Social Class and Education

Question 1

Social Class

Answer 1

Social class refers to a group of people with similar levels of wealth, influence, and status.

Question 2

Social Class Inequality

Answer 2

Social Class Inequality refers to relational processes in society that have the effect of limiting or harming a group’s opportunities based on social class. Here we are looking at how social class effects educational attainment.

Question 3

Measuring Educational Attainment

Answer 3

A positivist approach using quantitative or statistical data in order to show a correlation between the social class of children (usually based on parents’ occupations) and attainment at different stages in education (for example the percentage of children achieving 5 A*-C grades at GCSE or A-Level)

Question 4

Introduction (Education Background)

Answer 4

• The expansion of state education since the late 19th century has meant that education has gone from being the privilege of the well-off to a right to which all children are entitled.
• Since the 1940s state education has been based on the idea of equality of opportunity for all children.

Question 5

Introduction (Social Class)

Answer 5

• Social class remains the strongest predictor of educational achievement in the UK, where the social class gap for educational achievement is one of the most significant in the developed world.
• One common indicator of social class is eligibility for FSM. -According to the DoE (2018), the average attainment 8 scores for pupils eligible for FSM in the most disadvantaged schools was 28% while the average attainment 8 score for pupils not eligible for FSM in the least disadvantaged schools was 55%. Almost the double the chance.
• Explain the impact of social class on the educational outcome by looking at outside school (external) factors including material and cultural deprivation and in-school (internal) factors.

Question 6

External Factors: Material Deprivation

Answer 6

When people are deprived of the economic and material resources needed to succeed. This includes:
-Lack of Funds to pay for for school uniforms, school
trips, transport to and from school, classroom materials and textbooks meaning children can be bullied or fall behind with schoolwork.
-Poor health and diet that affect attendance and performance
-No private education or tuition
-Less likely to have access to a computer with internet, educational toys, books, space to study in a comfortable and warm home
-The marketisation of schools may further disadvantage poorer children as they are more likely to be concentrated in more unpopular schools with poorer resources.

Question 7

EF: Material Deprivation Stat

Answer 7

According to the DofE only 36% of disadvantaged students achieved five or more A*-C grades including English and Maths to 64% of all students.

Question 8

Material Capital

Answer 8

Material Capital is when people have a sufficient amount of economic and material resources needed to succeed. So they have enough electricity, no map, not cramped, safe, clean, 3 meals, balanced diet, parents with well-paid jobs, electronics, tuition, high attendance, internet access and books.

Question 9

EF: Material Deprivation (JWB Douglas)

Answer 9

Acknowledged that the impact of poor housing, overcrowding and noise had on achievement and how they all contribute to underachievement.

Question 10

EF: Material Deprivation (Feinstein)

Answer 10

• Reported that the evidence of the effect that class and consequently deprivation associated with each class is evident even before the child reaches nursery.
• Tested children before their 2nd birthday and conducted 4 simple tasks to see how they are developing their skills (skills included pointing to different facial features, putting on and taking of shoes, stacking bricks and drawing circles over scribbles)
• Children with middle-class parents were better than those with working class parents.

Question 11

EF: Material Deprivation (Payne)

Answer 11

Said that at A-Level the greater prosperity of off parents allowed them to push children of moderate intelligence higher than brighter working class children by paying for resits and private tutors. They also discourage part time work and provide finical support instead.

Question 12

EF: Material Deprivation and Debt Aversion

Answer 12

-Sociologists have argued that the increase in tuition fees for universities and the replacement of student grants with loans has discouraged poor students from pursuing higher education
-SHROPSHIRE AND MIDDLETON: Children from poor families are aware of their parents poverty and so lower their educational aspirations to earn a wage as quickly as possible.
-FORSYTHE AND FURLONG: The costs of higher education and the prospect of high debts deters intelligent w/c from higher education.
=As a result in 2012 there was a sharp rise in tuition fees with many universities raising it to £9000 (£9,250). Followed by 10% drop in applications to universities. Those of poorer backgrounds were clearly deterred.

Question 13

Evaluation of Material Deprivation

Answer 13

• Functionalists would argue that the education system is meritocratic so if they worked hard enough they could overcome these material challenges if they worked hard enough. Down to individual effect and ‘talent’
• Material factors also seem to have more impact on some social groups than others. Indians and Chinese, far less difference between the achievement of FSM children and others than in the white population. This suggests that some groups manage to overcome the disadvantages of MD by having high expectations and aspirations
• Hard to know the full extent of the impact as hard to separate out from cultural factors. A study by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (2009) Deprivation and Education points out that material and cultural deprivation often go hand in hand thus poorer children may lack books homes or have poor diets causing ill health because of low incomes but also have less educated parents who don’t to know how to stimulate their intellectual development or to have high aspirations

Question 14

External Factors: Cultural Deprivation

Answer 14

• Is when people are deprived of the norms and values that are needed to succeed. W/C children are less likely to be socialised into the norms and values, attitudes and behaviours that are rewarded by the education system.
• For example, they place less value of education, value vocational subjects over A-levels, less willing to make sacrifices for education, seek instant gratification, leave school as early as possible and their parents are less likely to attend parents evenings.
• Sociologists claim that if working class parents parented differently the divide would disappear.
• Parents may be unwilling or unable to foster positive attitudes towards education, for example, helping with homework or encouraging work ethic.
• Therefore W/C children experience a CULTURE CLASH as the values they have at home conflict with those at school.

Question 15

Cultural Capital

Answer 15

• When people have sufficient norms and values that increase social mobility and success.
• Values like higher value placed on academia, university and are willing making scarifies for education.
• Norms include extra-curricular activities, deferred gratification and staying in higher education.

Question 16

External Factors: Cultural Deprivation and Language

Answer 16

Some theorists suggest that the working class lacks the appropriate language skills to succeed.

• BERNSTEIN argues that there is elaborated speech which is associated with the middle class: sentences are more complex, correct grammar, and meaning is context free, meaning that is described fully so that you do not actually need to be there to understand. Elaborated language code provides significant advantages for m/c children in education as teachers use it. The restricted language code is used by the W/C: simple, limited vocabulary and is context bound. Means that you need to be in a particular situation for the sentence to make sense.
• Not all children with restricted speech codes underachieve.
• FEINSTEIN found that low income was related to the restricted speech code. Revealed that children of working-class parents tend to be more passive; less engaged in the world around them and have a more limited vocabulary. Children from middle-class households had a wider vocabulary, a better understanding of how to talk to other people and were more skilled at manipulating objects

Question 17

External Factors: Cultural Deprivation and Aspirations

Answer 17

• The difference in aspirations between w/c students and m/c students do to the disparity of cultural capital.
• W/C have less ambition, experience short term orientation (Hyman) and are more concerned with working ‘proper man’ jobs like working in factories.
• M/C experience long term orientation (Hyman), are more ambitious and focus on higher levels or career management.
• HYMAN: Claims that W/C children create a ‘self imposed barrier to success’ which they use to avoid improving their own social position. Also short term orientated and don’t think about the long term benefits of having higher aspirations. And perceive their own position pessimistically and see no way out of their position.

Question 18

External Factors: Cultural Deprivation and Aspirations (Sugarman)

Answer 18

W/C has a particular culture that comprises four characteristics that prevent children from doing well in education. These are:

• Collectivism (Social group is more important than school or school work, friendship groups take priority over edu),
• Present Time Orientation (Focus on the current situation over the long-term aims and wanting to have fun without considering the possible long-term consequences),
• Fatalism (not worth working hard in education because you are not going to do well or get a job )
• Immediate Gratification (Wanting it straight away over waiting)

Question 19

External Factors: Cultural Deprivation and Aspirations (Douglas)

Answer 19

• Most important factor in determining the level of a student’s academic success is parental interest as determined by his longitudinal study of 5362 working class families.
• Found that, generally, middle-class parents expressed a greater interest in their child’s education, for example, visiting the school more frequently to discuss their children’s education.
• They were more likely to want their children to stay at school beyond the minimum leaving age. Douglas found that parental interest and encouragement became ever more important in encouraging children to reach their full potential as they grew older.

Question 20

Evaluation of Cultural Deprivation

Answer 20

• Marxists would argue that cultural deprivation theorists blame the working class parents for the underachievement of their children whereas these parents are really the victims of an unequal society in which schools are run by the middle classes for the middle classes. ALTHUSSER: Ideological State apparatus justifies capitalism. Reproduces class inequality by ensuring working-class students continue to achieve less by making school middle-class institutions and legitimises inequality as education socialises working class children into accepting their subordinate status to the middle class.
• Evans: found working-class parents very much wanted their children to do well at school but, unlike middle-class parents, tended not to use what she called formal-learning-type skills in the way they cared for their children. These would include counting, shape and colour recognition and speaking and writing. As a result, working-class children are less prepared for school and never catch up with their middle-class peers. However, Evans rejects the idea of cultural deprivation. Argues for a social variation model as she argues that working-class methods of bringing up children are not inferior but simply different.
• Bernstein appears to imply that working-class forms of speech are inferior and some have accused him of adopting a form of cultural deprivation theory. However, Bernstein has strongly denied this, describing the working-class speech as having ‘warmth, vitality, simplicity and directness.
• BLACKSTONE AND MORTIMER Are critical of Douglas as teachers assessments may not reflect the real level of interest, working-class parents may be less able to visit schools due to long hours or their own past experiences.
• Blaming working class people for the disadvantages they face.

Question 21

Internal Factors

Answer 21

• Processes that take place within school.

- Focusing on external factors leads sociologists to ignore the importance of processes taken place within schools.

Question 22

Internal Factors: Labelling and SFP

Answer 22

• Developed by Interactionists. Interactionism is an interpretivist approach that tries to understand how individuals interpret situations as they interact with others in daily life. Argue that people develop a self-concept which is based on how others react to them.
• In education, this suggests that how pupils interact with teachers and fellow students can shape their identities and self-concepts which can influence their attainment.
• Teachers label students based on social class and have different expectations as a result: w/c students are labelled negatively; m/c students are labelled positively.
• Becker argues that these labels become internalised resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Found that teachers judged their students on the basis of their appearance and conduct. Becker argued that middle-class students were more likely to be seen as ‘ideal students’.
• Lacey: Differentiate high and low achieving groups. Labels are often given to students on the basis of their appearance, their language and their attitudes, without teachers really knowing the potential of the student.

Question 23

Internal Factors: Setting and Streaming

Answer 23

-Judgements about w/c and m/c students are often reflected in streaming and setting, which reinforces class differences, with middle-class students overwhelmingly occupying the higher-ability streams. 
Ball (Interactionalist) found that students were put into sets according to their perceived ability, not their actual ability. 
-Lower class pupils are more likely to be placed into lower sets, bands or streams. These groupings are less likely to be seen. 
-Examined the effect of banding and streaming on pupil performance. Found top stream students were 'warmed-up' because they had higher expectations of students in the top set or stream while those students in lower streams or sets were 'cooled-down' because the teacher had lower expectations 
-Teachers prefer teaching higher ability because the conduct is better in contrast lower performing who have behavioural issues, and form anti-school subcultures, consequently the teacher has lower expectations as they have to spend more time controlling students.

Question 24

Internal Factors: Pupil Subcultures

Answer 24

• Also affected by peer groups
• Students tend to form what sociologists call pupil subcultures; within a school, there are different groups of pupils with different norms, values and attitudes. (Subculture)
• Wills: W/C boys rejected school and created an anti-school subculture where they would refuse to learn and behave, leading to poor educational achievement. Lads attached no value to academic work, more to ‘having a laff’ because they thought that their future work roles in factories would not require them to have qualifications. They saw school as irrelevant.
• Mac a Ghaill: Identified various subcultures in largely w/c comp school: Academic Achievers (skilled w/c, top sets) / Macho Lads (rejected school, laugh and mates) / Real Englishmen (attitude of effortless superiority, good grades without seemingly trying)

Question 25

Evaluation of Labelling

Answer 25

• Labelling theories argue that not all students accept their labels in fact, they may reject them. Say labelling theories also overlook other things which may influence a person’s educational success, such as material deprivation.
• Fuller’s (1984) research on black girls in London found that the black girls she researched were labelled as low-achievers, but their response was to knuckle down and study hard to prove it wrong.
• Hard to establish cause and effect between the label and Educational achievement
• Can’t predict how people will respond

Question 26

Evaluation of Internal Factors

Answer 26

• Saunder (TNR) argues that M/C are genetically more intelligent. M/C parents pass on ‘intelligent’ genes to their children. This is why middle-class pupils continue to do well. This is an ‘innate ability’ view.
• Recent studies of subcultures have tended to explore how other factors such as gender and ethnicity are also important in the formation of pupil subcultures and it can be argued that some of the older studies neglect girls and ethnic minority pupils and focus mainly on white working-class boys. Nevertheless, peer groups and subcultures can be seen as an important factor in explaining class differences in attainment as most studies have suggested that it is poorer working-class children who are most likely to form peer groups which hold anti-school attitudes and values.
• Reay (2010) claims that there is a damaging ‘poverty of aspiration’ in Britain that lies not in the working classes but among political leaders. Reay argues that what UK society needs, more than anything else in the contemporary moment, is greater social equality. Reay argues that introducing market forces into education has significantly widened social class inequalities.

Question 27

Internal/External Factor: Marketisation

Answer 27

• Widens gap between M/C and W/C
• New Right policy, improve standards by introducing competition
• The 1988 Education Reform Act introduced market forces in education. This meant that schools began to be run like business, parents choices about which school to send their child to and encouraging competition between schools.
• Public information was produced about the performance of each school.
• Increased parental choice benefited middle-class students, whose parents were more likely to be able to ‘play the system’, by moving into catchment areas of better-performing schools or paying for their children to attend better schools further away.
• Marketisation affects students, parents and the school.

Question 28

Marketisation Evaluation

Answer 28

-The constant focus on driving up standards within education as a result of marketisation policies reinforces processes within the school, which result in widening inequalities. Gilborn: A-C economy, focus on those students.
-Some argue that league tables and parental choice led to a polarisation of schools, with the high-performing schools becoming more and more popular while the underperforming schools became ‘sink’ schools, thus increasing inequalities.
-Not everyone can utilise choice
- Saunders argues that pursuing equality of outcomes in education is unrealistic as children are not equal in terms of ability so some groups of children will always perform better than others. From this perspective, all that
the education system can do is provide the best opportunities for all children.

Question 29

Conclusion

Answer 29

• Need to consider other factors like Ethnicity and Gender. Many EM is in low social classes so work together.
• Intersecontality. All interact with each other
• Clear difference influenced by TNR policy of the government