Topic 2- internal factors for social class

Question 1

What is compensatory education (policy)

Answer 1

It is a policy designed to address the problem of cultural deprivation specifically and material deprivation more generally providing additional resources to schools and communities in deprived areas

Question 2

What do compensatory education programmes attempt to do (policies)

Answer 2

It attempts to intervene early in the socialisation process to compensate children for the early deprivation they experience at home

Question 3

Give an example of compensatory education (an American policy)

Answer 3

Operation head start- designed to enrich the lives of deprived children and instill an aspirational ethos

Question 4

In Britain, in the 1960s what was established (policies)

Answer 4

Educational priority areas

Question 5

Give 4 labour policies that were introduced to overcome economic and social disadvantage

Answer 5

• sure start
• education action zones
• the aim higher programme
• education maintenance allowance

Question 6

What is the sure start policy- introduced by labour (2)

Answer 6

• aimed at pre-school children and families in disadvantaged areas providing home visits, play centres and financial help for childcare.
• the aim was to promote the physical, intellectual and social development of babies and young children so they can flourish when they go to school

Question 7

Give one objective of Sure Start

Answer 7

It was to improve children’s ability to learn by establishing high quality environments that promote early learning, provide stimulating and enjoyable play and improve language skills

Question 8

What is the Education Action Zone policy

Answer 8

Providing additional resources and funding to schools in disadvantaged areas, replaced by the Excellence in Cities Programme

Question 9

What is the Aim Higher programme policy

Answer 9

To raise aspirations of groups who are under represented in higher education

Question 10

What is the educational maintenance allowance policy

Answer 10

(Replaced by the bursary system) payments to students from low-income backgrounds to encourage them to stay on after 16

Question 11

What are the concerns with educational policies

Answer 11

There are concerns that cultural deprivation theories and compensatory education programmes individualise the problem of working class underachievement and ignore wider structural inequalities in both the education system and society as a whole that contribute to the social class gap

Question 12

Who criticises the cultural deprivation

Answer 12

Keddie

Question 13

What are the 3 reasons why Keddie criticises the cultural deprivation theory

Answer 13

• a child cannot be deprived of its own culture- children from wc families just have a different culture
• cultural deprivation theory ‘blames the victims’- blames wc people for failing however they are not given enough opportunity to do well
• it is the education system at fault

Question 14

What 2 sociologists critique the view that WC speech is inadequate and who do they blame for this

Answer 14

Troyna and Williams- they blame the education system for this

Question 15

What do intercationists focus on

Answer 15

Internal factors

Question 16

What are the 6 internal factors that affect a child’s achievement

Answer 16

• labelling
• self-fulfilling prophecy
• setting and streaming
• pupil subcultures
• the school
• marketisation and selection

Question 17

Labelling

What did Hargreaves et al analyse (2)

Answer 17

The way that pupils came to be typed and labelled by teachers

-based on interviews and observations they examined the way teachers ‘got to know’ their pupils

Question 18

Labelling

What are the 3 ways that teachers got to know their new pupils- Hargreaves et al

Answer 18

Speculation

Elaboration

Stabilisation

Question 19

Labelling- Hargreaves et al

What does speculation mean

Answer 19

-when teachers made guesses about what type of pupils they were dealing with based on factors such as ability and enthusiasm for work etc

At this point teachers were tentative in their views and are willing to change them

Question 20

Labelling- Hargreaves et al

What does elaboration mean

Answer 20

At this point a teachers hypothesis is tested snd confirmed or contradicted. They become more confident in their judgement of pupils

Question 21

Labelling- Hargreaves et al

What does stabilisation mean

Answer 21

Teachers now feel that they know the pupils and are therefore not surprised or puzzled by their actions. From this point the future actions of pupils will be evaluated in terms of the label

Question 22

Labelling

Where did Becker make his observation and what did he find out

Answer 22

In a Chicago high school and found that classifications, judgements and evaluations of students were made in terms of a standard ‘ideal pupil’ and found that pupils from middle class non-manual backgrounds came closest to this ideal

Question 23

Labelling

What did Becker say about the effect of pupils being evaluated, assessed and judged

Answer 23

That it has a significant effect on attitude and behaviour in the classroom, as well as achievement

Question 24

Labelling

What did Cicourel and Kitsuse argue that

Answer 24

That teachers are in an important position to affect a pupil’s progress

Question 25

Labelling

What did Cicourel and Kitsuse find out from their study of an American high school

(College, and social class)

Answer 25

• that tutors had an important role determining a student’s access to college and course
• they found that rather than evaluating pupils on the basis of their ability, social class background was the most influential factor

Question 26

Labelling

Cicourel and Kitsuse- what did they find out about middle class students

Answer 26

They were more likely to be seen as natural prospective college students

Question 27

Setting and streaming

What is setting

Answer 27

Where whole classes of pupils are put into different groups or sets for particular subjects

Question 28

Setting and streaming

What is streaming

Answer 28

It involves grouping students for all subjects

Question 29

Setting and streaming

What does research show about being placed in low sets or streams

Answer 29

That it may undermine pupil’s confidence and discourage them from trying. Teachers may have lower expectations and be less ambitious and give them less knowledge to lower set/stream pupils

Question 30

Setting and streaming

Where did Ball conduct his research

Answer 30

At Beachside Comprehensive

Question 31

Setting and streaming

What did Ball find out from his research
High set and low set students

Answer 31

That top stream students were ‘warmed up’ by encouragement to achieve highly and to follow academic courses.

In contrast lower stream students were ‘cooled down’ and encouraged to follow lower status vocational and practical courses and consequently achieve lower levels of academic success

Question 32

Setting and streaming

What did Ball find that setting and streaming is often linked to

Answer 32

It is linked to social class and therefore the higher a pupil’s social class, the greater the chance of being allocated fo a top stream

Question 33

Setting and streaming

What did Ball say that setting and streaming contributed to

Answer 33

-to the underachievement of working class pupils- it deprives those who are labelled as ‘failures’ in the bottom streams of status

Question 34

Pupil subcultures

Hargreaves- what did he find out

Answer 34

Like Ball, he found that bottom stream pupils often rebel against the school and develop an alternative set of values, attitudes and behaviour in opposition to academic aims of the school. This is called anti-school subculture

Question 35

Pupil subculture

What did rebelling against the school provide a means for students

Answer 35

It provided a means for pupils to improve their own self-esteem by achieving the success and status in their peer group that was denied to them by the school. Being in lower sets they r more likely to be from a wc background

Question 36

Pupil subculture

What did Lacey find out in his research
What did he find out about mc boys

Answer 36

• Lacey found that streaming polarised boys into a pro-school and an anti-school subculture
• mc pupils found that high streams were committed to the values of the school and gained their status through the approved academic route. Their values are those of the school and they therefore form a pro-School subculture

Question 37

The school

Rutter et al- what do they argue

Answer 37

That ‘good’ schools make a difference to the life chances of all pupils

Question 38

The school

What do Rutter et all believe makes a good school (3)

Answer 38

• teachers being well prepared for lessons and setting and marking classwork and homework regularly
• having high expectations of pupil’s academic performance
• encouraging pupils to do well

Question 39

Marketisation and selection

The policy of publishing league tables creates what Gilborn and Youdell call the …

Answer 39

‘A-C’ economy. This is a system in which schools ration their time, effort and resources concentrating them on those pupils they perceive as having the potential to get 5 or more GCSEs C or above to boost the schools league table position

Question 40

Marketisation and selection

What do Gilbourn and Youdell call the process of of the ‘A-C’ economy

Answer 40

‘Educational triage’

Question 41

Marketisation and selection

What does triage mean

Answer 41

It means ‘sorting’ and Gilbourn and Youdell claim that the A-C economy produces educational triage.

Question 42

Marketisation and selection

What are the 3 ways that the education system sorts people

Answer 42

• ‘those who will pass anyways’
• ‘those with potential’
• and ‘hopeless cases’

Question 43

Marketisation and selection

How are wc and black pupils labelled and segregated

Answer 43

WC snd black pupils are labelled as lacking ability m. As a result they are likely to be labelled as ‘hopeless cases’, segregated into lower streams offering a different curriculum and exams. This produces a self-fulfilling prophecy and failure

Question 44

Marketisation and selection

What does marketisation also explain

Answer 44

Why schools are under pressure to select more able, largely middle class pupils who will gain the school a higher position in the league tables

-those schools will then have a good position on the league tables, attracting more pupils and so increasing their funding

Question 45

How has marketisation and selection result in increased social class segregation

Answer 45

• mc students go to popular schools

- wc students go to school the the less popular schools

Question 46

Marketisation and selection

What does Bartlett argue that marketisation leads to (2)

Answer 46

(A) cream-skimming- selecting higher ability pupils who gain the best results and cost less to teach
(B) silt shifting- off-loading pupils with learning difficulties who are expensive to teach and get poor results

Question 47

Marketisation and selection

Overall, what has M+S led to

Answer 47

It has created a polarised education system”: popular, successful, well-resourced schools with more able largely middle-class intake at one extreme and unpopular, ‘failing’, under-resourced schools with mainly low-achieving wc pupils at the other