explaining class differences (topic 1)

Question 1

what is the middle class?

Answer 1

occupations such as doctors/teachers, together with managers + other ‘white collar’ office workers + owners of businesses (non-manual)

Question 2

what is the working class?

Answer 2

skilled workers e.g plumbers, semi-skilled workers e.g lorry drivers, + unskilled/routine workers e.g cleaners (manual)

Question 3

which class children do better in school? give evidence

Answer 3

middle-class families’ children on average perform better than w/c, and this gap grows wider as they get older e.g m/c children do better at GCSE, stay longer in full-time education + take majority of university places.

Question 4

why may m/c perform better in school? give evidence

Answer 4

as better-off parents can afford to send their children to private schools which is believed to provide higher standard of education e.g average class sizes are less than half those in state schools. although they only educate 7% of Britain’s children, they aid nearly half to entering elite unis of oxbridge e.g sutton trust 2011, in a 3 year period, private schools have sent 211 pupils to Oxbridge while 1300 state schools send no pupils at all to these.

Question 5

what is criticism of m/c children doing better in school?

Answer 5

the existence of private education is not the sole factor to class differences, there is more research on why m/c do better.

Question 6

what is meant by internal factors?

Answer 6

factors within schools and education system e.g interactions between teachers and pupils and inequalities

Question 7

what is meant by external factors?

Answer 7

factors outside the education system e.g influence of home, family background, wider society