Topic 1 - Class Differences in Achievement

• Class patterns of achievement


  Working-class pupils in general achieve less than middle-class pupils in education. Children of higher professionals are almost twice as likely as children of manual workers to get five or more GCSE passes at grade 4 or above, and more than twice as likely to go to university.
• Explanations for class differences in achievement


  • External or home background factors that lie outside the school
  • Internal factors within the school and the education system
• Home background factors


  • Cultural factors (class differences in norms, values, attitudes to education, speech codes etc)
  • Material factors (physical necessities of life, such as adequate housing, diet and income)
• Cultural deprivation theory


  Some working-class parents fail to transmit the aspirations, motivation, values, attitudes, language skills etc needed for educational success
• Factors responsible for working-class under-achievement according to cultural deprivation theory


  • Working-class subculture (immediate gratification, fatalism, low value on education)
  • Language (restricted speech code)
  • Parents' education
• Critics argue that working-class parents don't attend parents' evenings because they work longer hours, or because they feel inferior to the teachers - not because they aren't interested in their children's education
• Elaborated and restricted speech codes


  Elaborated code (used by middle class) is more analytic, with a wide vocabulary and complex sentences. Restricted code (used by working class) is less analytic and more descriptive, has a limited vocabulary and is formed of simple sentences or even just gestures.
• Parents' education


  The most important factor affecting children's achievement. Middle-class parents tend to have higher qualifications, so their children gain an advantage through parenting style, educational behaviours, and use of income.
• Criticisms of cultural deprivation theory


  • It blames the victims for their failure
  • The working class are not culturally deprived - they simply have a different culture from the school, which puts them at a disadvantage
  • It ignores the impact of school factors such as labelling, and the impact of material factors such as poverty
  • It has led to policies such as compensatory education that blame under-achievement on lack of aspiration and poor parenting
• Material deprivation


  Poverty can cause working-class under-achievement through factors such as poor housing, poor diet, and the financial costs of education
• Not all children fail - those with supportive parents may have high levels of motivation. Material deprivation theory also ignores factors in school such as teacher labelling and streaming, which may cause under-achievement.
• Cultural capital theory


  Middle-class pupils are more successful than working-class pupils because their parents possess more economic capital (wealth) and cultural capital (attitudes, values, skills, knowledge)
• Labelling


  Teachers label middle-class children as 'ideal pupils' and prefer to teach them rather than working-class children
• Self-fulfilling prophecy


  Teachers' labels and beliefs about pupils' abilities become a reality, as pupils live up (or down) to the teacher's expectations
• Streaming


  Putting all pupils of similar ability together into the same class or 'stream' for all subjects. This often creates a self-fulfilling prophecy, as pupils in lower streams are denied access to the same curriculum and their IQ actually falls over time.
• Pupil subcultures


  Pro-school subcultures (formed by pupils in higher streams) accept the school's values, while anti-school subcultures (formed by those in lower streams) reject the school's values and often invert them.
• Focusing on internal factors may mean we neglect the role of home background factors, such as poverty & cultural deprivation. An adequate account of under-achievement needs to take these into consideration too.
• Habitus


  A social class's habitual ways of thinking, being and acting, e.g. lifestyles and expectations about what is normal for 'people like us'.
• Symbolic capital and symbolic violence

  School commits symbolic violence by devaluing working-class pupils' habitus, judging their clothing, accent, interests etc as tasteless, illegitimate and inferior, and denying them symbolic capital (recognition and status).
• 'Nike' identities


  Working-class pupils create alternative class identities and gain symbolic capital from peers through consuming branded goods, but this leads to conflict with the school's middle-class habitus.
• 'Losing yourself'


  Succeeding at school means being inauthentic, changing how you presented yourself to fit in. 'Nike' identities are authentic but they cause conflict with school.
• Working-class identity and educational success


  Working-class pupils experience a tension between their neighbourhood's habitus and that of their middle-class school, and feel their identity would not 'fit in' with the habitus of elite universities.
• Educational policies


  Government policies on issues such as grants, fees, maintenance allowances, the school leaving age, compensatory education etc have an impact on home background factors such as material or cultural deprivation.