Topic 1 - Social Class Differences in Achievement (External Factors)

Question 1

Cultural deprivation

Answer 1

When students lack the cultural equipment to do well in school, basic cultural equipment includes language, self-discipline, and reasoning skills.

Question 2

Three main aspects to cultural deprivation

Answer 2

Language, parents education, and working class subcultures

Question 3

Language (Bernstein)

Answer 3

Identified a difference between the language spoken by the working class and the middle class

Question 4

Restricted code

Answer 4

Used by the working class. It has limited vocabulary and based on the use of short and grammatically incorrect simple sentences. It is context bound and assumes the listener shares the same set of experiences

Question 5

Elaborated code

Answer 5

Used by the middle class. It has wider vocabulary and is based on longer, grammatically correct sentences. It is context free and does not assume the listener has shared the same experiences

Question 6

Parents education (Douglas)

Answer 6

1964: found the working class parents places less value on education -
- less ambition for their own children
- gave them less encouragement
- took less interest
- they visited schools less
- less likely to discuss their child’s progress with teachers

Question 7

Parents education (Feinstein)

Answer 7

Argues middle class parents tend to be better educated and socialise children to be more positive towards education:
- parenting style: more educated means consistent discipline and high expectations
- parents educational behaviours: educated parents engage in behaviours such as reading, visiting educational relationships, and foster relationships with teachers
- use of income: better educated parents have higher incomes - spend on tuition/educational toys for better success
- class, income, and parental education: within social class better educated parents tend to have more successful children at school

Question 8

Subculture

Answer 8

A group whose attitudes and values differ from the mainstream culture

Question 9

Sugarman

Answer 9

The working class have 4 key beliefs that act as barriers to educational success:
- fatalism
- collectivism
- present time orientation
- immediate gratification
Sugarman says these differences comes from the fact that middle class jobs are secure and offer continuous advancement, working class jobs are less secure with no advancement and promotional opportunities are limited

Question 10

Fatalism

Answer 10

Belief in fate, whatever will be will be, nothing you can do to change status

Question 11

Collectivism

Answer 11

Value being part of a group more than succeeding as an individual

Question 12

Present time orientation

Answer 12

Seeing the present we more important than the future

Question 13

Immediate gratification

Answer 13

Seeking pleasure now rather than making sacrifices in order to get rewarded

Question 14

Compensatory education

Answer 14

Aim to tackle the problem of cultural deprivation by providing extra resources to schools and communities in deprived areas

Question 15

Operation head start in US

Answer 15

Introduced in the 1960s and aimed at deprived pre-school children to develop skills and instil motivation. Included parenting classes, setting up nursery classes, and home visits by educational psychologists

Question 16

Sesame street

Answer 16

A TV show aimed at instilling educational values, attitudes, and skills - e.g., numeracy, literacy, and punctuality

Question 17

Compensatory education programmes in the UK

Answer 17

Have included educational priority areas, education action zones, and sure start

Question 18

Sure start

Answer 18

Was a policy introduced by New Labour in 2010 - centres were set up in deprived areas and provided integrated education, care, family support, health services, and support with parental employment

Question 19

A03 Myth of cultural deprivation (Keddie)

Answer 19

CD is a myth and it victim blames. she argues underachievement is not due to having a culturally deprived area, but instead they are culturally different.
- it should be the schools responsibility to cater to the needs of different children - they fail because the school has middle class values

Question 20

A03 Language

Answer 20

The school’s approach to language - there is a speech hierarchy where middle class speech is seen as higher value than working speech

Question 21

A03 Blackstone and Mortimore

Answer 21

Criticise the idea that working class parents do not care about their child’s education:
- they attend less parents evenings because they work longer hours and may have more children to care for
- they are put off by the middle class atmosphere of the school
- they want to help but lack the knowledge to do so
schools with mainly working class children have less effective ways of contacting home

Question 22

Material deprivation

Answer 22

poverty and a lack of material necessities such as housing and income

Question 23

Material deprivation statistics

Answer 23

• barely 1/3 of pupils eligible for free school meals achieve 5 or more GCSE’s A-C
• 90% of failing schools are in deprived areas

Question 24

Housing

Answer 24

Poor housing can have both a direct and an indirect effect on a child’s achievement at school

Question 25

Direct housing

Answer 25

• overcrowding can make it hard for a child to study, also less room for homework and disturbed sleep
• development can be impaired for younger children who do not have the space for play and exploration
• families in temporary accommodation move more often which results in changes to schools

Question 26

Indirect housing

Answer 26

• poor housing can impact a child’s health and well being
• children in crowded homes are at greater risk of accidents
• cold or damp housing can lead to illness
• children in temporary housing suffer more psychological stress, infections, and accidents
  These all result in absences from school

Question 27

Diet and health (Howard)

Answer 27

Young people from poorer homes have lower intakes of energy, vitamins, and minerals. poor nutrition means weaker immune system leading to illness and absence from school.
Children from poorer homes are also more likely to have higher rates of hyperactivity, anxiety, and conduct disorders

Question 28

Financial support and cost of education

Answer 28

• Tanner found the cost of transport, books, computers, calculators, sports, music, and art equipment place a heavy burden on poorer families
• poorer children deal with hand me downs - bullying and stigmatised
• Flaherty found that the fear of stigmatisation is the reason why only 20% of children entitles to free school meals actually take them
• poverty acts as a barrier to learning in other way such as being unable to afford private schooling or tuition
• working class children taking on jobs to help their family

Question 29

Fear of debt

Answer 29

Callendar and Jackson found working class students are more debt adverse - they see it as negative and something to avoid
- 5x less likely to apply to university
- the increase in fees since 2012 to £9000 resulted in even more working class students being put off from applying - UCAS said the number of applicants in 2012 dropped by 8.6%

Question 30

Working class students at university

Answer 30

• only 30% are working class
• working class students were more likely to go to local universities to reduce costs but this gave them limited opportunity to go to high status universities
• drop out rates are also higher for universities with larger amounts of working class students

Question 31

A03 Material deprivation or cultural deprivation?

Answer 31

• material factors do play a part
• they don’t explain why some people from poorer families do succeed
• cultural, religious, or political values may play a part in sustaining motivation despite poverty
• Feinstein argues despite income levels those with better educated parents do better
• theorists argue that tackling child poverty is the most effective way to boost achievement

Question 32

Capital (Bourdieu)

Answer 32

• economic capital
• educational capital
• cultural capital

Question 33

Cultural capital

Answer 33

• knowledge, attitudes, values, language, tastes, and abilities of the middle class - he sees middle class habitus as a type of capital because like wealth it gives an advantage to those who possess it
• Bernstein argues though socialisation of the middle class children acquire the ability to grasp and understand abstract ideas

Question 34

Habitus

Answer 34

Taken for granted ways of thinking, being, and acting that are shown by a particular social class. A group’s habitus is its response to its class position

Question 35

Educational and economic capital

Answer 35

Bourdieu argues educational, economic, and cultural capital can be converted into one another

Question 36

Sullivan

Answer 36

Conducted a survey using questionnaires with 465 pupils in 4 schools to assess their TV habits, and whether they visited art galleries, she also tested vocal and knowledge if cultural figures

Question 37

Sullivan findings

Answer 37

• those who read complex fiction and watched serious TV documentaries had a more developed vocabulary and greater knowledge of cultural figures - greater cultural capital
• the pupils with highest cultural capital were children of graduates and were more likely to de well at GCSE

Question 38

A03 Sullivan

Answer 38

Found cultural capital only accounted for part of class differences in achievement. Where pupils had different social classes had the same cultural capital middle class pupils still did better
- Sullivan states the greater resources and aspirations of middle class families explain the remainder of the class gap in achievement