Material Deprivation

• Material deprivation


  Poverty and a lack of material necessity, such as adequate housing and income
• According to the department of education, barely a third of pupils eligible for free school meals achieve five or more GCSEs are at A*-C, including English and maths, as against nearly 2/3 of other pupils
• According to Flaherty money problems in the family, I significant factor in younger children's non-attendance at school
• Exclusion and truancy are more likely for children from poor families. These are unlikely to return to mainstream education while a third of all persistent truant leave School with no qualifications
• Nearly 90% of failing schools are in deprived areas
• Overcrowding


  • Makes it harder for the child to study
  • Less room for educational activities
  • Nowhere to do homework
  • Disturbed sleep from sharing beds and bedrooms
• Families living in temporary accommodation


  • Frequent changes of school
  • Disrupted education
• Poor housing


  • Can have effects on children's health and welfare
  • Children in crowded homes run a greater risk of accident
  • Cold or damp housing can also cause ill health
• Diet and health


  • Young people from poor homes have lower intakes of energy vitamins and minerals
  • Poor nutrition affects health by weakening the immune system and lowering children's energy levels
  • This may consequently result in more absences from school due to illness
• Children from poor households


  • More likely to have emotional or behavioural issues
  • Higher rate of hyperactivity anxiety and conduct disorders
  • All of which are likely to have a negative effect on the child's education
• Blanden and Machin found that children from low-income families were more likely to engage in externalising behaviours such as fighting which are likely to disrupt their schooling
• Lack of financial support


  • Children from poor families must do without equipment
  • Miss out on experiences that would enhance their educational achievement
• Costs of free schooling

  Items such as transport uniforms book computers music or art equipment place a heavy burden on poor families
• As a result, poor children may have to make with hand me downs and cheaper but unfashionable equipment and this may result in being isolated stigmatised or bullied by their peers
• According to Flaherty fear of stigmatisation may also help to explain why 20% of those eligible for free school meals do not take up their entitled
• Poverty


  • Acts as a barrier to learning
  • Inability to afford private schooling or tuition
  • Poorer quality local schools
• Lack of funds also means that children from low-income families often need to work
• Fear of debt


  • Attitudes towards depth made to working class students from going to university
  • Working class students are more debt averse as they saw more costs than benefits to going into university
  • Working class students were over five times less likely to apply than the most debt tolerance students - middle class
• The increase in tuition fees from 2012 to a maximum of £9000 per year means that there is an increase in debt burden this will further the tear work in class students from applying to university. For example, according to UCAS from 2012, the number of UK applicants fell by 8.6% in 2012 compared to the previous year
• Father working class students who do go to university or less likely to receive financial support from home for example, a national union of students in 2010 through an online survey of 3863 university students found another 81% of those from the highest social class received help from four as against 43% of those from the lowest class
• Financial factors


  • Restrict working class, students' choice of universities
  • Working class students were more likely to apply to local universities so they could live at home and save on travel cost
  • This gave them less opportunity to go to the highest status universities
  • They were more likely to work part time
  • This therefore makes it difficult for them to gain the higher class
• Dropout rates are also higher from universities with a large population of poor students, for example, 16.6% of dropouts at the London, Metropolitan University as against only 1.5% of Oxford, when nearly half of the students come from private schools
• The national audit office found that working-class students spent twice as much time in paid work to reduce their debts as middle- class students
• Cultural or material factor


  • Material factors clearly play a part in achievement, but the fact that some children from poor families do succeeds suggest that material deprivation only part of the explanation
  • The cultural, religious, or political values of the family may play a part in creating and sustaining the children's motivation, even despite their poverty
  • Educated parents make a positive contribution to a child's achievements, regardless of their income levels
• Mortimore and Whitty argue that material inequalities have the greatest effect on achievement
• Robinson argues that tackling children's poverty would be the most effective way to boost achievement