1.2 - Class and Educational Achievement

• What is material deprivation?

  • being deprived of the resources needed for high educational attainment
• What are the barriers to learning?

  • proposed by Smith and Noble
  • 1 - If families are unable to afford resources, uniform and trips it may lead to the child getting stigmatised and bullied
  • 2 - Low income households are more likely to have no access to a warm home and internet
  • 3 - Marketisation of schools means schools in more affluent areas have access to better resources
  • 4 - Older w/c pupils may need to drop off younger siblings, causing them to be late
• What did Hirsch find?

  • found that those from better of backgrounds had more advantages then those from disadvantaged backgrounds~
  • these factors included:
  • going on educational trips such as museums, performing arts and sports - these factors improved pupil skills and confidence which helped with their grade.
  • also more likely to have their own bedroom to revise in
• What is cultural deprivation?

  • being deprived of the cultural attributes necessary for educational achievement
  • such as knowledge, speech, attitudes
• What did Feinstein find?

  • used data from National Child Development Study to examine the effects of cultural deprivation
  • many factors such as material and financial deprivation was linked to low achievement, but cultural deprivation was the main one
• What did Goodman and Gregg find?

  • used data from longitudinal studies to investigate the link between poverty and low educational attainment.
  • these included a number of cultural factors:
  • the quality of mother-child interactions and amount of time parents spent with children
  • how often parents read to younger children
  • overall value placed on education by parents
• What did Bernstein come up with?

  • said different classes use different speech codes
  • working class - restricted speech code
  • higher class - elaborated speech code
• What is a restricted speech code?

  • short, unfinished sentences
  • limited use of adjectives , grammar
  • mostly shown through hand gestures
• What is an elaborated speech code?

  • wider vocab and more complex structures
  • more use of adjectives and grammar
• What is immediate gratification?

  • relax now, put off work
• What is deffered gratification?

  • work hard now, enjoy yourself later
• What are the criticisms of cultural deprivation theory?

  1. Mortimore argues the level of parental interest has not been investigated properly. W/c parents may not want to come to parent evenings because they feel uncomfortable reacting with those from m/c
  2. Gillian Evans performed interviews on w/c parents and they placed the same value and interest in education like the m/c
  3. Bernstein has been criticised for focusing too much on speech codes rather than different factors
• What is cultural capital?

  • the possession of cultural attributes that can give you advantages in life
• What are the 4 types of capital?

  1 - Economic capital - your possession of wealth

  2 - Cultural capital - your education, qualification, lifestyle

  3 - Social capital - connections

  4 - Symbolic capital - status
• What was Sullivan's research?

  • social class was determined by parents' occupation
  • measured - cultural capital - books, tv , music , art galleries
  • findings - students were more likely to succeed if they read complex fiction, watched documentaries, attended trips to museums and classical music
• What are the criticisms of the cultural capital theories?

  1 - Ignores the factors inside school such as bullying and the effect it has on education

  2 - Ignores material deprivation

  3 - Ignores financial deprivation
• What is class and labelling?

  • interactionists argue that social class background influences the way teachers label pupils
  • middle class fit in with stereotypes of ideal pupil
  • these labels are based on - apperance, attitude and behaviour
  • students live up to these labels
• What are the studies to do with teacher expectations?

  • Rosenthal and Jacobson - false info about the IQ of primary school pupils
  • the progress of these pupils was measured
  • found that pupils whose teachers believed they had a high IQ made better progress then those with a low IQ
  • teachers focused more on high IQ students and gave the low IQ students labels
• What was the research done by Harvey and Slatin?

  • photographs of pupils from different social classes were shown
  • teachers were asked to rate their performance in education
  • teachers said those from a higher class were more likely to achieve higher in education
• What is streaming/setting?

  • seperating pupils into different classes based on educational ability
• What was Ball's research about setting?

  • pupils were streamed into 1/3 bands based on ability
  • w/c students were put into lower sets, even if their ability was the same as those from m/c
  • behaviour of lower bands deteriorated and were directed to lower exam levels
• What did Keddie do an observation on?

  • classes studying the same humanities lesson but in different sets
  • lower sets - the work was simplified, common sense and questions asked were normally an attempt to disrupt the lesson
  • higher sets - work was more abstract and challenging
• What did Gillbourn and Youdell find about black pupils?

  • w/c black pupils were more likely to be put in lower sets even if they had the capability of those from m/c
• What are pupil subcultures?

  • a group of pupils who share similar behaviours and views in school
  • Mac and Ghail did a study on the different subcultures within sets
  • highest set - 'academic achievers', pro school subculture
  • middle set - new entrepeneurs, tended to go for more vocational subjects
  • lowest set - 'macho lads', anti school subculture
• What are the evaluations of interactionist perspectives?

  1. Ignores the factors outside of school such as material and cultural deprivation
  2. Deterministic - ignores free will (labelling theory)
  3. Do not look at social policy in detail
• What have social policies in education led to?

  • led to the form of positive discrimination - where the w/c gives extra help in the education system to compensate for the inequalities in education
  • eg - surestart
  • however - whitty believes these schemes places blame on the child and ignores inequality as a whole
• What have social policies led to for schools?

  • have led to the increased marketisation of schools
  • have to act like businesses and the sell most 'attractive products' to consumers
• What did Gillbourn and Youdell investigate?

  • found that a result of marketisation in school led to the neglect of students who achieved grade 5 and below
  • more focus on students with high grades to make the school look better
• What did Ball conduct a study on?

  • effects of education reform act on educational achievement
  • m/c parents - usually privileged choosers as they had social contacts. Had money to pay for private education
  • w/c parents - disconnected choosers, normally assumed child will be happy without looking at the school's success