Cultural Deprivation

• What are external factors?

  These are factors outside the education system , such as the influence of home and family background and wider society
• What are external factors that affect pupils educational achievement?

  Cultural deprivation, Material deprivation and cultural capital
• What is cultural deprivation?

  Having inferior norms and values, skills and knowledge that make it difficult to access

  education.
• What are the main aspects of cultural deprivation?

  - Language

  - Parents education

  - Working Class subculture

  - Attitudes and values
• Language: Who spoke about language within cultural capital?

  Bernstein
• What did Bernstein say about language?

  Bernstein identified differences between working-class and middle-class language that influence achievement and he distinguished between two types of speech code
• What were the two speech codes distinguished by Bernstein?

  - The restricted code

  - The elaborated code
• What is the restricted code?

  The speech code typically used by the working class.

  - It has a limited vocabulary and is based on the use of short grammatically simple sentences. The restricted code is context bound and normally includes slang
• What is the elaborated code?

  This speech code is typically used by the middle class.

  - It has a wider vocabulary and is based on grammatically more complex sentences.The elaborated code is context free and usually uses kings english
• How does these codes affect educational achievement?

  These differences in speech code give middle class children an advantage at school and put working class children a disadvantage.

  - This is because the elaborated code is the language used by teachers , textbooks and exams
• Criticisms of Bernstein


  Bernstein also provides only limited examples of the two types of speech code. He does not make a convincing case that either of them actually exist in reality.
• Parents education: Who spoke about parents education within cultural capital?

  Douglas
• What does Douglas argue?

  Argues that parental attitudes to education and their

  own levels of education often have a big impact on

  educational achievement.
• What did Douglas find in his study?

  He found that working class parents place less value on education and therefore are less likely to push their children academically and visit school less often and as a result the children have lower levels of motivation and achievement
• Working class subculture: Who spoke about working-class subculture within cultural capital?

  Sugarman
• What does Sugarman argue?

  He argues that working-class subculture has four key features that act as a barrier to educational achievement
• What are the four key features that act as a barrier to educational achievement?

  Fatalism , Collectivism , Immediate gratification and present-time orientation
• What is fatalism?

  A belief in fate - that 'whatever will be, will be' and there is nothing you can do to change your status.
• What collectivism?

  Valuing being part of a group more than succeeding as an individual
• What is immediate gratification?

  Seeking pleasure now rather than making sacrifices in order to get rewards in the future
• What is Present time orientation


  Seeing the present as more important than the future and so no not having long term goals
• How is cultural deprivation tackled?

  By compensatory
• How does Keddie evaluate cultural deprivation?

  Keddie describes cultural deprivation as a 'myth' and sees it as a victim-blaming explanation. She dismisses the idea that failure at school can be blamed knowing on a culturally deprived home background. She points out that a child cannot be deprived of its own culture and argues that working-class children are simply culturally different , not culturally deprived.
• How des Troyna and Williams evaluate language?

  They argue that the problem is not the childs language but the schools attitude towards it