EDUCATION WITH THEORY AND METHODS

• Durkheim 


  socialisation and social solidarity

  the education system meets a functional pre-request of society by passing on the cultural and values of society

  this is achieved in PSHE lessons and the hidden curriculum

  this builds on social solidarity as it teaches core values of society
• parsons 


  bridge between family and society

  parsons believed that
• role allocation


  the education system provides a mean to selecting and sifting people into their social solidarity (Davis and Moore)

  in a meritocratic society access to jobs and power, wealth and status are directly linked to educational achievement
• Althusser 


  reproduction of social inequality

  • education deliberate engineers w/c failure in order to create an unqualified factory work force
  • private education prepares children for the elite positions of power
  • hidden curriculum is shaped to assist middle class achievement and deter working class achievement
• Althusser part 2


  middle class has access to more cultural and economic capital which puts them at an advantage

  education encourages students to blindly accept capitalist values through the hidden curriculum
• Bowles and Gintis 


  correspondence principle

  • school processes mirror the world of work in order to prepare them for manual labour
  • examples include
  • lack of control
  • obedience
  • achieved status
  • discipline and consequences
  • boredom
• Bernstein 


  language codes

  restricted VS elaborated

  w/c have limited vocabulary, short and unfinished sentences ,simple, context bound

  m/c wider vocab

  teaches are more likely to have m/c vocab
• Rosenthal and Jacobson 


  field experiment

  • fake IQ test given to students
  • random 20% students identified as bright
  • went back after a year and found those students had made more progress than the others
• Bourdieu


  three types of capital both material and cultural factors

  cultural capital:

  referring to knowledge attitudes values, language and abilities of middle class

  Economic capital:

  referring to money and household

  educational capital:
• Bourdieu part 2 


  argued that these types of capital could be converted from one to another and were interlinked

  e.g. middle class have the economic capital to be able to provide for cultural experiences e.g. holidays abroad and trips which can lead to educational achievement

  economic capital can also be used for private tuition to increase attainment
• colley


  investigated reasons for which subjects persisted in secondary schools in 1990s

  identified gender roles subject prefrences and learning enviroment as specific factors

  girls in a single sex schools are twice as likely to study maths at university due to cultural pressures to not study maths are less likely to exist in single sex schools
• smith and noble 


  range of external factors causing persistent w/c underachievement includes material deprivation

  'hidden costs' of education which w/c household struggle are unable to fund

  material deprivation:

  ''barriers to learning'' resulting in the poverty penalty

  this prevents working class pupils from fulfilling their potential
• Becker


  1970s Becker argued that m/c teachers have an ''ideal pupils'' that is middle class

  pupil: elaborated speech code is polite and smartly dressed

  argued that m/c teachers are likely to view m/c students more positively than w/c pupils

  irrespective of their intelligence
• Sue Sharpe 


  interviewed girls about career aspirations

  concluded that due to increased employment opportunities

  females have become more ambitious and higher professionals in the workforce
• Strand

  2007

  analysis of data from a 2004 longitudinal study of young people

  found that Indian students are the ethnic group most likely to complete homework five evenings a week

  the group where parents are more likely to say they always know where their child is when they are out
• ball

  research about beachside comprehensive

  setting and streaming

  streaming had a negative effect on w/c pupils

  they are more likely to be in lower sets
• Mac an Ghaill

  1994

  there has been a crisis of masculinity due to the decline in manual jobs

  he argues this has led to an identity crisis

  made it easier to question their need for qualification when the jobs they would have traditionally gone into no longer exist
• Gillborn 


  teachers were quicker to discipline black pupils than others for the same behaviour

  teachers expected black pupils to present more discipline problems and misinterpreted their behaviour as threatening or challenging to authority

  more likely to be streamed into lower sets because of negative label which may lead to a self fulfilling prophecy
• Gillborn pt2


  found that Asian pupils were often spoke childish to because teachers would assume they had no command of the English language

  they were often let out of class discussions

  they were then seen as not a threat
• Reay


  1988

  argued that mothers make cultural capital work for their children

  research is based on the mothers of 33 children at two London primary schools

  mothers of w/c children worked just as hard as m/c children's mothers

  cultural capital of m/c parents gave children advantages
• cecile wright

  ethnographic study of four inner city primary schools suggest that the teacher labelling of ethnic minorities leads them more to have a negative experience of school over white

  main conclusion:

  some staff seemed genuinely committed to the ideals of treating students equally, in practice there was discrimination in the classrooms
• Cecile wright

  asian students were often excluded from the classroom discussions as teacher thought they had a poor grasp of english language

  if they were involved they often used simplistic language

  teachers expected black Caribbean students to be poorly behaved
• Sullivan

  completed a study to assess students cultural capital

  used questionnaires

  students who show greater cultural capital were children of graduates and more likely to succeed in GCSEs
• becky francis

  asked parents of more than 60 3-5 year olds what they percieve to be their child's favourite toy

  found that parental choices for boys were characterised by toys that involved action, construction

  tendency to steer girls towards dolls and perceived 'famine interests' such as hairdressing
• connolly

  stereotyping asian students

  teachers had high expectations that south asian british boys would perform well in school

  asian girls were generally successful teachers tended to overlook them due to being passive and reluctant to discuss issues relating to family life
• willis

  research involved visiting one school and observing and interviewing 12 working class rebellious boys about attitudes at school during the last 18 months

  lads attached no value for academic work more to 'having a laugh'

  saw school as irrelevant