education

• Sociological views on working class underachievement

  • Factors outside the school, including material deprivation (inability to afford basic resources) and cultural deprivation (deficiencies in home and family backgrounds)
  • Cultural capital (knowledge, language, attitudes, values, lifestyle) gives middle-class an advantage in middle-class controlled education system
• Speech Codes (BERNSTEIN)


  • Differences in speech codes put working-class children at a disadvantage because the elaborated code is used by teachers, textbooks and exams
  • Early socialisation into the elaborated code means middle-class pupils are already at an advantage
• Parents' Education (DOUGLAS)


  • Working-class parents place less value on education, are less ambitious for their children, and give them less encouragement to participate in educational activities
  • Many working-class parents do not attend parents evening
• Working-class Subcultures (SUGARMANN)


  • Fatalism - there's nothing you can do to change your status
  • Collectivism - valuing being part of a group more than being an individual
  • Immediate gratification - seeking pleasure now rather than making sacrifices for future rewards
  • Present time orientation - seeing the present as more important than the future, therefore having no long-term goals
• Material Deprivation - Housing


  • Overcrowding means no room for educational activities and disturbed sleep
  • Families in temporary accommodation have to move frequently, leading to disturbed education
  • Overcrowded homes mean greater risk of accidents and illness, leading to school absences
• Material Deprivation - Diet and Health


  • Young people from poorer homes have lower intakes of energy, vitamins and minerals
  • Poor nutrition affects health and weakens the immune system, leading to more school absences
• Cultural Capital (BOURDIEU)


  • Middle-class children with cultural capital are better equipped to meet the demands of the school curriculum
  • Parents can convert cultural capital into economic capital, e.g. sending children to private schools
• Sociology education topic 1 class (external factors)

  • Material deprivation
  • Cultural deprivation
  • Cultural capital
• Material deprivation


  The inability to afford basic needs such as housing, food and heating
• Cultural deprivation


  Deficiencies in family background and culture such as inadequate socialisation and inadequate language skills
• Cultural capital


  Knowledge, values, attitudes and lifestyle that gives the middle class an inbuilt advantage in a middle class controlled education system
• Bernstein's speech codes


  1. Differences in speech put working class children at a disadvantage because the elaborated speech codes are used by teachers, textbooks and exams

  2. Early socialisation of this code by middle class parents puts middle class students at an advantage whilst working class students use a restricted speech code
• Douglas' parents' education


  Working class parents place less value on education meaning they are less ambitious for their children and give them less encouragement to participate in educational activities such as homework. As a result of this many working class parents don't attend parents evening whilst middle class students are encouraged to do well in school.
• Sugarmann's working class subcultures

  • Fatalism
  • Collectivism
  • Immediate gratification
  • Present time orientation
• Fatalism


  There's nothing we can do to change our status from ascribed to achieved
• Collectivism


  Valuing being part of a group more than being an individual
• Immediate gratification


  Seeking pleasure now rather than making sacrifices to get future rewards e.g. committing to education
• Present time orientation


  Seeing the present as more important than the future therefore having no long term goals
• Material deprivation - housing

  • Overcrowding means there's no room for educational activities such as homework and reading, it also means disturbed sleep from sharing bedrooms
  • Families who live in temporary accommodation may find themselves moving houses frequently disturbing education
  • Overcrowded homes means there's higher risk of absence and illness leading to absence from school
• Material deprivation - diet and health


  Young people from poorer homes have lower intakes of energy and vitamins. This may weaken the child's immune system leading to more absences at school.
• Cultural capital (Bordieu)


  Middle class children are better equipped to meet the demands on the school curriculum. Parents can convert the cultural capital into economic capital e.g. by sending their children to private school
• Sociology education topic 2 class (internal factors)

  • Labelling
  • Streaming
  • Pupil subcultures
  • Pupil identities
  • Self fulfilling prophecy
• Labelling and its effects (Becker)

  Teachers judge and label pupils according to how closely they fit the ideal pupil. This would therefore decrease the motivation of students (particularly working class) who did not fit the ideal student categories due to the differences of treatment between the ideal pupils and the non ideal ones
• Self fulfilling prophecy

  • When students are given a positive label they react to it by being motivated to work hard and improve their grades. Also students with negative labels have no motivation to work hard or improve
  • Rosenthal and Jacobson study - teachers informed that students who scored high on an IQ test would be fast learners, however the test results were fabricated and the children who were falsely named high IQ improved significantly and the ones who were falsely named low IQ did not improve. This is a result of the labels and difference of treatment by teachers who they saw as high achievers
• Streaming (Gillbourne and Youdell)


  Teachers labelled working class students as unintelligent, resulting in them being placed in lower streams and sets
• Pupil subcultures (Lacey)


  • Polarisation - when students respond to streaming either by joining a pro school subculture or an anti school subculture
  • Differentiation - those placed in higher streams have higher status
• Pupil subcultures (Hargreaves)


  Boys in lower streams were triple failures - failed their exams, therefore placed in low streams, therefore labelled negatively. Their response to this is to form subcultures which provide status to those who break the school rules.
• Pupil identities (Archer)


  Working class pupils invest in their Nike identities instead of gaining their identity through school. They see school as unrealistic (for rich and clever people) they also see school as undesirable as they already get their identity from their clothes.
• Sociology education topic 3 ethnic differences in achievement

  • External factors
  • Internal factors
• External factors


  • Linguistic skills
  • Family structure
  • Attitudes and values
  • Material deprivation
• Linguistic skills (Bereiter and Engelmann)


  Some pupils speak different languages or informal versions of English. Black Caribbean language is ungrammatical which means they cannot convey abstract ideas.
• Family structure (Moynihan)


  There are higher rates of lone parent families in black ethnicities. Moynihan found that many black families were headed by a lone mother leading to lower educational achievements due to the lack of a male role model.
• Attitudes and values


  Some sociologists argue that black pupils have a fatalistic outlook on life meaning they want immediate gratification and have limited motivation to achieve long term
• Material deprivation


  Many ethnic minorities are victims of racism in wider society. As a result they face discrimination at work and may be in low paid jobs or unemployed. This impacts their children's educational opportunities.
• Internal factors


  • Labelling - black pupils
  • Labelling - Asian pupils
  • Pupil subcultures
• Labelling - black pupils (Gillbourne and Youdell)


  Teachers had racialised expectations and expected more discipline problems and saw their behaviour as threatening. Black pupils were more likely than others to be punished for the same behaviour as white pupils.
• Labelling - black pupils (Fuller)

  High achieving black girls maintained a positive self image of themselves by rejecting stereotypes and not seeking the teachers approval.
• Labelling - black pupils (Mirza)


  Black girls' strategies for dealing with teacher racism still disadvantages them, for example they would not ask for the teacher's help.
• Labelling - Asian pupils (Wright)


  Asian primary school pupils were stereotyped and treated differently. Teachers would use simple language because they assumed they would speak poor English.
• Pupil subcultures (Sewell)


  • Conformists - keen to succeed, accepted the school's goals
  • Innovators - value success but not the teachers' approval
  • Retreatists - disconnected from school and black subcultures
  • Rebels - rejected the school's goals and conformed to the stereotype of a black macho lad