Social Class Differences in Achievement – Outside of School

• Kids from poorer households have less intake of vitamins
• Housing


  Waldfogel & Washbrook
• Overcrowding in houses means it's harder to study
• Financial cost of education

  Lack of income means children from poorer families must go without
• 20% of those eligible for free school meals don't take them due to stigma
• "selection by mortgage"
• The cost of items needed for schools puts pressure on poorer families. Total is $1614
• Some students from poorer families take on part time jobs to help their parent which then takes them away from their studies
• Intellectual development


  Douglas - MC students score higher on tests of ability when young as their parents offer more educational support
• Language and speech codes

  • Bereiter and Engleman - language is important in schools and WC students don't learn the language skills
  • Bernstein - MC learn elaborated speech code (wide vocab and long sentences) and WC learn restricted speech code (short sentences and limited vocab)
• Parental attitudes


  Douglas - parents' attitudes influence students' success in education. WC parents place less value on educational success
• Parental education


  Feinstein - parent's own education is the most important factor and MC parents can give their children an advantage by parenting style, parents' educational behaviours and use of income (Bernstein and Young)
• Working class subcultural values

  Sugarman - Fatalism, collectivism, present time orientation, immediate gratification
• Cultural and social capital

  • Bourdieu - MC have greater cultural capital
  • Sullivan - questionnaire, students who watched documentaries have a wider vocabulary
• Bernstein - some children from WC families still do well at school if teachers talk to them in elaborated speech code. WC underachievement is due to internal factors
• Troyna and Williams - the problem isn't Wc but is the teachers attitudes towards language and they have a speech hierarchy
• Blackstone and Mortimore - WC parents attend fewer parents' evenings not due to lack of interest but due to working long hours
• Reay - this is a 'victim blaming' approach by placing blame within the home of WC students and suggesting WC culture is subordinate
• Keddie - sees cultural deprivation as a 'myth' and sees it as 'victim blaming' as a child cannot be deprived of its own culture but they ae simply culturally different. The system is dominated by MC values, leading to WC underachievement
• Compensatory education


  • Sure start - preschool students living in the most deprived areas could receive early intervention and support
  • Education maintenance allowance - a weekly payment to post-16 students on low income to encourage them to stay in education and go to university
  • Education action zones - gov focuses on areas with low educational attainment to encourage whole communities to be involved in creating an ethos of learning
  • Excellence in cities - compensatory education policy focusing on raising the aspirations of WC boys
  • Aim higher - encouraging students from deprived areas to attend university
  • Pupil premium - extra funding to children on free school meals
  • Free school meals - children from low-income families are provided with a free meal at school
• Marketisation


  • The education reform act - introduced marketisation to education and introduced policies such as league tables and Ofsted leading to greater parental choice. It enables parents to become like consumers in judging the best schools. It has also to a wider range of school types and greater parentocracy.
  • Gewirtz - carried out research into the effects of marketisation and identifies 3 types of parents: Privileged - skilled choosers (middle-class): fully utilise choice, Disconnected - local choosers (working class): due to lack of capital they find admissions difficult, Semi-skilled choosers (working class): ambitious for their children however they lack capital so rely on opinions about schools