sociology paper 1

• Durkheim - Secondary Socialisation


  Schools act as "miniature societies", preparing us for wider society
• Schools prepare us for wider society by

  • Learning to work with and cooperate with other people
  • Developing social solidarity, a sense of belonging/community through teaching the nations history
  • Developing specialist skills, particular students will excel at subjects like chemistry, maths and biology geared towards the more important jobs in society. Those who succeed in these fields will have the best jobs
• Summary of Durkheim's Secondary Socialisation


  • Social solidarity
  • Specialist skills
  • Mini societies
  • Secondary socialisation
• Parsons - Particularistic/Universal Standards


  Schools bridge the gap between families and society, helping children to cope with the wider world
• Status in the family


  • Ascribed - born into the role
  • Achieved - earned the role
• Implies that our efforts determine our success
• Schools hold students to universalistic standards


  All children are treated equally in comparison to the special treatment at home of particularistic standards
• Status in schools


  Achieved, not ascribed
• Education


  The bridge between particularistic and universalistic standards
• Meritocracy

  • A system based on ability
  • Advantages and opportunities are given to people based on their abilities instead of their wealth or seniority.
  • Status and position are achieved.

  Davis & Moore - Role Allocation 

  • Education sifts and sorts young people according to their abilities.
  • Inequality is necessary so that the most important roles in society are filled by the most talented.
  • The brightest people gain the most demanding jobs and therefore a higher pay.
• Repressive state apparatus


  Maintaining the rule of the bourgeoisie through physical force/threat. E.g police, courts, prisons
• Ideological state apparatus


  Maintaining a non physical rule of the bourgeoisie by controlling people's values and beliefs. E.g media, education and religion
• Education has replaced the church as the main agency of social control
• Education transmits ideologies that teach that capitalism is just and reasonable
• Education prepares pupils to be in the work force and accept their future exploitation
• Education conditions pupils to respect authority, typically of the higher pay grade and withholding the power to exploit them
• Bowles & Gintis: 'Education legitimises social inequality by pushing the myth that everybody is offered an equal chance to succeed'
• Those in higher classes


  Are more likely to succeed due to a wider access of better education e.g being able to choose the best schools or tutors
• Cultural Capital (Bourdieu)


  The middle class have an advantage with an access to higher culture such as holidays and trips to historic landmarks, allowing children to learn that way
• Types of Capital


  • Economic capital = financial resources
  • Social capital = social networks + contacts
  • Symbolic capital = honour, prestige, nobility or reputation
• Bourdon


  Cost of Persistence
• Willis - Case Study of the 12 Working Class Lads


  Studied working class boys in Wolverhampton 1977, formed an anti school subculture
• Behaviours praised by the working class boys

  • Messing about
  • Truancy
  • Bad behaviour
  • Discrimination such as racism, sexism and homophobia
• The working class boys viewed those who treated education properly as "swots"
• The working class boys were antagonistic to what Parsons and Durkheim have to say


  School did not hold a value consensus as there was an active rejection of the norms and values of society
• The working class boys


  Saw school as something to endure until they could work a job, and even then they laughed off their physical labour jobs
• The working class boys' behaviours

  Benefiting capitalism through a lack of meritocracy and a learned coping mechanism
• Becker - Labelling Theory

  • Teachers label a pupil based upon stereotypes or perceptions
  • The teacher treats the pupil as if these predictions are already true
  • A self fulfilling prophecy occurs.
  • E.g a teacher labels a pupil to be smart, seeing that they’ve emerged from a background that predicts they will do so. The teacher encourages and promotes this pupil. The student begins to achieve higher and it is pushed by further encouragement. The prophecy  is fulfilled through the success of this student.
• Research:

  • Based on interviews with 60 Chicago high school teachers
  • Teachers judged pupils based upon their idea of an ideal pupil. Based on their work, behaviour and appearance.
  • Middle class pupils fit this idea the most.
• Gillborn & Youdell - Educational Triage,

  Teachers will prioritise students with passing grades, the A*- C economy and leave out those expected to fail.
• Rist - Clowns & Tigers

  • American kindergarten teachers made assumptions about students based upon their appearance and label after 8 days.
  • The working class were more likely to be labelled.
  • The study investigated the placement of working class students across the classroom, finding that the WC children were placed further away than the middle class students, placed predominantly closest to the teacher.

  The middle class pupils were labelled tigers whereas the working class pupils were called clowns.
• Bourdieu states that middle class students have the ability to define their own habitus (Taken for granted ways of thinking, acting and being shared by a particular social class), and impose this upon the education system. Schools have habitus that therefore match that of the middle class and through this, middle class students gain symbolic capital.
• Material deprivation


  Poverty and a lack of physical necessities like adequate housing, resources and income
• Smith & Noble - Housing & Catchment Area


  • Poverty and home circumstances can be barriers to learning
  • A poor catchment and poor housing limits the working class to a lower quality education
• Howard - Diet & Health


  • Young people from poorer homes have lower intakes of energy, vitamins and minerals, this poor nutrition weakens the immune system and lowers energy levels
  • This may mean more health problems and increasing sick days as well as poorer concentration
• Cultural deprivation


  A lack of norms, values, skills and attitudes required for academic success
• Sugarman - 4 key features


  • Fatalism - nothing that can be done to change their status, must accept it
  • Collectivism - value success as a group over as individuals
  • Immediate gratification - seeking pleasure now rather than later, e.g getting a job now instead of going to university (deferred gratification)
  • Present time orientation - The present is more important than the future
• The middle class prefer


  Deferred gratification
• The working class prefer


  Immediate gratification
• Douglas - Parental Impact


  • Working class parents put less importance on education, making children less ambitious
  • In comparison to middle school parents who attend parents evening, encouraging children to stay in education and paying more attention to the child to heighten their abilities e.g reading to them