social class and educational attainment

Question 1

high social class

Answer 1

the higher the levels of attainment

Question 2

low social class

Answer 2

-less likely to go to nursery
-less likely to go to sixth form or university
-most likely to start school being unable to read.

Gilchrist et al found that children from professional backgrounds (64%) are 10 times more likely to have a degree than children from unskilled backgrounds (6%).
90% of children from professional backgrounds who had the qualifications to access higher education did so, compared to just 18.5% from unskilled backgrounds.

Question 3

class differences between 1950 and 1990

Answer 3

Banner and Joshi
-class differences have not disappeared but persisted.
-more people are gaining higher qualifications now than 1950s but the inequalities between the high and low class are the most they have been.

Question 4

material deprivation

Answer 4

lower class (smith and Noble 1995)
-families are unable to afford uniform, trips, transport, textbooks. can lead to students being isolated or bullied meaning they may fall behind in their work.
-being able to have access to computers and internet and the the space to do work at home.

higher class (Donald Hirsch 2007)
-more likely to have structured extra-curricular which helps develop social skills and increase confidence allowing them to achieve higher grades.
-more likely to benefit from private education (7% of British pupils)
-have more space making it easier to do work.

Question 5

cultural deprivation

Answer 5

working class
families may lack attitudes and values that are needed for success in education. they lack knowledge to succeed.
they lack ability to speak, read, write and think in the way which will help them in education.
its the lack of necessary knowledge, attitudes and values

criticisms of this would be that the cultural deprivation implies the working class are making wrong choices but actually they don’t have the same choices the middle class do.

Question 6

Bernstein’s speech patterns

Answer 6

restricted codes
-short, simple and often unfinished sentences
more typical for the working class

elaborated codes
-sentences tend to be longer and more complex
more likely used in middle-class jobs where there is more need to write reports and produce documents.
he believed this type of speech code encourages more developed and sophisticated reasoning.

in school, because most teachers being middle class themselves, elaborated codes are used mostly.

criticisms
(Gaine and George 1999) argue that he oversimplifies the difference between middle class and working class speech patterns
they claim that class differences in speech patterns have declines since Bernstein did his research.