social class and achievement Flashcards

1
Q

patterns and trends

A

m/c perform better
80% of university places

gap starts as early as three years old

Jerrim - most talented children left behind if from w/c

high achieving boys from most advantaged family background 2.5 years head their counterparts from less advantageous household by age 15

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2
Q

how to measure social class

A

parents occupation

FSM - income of less than 17k - poorest 1/6th

m/c - parents in non-manual/professional occupations

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3
Q

external factors summary

A

material deprivation - lack of access that money can buy eg heating, study guides

material capital - having adequate funds for hidden costs of education eg stationary, expensive uniform

cultural deprivation - lacking norms and values

cultural capital - norms and values passed on

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4
Q

material deprivation - home and school

A

douglas - home and school
- poor housing conditions eg overcrowding
- poor diet and ill health eg tiredness, absences
- low income eg lack of books, computer, toys
part-time jobs eg conflict with study and work

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5
Q

material deprivation - cycle of deprivation

A

Gibson and Asthana

higher levels of sickness so falling behind
low income
student loans and tuition fees - anxiety and deterrence
schools may suffer - sink schools - 90% of failing schools located in deprived areas
part-time jobs

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6
Q

material deprivation - supporting studies

A

flaherty - fear of stigmatisation - 20% entitled to FSM - didnt take them as they didnt want to be stigmatised

sutton trust - private school 22 times more likely to get into high ranked uni, 55 oxbridge

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7
Q

evaluation of material deprivation

A

too deterministic - only focusing on class - poor people can succeed

feminism - girls suffer disproportionate amounts - not just due to class

cultural, religious or political values may create and sustain motivation - poor british chinese students doing just as well as rich british chinese students

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8
Q

material capital

A

middle class materially advantages

eg extra curricular, tutors, private schools

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9
Q

how important is material deprivation in affecting educational achievement

A

1 in 3 children grow up poor
£5 a day - child benefits
Poorest 1/5th - only 2% of city’s income
Circumstances eg abuse/divorce can cause poverty
Debt - anxiety, stress
Basic needs eg heating

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10
Q

cultural deprivation - main factors

A

intellectual development

attitudes and values

linguistic deprivation

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11
Q

intellectual development

A

douglas - w/c less likely to support children at home eg reading

bernstein and young - m/c mothers more likely to choose toys that encourage thinking

Melanie Philips - the neets
- new right journalistic, w/c lack intellectual development due to family disorder
- broken families, socialisation disrupted

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12
Q

intellectual development criticisms

A

Maternal deprivation more important
Victim blaming
Generalisation
Deterministic
Classist
Scapegoating
Marxism

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13
Q

attitudes and values

A

douglas - degree of parental interest and encouragement in children’s education was single most important factor
- m/c more likely to show interest eg helping with homework

Values = high ambition
= take advantage of opportunities
= education background
= teaching perspective

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14
Q

attitudes and values - gratification

A

Sugarman

immediate gratification - w/c - fatalism - working class accept their economic situation rather than trying to change it

deferred gratification - m/c put off enjoyment in order for benefit in the future

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15
Q

linguistic deprivation

A

bernstein - restricted and elaborated codes
if skills not fully developed in family - disadvanatged in school

schools use elaborated code - m/c at an advantage
eg in textbooks, essays

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16
Q

linguistic deprivation eval

A

wide differences in usage of language - difficult to generalise

Labov - the language used by w/c children is simply different not inferior - equally capable of dealing with abstract and complex ideas

troyna and williams - problem is not language but school’s attitude towards it - speech hierarchy

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17
Q

cultural deprivation strengths

A

Goodman and Grieg for Joseph Rowntree foundation

  • number of ways this impacts w/c students

reading parents, attitudes, value of education, negative behaviour eg truancy

cultural values were primary cause of class inequality but material deprivation plays role in shaping achievement

  • influential for government policies - compensatory education eg sure start and ema
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18
Q

cultural deprivation eval

A

keddie - victim-blaming - w/c culturally different not culturally deprived
education dominated by m/c values - marxism

blackstone and mortimore
- harder to be involved due to long working hours and m/c atmosphere

marxists - victim-blaming - lets social inequality and education system off the hook - real cause is material deprivation

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19
Q

cultural capital

A

bourdieu - marxism
- both are interrelated - cultural and material

more material deprivation the more cultural deprivation

catchment areas - selection by mortgage

symbolic violence

middle class have a particular habitus - certain culture and tastes eg instruments, sport

20
Q

cultural capital - supporting studies

A

stephen ball - middle class are skilled choosers, working class are disconnected choosers

gewirtz - difference in parental choice of secondary schools
- privileged-skilled choosers - m/c with economic and cultural capital
- disconnected local choosers - w/c - deprivation
- semi-skilled choosers - w/c but ambitious - frustrated at education market and choice

21
Q

cultural capital strengths

A

recognises w/c children culturally different rather than deficient

appreciates that education system is not response to range of cultural backgrounds

marxists - support theory as evidence that middle class are better off in education due to cultural and material factors - m/c transmitting dominant ideology

22
Q

cultural capital limitations

A

difficult to operationalise the concept - how can instruments cause high gcse grades

determinist - w/c can break away and have high level of cultural capital

23
Q

interrelationship of external factors

A

bourdieu

the more material deprivation a family suffers from, the more likely they are to be culturally deprived

the more economic capital, the more likely it is to have cultural capital

24
Q

interrelationship of external and internal factors

A

evidence that external factors are important in class and achievement - before student start school

interactionists - internal factors more important - increasing gap in achievement as children progress through the education system

most likely two work together

25
Q

interrelationship of class, gender and ethnicity

A

external factors linked to class - impact on education outcome

ethnicity and gender also influence outcomes - not external theories of class alone

26
Q

internal factors summary

A

type of school & school ethos

school subcultures

teacher labelling

streaming, banding and setting

marketisation

27
Q

school ethos

A

wealthy background - access to elite unis and university guidance councillors - half of cohort from westminster school go to oxbridge

best state and grammar schools - socialised into university ethos

other state schools - uni is a choice

28
Q

supporting evidence for school ethos

A

Exclusions normalised
Isolations
Uniform policy
Lower expectations

29
Q

evaluating school ethos

A

too deterministic - most students at so-called deprived schools may work harder to beat the odds

governments have implemented many education policies to compensate for schools lacking the resources necessary to help materially deprived but talented students and compensatory policies

30
Q

subcultures

A

lacey - pro and anti school subcultures
- streaming - polarisation of high performance and poor performance - connected to class
- self-fulfilling prophecy

hargreaves - triple failures - 11+, high streams and failed altogethor

wood - eight modes of adaptation to school eg ingratiation (teacher’s pet), retreatism (daydreaming)

31
Q

paul willis

A

learning to labour - 12 working class lads in his study formed an anti-school subculture to resist the school values that they saw as being too middle class

32
Q

limitation to subcultures

A

mac an ghail

  • distinct class subcultures are disappearing
    studied school in london - observation and unstructured interviews

different subcultures
- w/c anti-school subculture
- crisis of masculinity - not same level of opportunity in manual career as they used to
- young entrepreneurs - saw school positively

33
Q

labelling

A

becker

m/c teachers have ideal pupil - positive label
w/c students achieve negative label

labels from manners, speech and presentation

study based on interview with 60 american high school teachers

ideal - white, m/c and female

34
Q

supporting evidence for labelling

A

dunne and gazeley

interviews with teachers from 9 state schools

teachers normalised w/c underachievement - felt they could do little about it - believe they could m/c underachievement

external factors very important

35
Q

how does labelling impact students

A

rist - american kindergarten - placed children in groups depending background and appearance
- w/c more likely to place in lower-level group

becker - self-fulfilling prophecy

36
Q

pygmalion

A

rosenthal and jacobson

  • test all students - 20% chosen by random and expected to be academic bloomers - test did not influence who was chosen

self-fulfilling prophecy - increases in IQ of academic bloomers - better performances by people when greater expectations

37
Q

pygmalion study eval

A

Valid - interpretivist - natural setting
Covert investigation - no chance of hawthorne effect
High external validity - ecological validity

Only used one school, cannot be generalised to other schools
Dated - long time ago

Deterministic, doesn’t take other factors into account, doesn’t explain why
Not very - IQ not representative for everyone and how they learn
Hasn’t been repeated

Deception, disadvantaging children, long term impact

38
Q

labelling eval

A

fail to explain the expectations of teachers - why do teachers label w/c students

marxists - expectations stem from fact teachers work in a system that reproduces class inequality

deterministic - assume too readily that self-fulfilling prophecy occurs after negative labels

39
Q

streaming, banding

A

gillborn and youdell
w/c and black pupils - lower sets
educational triage - students put into 1 of 3 categories - likely to achieve, average and no-hopers

douglas - placed in lower stream at 8 had lower Iq by 11
placed in higher at 8 improved iq by 11

40
Q

streaming strength

A

functionalism - standardised - allows for meritocracy and role allocation

woods - different types of students responding to labels - shows not passive - can rise in streaming

41
Q

streaming limitations

A

hargreaves - triad

gillborn and youdell

marxism

42
Q

marketisation

A

gillborn and youdell - a-c economy - educational triage
students organised into 3 areas

bartlett - pressures between good/bad schools - worse schools get their funding cut and less able to screen out difficult pupils

cream-skimming

43
Q

overall strength internal factors

A

interactionist-based explanations offer fresh counter-balance to structural explanations - provide useful insight into the social construction of educational success and failure - show how interactions within schools actively create class inequalities - school not neutral institutions

explanations have highlighted important implications for way teachers should be trained

empirical studies of high validity according to those who follow the interpretivist approach

44
Q

overall limitations of internal factors

A

lack quantitative data - much of research is highly subjective from positivist pov

labelling - deterministic - however students shown to reject

marxists - ignores wider structural power within these interactions - why teachers label on class basis

45
Q

interrelation of external and internal factors

A

focusing on internal factors might blame the education system unfairly

external factors - class divide starts before school

however - increasing gap in achievement in school

46
Q

interrelation of class, gender and ethnicity for internal

A

not all ethnic groups perform same within each social class - girls outperform boys in all ethnic groups and social classes

however

Gillborn and Mirza
- Youth Cohort Studies - class has twice the educational impact compared to gender and five times the impact compared to ethnicity