External Factors Affecting Class Achievement Flashcards
What is one popular explanation of class differences in achievement?
Better-off parents can afford to send their children to private schools, which many provide a higher standard of education.
What is an external factor?
Factors outside the education system, such as the influence of home and family background and wider society.
What does the nationwide study by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies show?
That by the age of 3, children from disadvantaged backgrounds are already up to one year behind those from more privileged homes.
What is cultural deprivation?
- Most of us begin to acquire the basic values, attitudes and skills through primary socialisation
- Many working class families fail to socialise their children adequately, they lack the cultural equipment (language and self discipline).
Why is language a cultural equipment?
It is an essential part of education and the way in which parents communicate with their children affects their cognitive performance.
What did Hubbs-Tait et al find regarding speech codes?
Parents who uses language that challenges their children to evaluate their own understanding or abilities have a higher cognitive performance.
What did Feinstein find regarding speech codes?
That educated parents are more likely to use praise. This encourages their children to develop a sense of their own competence.
What did Bereiter and Engelmann claim about language differences?
The language in lower-class homes is deficient. As a result, their children fail to develop the necessary language skills, they grow up incapable of abstract thinking.
What 2 types of language codes did Bernstein identify?
The restricted code, typically used by working class, it has limited vocabulary based on the use of short unfinished, grammatically simple sentences, predictable speech.
The elaborated code, typically used by the middle class, it has a wider vocabulary based on longer more complex sentences, communicates with abstract ideas.
How does the difference in speech codes give middle class children an advantage?
The elaborated code is used by teachers, textbooks and exams, it’s a more effective tool for analysing, reasoning and expressing thoughts clearly which are essential skills for education.
Why is early socialisation into the elaborate code beneficial for middle class children?
It means that MC children are already fluent users of the code when they start school. Thus they feel ‘at home’ in school and are more likely to achieve. By contrast WC children lack the code which makes them feel excluded and therefore unsuccessful.
How do critics challenge Bernstein views on cultural deprivation?
They argue that working-class pupils fail not because they are culturally deprived, but because schools fail to teach them how to use the elaborated code.
What did Douglas find?
Working class parents place less importance on education, as a result they are less ambitious for their children and give them less encouragement to try hard and do well in school.
What did Feinstein conclude?
That a parents’ own education was an important factor affecting children’s achievement.
How does parenting style help middle class parents socialise their children?
- Educated parents’ parenting style emphasises consistent discipline and high expectations of their children and supports achievement by encouragement
- By contrast, less educated parents’ parenting style is marked as harsh or inconsistent discipline which prevents the child from learning independence and self control leading to poorer motivation.
