Educational Achievement with Social Class Flashcards
How do schools work out the proportions of working-class or poverty-stricken backgrounds in schools
By seeing the percentage of Free School Meal children in the school - these FMS pupils tend to be in lower league table schools also
What is the problem with using FSM to measure the proportions of working-class backgrounds
Not all working-class children qualify for FSM because their parents have jobs. Moreover, some parents may not claim FSM even though they qualify for it
What did Willis and Corrigan find about university placements
That children with parents in professional jobs are three times more likely to attend a top university than working-class students, even when they achieve the same grades
What did Willis and Corrigan find out about nursery
That working-class children are less likely to be found in nursery schools, are more likely to start school unable to read and are more likely to fall behind middle-class children in reading, writing and number skills in primary schools
What is one of the main causes of lower educational attainment of working class children
Material deprivation caused by low incomes and poverty, especially those having FSM
What do Smith and Noble point out
That lack of funds to pay for school uniform, books, computers and extra tuition can lead to children being bullied or falling behind their middle-class peers
Low incomes can also lead to poor nutrition, poor health and absenteeism from schools
What does a poorer quality and over-crowding of the home result in
Children may lack the private quiet space in which they can do their homework and study
What does the marketisation of schools mean for the working-class pupils
The children who live in deprived areas may have no choice but to attend unpopular and failing schools
What does Taylor suggest
That material factor have more impact on some social groups more than others. If parents have high expectations there is evidence that material disadvantages can be overcome
What is cultural deprivation
A lack of the norms, values and attitudes required to ensure success in education
What is said about the working-class and cultural deprivation
That working-class underachievement is caused by deficiencies or weaknesses in working-class culture
What did Feinstein find
That class differences in achievement were mainly the result of class differences in parental interest and support
What Feinsteins study suggest
That working-class parents placed less value on the importance of education compared with middle-class parents and consequently have lower aspirations for their children.
These attitudes were passed onto their children during socialisation
Therefore working-class children weren’t adequately prepared for education
What are the critics behind Feinsteins study
Parental interest was measured using teacher perceptions of parents. Such teachers may have stereotyped working-class parents and may have been biased in favour of middle-class parents who resembled themselves
What did Gill Evans’ conclude
Found in the study that working-class parents had very positive attitudes towards education.
Evans’ rejects the idea of cultural deprivation and argues instead in favour of ‘social variation’ - working-class methods of bringing up children are not inferior just different
What did Bernstein (1970) study suggest
His study of language has been used to suggest working-class children are linguistically deprived
What did Bernstein argue about Middle-class children
He argued that middle-class parents socialise their children into elaborated codes of speech which involve the detailed and complex use of language - similar to the language in textbooks and exams
What did Bernstein say about working-class children
Working-class parents fail to transmit such language skills to their children who come to school equipped with an inferior restricted code of speech which fails to fully convey detail and meaning
How are the inferior restricted code of speed children disadvantaged
As their alleged linguistic deprivation means that they find it difficult to understand teacher instructions or exposition, as well as textbooks etc. As these are all written in the elaborated speech code
What was the cultural deprivation theory influential of
Educational policies in the 1960s and 1970s
What policies did the cultural deprivation theory make
The setting up of ‘educational priority areas’ in six deprived areas, which attempted to positively discriminate in favour of working-class pupils to compensate for the deficiencies in working-class culture
What do Gaine and George criticise Bernstein about
They argue that he oversimplifies the difference between middle-class and working-class speech patterns
What does Nell Keddie argue
That cultural deprivation theory is ethnocentric - sees the world through middle-class eyes and fails to recognise the richness and strength of working-class culture
Cultural deprivation theory distractions attention away from the real causes of educational failure - because of schools
What type of sociologist is Pierre Bourdieu
Marxist
What does Bourdieu argue
He rejects the idea of cultural deprivation and argues in contrast that the main role of the education system is cultural reproduction - ensuring that the culture of the dominant class is passed onto the next generation
Why do the dominant class have an advantage in the education system
The knowledge of the dominant culture that Bourdieu calls ‘cultural capital’ - as the educational system is a bourgeois construction in which the organisation of teaching and learning values for bourgeois culture, more than the working-class culture
What does Bourdieu claim middle-class education success to be
Depends on the passion of such cultural capital.
Working-class pupils who lack cultural capital are more likely to drop out of education as they see the education system as rigged against them
What do some critics of cultural capital
That economic capital is more important as it can buy a place in a fee-paying school with smaller classes as well as extra tuition and educational support materials
What does Interactionist theory focus on
What goes on in the classroom between teachers and pupils rather than social factors external to the school
What do Interactionists argue
That individual pupils develop a self-concept or view of themselves based on how teachers react to them.
What do Interactionists say about labelling
That the labels that teachers attach to pupils are often not based on objective criteria such as intelligence. They tend to be based on common-sense assumptions about what constitutes as ‘ideal pupil’
What does Becker’s research suggest
That teachers see middle-class pupils as closet to the ‘ideal pupil’ in terms of performance, conduct, attitude and appearance, while working-class pupils are seen furthest from it
What did Gillborn and Youdell find
That teachers generally labelled working-class pupils as disruptive, lacking in motivation and parental support and consequently of low ability.
This led to teachers having lower expectations of working-class pupils, which meant they were often allocated to lower ability groups
What is self-fulfilling prophecy
The pupil internalises the label and conforms to teacher expectations
What does setting involve
Placing pupils in different ability groups for different subjects
What do some educationalists prefer about sets
They prefer mixed ability sets because setting by ability can sometimes become to rigid and pupils can find it difficult to move up even if they demonstrate improvements in ability
What did Gillborn and Yodel argue
That bright working-class pupils are often placed in lower ability sets because teachers subscribe to negative stereotypes about the attitudes and behaviour of working-class pupils.
Once placed in these groups, these bright working-class pupils live up to a self-fulfilling prophecy
What do interactionalists argue about the bottom sets
The pupils in the bottom sets are more likely to experience low self-esteem and form anti-social or counter-pupil subcultures in which peers award status to one another for deviant behaviour that breaks school rules
What did Willis find
His study of anti-school subcultures suggests it may not be necessarily be a response to teacher labelling. He found that the lads in his study rejected the idea of school and qualifications because they wanted jobs in the local factory. They saw school as ‘having a laugh’
What did Woods observe
That working-class pupils could react to negative teacher labelling and setting in a variety of ways. He noted that pupils often moved between conformity and rebellion, which usually depended on the teacher or the lesson.
