2.1 Class & External factors

• What are the 2 criticisms of cultural capital?

  1. May be unfair to blame schools for being biased against WC when many schools have initiatives specifically to help WC

  2. Harder to test and validate the effect of cultural capital e.g. effect of piano lessons and DEA
• DEA

  Differential educational achievement
• What did ___ find in her survey?

  (Sullivan)

  -She found that those who read serious fiction & watched documentaries had greater cultural knowledge & developed wider vocabulary and therefore more cultural capital

  -Children with cultural capital are more likely to be children of graduates (MC)

  -But this didn't account for all differential educational achievement- even when they had the same cultural capital, MC still performed better and that material deprivation explained the rest of the gap
• Habitus

  -A cultural framework or set of norms, values & ideas that each class has (Bourdieu)

  -Bourdieu's cultural capital theory doesn't see WC as inferior, just different

  -MC culture dominates society which puts WC at a disadvantage
• What does Bourdieu say about the 3 types of capital?

  He says that they can all be converted into each other e.g. being able to afford a house in the catchment area of a good school
• What did ___ say are the 3 types of capital?

  (Bourdieu)

  Economic, educational & cultural
• What are the criticism of material deprivation?

  Some children from poor families do succeed

  Cultural, religious or political values can play a part and help them to achieve more

  Internal factors
• Why do less WC students attend university?

  -More debt averse- less likely to go & more likely to stay local

  -They receive less support for university from home than MC students

  -More likely to work alongside
• What are other disadvantages that WC students face?

  Opens WC students up to bullying/mocking because of Free school meals (FSM)/hand me downs

  Can't afford private schooling or tuition

  Local schools are poorer quality

  Have to work alongside studies- has a negative impact on schooling
• What did ___ say to criticise cultural deprivation?

  (Blackstone & Mortimore)

  WC parents attend less parents evenings because they work longer/unsociable hours, not because they aren't interested
• What did Nell ___ say to criticise cultural deprivation?

  (Keddie)

  Children cant be deprived of their own culture, they're simply culturally different
• What are the criticisms of cultural deprivation?

  Victim blaming: sees WC pupil as having 'deficits' that are their parents' faults due to inadequate primary socialisation & ignores inequalities built into the education system & wider society

  Labelling: cultural deprivation itself is a negative label teachers apply to WC families
• What did the supportive studies show about sure start?

  -A 2009 study examining 153 parents showed that a course teaching improved parenting skills had great benefits in reducing problem behaviour in young children
• What is sure start?

  -A government area-based initiative from the new labour government. It aimed to tackle poverty & social exclusion by 'giving children the best possible start in life'

  -They did this through the improvement of childcare, early education, health & family support and support with parental employment
• What did the supportive studies show about operation head start?

  -A 2009 study showed that children who attended head start:

  -Showed stronger academic performance in tests for years afterwards

  -Were less likely to be diagnosed with learning difficulties

  -Less likely to commit crime

  -More likely to graduate from high school & attend college and less likely to have poor health as a result
• What is operation head start?

  -An American program that provides comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition & parent involvement services to low income children and their families

  -The program's services and resources are designed to foster stable family relationships, enhance children's physical and emotional wellbeing and establish an environment to develop strong cognitive skills
• Compensatory education

  -They aim to tackle the problem of cultural deprivation by intervening early in the socialisation process to compensate for the deprivation they experience at home
• What did they do a few years after the marshmallow test?

  They were given academic tests to measure their abilities in maths, reading & spelling/writing

  Those that did worse in the marshmallow test did worse on the tests aged 8
• What did Sugarman say about immediate gratification?


  Sugarman argues WC children seek immediate gratification whilst MC children are socialised into deferring gratification, sacrifice now leads to reward later

  Tested children via marshmallow test
• What did ___ say are the 4 key values which act as barriers to educational success for WC?

  (Sugarman)

  Fatalism believing in fate 'what will be will be'

  Collectivism valuing being part of a group over individual success

  Immediate Gratification seeking pleasure now rather than making sacrifices for greater long term gain

  Present Time Orientation seeing the here and now rather than looking to the future
• Subculture

  A group whose attitudes and values differ from those of mainstream culture
• What did ___ say about the impact of parental education?

  Feinstein)

  That parent's own level of education has a large influence on their children's educational achievements regardless of class or income. This can explain why some WC students do well and why not all MC students are equally successful
• What did ___ find about working class parents?

  (Douglas)

  They place less importance on education and are less ambitious for their children, they also gave them less encouragement to try hard and do well in school which affects the childrens' own motivation to achieve
• What do ___ say about language?

  Gaine & George

  They say Bernstein is exaggerating differences between MC & WC speech patterns and overstating its importance
• What do ___ say about language?

  (Troyna & Williams)

  That its not the child's language but the school's attitudes towards it through teachers having a speech hierarchy of: middle class speech, working class speech & black speech
• Restricted speech code

  Language consisting of limited vocabulary, simple sentences, and which is context- bound. May be grammatically incorrect
• Elaborated speech code

  Language consisting of a wide vocabulary, complex sentences and which is context-free, so able to express abstract ideas
• Who said WC & MC use different speech codes?

  Bernstein
• What are the differences between MC & WC parents' language?

  MC- uses language that challenges children e.g. what do you think? More likely to use praise & use the elaborated speech code

  WC- use simple language e.g. what's this animal called? Less likely to use praise & use tge restricted speech code
• What was found about working class children being behind?

  It was found that WC children can be up to a year behind by age 3 and the gap only widens with age
• What's do cultural deprivation theorists argue about WC families?

  They argue that they fail to socialise their children properly
• Social mobility

  The ability to move classes
• Material deprivation

  Deprivation referring to poverty and lack of material necessities such as adequate housing & income
• Cultural deprivation

  Lacking the cultural equipment needed to succeed in education Such as language, self discipline & reasoning skills
• How many students did Eton send to oxbridge in 3 years compared to other schools?

  They sent 211 students in 3 years compared to 1,300 state schools who sent none
• What percentage of students attend private school compared to the proportion of oxbridge students?

  Less than 7% of U.K. students attend private school but account for 42% of students at oxbridge
• How do we define a persons class?

  Using parental occupations