key terms

• hidden curriculum

  informal learning processes that happen in school

  • a side effect of education that teaches students the norms and values of society
• ideological state apparatus

  a social institution whose main role is to pass on the dominate ideology

  of the r/c
• repressive state apparatus

  social institution whose role it is to enforce the dominant ideology by

  force or threat of force
• correspondence principal

  ways in which the ed system mirrors the world of work
• anti school subculture

  rejection of norms and values of school and replacing it with anti-school norms and values
• durkheim - anomie


  a state of normlessness: the lack of social cohesion and solidarity that often accompanies rapid social change
• compensatory education


  supplementary educational programs designed to compensate children for their deprived home background
• bordieu - cultural capital


  the knowledge, habits, and tastes learned from parents and family that individuals can use to gain access to scarce and valuable resources in society
• immediate gratification - w/c


  a focus on seeking pleasure in the moment, rather than delaying pleasure for future reward.

  • encouraged working class children to leave school early to earn money immediately rather than staying on when they were 16-19 to gain higher level qualifications which would get them a higher paying job a few years later.
• deferred gratification - sugarman


  m/c pupils will delay paid employment in order to attain higher qualifications and get higher-paid occupations as a result.
• coard - ethnocentric curriculum


  based on white culture/history and ignores non-European culture/history
• false class consciousness

  Marxist concept that suggests that the proletariat do not recognise that they are being exploited by the bourgeoisie and contribute to their own exploitation.
• funding formula

  schools are allocated funds by a formula based on how many pupils they attract

  • more popular schools get more funds, can afford better qualified teachers and better facilities attracting more middle class applicants
• bourdieu - habitus


  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
• halo effect


  impact of a positive label

  if a pupil labelled positively, perhaps as an ideal pupil then their behaviour will be interpreted differently than the same behaviour might be for a different pupil. as such they are less likely to be disciplined.
• hegemony


  r/c able to control w/c without coercion or force, achieved via education system and promotion of m/c dominant ideologies
• interactionism


  focus on the interactions between pupils and between pupils and teachers
• davis and moore - meritocracy

  ed system acts as a mechanism to ensure individuals do the right jobs by role allocation, based on individual talents and achievements
• bowles and gintis - myth of meritocracy 


  role allocation isn't based on merit, but social class, 'old school tie' network ensures top jobs go to upper middle class, legitimates class inequalities
• neoliberalism


  promotes marketisation policies and transferring services into the private ownership rather than government control. Based on New Right
• new vocationalism


  ed should be equipping young people with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values needed to prepare them for work
• determinism

  positivist and structuralist theories suggest that an outcome is predictable and inevitable
• falsification


  to be proven scientific, other researchers need to try prove the theory as incorrect
• positivism


  establish objective facts through scientific research methods and the thorough collection and analysis of empirical evidence
• structuralism


  behaviour must be understood in the context of the social system, or structure, in which they exist.