Social class and educational achievement

• Material deprivation


  The inability to afford basic resources and services such as sufficient food and heating
• Material deprivation generally has a negative effect on educational achievement
• Low household income


  Correlated with poor educational performance
• Ways poverty can negatively affect educational performance


  1. Children in poor homes more likely to live in cold/damp conditions leading to more absence from school

  2. More likely to skip meals, unable to concentrate

  3. Less able to afford 'hidden costs' of education

  4. Less likely to have private study space

  5. Poorer parents less likely to afford pre-school/nursery

  6. More likely to have part-time jobs conflicting with study

  7. Schools in poorer areas have to devote more resources to social problems
• Material deprivation is not the only form of deprivation, contrasted with cultural deprivation
• Evidence for material deprivation


  • Ball (2005) on marketisation and school choice
  • Conner et al (2001) and Forsyth & Furlong (2003) on tuition fees deterring working class
  • Feinstein (2003) on low income and low cognitive skills
• Over 75% of teachers reported students experienced hunger/fatigue due to poverty
• Over 50% of teachers reported students were ill and missed school due to poverty
• Over 30% of teachers reported students were bullied due to poverty
• Nearly all schools reported pandemic harmed poor students more and they relied on schools more
• 1.9 million pupils eligible for Free School Meals in 2022, but 800,000 more working poor not eligible
• 1.7 million school days lost in EU due to illnesses related to damp and mold, UK highest rate
• 33% of working class students skip meals compared to 24% middle class, 10% vs 4% moved home to save money
• Possible policy solutions


  • Providing free textbooks, computers, homework clubs
  • Universal Free School Meals to remove stigma
  • Schools setting up foodbanks and breakfast clubs
  • But funding cuts make these difficult to implement
• Wider structural inequalities like 'selection by mortgage' are unlikely to be addressed by school-level policies
• Cultural deprivation


  The inferior values of the working class, including immediate gratification and fatalism
• Cultural deprivation theory holds that some groups, such as the lower social classes, have inferior norms, values, skills and knowledge which prevent them from achieving in education
• Cultural deprivation theory


  • Inferior language skills, and the fact that working class parents do not value education are largely to blame for working class underachievement, rather than material deprivation
• Ways in which cultural deprivation can disadvantage children in education


  • Working class parents may show a lack of interest in their children's education
  • Lower class parents are less able to help their children with homework
  • Lower class children are more likely to speak in a restricted speech code
  • Working class children are more concerned with immediate gratification rather than deferred gratification
  • The underclass has a higher than average percentage of single parent families
• Restricted speech code


  Rather than the elaborated speech code - Basil Bernstein argued this
• Immediate gratification


  A focus on seeking pleasure in the moment, rather than delaying pleasure for future reward
• Deferred gratification


  Delaying pleasure for future reward
• Compared to the middle classes, the working classes placed a lower value on education, placed a lower value on achieving high occupational status, and believed there was less opportunity for social advancement
• The working classes are more likely to have immediate gratification, fatalism, present-time orientation, and collectivism compared to the middle classes
• Recent evidence for cultural deprivation theory


  • Connor et al (2001) focus group interviews
  • Leon Fenstein (2003) research on restricted speech code
• The studies on cultural and material deprivation show that they are related
• If we look at ethnicity and gender differences in achievement


  It seems that it isn't just cultural deprivation but also material deprivation that explains underachievement
• Marxists would argue that cultural deprivation theorists blame the working class parents for the underachievement of their children whereas these parents are really the victims of an unequal society in which schools are run by the middle classes for the middle classes
• Both Hyman and Sugarman may have exaggerated the differences between working class and middle class culture, and especially today the class structure is much more complex
• Cultural capital


  The skills, knowledge, attitudes and tastes through which typically middle class parents are able to give their children an advantage in life compared to working class children
• Social capital


  The support and information provided by contacts and social networks which can be converted into educational success and material rewards
• Cultural capital theory is sometimes seen as the opposite of cultural deprivation theory which blames educational failure of the working classes on the inferior values of their parents
• Cultural capital theory is about middle class advantage, it is about middle class parents being able to give more help to their children which means they do better in school compared to working class children
• Schools are seen as middle class institutions (teachers and managers are middle class) and so middle class kids tend to fit in with school norms more easily, and are less likely to clash with the school, which also helps with their education
• Three ways parents use their cultural capital


  • Middle class parents are better educated and are more able to help their children with homework
  • Middle class parents are more skilled in researching schools
  • Middle class parents teach their children the value of deferred gratification
• Two ways parents use their social capital


  • They speak to parents of children who already attend the best schools
  • They are more likely to know professionals who work in the best schools
• Supporting evidence for cultural capital theory


  • Diane Reay (1988) argued that mothers make cultural capital work for their children. Her research is based on the mothers of 33 children at two London primary schools. The mothers of working class children worked just as hard as the middle class mothers. But the cultural capital of the MC mothers gave their children an advantage.
  • Stephen Ball (2006) has argued that government policies of choice and competition place the middle class at an advantage. Ball refers to middle class parents as 'skilled choosers'. Compared to working class parents (disconnected choosers) they are more comfortable with dealing with public institutions like schools, they are more used to extracting and assessing information. They use social networks to talk to parents whose children are attending the schools on offer and they are more used to dealing with and negotiating with administrators and teachers. As a result, if entry to a school is limited, they are more likely to gain a place for their child.
• Something else Ball referred to was the school/ parent alliance: Middle class parents want middle class schools and schools want middle class pupils. In general the schools with more middle class students have better results.. Schools see middle class students as easy to teach and likely to perform well. They will maintain the schools position in the league tables and its status in the education market.
• The role of cultural capital: evaluations

  • Cultural capital has proved difficult to operationalise and measure
  • However, more and more research suggests this is important in explaining middle class success and working class failure
  • Helps to explain why the Middle classes always do better despite compensatory education