MT1 - Class and achievement

Question 1

What is material deprivation?

Answer 1

Living in poverty and lacking material necessities

Question 2

Howard

Answer 2

Lower intake of vitamins and minerals which affects their energy levels and in turn performance at school

Question 3

Tanner

Answer 3

Cant afford equipment/books. Bull calls this ‘cost of free schooling’ as hand me downs can lead to bullying and isolation

Question 4

Bernstein

Answer 4

Restricted and elaborated code

Question 5

Troyna and Williams

Answer 5

Criticise against this speech hierarchy proposed by Bernstein and argue that the problem is not the language itself but the schools attitude towards it.

Question 6

Sugarman

Answer 6

Subcultural values such as fatalism, immediate gratification, present time orientation

Question 7

Keddie

Answer 7

Cultural deprivation is a myth and w/c values are culturally different not inferior

Question 8

Douglas

Answer 8

w/c lack interest, seen through less contact with teachers and visits to school and this lowers aspirations

Question 9

Blackstone and Mortimore

Answer 9

parents cant attend due to shift patterns and some are put off because schools promote m/c values

Question 10

Cultural Capital

Answer 10

refers to values, attitudes, knowledge, experiences

Question 11

Economic Capital

Answer 11

Leech and Campos: m/c able to buy houses near good schools which increases chance of admission. ‘Selection by mortgage’ as this increases cost of houses near good schools

Question 12

Educational Capital

Answer 12

refers to educational qualifications held by parents so they can help their children with school work.

Question 13

Labelling

Answer 13

process of attaching meanings (judgements) to individuals or groups based on stereotypes.

Question 14

Dunne and Gazeley

Answer 14

Teachers normalise the underachievement of w/c students which leads to different treatment as underachieving m/c students are given extra help whereas w/c students are entered into foundation tier exams

Question 15

Becker

Answer 15

interviewed teachers and found that teachers have an image of an ‘ideal pupil’ and judge students based on how closely they fit this ideal. M/c students are closest to this ideal pupil and w/c students are seen as badly behaved.

Question 16

Hempel-Jorgenson

Answer 16

Criticism of Becker’s ‘ideal pupil’ - teachers have different notions of an ‘ideal pupil’ and this is not always linked to class background as in primarily working class school, teachers saw the ideal pupil as quiet and obedient

Question 17

Rosenthal and jacobson

Answer 17

Carried out a covert study of labelling and self-fulfilling prophecy in which they told teachers they would identify students with the most potential to succeed however they just chose 20% students at random and labelled them as ‘spurters’. After returning a year later they found that the students they had chosen had made significant progress.
C: deterministic as it assumes that if a child is labelled, the self-fulfilling prophecy is unavoidable. However, it is possible for pupils to not be affected by labels.

Question 18

Setting/streaming

Answer 18

Setting: placing students into classes by ability in relation to each subject

Streaming: placing students into classes by ability and then students are taught in that same class for every subject.

Question 19

Pupil subculture

Answer 19

Group of pupils who share similar values and behaviour patterns which are distinct to the mainstream culture, often emerged as a response to being labelled or setting and streaming

Question 20

Lacey

Answer 20

developed two key concepts to explain why pupil subculture is formed - differentiation (when teachers categorise pupils based on what they perceive the students ability/behaviour is e.g. streaming) and polarisation (how pupils respond to streaming by moving to one of two extremes forming either a pro/anti-school subculture)

Question 21

Woods

Answer 21

Woods identified that pupils can respond to labelling in streaming in 4 different ways not just two (anti/pro school) - criticises Lacey
Ingratiation – being the teacher’s pet.
Ritualism – going through the motions of attending lessons, doing the work, staying out of trouble.
Retreatism – daydreaming and messing around.
Rebellion – rejection of school’s values.

Question 22

Furlong

Answer 22

agrees with Woods, however states that students are not committed to one response and could rebel in one class yet be a teacher’s pet in the next depending on how much they enjoy the subject they are learning.

Question 23

Ball

Answer 23

Ball: studied a school that abolished streaming and now had mixed ability classes and found that it decreased polarisation/anti-school subcultures among students however w/c students still underachieved because of the continuation of teacher labelling and the self fulfilling prophecy.

Teachers continued to differentiate and label students so this shows even without the influence of setting/streaming and the class differences in achievement continue.

Question 24

Marketisation of education

Answer 24

refers to running schools like businesses on the principles of free market economy - introduced to raise standards by eliminating all failing schools

Question 25

Gilborn and Youdell

Answer 25

A-C economy (a system through which schools allocate time, resources and effort towards pupils who have the potential to get 5+ A*-C grades) - widens the gap in achievement between w/c and m/c so criticism of marketisation

Teachers carry out an educational triage in which they sort students into 3 categories and decide: A*-C students (don’t need help), students that will fail/ beyond saving (nothing they can do to help)and borderline C/D students (receive the most help because it would make the most impact on the schools league table position)

Question 26

Bartlett

Answer 26

marketisation allows popular high-achieving schools to cream-skim (selecting high ability students from m/c backgrounds) and slit-shift (reject applications from (w/c) students with learning difficulties or behavioural problems) which allows them to make sure they pick students that will do well

Question 27

Gewirtz

Answer 27

Attracting the ‘right sort of parents’ - schools attract m/c parents through the home school contracts which are particularly ‘wordy’ and demanding so w/c parents are likely to be put off and not apply to the school.

Question 28

Symbolic capital/violence

Answer 28

symbolic capital: (staus) from the school as having worth

symbolic violence: being seen as tasteless/worthless and inferior which leads to educational failure and reproduction of class inequality.

Question 29

‘Nike’ identities

Answer 29

W/c students believe society and school look down upon them after being a victim to symbolic violence so they look for alternative ways to create self-worth/ status which is done through creating class identities by investing in styles through branded clothing.

Girls develop a hyper-heterosexual feminine style.
which led w/c students into conflict as they were more likely to be labelled as rebels as this style in breach of the school’s uniform code.

Question 30

Evans

Answer 30

studied a group of 21 high achieving working class girls from a south London high school who were studying for their A Levels.

The girls were reluctant to apply to Oxbridge and the few who did apply felt a sense of not fitting in because their working class habitus made them believe top universities are not for them as they will not fit in.