SOCIAL CLASS AND ATTAINMENT

Question 1

(Factors outside) What does the term ‘Material deprivation’ refer to?

Answer 1

Lacking basic necessities due to poverty.

Question 2

(Factors outside) Which sociologists talks about Diet and Health and what is their intake on material deprivation?

Answer 2

Marilyn Howard:
-She notes that young people from poorer homes have lower intakes of energy. Vitamins and minerals. This may result in more absences from schools due to illness, and difficulties concentrating in class.

Question 3

(Factors outside) According to Marilyn Howard what does Material deprivation include and how does this affect attainment?

Answer 3

1) Sick building syndrome - ill, attendance
2) Overcrowding houses - no space to work, can’t concentrate, lack of sleep
3) Lack of material resources (e.g. computers/books) - limits knowledge
4) Responsibility for looking after younger siblings - loss of time, revision, studies
5) After school jobs - can’t revise

Question 4

(Factors outside) What does David Bull argue about material deprivation?

Answer 4

Financial support and the costs of education: For example music lessons, trips can result to poorer people having to make do with hand me downs and cheaper but unfashionable equipment, and this may result in being isolated or bullied.

Question 5

(Factors outside) What does Cultural deprivation mean?

Answer 5

Inadequate socialisation in the home.

Question 6

(Factors outside) Which sociologists talks about Early development (1964)? And what do they say.

Answer 6

JWB Douglas:
-Working class homes are less likely to have books, newspapers, education, toys.
-Working class pupils score lower on tests of ability because parents have not supported their intellectual development by:
1- Reading to them
2- Buying them stimulating educational toys
3- Taking them on educational trips or outings.

Question 7

(Factors outside)JWB Douglas argues about working class subcultures but which area and expand on this?

Answer 7

Parental attitudes:

• Encourages their children less
• Are less ambitious for their children
• Place less value on their children’s education
• Are less involved in the school (e.g. Parents evenings)

Question 8

(Factors outside)What is the name of the sociologists who talks about speech codes and language development?

Answer 8

Basil Bernstein (1975):
1)Restricted Code (working class)- Limited vocabulary, use of slang, short sentences with simple grammatical structure

2)Elaborated code(middle class)- Wide vocabulary, formal english, longer sentences with complex grammatical structure (language of teachers, textbooks and exams)

Question 9

(Factors outside)What does Barry sugarman (1970) argue about?

Answer 9

-He argues that working class subcultures has 4 key features that act as a barrier to educational achievement:
1-Fatalism- The belief that you have little or no control over the future
2-Collectivism- Valuing being part of a group more than succeeding as an individual
3-Immediate gratification- seeking pleasure now rather than making sacrifices to get bigger rewards in the future.
4-Present time orientation- Seeing the present as more important than the future, so not making long term goals

Question 10

(Factors outside) Give 3 criticisms on cultural deprivation theory.

Answer 10

1) Nell Keddie- criticises Dougla and Sugar man, saying cultural deprivation is a myth. Working class culture is different, not deficient. Working class children fail because schools are dominated by middle class values.
2) Blackstone and Mortimore reject Douglas’ ideas that working class parents do not value their children’s education. For example, they often work shifts which bar them from attending parents evenings.
3) Troyna and Williams criticise Bernstein’s ideas about language. They argue that the problem is not working class language, but the education system’s attitude towards it.

Question 11

(Factors outside)Which sociologists talks about cultural capital and what do they argue it is?

Answer 11

Pierre Bourdieu (1984):
-He argues that both cultural and material deprivation factors contribute to educational achievement and are not separate but interrelated. H e uses the concept of 'capital' to explain why the middle class are more successful.

Question 12

(Factors outside)What are the 3 types of capitals’, Bourdieu talks about?

Answer 12

1) Economic capital- Money or wealth
2) Educational capital- qualifications e.g. GCSE’s, A-levels, University degrees
3) Cultural Capital- Knowledge, attitudes, values, language, skills abilities and tastes of the middle class.

Question 13

(Factors outside)Sharon Gewirtz (1995), who talks about the 1988 Education Reform Act, created the education market through league tables, etc..Explain her methodology?

Answer 13

• Interviewed teachers and parent from 14 London schools and used documentation to see how successful parent were in choosing the school they wanted for their kids.
• Questions such as ‘How to approach schools/research options’

Question 14

(Factors outside)Sharon Gewirtz (1995), who talks about the 1988 Education Reform Act, created the education market through league tables, etc..Explain her findings?

Answer 14

• Middle class students have more cultural capital, which makes it easier for them to acquire the key skills of analysis and abstract reasoning. This means they have a better chance to gain educational capital.
• Middle class parents have the economic capital to move into catchments areas for good schools, pay for tutors etc… they also have the cultural capital, to negotiate schools admission procedures, to let their kids into their first choice schools.

Question 15

(Factors outside)-Sharon Gewirtz talks about privileged skill users. What is this?

Answer 15

MIddle class parents who had the economic and cultural capital to manipulate admissions systems.

Question 16

(Factors outside)-Sharon Gewirtz talks about Disconnected local choosers. What is this?

Answer 16

Working class parents who didn’t have the cultural capital to understand admissions procedures. Less aware of choices open to them. Distance and cost of travel were key restrictions for them.

Question 17

(Factors outside)-Sharon Gewirtz talks about Semi skilled Users What is this?

Answer 17

Working class parents with ambitions for their children but still lacked cultural and economic capital to manipulate the education system.

Question 18

(Factors inside)- Which sociologist talks about the American Kindergarten teaching. And what do they infer?

Answer 18

Ray Rist:
-He watched an American Kindergarten teacher place all of her 6 year old at different tables within 1 week of starting schools. She did it based on their appearances and perceived ability.
1-Cardinals- Working/middle class
2-Tigers- Middle Class
3-Clowns-Working Class

Question 19

(Factors inside)-What did Howard Becker’s study consist of?-Labelling theory

Answer 19

He carried an important interaction study of labelling. Based on interviews with 60 Chicago High School teachers, hefound that:

• That teachers judged pupils accordingly to how closely they fitted an image of the ‘ideal pupil’.
• Pupils work and conduct and appearance were key factors influencing teachers’ judgements.
• The teacher saw children from middle class backgrounds as the closest to the ideal and working class children as the furthest away from it because they regarded them as badly behaved.

Question 20

(Factors inside)Gives criticisms towards the labelling theory.- Labelling theory

Answer 20

1) Marxists- Criticise labelling theory for ignoring the wider structures of power within which labelling takes place.
2) Labelling theory tend to blame teachers for labelling-pupils but fails to explain why they do so.

Question 21

(Factors inside)What does Cicourel and Kitsuse argue about?

Answer 21

High school councillors were more likely to put middle class students on courses aimed to get them into university.

Question 22

(Factors inside)Which sociologists talks about high/low status knowledge? And explain.

Answer 22

Nell Keddie:
She studied and discovered that knowledge defined by teachers as appropriate to the particular course was considered worthwhile and divided it into 2:

1) High Status Knowledge- Teachers used complex , challenging language and abstract concepts with top sets. This prepared students to gain top marks in their GCSEs.
2) Low status Knowledge- Teachers used simplistic language and concepts with lower sets. This prepared students to gain marks in the C/D range in their GCSE’S.

Question 23

(Factors inside)Give a criticism to Nell Keddies’s theory.

Answer 23

Sociologists disagree as there are external factors in the home which affects pupils’ language ability (e.g. Basil Bernstein language codes)

Question 24

(Factors inside)Which sociologists did the IQ test ?-Self fulfilling prophecy

Answer 24

Rosenthal & Jacobsen

• They gave a group of Californian Students a standard IQ test. They selected 20% at random and told teachers these children were on the verge of a great intellectual spurt.
• They returned a year later to find that half of the children who had been labelled as ‘spurters’ has made significant progress.

This study demonstrates the self-fulfilling prophecy: simply by accepting the prediction that some children would spurt ahead, the reader thought it about.

Question 25

(Factors inside)Give a criticism to Rosenthal &Jacobsen’s stud.

Answer 25

1) It assumes that pupils who are labelled have no choice but to fulfil the prophecy and will inevitably fail.
2) Mary Fuller’s (1984) shows that students can rejct conformity and still succeeding education, resulting in a pro-anti-school-subculture.

Question 26

(Factors inside)Which sociologists explores the concepts of differentiation and polarisation to explain how pupils subcultures develop? And explain.

Answer 26

Colin Lacey:

1) Differentiation: Which is the process of teachers categorising pupils according to how they perceive their daily, attitude and/or behaviour.
2) Streaming: Which is a form of differentiation. The process of teachers categorising pupils into separate classes. Those that school deems ‘more able’ are given high status by being placed in a high stream whereas those deemed ‘less able’ and placed in low streams are given inferior status.
3) Polarisation: Places which pupils respond to streaming by moving towards one of two opposite ‘poles’ or extremes. In Lacey’s study of ‘High Town Boys grammar schools’, he found out that streaming polarised boys into a pro-school and anti-school subculture.

Question 27

(Factors inside)Which sociologist did a study of Beach side Comprehensive?

Answer 27

Stephan Ball:
His study of Beach side, a comprehensive that was in the process of abolishing banding in favour of teaching mixed-ability groups.
-He found out that when the school abolished banding, the bases if polarisation into subcultures was largely removed and the influence of the anti-school subculture declined.
-Although pupils polarisation disappeared, differentiation continued
-Teachers continued to categorise pupils differently and were more likely to label middle-class pupils as cooperative and able. This positive labelling reflected in their better exam results.

Question 28

Give an idea of a criticism you can use against Stephan Balls study.

Answer 28

Paul Willis- studied the counter-culture of ‘the lads’