Social Class Differences in Educational Achievement Flashcards
What is a material factor that affects educational achievement (external)?
-Smith and Noble argue there are barriers to learning because of low income. Insufficient funds to afford school uniform, transport and textbooks can lead to isolation and bullying.
-Ray et al argue working class children are more likely to have part time jobs and therefore are more likely to work longer hours, reducing their chance of attaining higher grades.
-Callender and Jackson conducted a survey of 2000 prospective HE students and examined their attitudes to debt, class positions and decisions for HE. Fear of debt stopped the working class from applying.
What are some more examples of material deprivation (external)?
HOWARD:
-Diet and health: pupils from poorer homes have lower intakes of energy, vitamins and minerals. Poor nutrition weakens the immune system and lowers children’s energy levels in school.
-Housing: overcrowding makes it harder for the child to study as there is less room for them to do homework and there is a greater risk of accident in a crowded home. Cold or damp housing can cause ill health and such health problems means more absence from school.
What are some cultural factors that affect educational achievement in relation to parental interest (external)?
-Douglas carried out a longitudinal survey in his study ‘the home and school’ and found the most significant factor that affected attainment was the degree of parental interest in education. MC parents were more likely to encourage attainment as indicated by frequent visits to school to discuss their children’s progress.
-Feinstein furthers this by how he measured parents interest by asking for a teachers assessment of how much interest parents showed in their children’s education.
What are some cultural factors that affect educational achievement in relation to language (external)?
-Engelmann claims the language used in lower class homes is deficient, they communicate by gestures or single words and so their children fail to develop necessary language skills, limiting educational success
-Bernstein furthers this by distinguishing between two types of speech code. Working class parents use the restricted code which consists of simple sentences, limited vocabulary and simple topics. Middle class parents use the elaborated code which has wider vocabulary and longer, grammatically complex sentences.
Primary socialisation into the elab code means m/c children are already fluent users so they will feel ‘at home’ in school and more likely to succeed. By contrast, w/c children lacking the code are likely to feel excluded and be less successful.
What are some cultural explanations that affect educational achievement in relation to subcultures (external)?
-Sugarman says the W/C have features that act as a barrier to educational achievement (different goals from the rest of society means their children fail at school)
1) Fatalism: see their future of manual labour mapped out, ‘what will be will be’
2)Collectivism: anti school subcultures as a group
3)Immediate Gratification: seeking pleasure now rather than making sacrifices in order to get rewards in the future- M/C value deferred gratification
4) Present-time orientation: too focused on what is happening at the time rather than developing their future prospects.
W/C children internalise the values and beliefs of their subculture through socialisation and so underperform at school. M/C values equip children for success.
What are some cultural explanations that affect educational achievement in relation to capital?
-Bordieu argues both cultural and material factors contribute to educational achievement and are interrelated because of..
1) cultural capital: knowledge, vaules, attitudes and language of the M/C that give them an advantage in school where their abilities are highly valued and rewarded. W/C find school devalues their culture as inferior, leading to exam failure as they stop trying.
2) economic capital: ownership of wealth, having an income where they can pay for private education and tuition, giving them skills to succeed.
3) educational capital: M/C have the knowledge they use to get their children the best education.
What are evaluations for cultural deprivation theories?
Tryonya and Williams argue the problem is not a Childs language but the schools attitude towards it. Teachers have a speech hierarchy, MC is the highest, followed by WC, then black speech.
Keedie says cultural deprivation is a myth and sees it as victim blaming. A child can’t be deprived of their own culture, the wc fail as they are put at a disadvantage by discrimination from the mc dominated education system.
Marxists would say it blames working class parents for underachievement of their children when the parents are really victims of an unequal society where schools are run by the middle classes for the middle classes.
What are evaluations for material deprivation theories?
Compensatory education measures have been introduced which help working class children suffering from deprivation.
They are also introduced during early stages of socialisation for children such as sure start and pupil premium (new labour).
What are internal factors that affect social class differences in educational achievement in relation to labelling?
Interactionist Becker says teachers label pupils as ‘bright’ or ‘thick’, putting them in different groups. This creates a self fulfilling prophecy where the student internalises the label applied to them.
M/C pupils fit ideal stereotype whereas W/C are likely to be labelled deviant and lazy.
Setting and streaming occurs where w/c students find themselves in a lower stream as the teacher has low expectations of them and they succumb to this whereas m/c are placed in higher streams, gain confidence and improve their grade.
Rosenthal and Jacobson study!!
What is an evaluation of labelling?
Fuller found that a group of black w/c girls ignored their label of failure and worked harder to achieve success, the theory is too deterministic.
What is the A-C Economy and what does it produce?
Gilborn and Youdell link streaming to the publishing of exam league tables, schools need a good league position if they want to attract pupils and funding, so need 5 or more grades of A-C and will focus time and effort into pupils who have potential to get this.
A-C economy produces educational triage as schools categorise pupils into three types:
1)those who will pass anyway and are left to get on with it
2)those with potential, who will be helped to get grade C or better
3)hopeless cases, doomed to fail and suffer educational death, typically W/C black pupils.
What are pupil subcultures?
Pupils who share similar values, they often emerge as a response to the way pupils have been labelled.
Lacey says differentiation and polarisation helps explain why these subcultures develop.
Differentiation: process of teachers categorising pupils according to how they perceive their ability and attitude.
Polarisation: process in which pupils respond to streaming by moving towards one of two opposite ‘poles’
What is an example of an anti-school subculture?
Learning to Labour study:
-Willis observed 12 working class boys, labelled the ‘lads’ who had their own counter-school culture which opposed school values and conformist students such as the ‘earoles’
-They showed little interest in academic work and displayed a strong hegemonic type masculinity
-The lads behaviour in school mirrored the behaviour they adopted in their work life later on the ‘shop floor’ of local factories.
-The counter school helped prepare them for the monotony of the work they would do later, they adopted similar distractions in the workplace.
Explain what symbolic capital and symbolic violence is
Bourdieu says schools have a m/c habitus (norms, values) and so middle class students gain symbolic capital which is recognition from the school that they have value and worth.
School devalues the w/c habits so that w/c students tastes are deemed worthless.
The withholding of symbolic capital is ‘symbolic violence’, by defining the w/c lifestyle as inferior, symbolic violence keeps w/c in their place.
As a result the w/c may experience the world of education as alien to them.
Archer’s study backs this up as w/c pupils felt to be educationally successful they would have to change the way they talk.
What are nike identities?
Pupils seek alternative ways of creating status and value through class identities.
The right appearance earned approval from peer groups and brought safety from bullying as well as generating symbolic capital
Nike identity was a way of portraying ‘not going uni’, unrealistic for w/c to go as they won’t fit in.
Archer concludes that investment in Nike shows w/c pupils have a preference for a particular lifestyle that conflicts schools dress code and so the w/c almost choose a self exclusion from education. they choose to reject school as it doesn’t fit with their identity or way of life.
