education paper Flashcards
Q1. 2 reasons marketisation policies produce class inequality?
- schools choose catchment areas, M/C parents a=can afford to move to get into good schools
- schools use subtle ways to avoid taking less able, mainly w/c children, by appealing to M/C parents
Q2. 3 reasons for gender differences in educational achievement?
- reduction in coursework, girls achieve better in coursework as they’re better organised
- more female teachers, more role models for girls, advantage over boys
- policies introduced to help girls achieve, WISE, women into school and engineering, outperform boys in all stages
Q3. 1 ways the education system might serve the needs of capitalism?
- depends on the proletariat not overthrowing capitalism
- Althusser, acts as an ideological state apparatus
- transmits these values through generations
4,p1. external factor which causes differences in social class achievement
cultural deprivation
Douglas 1964
what’s a criticism?
many w/c families lack books and educational toys
- causes lack of development in early years
- very outdated
Douglas
w/c families place less value on education and going to uni
- leads to lack of motivation
Bernstein
w/c restricted code
m/c elaborated code
- benefits m/c as teachers and textbooks use more complex language
internal factor affecting class achievement
- labelling
Becker and labelling
found that w/c students often end up in lower streams
result of labelling
lower confidence and less aspirations
- leads to self fulfilling prophecy
- anti school subculture, go against school values
2nd 3xternal factor affecting social class achievement
material circumstances
what are examples of material deprivation
- lack of resources such as computer and books at home, impacts primary socialisation
- poorer housing, overcrowding, harder to find quiet place to study
Flaherty
argues worn out clothes and hand me downs can lead to these children being bullied
- can be helped through pupils attitudes and wanting to be the first in the family
m/c advantage of material circumstances
can turn economic capital into educational capital by sending children to private schools
what is a participant observation
- researcher takes part in the everyday activities of the subject while observing them
strength of participant observation
- get close to pupils
- gain empathy through personal experience
- gain insights
depends on researchers ability to gain good relationships - must be trained
limitations of participant observations
can cause bias and lack objectivity
- one sided or bias due to loyalty/concealing information due to fear
what do positivist argue about participant observations
- they lack validity
- studies are subjective and biased impression of the observer
Whyte’s participant observation study?
- took 4 years to complete
- time consuming
- may not wish to be studied
2nd strength of participant observations
- flexibility
- Whyte, ‘I learned answer to questions I would not have had the sense to ask if I had been using interviews’
2nd strength of participant observations, extra
- large amounts of qualitative data
- gain valid insights and collect reliable data
Q4. 2nd way education system serves capitalism
- generating workers who are forced to undertake low pay, alienation to survive
- Bowels and Gintis
- schools have close parallels which mirror the work environment
- creates obedient workforce
