Cultural Deprivation

• cultural deprivation: the lack of equipment like values, attitudes and skills that are needed for educational success through primary socialization in the family
• Three main parts of cultural deprivation?

  Parents Education, Language and Working Class Subculture
• Hubbs-Tait et al (2002): where parents use language that challenges their children to evaluate thier own abilities
• Feinstein (2008): educated parents are more likely to challenge their offspring's language - improving their cognitive ability - and are more likely to praise their children
• Bereiter and Engelmann (1966): language used in lower class families defficient due to the use of gestures, single words or disjointed phrases
• Disadvantages of deficient language:

  1. failure to develop necessary language skills
  2. incapable of abstract thinking
  3. unable to take advantages of school offerings
• Bernstein (1975): Identified restricted and elaborated speech codes and linked them to working class and middle class culture
• Restricted Code:

  1. used by working class
  2. limited vocabulary
  3. short, grammatically simple sentences
  4. descriptive rather than analytical
  5. context bound whereby the speaker assumes the listener shares the same set of experiences
• Elaborated Code:

  1. middle class
  2. wider vocabulary and grammatically more complex
  3. context-free
• Why does restricted code put working class children at a disadvantage?

  Elaborated code is used across the whole education system, Bernstein sees elaborated code as more effective in expressing thoughts more clearly, middle class children are already fluent in the code so they are more likely to feel 'at home' in a school environment
• What does Bernstein (1975) argue?


  school and home influences a child's achievement, working class students fail not because they are culturally deprived but because schools fail to teach them how to use elaborated code
• Douglas (1964): the working class parent placed less value on education - resulting in them being less ambitious for their children, visited schools less often and were less likely to discuss their child's progress with teachers. This caused their children to have less motivation and achievement.
• Feinstein (2008): agrees with Douglas and suggests that parental achievement is the greatest factor in determining success as they are able to give them an advantage in socializing them
• Bourdieu 1984: Both cultural and material factors interrelated contribute to educational achievement
• Bourdieu 1984: Identifies 3 types of capital: cultural, economic and educational
• Leech and Campos 2003: middle class parents more likley to afford a house in a good catchment area = 'selection by mortgage'
• Sullivan 2001: children reading complex fiction and documentries developed wider cultural knowledge. Children with the greatest cultural capital were more likely to have graduate parents and do better at GCSEs