Education sociologists

Question 1

Durkheim

Answer 1

education is vital for society as it creates social solidarity, gives pupils specialist skills and acts as a society in miniature

Question 2

Parsons

Answer 2

Meritocratic system as it provides equality of opportunity, acts as a bridge between the family and society

Question 3

Davis and Moore

Answer 3

Allocates roles by sifting and sorting pupils according to ability. Inequality is necessary,

Question 4

Chubb and Moe

Answer 4

Education should be privatised. They don’t agree that schools provide for society as we all have different abilities and talents. Education should be run like a business to encourage competition between schools.

Question 5

Kelly

Answer 5

Boys take control of science and technology lessons. For example, by monopolising equipment for experiments limiting female student’s abilities to participate fully in science lessons.

Question 6

Bowles and Gintis

Answer 6

produces obedient, unquestioning workforce. Reproduces class inequalities through the correspondence principle - school mirrors the workforce and prepares the students for fordism. It also does this through the hidden curriculum

Question 6

Willis

Answer 6

W/c pupils can resist indoctrination from school but this resistance slots them into the labour force that meets the capitalist needs.
Studied 12 working class lads who had a counter school subculture, sexist attitudes and scornful of intellectuals. He found similarities between these lads and shop floor culture of manual workers.

Question 7

Howard

Answer 7

Poorer families have lower intake of vitamins and minerals.

Question 8

Wilkinson

Answer 8

Among 10 year olds with a lower social class, there is a higher rate of hyperactivity, anxiety and behavioural disorder.

Question 9

Douglas

Answer 9

M/C parents help to develop children’s intellect by reading to them, providing educational and stimulating activities / toys. w/c parents lack interest in education, are less ambitious for their children.

Question 10

Bernstein

Answer 10

Restricted code / elaborated code

Question 11

Sugarman

Answer 11

w/c sub cultural values
- fatalism - belief in faith
- collectivism - being useful to family / friends is more important than individual success
- immediate gratification
- present time orientation

Question 12

Bourdieu

Answer 12

Passed from parents to children through socialisation. Gives M/c children an advantage as they are highly valued and rewarded at school.

Question 13

Becker

Answer 13

interviewed 60 high school teachers in chicago. Teachers have an image of an ideal pupil and they judge pupils on how closely they fit this image.

Question 14

Dunne and Gazeley

Answer 14

9 secondary schools in England and found that teacher labelling leads to underachievement of w/c pupils.

Question 15

Rist

Answer 15

within 8 days of starting schools, children were seated around tables in groups based on their home background and their appearance. M/c children and those of neat appearance (tigers) were seated at the front near the teacher. W/C children were given low level reading books and named cardinals or clowns.

Question 15

Woods

Answer 15

4 ways of responding to setting:
- integration - being the teacher’s pet
- Ritualism - going through motions of attending lessons, doing the work, staying out of trouble
- Retreatism - daydreaming and messing around
- Rebellion - rejection of school values

Question 16

Gillborn and Youdell

Answer 16

marketisation of education contributes to widening the gap in achievement between w/c and m/c students. A-C economy - a system through which schools allocate time, resources and effort towards pupils they perceive as having potential to get 5 A*-C grades.

Question 17

Mcrobbie

Answer 17

studied girls’ magazines from the 1970s and 1990s. She found that in the 1970s, magazines emphasised importance of getting married, while in the 1990s, they contained images of strong independent women.

Question 18

Sharpe

Answer 18

two sets of interviews with school girls. First set in 1970s where girls’ priorities were marriage, husbands and children, seeing educational success as unfeminine. However, the 90s were exactly the opposite.

Question 19

Mitsos and Browne

Answer 19

decline in manual work industry has led to a crisis of masculinity and a lack of motivation for qualifications

Question 20

Sewell

Answer 20

Schools do not encourage masculine characteristics such as competitiveness and leadership but feminine traits like methodical work and attentiveness

Question 21

Epstein

Answer 21

high achieving w/c boys labelled as ‘swots’ by peers and harassed and subjected to homophobic abuse.

Question 22

Myhill and Jones

Answer 22

interviewed students about their perceptions of teacher treatment by gender; found that boys are treated more negatively than girls.

Question 23

Bereiter and Engelmann

Answer 23

black e/m backgrounds lack intellectual stimulation and enriching experiences needed for educational success

Question 24

Scranton

Answer 24

some e/m fail to integrate into mainstream british culture causing underachievement

Question 25

Moynihan

Answer 25

black e/m children brought up in lone parent families and deprived of adequate care as the mother has to struggle financially in absence of male role model

Question 26

sewell

Answer 26

asian students do better in education than black students because they are brought up in supportive and close knit families which put high value on education and have an ‘asian work ethic’

Question 27

Palmer

Answer 27

pakistani and bangladeshi tend to be among the poorest in the UK.

Question 28

Wood et al

Answer 28

sent three identical job applications for the same job each application having fictitious name associated with particular ethnic group. Applicants with English sounding name were more likely to be called in for interviews.

Question 29

Gillborn

Answer 29

Refers to institutional racism as locked in inequality - scale of discrimination so large that there is no longer any conscious intent to discrimination as it is full built into the way that schools operate

Question 30

Gillborn and Youdell

Answer 30

teachers hold racialised expecatations - expect black students to present behavioural problems and misintepret behaviour as challenging authority.

Question 31

Archer

Answer 31

Ideal pupil - white, middle class, masculinised identity
Pathologised pupil - asian, deserving poor, feminine identity, asexuality
Demonised pupil - black / white, w/c, hypersexualised identity

Question 32

Sewell

Answer 32

rebels - opposed to school rules
Conformists - respected school rules, aimed for success
Retreatists - isolated from school and rebels
Innovators - pro-education, anti-school

Question 33

Troyna and Williams

Answer 33

british curriculum gives priority to british culture and english langauge, ignoring non-european languages, music and literature

Question 34

Gillborn (assessment)

Answer 34

E/m pupils underachieve when assessments are based on teachers’ judgements, not on externally marked tests.

Question 35

Gillborn (Gifted and talented programme)

Answer 35

created to meet needs of more able students in inner city areas, gillborn argues it still discriminates against e/m. based on teachers’ judgements and white students more likely to be placed on the G&T register.

Question 36

Moore and Davenport

Answer 36

minority pupils fail to get into better schools because these pupils use primary school reports to screen out problem students. Non english speaking parents may not understand application process putting e/m students at a disadvantage.