Education - Sociology

• Durkheim Key Ideas

  • Education is to transmit society's norms and values.
  • Through sanctions and punishment, students learn respect.
  • Education equips children with the skills they need for the future.
• State Schools

  • not based on parent's social class
  • intake is more socially mixed
  • may provide a route of upward social mobility for low-income family students
• Halsey, Heath, and Ridge

  • used surveys
  • examined the social class origins and educational destinations of a large sample of men
  • They divided the group in three groups - service class, intermediate class, working class.
  • They found evidence that service class people got more chances compared to the other classes.
• Explanations for class-based differences in achievement

  • middle-class parents can afford private tuition and property in the catchment area of good schools.
  • poor housing and overcrowding affect mostly working class children.
  • higher class students are more likely to have materials to help them studying
• Cultural deprivation

  • The sub-culture of some low-income groups inhibits educational achievement.
• Cultural Capital

  • the knowledge, attitudes and values that the middle class provide for their children that give them an advantage in the education system
• Ball, Bowe and Gewirtz: The Impact of Market Forces on Parental Choice
• Ball, Bowe and Gewirtz (Marxist)

  • used interviews
  • Focuses on the effects that parental choice and competition between schools has on the education system
  • league tables - higher rank, more students
  • marketisation reinforce the advantages of middle-class parents and make education less equal
• Marketisation

  • the policy of bringing market forces (like competition and choice) into education
• educational reform

  • changes to the educational system
• Interactionism

  • focuses on small scale interactions between individuals
• labelling

  • the process of attaching a label, characteristic or definition to individuals or groups
• self-fulfilling prophecy

  • occurs when a person who has been labeled comes to fit the image people have of them
• streaming

  • students are allocated to a class based on their general ability
• setting

  • students are allocated to classes based on their attainment in particular subjects such as english
• effects of streaming and setting

  • streaming is often linked to social class - lower stream students are mostly working class students
  • students in lower classes have less confidence so they may not try to improve
  • teachers may give less attention for lower streams
• Stephen Ball (beachside comprehension)

  • used participant observation
  • working class are more likely to be placed in lower-ability bands.
  • people that have the similar attitudes ended up in lower bands as well. this led to leaving school with fewer qualifications
• anti-school subculture

  • a school based group of students who resist the school
• material deprivation

  • the inability to afford basic resources and services such as sufficient food and heating
• ethnocentric curriculum

  • a view that is ethnocentric (biased towards white, european culture)
• Institutional racism

  • occurs when an organisation fails to provide an appropriate service to people because of their ethnic origin, culture or colour
• gendered curriculum

  • a curriculum in which some subjects are associated with masculinity and others are associated with femininity
• Paul Willis - Marxist

  • used an ethnographic case study of 12 working-class boys in a single-sex secondary modern school
  • "messing about" is rewarded and being pro-school is seen as bad
• From a Marxist perspective, Willis sees the education system as serving capitalism. From an Interactionist approach, he explores the interaction between teachers and students at school and how boys make sense of their experiences of schooling.
• Criticisms of Willis

  • Feminists - ignores the experience of girls and celebrates lad culture
  • Functionalists - education is a teaching knowledge and skills and as linked to role allocation based on equality of opportunity
  • small sample size - not possible to generalise