sociology paper 1

• Achieved status


  Status achieved through your own efforts
• Anti-school (or counter school subculture)


  A group within a school who have norms and values in opposition to the school. This affects attitudes and behaviours
• Ascribed status


  Status given at birth that usually cannot be changed
• Citizenship


  The legal, social and political rights and responsibilities of individuals in a society
• Compensatory education


  Extra educational support for disadvantaged groups
• Comprehensive school


  One which accepts children of all abilities without any selection by examination
• Correspondence principle (or theory)

  The way the curriculum in a school mirrors the structure of the workplace
• Counter school (or anti-school subculture)

  See anti-school subculture
• Cultural capital


  The educational level of parents, their knowledge, attitudes and values, language and use of educational resources
• Cultural deprivation


  Supposed cultural deficiencies in home and family background that contribute to educational underachievement
• Culture clash


  A conflict between the cultural values of individuals, groups or institutions
• Deferred gratification


  Putting off immediate rewards to work towards a long-term goal
• Deschooling


  The idea that schools should be abolished because they oppress children or the removal of a child from school by parents
• The conflict approach to education: the Marxist perspective

  Bowles and Gintis/Willis
• Durkheim (1973)-the functionalist perspective

  1. Social cohesion and social solidarity

  2. Education as a meritocratic system

  3. The differences between ascribed and achieved status

  4. Particularistic and universalistic values

  5. The division of labour

  6. Helping develop citizenship

  7. Strengths and weaknesses of vocational education

  8. Criticisms of the functionalist perspective
• Bowles and Gintis (2011) - the Marxist perspective

  1. Ruling class ideology

  2. Legitimising inequality

  3. The correspondence principle

  4. The Hidden curriculum and social control

  5. The myths of educational opportunity and meritocracy

  6. Criticisms of the Marxist perspective
• Willis (1977)-combines a Marxist and interactionist approach


  The counter-school or anti-school subculture
• Francis (2005) - the feminist perspective

  1. Marginalisation

  2. Gendered behaviour (physical/verbal)

  3. Gendered pursuits

  4. Gendered classroom behaviour and power

  5. Teacher's different expectations
• The education system before the 1970s


  • The tripartite system
  • Comprehensive schools
  • Selection
  • The benefits of selection in comprehensive schools
  • The criticisms of selective education
  • Explaining streaming, setting and mixed ability teaching
  • Meritocracy and equality of educational opportunity
• Changes in education from 1988 onwards


  • The key aims of educational change (raise standards/create a more diverse system/economic efficiency/creating equality of opportunity in education)
  • The 1988 Education Reform Act
  • The marketisation of education (independence / competition/ choice)
  • Raising standards-the national curriculum/ National league tables/local management of schools / formula funding/open enrolment and parental preference / more information for parents/Ofsted
• The work of Ball, Bowe and Gerwitz (1994) in relation to parental choice and league tables


  Students needs at risk-social divisions increased
• Division of labour


  The division of work into specialised tasks
• Elaborated code

  A form of language use involving careful explanation, extended vocabulary and detailed explanation.
• Elite


  A small group holding great power or privilege in society
• Equality of educational opportunity

  Every child having an equal chance of success sin education irrespective of background
• Equality of opportunity


  Competing on the same terms as everyone else
• Ethnocentric curriculum


  A curriculum that gives priority to one particular culture whilst disregarding others
• Ethnocentrism

  Seeing other cultures through the eyes of one's own culture and devaluing others
• Types of schools


  • Grammar schools
  • Community or maintained schools
  • Academies and free schools
  • Faith schools
  • Special schools
  • Private education: Independent schools
• Arguments for and against educating children at home
• Advantages and disadvantages of those pupils with special educational needs being educated in mainstream or special schools
• Factors that influence educational attainment

  • Government policies and spending (how much money is spent/support for compensatory education/equal opportunities policies/marketisation, competition and parental choice policies/league tables)
  • External factors (things outside school, like material and cultural factors)
  • Internal factors (things inside the school (like the available resources, streaming and setting, etc)
• Halo effect


  Pupils being stereotyped on the basis of earlier impressions
• Hidden curriculum


  The learning of attitudes, values and behaviours through experiencing school life
• Immediate gratification


  Taking the rewards now rather than waiting for bigger rewards in the future
• Labelling


  Defining a person in a certain way
• Marketisation


  Running the schools on the basis of the free market, with supply and demand determining what schools do
• Meritocracy


  The idea that what you achieve in school is based solely on merit (ie. on how hard you work and/or how clever you are) rather than on other factors
• NEET


  A young person aged 16 to 24 who is not in Employment, Education or Training
• Particularistic values


  Standards and rules that give priority to personal relationships