Topic 2: Social Class And Educational Achievement

Question 1

What do sociologists believe working class underachievement is based on?

Answer 1

• based on factors outside of school, including material deprivation and cultural deprivation
• cultural capital (knowledge, language, attitude and values and lifestyle) gives the middle class a built in advantage in the middle- class controlled education system

Question 2

What are external factors?

Answer 2

• factors outside of school, which schools have no control over
• so material deprivation emphasises social and economic conditions outside of school
• cultural deprivation emphasises values, attitudes and lifestyles outside of school

Question 3

How does material deprivation affect a child’s education?

Answer 3

-Low wages, diet, health and housing conditions all affect a child’s education and how well they do in school which explains why working class children underachieve in schools
-For example they may not get enough to eat resulting in them not having enough energy, meaning that they will struggle in school
- parents may not be able to afford educational resources, hidden costs of free state education (such as school trips, uniform etc) and may not be able to afford tuition
- this can lead to an increase in social deprivation

Question 4

Name the two factors that affect a child’s education

Answer 4

Poverty and home circumstances
Catchment area

Question 5

What did cooper and Stewart (2013) find?

Answer 5

• money makes a different to a child’s educational achievements. Poorer children have worse cognitive, social- behavioural and health outcomes due to there financial situations.

Question 6

What did waldfogel and washbrook (2010) mention?

Answer 6

• children that come form low income families are most likely to live in poor, damp and crowded accommodations that may be unclean and unsafe.
• They may not have a quiet place to study
• poor diet also leads to high levels of sickness causing the children to become tired at school causing learning to become difficult

Question 7

What are catchment areas?

Answer 7

• areas where schools draw their pupils
• in depreived areas there may be poor role models for young people to imitate, for example drug abuse, crime etc
• due to the environment the child grew up in, they may have discipline problems preventing them from achieving in education, contrasting to the middle class neighbourhoods that have good role models to imitate.

Question 8

What did Gibson and Asthana (1999) find?

Answer 8

The greater the level of family disadvantage, in terms of parents qualifications, employment, now owning a car/house the smaller the percentage of GCSE’s A*-C attained
National equality panel (2010) confirmed this pointing out that highest achievers belonged to more advantaged areas and a very few coming from deprived areas.
Teachers believed that poverty had a negative impact on children causing them to come into school hungry, tired, wearing worn out clothes etc. these children lacked confidence and missed out on activities outside of school, didn’t have internet/computers, or a quiet place to work

Question 9

What did smith and noble find?

Answer 9

• ‘Barriers’ to learning arise from living in low income households
• they identified four barriers; insufficient funds, ill health, home environment and marketisation of schools
• insufficient funds can cause children to not fulfil there potentials as parents for example may not be able to afford resources.
• ill health is discussed from another theorist Maryland Howard that did a study on poor diets of working class children who’ve ;ask vital vitamins and nutrients compared to the middle class diet.s he found that working class students often attended school not eating breakfast which affected their focus.
• home environment can affect a child’s achievement as, they may not get high quality sleep due to crowded bedrooms, may not have. A quit place to study, houses may be unclean or unsafe affecting the child’s health etc.
• marketisation of schools leads to further inequality as low income students can’t afford to attend school in these good areas meaning that going to a low rated school is there only option.

Question 10

What did Sharon gerwitz discuss?

Answer 10

1995
- examined class differences in parental choice of secondary schools. She used interviews in her study of 14 London schools. She concluded that there was three main types of parents categorised into privileged- skilled choosers, disconnected- local choosers and semi- skilled choosers
Privileged- semi skilled choosers: mainly middle class parents which high cultural capital to gain educational capital for their children. They use economic capital to afford to move their children around the education system ensuring they get the best education.
Disconnected- local choosers: mainly working class parents with lack of economic and cultural capital. Found it difficult to understand the school system and were overall less confident when dealing which schools. Cost of travel and distance was the main restriction
Semi- skilled choosers: mainly working class parents, but they were ambitious for their children but they still lacked cultural capital and found it difficult making sense of the education market

Concluded that middle class families with cultural and economic capital were better placed to take advantage of opportunities for a good education.

Question 11

What did fear of debt cause?

Answer 11

Fear of debt, constant money worries and cost of education prevents working class going onto higher education.

Question 12

What is cultural capital?

Answer 12

• knowledge, attitudes, values, language, and amities of the middle class
• Bourdieu seems middle class as ‘capital’ as they have an advantage when possessing its. Through socialisation, middle class children are more likely to develop intellectual interest and understand what the education system needs to succeed.
• working class finds that schools devalue their culture causing them to find it hard to possess or not possess the habitus in he education system leading to exam failure.

Question 13

What are Bourdieu’s three types of capital?

Answer 13

Educational, environmental and cultural

Question 14

What is educational and economical capital?

Answer 14

Wealthy parents are able to convert there cultural capital into educational capital by sending their children to private school.

Economic: wealth and financial resources and assets an indivual possesses.
Educational: knowledge skills and advantaged gained through education.

Question 15

What does leech and campos study show? (2003)

Answer 15

Middle class parents are more likely to be able to afford a house near a desirable school. This is known as ‘selection by mortgage’ as it drives up demand for houses near successful schools.

Question 16

How did they test bourdieus idea?

Answer 16

Alice Sulivan 2001
used question as to conduct a survey on 465 pupils in four schools to assess their cultural capital. She asked them to d a range. Out activities, eg reading. She found that those who read complex fiction and watched serious tv documentary’s developed greater cultural knowledge thus a higher cultural capital. These pupils were much more likely to be successful in GCSE’s.
She also found that those that had greater cultural capital were more likely to be middle class.

Question 17

What is labelling?

Answer 17

• to attach a meaning or defection to someone
• teachers attach labels on the basis of stereotyped assumptions about their background
• working class pupils negatively and middle class positively

Question 18

What did Becker study in relation to labelling in secondary schools?

Answer 18

(1971) carried out a study on 60 Chicago teachers using interviews. He found that teaches judged pupils according to how closely they fitted the image of an ‘ideal pupil’. Children from middle- class backgrounds were the closets to the ideal image and working class children were further away.

Question 19

What did cicourel and kitsuses study show?

Answer 19

Labelling can disadvantage working class students. They found that counsellors assessed students on social class or race instead of ability. Students who had good grades were labelled middle class and were more likely to have higher level courses

Question 20

What did ray rists study of levelling in primary schools find?

Answer 20

-Teachers used information eg home background to place theme into separate groups.
- ‘tigers’ fast learners and were majority middle class. He a clean apperance and given high kneels of encouragement
- ‘clowns’ and ‘cardinals’ seated further back, and were majority working class. Given lower level books and fewer opportunities to demonstrate their abilities

Question 21

What did gillborn and youdell study in relation to labelling?

Answer 21

• studied how teachers use notions found that working class and black pupils are less likely to have the ability to achave 5 A*-C grades at gcse
• so they were more likely to be placed in lower sets which deny the knowledge and opportunity needed to gain good grades
• this widens the class gap in achievement

Question 22

What is the self- fulfilling prophecy?

Answer 22

A prediction that comes true due to the prediction being made
Step 1: teacher labels pupil, making a prediction
Step 2: teacher treats pupil according to that prediction
Step 3: pupil internalises (absorbs) the teachers expectations and becomes the students the teacher had predicted

Question 23

What is the halo effect?

Answer 23

When pupils are stereotyped either favourably or unfavourably on the basis of earlier impressions.
- so they could have formed a good impression for example being bright and hard working even if this isn’t true
- or they could have formed a poor impression, for example being stroppy, difficult and distruptive

Question 24

What is the American study by Harvey and slatin 1975?

Answer 24

Showed photographs of children from different ethnic and social class backgrounds to 96 primary school teachers. White middle class children were identified as successful students, whilst they lowered the expectations for non white poorer background children.

Question 25

What is cultural deprivation?

Answer 25

An idea that young people fail in education due to cultural differences in their home and family, so the blame for educational underachievement is on factors outside of schools, such as people’s socialisation in the family and community and the cultural values that they are raised upon

Question 26

What did Sodha and mango (2010) suggest?

Answer 26

Cultural factors combine to create disengagement from education for the most disadvantage sections of the writing class that their position in life can’t be changed and that education is for other people not for them comes from a cultural barrier of low expectations and aspirations

Question 27

Name five cultural factors explaining class differences in educational achievement

Answer 27

Parents attitude and interest in education, parents level and knowledge of education and confidence in dealing with schools, subcultural attitude and values, restricted code of language use, amount of cultural capital

Question 28

What did Douglas (1964) find?

Answer 28

Douglas found most important factors of educational success. Is parents encouragement and involvement in a child’s education. Without this encouragement a child is much more likely to not succeed within education.

Question 29

What did Feinstein and symons prove?

Answer 29

They approved that the idea that education success is based upon appearance encouragement and involvement is still true today parents that show no involvement significantly affect their child’s progress

Question 30

State three points comparing middle-class parents to working class parents

Answer 30

Middle class parents take much more interest in child’s progress at school become more involved and encourage them when they are older and are much more likely to want their children to stay in school beyond the minimum leaving age and encouraged them to do so

Question 31

Name the four cultural explanations

Answer 31

Her attitude to education. Parents level of education. Sub cultural explanations attitude and values. Languages for educational achievement.

Question 32

How does a parent level of education affect educational achievement?

Answer 32

Middle-class parents are much more likely to understand the education system due to them themselves being educated than working class parents. For example, class parents may feel less confident when dealing with teacher at parents evenings and other events/situations in relation to their child education. Whereas middle-class parents are able to understand more and have much more knowledge of several fields of education which means middle-class children may have already learnt more before even starting education due to the socialisation in the family, so middle-class is at an advantage but the working class are at a disadvantage due to parents lack of knowledge/education.

Question 33

What do subcultural explanations suggest?

Answer 33

Different social classes have different values, attitudes and lifestyles, or different sub coaches which then affect performance of children in the education system

Question 34

What/whose research developed the subcultural explanations?

Answer 34

Hyman - American
Sugarman- British

Question 35

What is sugarman’s research?

Answer 35

Within 1970 Barry Sugarman argued that working class subculture has poor key features that act as a barrier to education achievement. The key features are fatalism, collectivism, immediate gratification and present time orientation. Fatalism is a belief in fate, that whatever occurs will occur and there is nothing that able to change it collective vision is the value of being part of a group more than succeeding as an individual. Present time orientation is seemed the present as much more important than the future. I’m not having long time goals or plans. immediate gratification seeking pleasure making sacrifices in order to reward in future so Sugarman argues that these differences exist due to middle-class jobs being secured. This offers continuous individual achievement, which encourages ambition. Whereas working class jobs I’m not secure and have no career structure through which individuals can advance. There are also fewer opportunities affirmation compared to middle-class jobs.

Question 36

What does Hyman and Sugarman’s research show?

Answer 36

It shows that different values and attitudes of middle and working class may influence children’s progresses in school

Question 37

How does the middle-class subculture affect the educational achievement?

Answer 37

Middle-class subculture mentions that within middle-class jobs, the promise of a career progress through individual effort and qualifications, leads to future orientation, and deferred gratification. The effect of this subculture is that children socialise into values and attitudes which encourage ambition and educational success. Future orientation and deferred gratification, create recognition for hard work, homework etc n order to get the qualifications needed to succeed.

Question 38

How does the working class of culture affect educational achievement?

Answer 38

Working class of culture mentions that educational qualifications are not really needed/important to work. Lack of promotion opportunity leaders to present time orientation/lack of emphasis on long-term goals or future planning. Present time orientation, immediate qualification, and fatalism all work together providing more gains and individual effort. The effect of this subculture upon educational achievement, is that children are socialised into set values and attitude that don’t encourage educational success and ambition. Leaving school and obtaining skills and/or getting a job and money is much more important than educational qualification.

Question 39

What did Bernstein argue?

Answer 39

He argued that there is two types of language use, elaborated code and restricted code. The middle-class familiarity with the elaborated code give them a bigger chance of success in the education system.

Question 40

Describe the elaborated code

Answer 40

Language used by strangers and individuals within informal context, this can include an interview for a job etc.this includes much wider vocabulary than the restricted code. Bernstein argues that the language used within school is that of middle-class elaborated code, so that the middle class has a built-in advantage within the education system, they are able to understand textbook, examinations etc and the working class middle class would find education much more easier than working class due to being use to elaborate code

Question 41

Describe the restricted code

Answer 41

Informal, simple language used between friends, family etc which is sometimes ungrammatical, with with limited explanation. This code is understood due to it having limited explanation and this code is also used by both groups but Bernstein argues that low class people are mainly limited to this sort of language.

Question 42

A03 of Bernstein

Answer 42

Bernstein tends to put all together as an equal use of differences between the lower and highest sections of the middle class. As similar can be made about the lower and higher levels of working class with the use of restricted code. It is difficult to generalise about middle-class and working-class families as there are many different ways languages used within family
Rosanne argues that he gives very few examples of his claims of existence of restricted and elaborated codes. He accuses that he created a myth of the superiority of middle-class.
Labov (1973) he is very critical of the idea that working cross beach is anyway inferior to that of the middle class. Within his research in Harlem within New York claims they are simply different and that in many ways working class are much more effective in making their points . middle class speakers frequently get criticised due to their mass of irrelevant detail.

Question 43

Who discovered first that teachers evaluated pupils in relation to stereotypes?

Answer 43

Becker 1971, mentioned that evaluate pupils based on there stereotypes of an ‘ideal pupil’

Question 44

What does Hempel- Jorgensen suggest?

Answer 44

Within 2009, he suggested the ideal pupil identity includes things like hard work, concentration and listening, performing well academically such as through exams

Question 45

What does hempel Jorgensen’s research mention?

Answer 45

He did a year- long research upon 12 primary schools within Hampshire, using observations and conversation with children and semi structures interviews with teachers, suggesting that pupils share themselves a similar concept of an ideal learner