social class

• sugarman and working class attitudes

  -interviewed 500 working class boys

  -researched attitudes related to school,work and life

  -educational achievement could be explained by attitude

  -4 types of attitudes of failure

  • fatalism:pupils accept their situation as failures, dont try
  • immediate gratification: working class more likely to leave school in hope of pleasure and wages
  • present time orientation: less likely to plan their life all about the here and now
  • collectivism: involves being loyal to their friends and seeking status from being class clown
• critique of sugarman

  -gender blind

  -one school, cant generalise

  -interviews: impositional bias, interviewer bias, lie

  -assumes only working class underachieve
• Lacey

  -differentiation: teacher categorising pupils according to how they view them-labelling

  -polarisation:pupils response to streaming

  -pro-school subculture: high stream students tend to place high value on school

  -anti-school subculture: low stream students lose self esteem and searches for alternative forms of status
• Ball-abolish streaming

  -studied comprehensive school, Beachside

  -school in process of abolishing banding

  -no banding=no polarisation=no anti school subculture

  -differentiation continued leading to middle class recieving better results due to their label of co-operative and able
• Woods-other responses to labelling+streaming

  -integration: teachers pet

  -ritualism: going through motions staying out of trouble

  -retreatism: daydreaming and mucking about

  -rebellion: outright rejection of everything school stands for
• furlong


  many pupils are not committed permanently to one response, acting differently with different teachers
• hyman-educational attitudes

  -working class place lower value on education

  -more concerned about instant gratification

  -reject the gamble of staying on education
• critique of hyman

  -working class arent fatalistic but realistic, they want to go to college but cant afford to as will put too much financial pressure on parents
• douglas- the home and school

  -parental interest is the main factor in educational attainment

  -middle class show more parental interest and fund the shadow education system: tutors,laptops and textbooks

  -working class dont do this because theyre materially and culturally deprived
• critique of douglas

  -douglas measures parental interest by finance

  -middle class parents can afford to take time off-salary
• Reay


  -interviewed 33 working and middle class mums

  -both mums care about their childs progress

  -middle class mums had the most culture capital, knowledge about the education system, more material capital etc
• habitus


  Bourdieu's term to describe the self-perceptions and beliefs that develop as part of one's social identity and shape one's conceptions of the world and where one fits in it
• symbolic capital

  status and recognition from the school and are deemed to have worth or value because of middle class habitus
• symbollic violence

  -witholding of symbolic capital as lower class habitus is deemed as inferior
• nike identities

  creating self worth by clothing brands, not conforming is social suicide
• Bernstein-language codes


  -asked 2 boys one middle class, one working class to describe a series of photographs

  -working class answer was vague, lacked detail and clarity

  -middle class answer had more detail and was understandable
• Bernstein 2 types of language code

  -restricted code, working class: shorthand style,slang,limited vocabulary

  -elaborated code,middle class: articulate and detailed,good vocabulary, kings standard english
• critique of bernstein

  -labov:study in harlem found one code isnt superior to the other theyre just culturally different

  -rosen:bernstein makes vast generalisations and stereotypes of social classes, not all working class speak restricted not all middle class speak elaborated-adele