to present more discipline problems and misinterpreted their behaviour as threatening or as a challenge to authority.
Found that secondary schools are increasingly using old-style intelligence (IQ) tests to allocate pupils to different streams on entry.
Found that in the ‘A-to-C economy’, teachers focus on those students who they believe are most likely to achieve a grade C at GCSE – a process the authors call ‘educational triage’ or sorting. As a result, negative stereotypes about black pupils’ ability that some teachers hold means they are more likely to be placed in lower sets or streams.
What did Mac an Ghaill say about relationships and processes in schools?
> studied black and Asian ‘A’ level students at a sixth form college . >Students who believed teachers had labelled them negatively did not necessarily accept the label. How they responded depended on factors such as their ethnic group and gender and the nature of their former school
Sees the male gaze as a form of surveillance through which dominant heterosexual masculinity is reinforced and femininity devalued. It is one of the ways boys prove their masculinity to their friends and is often combined with constant telling and retelling of stories about sexual conquests.
Examined how peer groups reproduce a range of different class-based masculine gender identities. For example, the working-class ‘macho lads’ were dismissive of other working-class boys who worked hard and aspired to middle-class careers, referring to them as the ‘dickhead achievers’. By contrast, middle-class ‘real Englishmen’ projected an image of ‘effortless achievement’ – of succeeding without trying (though in some cases actually working hard ‘on the quiet’).
found that male teachers told boys off for ‘behaving like girls’ and teased them when they gained lower marks in tests than girls. Teachers tended to ignore boys’ verbal abuse of girls and even blamed girls for attracting it.
What did Bartlett say about education policy?
Studied marketisation policies and found that they encouraged:
>cream-skimming - ‘Good’ schools can be more selective, choose their own customers and recruit high achieving, mainly middle-class pupils. As a result, these pupils gain an advantage.
>silt-shifting - ‘Good’ schools can avoid taking less able pupils who are likely to get poor results and damage the school’s league table position.
