EXTRERNAL FACTORS AFFECTING SOCIAL CLASS ACHIEVEMENT

Question 1

Basil Bernstein (Speech codes)

Answer 1

• Identifies differences between working-class and middle-class language that influence achievement.
• He distinguishes between two types of speech codes: the restricted code (usually working class, and has limitedvocabulary based on short, often unfinished, grammatically simple sentences; speech is predictable and may involve only a single word, or even a gesture. it’s unanalytical, and ‘context-bound’),
• the elaborated code (usually** middle class**, and has wider vocabulary based on longer, grammatically more complex sentences; it’s context free, and the speak doesn’t assume the listener shares the same experiences).
• The difference in speech codes give middle-class children an advantage at school and put working-class children at a disadvantage.

Question 2

Basil bernstien (Why does this put the w/c at a disadvantage)

Answer 2

• This is because the elaborated code is the language used by teachers, textbooks and exams.
• Not only is it taken as the ‘correct’ way to speak and write, but in Bernstein’s view it is also a more effective tool for analysing and reasoning and for expressing thoughts clearly and effectively.
• Early socialisation into the elaborated code means that middle-class children are already fluent users of the cold when they start school.
• Thus they feel ‘at home’ in school and are more likely to succeed.
• By contrast, working-class children, lacking the code in which schooling takes place, are less likely to feel excluded and to be less successful.

Question 3

Eval (Leon Feinstein)

Answer 3

• parental education, regardless of class or income, has an influence on achievement in it’s own right.
• Even within a given social class, better educated parents tend to have children who are more successful at school, which might explain why not all working-class pupils do equally as bad.

Question 4

Leon Feinstein (Parents education)

Answer 4

• Argues that parents’ own education is the most important factor affecting children’s achievement and, since middle-class parents tend to be better educated, they are able to give their children an advantage by how they socialise them.
• parenting style (educated parents’ parenting style emphasises consistent discipline and high expectations of their children)
• by contrast, less educated parents’ parenting style is marked by harsh or inconsistent discipline that emphasises ‘doing as you’re told’, which prevents the child from learning independence and self-control, resulting in poorer motivation at school),
• educated parents are more aware of what is needed to assist their child
• so they do things like reading and being active in their schooling, they’re also more likely to get expert advice on childbearing more successful in establishing good relationships with teachers) use of income (better educated parents not only tend to have higher incomes

Question 5

Eval ( Rist)

Answer 5

• Believed that these speech codes aren’t the problem, and it’s the fact that teachers used information about children’s home background and appearance to place them in separate groups, seating each group at a different table.
• The teachers decided who were fast learners, and labelled them the ‘tigers’, who were often middle-class.
• They also decided who were the ‘cardinals and clowns’, who were seated further away and often given easier work- normally working-class.
• This reproduced underachievement based on labelling assumptions.

Question 6

Barry Sugarman (Working-class subcultures)

Answer 6

• Argues that working-class subculture has four key features that act as a barrier to educational achievement:
• fatalism (a belief in fate, and that ‘whatever will be will be’ and that there’s 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)
• present-time orientation (seeing the present as more important than the future and so not having long-term goals).
• Working-class children internalise the beliefs and values of their subculture through the socialisation process, which results in them underachieving in school
• Sugarman argues that middle-class jobs are secure careers offering prospects for continuous individual advancement.
• This encourages ambition, long-term individual planning and a willingness to invest time and effort in gaining qualifications
• whilst by contrast working-class jobs are less secure and have no career structure through which individuals can advance.

Question 7

Eval (Colin Lacey)

Answer 7

• Would argue that this is actually a result of differentiation and polarisation from teachers, which causes pupils to obtain these values and form either a pro-school, or anti-school, subculture.

Question 8

Callender and Jon Jackson (Costs of education)

Answer 8

• Going to university usually involves getting into debt to cover the cost of tuition fees, books and living expenses. Attitudes towards debt may deter working-class students from going to university.
• Using data from a nationwide questionnaire survey of nearly 2,000 prospective students, they found that working-class students are more debt averse- that is, they saw debt negatively, as something to be avoided.
• They also saw more costs than benefits in going to university.
• They also found that attitude to debt was important in deciding whether to apply to university.
• The most debt averse students (typically working-class) were over five times less likely to apply than the most debt tolerant students (typically middle-class).

Question 9

Eval (Sarah Evans)

Answer 9

• Argued that this could’ve been as a result of class identity and self-exclusion.
• She studied a group of 21 working-class girls from a south London comprehensive studying for their A-levels.
• Evans found that they were reluctant to apply to elite universities such as Oxbridge and that the few who did apply felt a sense of hidden barriers and of not fitting in.

Question 10

Pierre Bourdieu (Capital)

Answer 10

• Argues that both cultural and material factors contribute to educational achievement = interrelated.
• Cultural capital = refers to the knowledge, attitudes, values, language, tastes and abilities of the middle class.
• He sees middle-class culture as a type of capital like wealth, it gives an advantage to those who possess it.
• Like Bernstein, he argues that through their socialisation, middle-class children = ability to grasp, analyse and express abstract ideas.
• They are more likely to develop intellectual interests and an understanding of what the education system requires for success.
• This gives middle-class children an advantage in school, where such high abilities and interests are highly valued and rewarded with qualifications.
• This is because the education system is nit neutral, but favours and transmits the dominant middle-class culture.
• working-class children find that school devalues their culture as ‘rough’ and inferior.
• Their lack of cultural capital leads to exam failure respond by truanting, early leaving or just not trying.
• He also believes that educational, economic and cultural capital can be converted into one another.

Question 11

Eval (Nell Keddie)

Answer 11

• Described cultural deprivation as a ‘myth’, and sees it as a victim-blaming explanation.
• She dismisses the idea that failure at school can be blame on a culturally deprived home backgrounds.
• She points out that a child cannot be deprived of its own culture and argues that working-class children are simply culturally different, not culturally deprived.
• They fail because they are put at a disadvantaged by an education system that is dominated by middle-class values.