1: Class and achivment

• Feinstein:

  • highest qualified parents are more likely to use language to challenge their children
  • parents education is the most important factor affecting childrens achievment
• Troyna and Williams:

  • not childs language as the issue but the schools attitide towards it where they have a speech hierarchy MC then WC then black
• Bernstein:

  • restricted code which is used by WC, has limited vocabulary and uses simple sentances
  • elaborated code used by MC with wider vocab and has more complex sentances
  • differences give MC children and advantage at school becase elaborated code is used everywhere in school
• Douglas:

  • WC parents place less value on education so are less ambitious for their children
• Bernstein and Young:

  • MC parents spend income to promote childrens educational success like on toys and educational visits
• Sugarman:

  • WC has subcultural values which are a barrier to educational achievment
  • Fatalism, Collectivism, immediate gratification and present time orientation
• Keddie:

  • WC children not deprived but different
  • not family but education su=ystem which is based on MC values which discriminate against WC children
• Blackstone and mortimore:

  • WC parents do take interst in childs education but cannot attend school things as are working or have other commitments
• Howard:

  • young people from poorer homes have lower intakes of energy, vitamins and minerals
  • Poor nutrition affects health keeping them of school or unable to concentrate
• Wilkinson:

  • lower the social class the higher the rate of hyperactivity, anxiety and conduct disorders
• Tanner:

  • cost of free schooling
  • WC children may not be able to afford extra equipment so may have to deal with hand me downs which are unfashionable
• Flaherty:

  • fear of stigma may explain why 20% of FSM do not take up their entitlement
• Callendar and Jackson:

  • working class students are more debt averse and see it as a negative, why many avoid university
• Moritimore and Whitty:

  • material inequalities have greatest effect on underachievement
• Robison:

  • argues tackling child poverty would be most effective way to boost achievment
• Bourdieu:

  • argues both cultural and material factors contribute to achievement and are related
  • comes up with cultural capital which is the values the MC have which lets them succeed
• Leech and Campos:

  • MC parents are more likely to be able to afford a house in a catchment are a of a good school
  • selection by mortgage
• Sullivan:

  • Questionnaires to pupils to assess their cultural capital
  • backs up boundieu findings that middle class have more cultural capital
• Bereiter and engelmann:

  • Language in lower classes are deficient
• Becker:

  • based on interview with 60 chigago high teachers,
  • They judged pupils according to how closely they fitted the ideal pupil
  • Influenced by there conduct and appearnece
• Dunne and gazeley:

  • interviewed in 9 english state schools,
  • found teachers normalised WC underachivement but had to improve upon MC
  • also labeled the parents of pupils influencing their labels
• Rist:

  • study in american primary schools found teachers split students into groups which reflected their social class
  • The MC where labeled as tigers and the WC as Clowns or cadinals
• Rosenthal and Jacobson:

  • faked an IQ test in school and choose random pupils to be "spurters"
  • those who where labeled performed better in later tests
  • those who wernt performed worse
  • proof of self-fullfiling prophecy
• Gillborn and Youdell:

  • Idea of educational triage
  • To meet the A to C economy teachers have to make cuts
  • those who will pass anway and those who are "hopeless cases" recieve little to no help
  • most help should placed on those on the boundary to ensure they get that final push
• Archer:

  • develops on Boudieus concept of habitas
  • argues that schools have a middle class habitas giving MC pupils an advantage
  • some WC pupils create there own status by playing into styles e.g. Nike
  • or they have to change to fit the middle class image
• Evans:

  • studied 21 girls in a comphrehensive doing A levels
  • many wouldnt apply to oxbridge for fear of not fitting in
  • they exclude themsleves by narrowing there options
• Lacey


  Differentiation - process of teacher catregorising students

  Polarisation - process of pupils responding by either forming anti or pro school subcultures
• Ball


  Experiement in a school where setting and streaming but pupil polarisation still continued as labelling persisted

  Students with more positive labels did better in their final exams