External factors: social class and education Flashcards
What are the 3 external factors?
Cultural deprivation, material deprivation and compensatory education
What is cultural deprivation?
To be deprived of primary socialization which affects basic values and attitudes needed for educational success
How does it relate to the working class?
Many working class families fail to socialize their children adequately which makes them develop culturally deprived
What are the main aspects of cultural deprivation?
- Intellectual development
- Attitudes
- Languages
What is intellectual development in the context of social class and education?
Development of thinking and reasoning skills such as problem solving, working class families lack books and toys that would stimulate a childs intellectual development
Who speaks about intellectual development?
Douglas and Bernstein
What did Douglas find?
Working class students scored lower on intellectual tests than middle class
What did Bernstein and Douglas find?
Middle class mothers are more likely to choose toys that encourage thinking and reasonings and this prepared them for educational success
Who spoke about language?
Engelmann and Bereiter
Bernstein
What did Engelmann and Bereiter say?
Language used by working class families is deficient = failure to develop the necessary language skills and grow up incapable of abstract thinking
What did Bernstein talk about?
Identified 2 types of language used by the working and middle class which is responsible for the underachievement among the working class.
Elaborate code: proper English with grammar
Restricted code: used by the working class, limited vocabulary and based on short, unfinished and grammatically incorrect sentences
- argues the working class cannot code switch
What is cultural capital?
What forms someones identity, every person has one but its different
Who came up with the term “cultural capital”?
Bourdieu
What are symbolic elements of cultural capital?
Skills, tastes, posture, clothing, mannerisms, material belongs, credentials etc that is acquired through being part of a social class
What did Bourdieu call this?
Habitus
What does having similar forms of cultural capital do?
Creates a sense of collective identity and group position
- Divide between the rich and the poor as they can neither relate nor like the same things
What did Bourdieu point out?
Cultural capital is a major source of social inequality, certain forms of cultural capital are valued over others and can help or hinder ones social mobility just as much as income or wealth
How does cultural capital relate to education?
The education system is built off the middle class. teachers and headteachers are typically middle class, middle class people also write the curriculum and policies which are based off of middle class knowledge
What do Marxists say about social class and education?
- Schools reproduce class inequality
- Middle classes use their material and cultural capital to ensure that their children get into the best schools and top sets
- Wealthier pupils tend to get the best education and go into to get middle class jobs
- Working class children get a poorer standard of education and end up in working class jobs
What was the study Willis conducted?
- An ethnographic study of 12 working class ‘lads’ from a school
- All white in a school containing many pupils of multiple ethnicities
- Participant observation and interviews
- Lads prioritized having a ‘laff’ over their education
Who spoke about parental attitudes?
Douglas and Hyman
What did Douglas say about parental attitudes?
Found that working class parents were less ambitious for their children and took less interest in their education meaning children had less motivation towards schools
What did Hyman say about parental attitudes?
Argued that the values of lower class reflect a self imposed barrier to education success, believe they have less chance of achieving individual success = no point of education
What do right realists think about social class and education?
They believe that the reason for the social class difference in academic achievement is the ‘underclass’ and dysfunctional families (any variation of the nuclear families)
What is the underclass?
Class of people who don’t want to work, a culture of laziness and reliance on the benefits, thus they don’t partake effectively on education and instead place an emphasis on surviving
What does Sugarmann say?
That working class subculture has 4 key features that act as a barrier to educational achievement
What are the 4 features?
Fatalism: a belief in fate and theres nothing you can do to change your status
Collectivism: valuing being part of a group more than succeeding as an individual
Immediate gratification: seeking pleasure now rather than making sacrifices in order to get rewards in the future
Present time orientation: seeing the present as more important than the future, no long term goals
Who critiques external factors?
Keddie, Troyna and Williams, Blackstone and Mortimore
What does Keddie say?
Cultural deprivation is a myth and a victim blaming explanation, working class families are different, not deprived and fail because of biases in education system (disadvantaged)
What did Troyna and Williams say?
Teachers have a speech hierarchy and label middle class speech as the highest and working class speech as uneducated
- Bias leads to under performance of working class students
What did Blackstone and Mortimore say?
Working class parents aren’t necessarily less involved in child’s education
- long working hours makes attending parents evening more difficult
- may not be able to help with homework due to lack of education
What is material deprivation?
Inability to afford basic resources that impacts on a childs educational achievement
Who speaks about material deprivation?
Douglas
What does Douglas say about material deprivation?
Material deprivation has a cumulative effect on achievement meaning many other material factors that had an affect other than basic resources
What is the impact of material deprivation?
- Lack of ability to afford resources and hidden costs
> Costs of uniforms equipment, pe kit, school trips, travel and lunch = financial and psychological stress
> £1500 on average per student - Overcrowded accommodation
> No space to study, sleep distance and prone to communicable illnesses - Part time work
> distraction from studies > instill values of instant gratification in students
How is funding into education relevant to material deprivation?
- 90% of schools rated inadequate by OFSTED are in deprived areas (inability to raise additional funds from pupils/sponsors)
- students attending poor schools (lack of funding and appearance) internalized low self esteem impacting aspirations
What was put in place to combat funding problems?
New labour
- Sure start
- EMA
- Excellence city
- City academies
Coalition
- Universal school meals till yr 2
- Pupil premium
What statistics support poverty and underachievement?
33% of children receiving free school meals gains 5 A-C’s compared to 61% of children not receiving free school meals
What’s a limitation of statistics based on FSM?
Only 13.6% claim FSM out of 34% of children in poverty which reduces the validity of the statistics
How is housing and diet a factor?
- Poor housing can affect pupil’s performance
> overcrowding = difficulty to study
> temporary housing = changing schools and disrupting education - Diet and nutrition: lack of concentration, tiredness and illness
> limited choice = processed food
> Dependency on FSM for nutrition = hunger over the holidays
> food bank usage rise = impacts availability of food for students
Who speaks about housing?
Howard
What did Howard talk about?
Young people from poorer homes have lower intakes of energy, vitamins and minerals which weakens the immune system = absences
Who spoke about financial support?
Tanner et al
Ridge
How is financial support relevant?
- Financial support and cost of education can affect educational achievement, materially deprived children have to do without equipment and experiences
What did Tanner et al find?
Costs of items such as transport etc. place heavy burdens on poor families, have to make do with hand me downs and cheap less fashionable equipment
What did Ridge say?
Lack of funds means that children from low incomes families often need to work, Ridge found that children in poverty take on part time jobs, many working class pupils leave education at 16 for employment
What’s are some critiques for material deprivation?
- Some children from poor families excel in education suggesting that material deprivation is only part of the explanation
- Cultural and religious values of family may play a part in creating child’s motivation even despite poverty
- Quality of school may play an important role in enabling some poor children to achieve
What are sure start centers?
Facilities that provide education, care, family support and health services. Helped to maintain physical, social and intellectual development of deprived children
What were the findings of Willis’ study?
Shop floor culture
- completely uninterested in school, do as little work as possible and have as much fun as possible
- didn’t value education due to anticipation for a factory job (needs no formal qualifications)
- School is for middle class kids
- Willis doesn’t disclose how he built rapport but safe to assume it was built effectively through their openness and consent
