10) Educational Achievement: Class (Internal Factors)

• Middle Class


  occupations that are mostly white collar and professional jobs.

  • highly educated
• Working Class

  mostly blue collar and manual jobs.

  • low educational achievement
• Internal Factors

  factors inside of the school which influence educational achievement.
• Educational Triage 


  putting students into 3 streams.

  M/C in the top streams

  C/D boarder line

  W/C in the lower streams
• A-C Economy


  schools are judged based on the number of students who achieve A-C grades at GCSE.
• Labelling

  teachers often attach a label to a pupil that has little to do with their actual ability or aptitude. Instead they form an opinion of the student based on how close the students fit the ideal pupil. Becker suggests that teacher/ pupil interactions are based upon these labels and can lead to a self fulfilling prophecy where the students take on the label and act accordingly
• Labelling - impact on achievement

  Self fulfilling prophecy

  Rejection of the label - Margaret Fuller’s (1984) research on black girls in a London comprehensive school found that the black girls she researched were labelled as low-achievers, but their response to this negative labelling was to knuckle down and study hard to prove their teachers and the school wrong.
• Labelling - Evaluation

  Deterministic

  Focuses on the negative effects Labelling theory attributes too much importance to ‘teacher agency’ (the autonomous power of teachers to influence and affect pupils) – structural sociologists might point out that schools themselves encourage teachers to label students

  Teacher training.
• Self Fulfilling Prophecy 


  When students take on the label that is attributed to them by the teacher or school. This can either be a positive or negative label.
• Self Fulfilling Prophecy - Impact on Achievement

  • A negative label usually placed on W/C students can lead to students forming an anti- school subculture and underachieve at school.
  • A positive label usually applied to M/C students due to ideal pupil characteristics can lead to a pro-school subculture and help students to achieve at school.
• Self Fulfilling Prophecy - Evaluation

  Deterministic

  Rejection of the label - Margaret Fuller’s (1984) research on black girls in a London comprehensive school found that the black girls she researched were labelled as low-achievers, but their response to this negative labelling was to knuckle down and study hard to prove their teachers and the school wrong.
• Setting/ Streaming 


  Setting is the placement of students into ability classes within individual subjects.

  Streaming is the placement of students into ability groups going across all subjects.
• Setting / Streaming - Impact on Achievement


  W/C students are usually placed in the lower streams/sets which can lead to lower self esteem and therefore under achieve. Being placed in lower streams can also limit student achievement by not allowing them access to opportunities to achieve.
• Setting/ Steaming - Evaluation 


  Setting and streaming allow for higher ability students to be stretched and the lower ability students to be supported which can lead to higher achievement.
• Pupil Sub Cultures 


  Anti-School Subcultures

  • Lower streams
  • rejection of school values
  • truanting
  • Disruption
  • not doing homework

  Pro-School Subcultures

  • committed to school values
  • gain approval/ status through academic success
• Pupil Sub Culture - Impact on Achievement 


  W/C are more likely to be part of an anti-school subculture where by status is not achieved through educational achievement but through disruptive behaviour and therefore unlikely to achieve at school.
• Pupil Sub Culture - Evaluation 


  not all students become part of a pro or anti school subculture.
• Pupils class identity

  Habitus – learned or taken for granted ways of thinking, being or acting that are shared by a particular social class (Bourdieu)

  • It includes their tastes, outlook on life, expectations and what is normal or realistic for people ‘like us’
• Pupils class identity - impact on Achievement

  • M/C have power to set the habitus of the school giving M/C students an advantage.
  • W/C habitus is devalued by schools and W/C students felt that they had to change who they are in order to be academically successful.
  • W/C habitus sees HE as undesirable and unrealistic.
• Pupils Class Identity - Evaluation

  Postmodernists argue that class doesn’t have as much of an impact on students identity anymore due to the pick and mix culture.