class differences

• Cultural Deprivation: Language


  • Hubbs-Tait – parents that use language to get children to evaluate their own abilities improves cognitive performance (e.g. what do you think?)
  • Less educated parents use language in ways that require children to make simple less descriptive statements. This results in lower performance
• CD - Speech Codes

  • Restricted – used by working class, limited vocab, grammatically simple, predictable speech
  • Elaborated – used by middle class, wide vocab, grammatically complex, abstract ideas
• CD - Speech Codes

  Middle class are at an advantage because teachers, textbooks and exams use elaborated code. They feel ‘at home’ and are likely to succeed. Working class feel excluded and are less successful
• CD - Parent's Education:

  • Douglas – working-class parents place less value on education. They are less ambitious for their children and provide less encouragement and interest. They also visit school less often
• CD - Parent's Education:

  Feinstein – parent’s education affects children’s achievement in many ways:

  • Parenting style
  • Parent's educational behaviour
  • Use income
• CD - Parent's Education - Feinstein

  Parenting style – educated parents emphasise consistent discipline, have high expectations and support achievement by encouraging active learning and exploration. Less educated parents are inconsistent with their discipline and place emphasis on ‘doing as your told’
• CD - Parent's Education - Feinstein

  Parent’s educational behaviours – educated parents are aware of how to assist their child’s progress. They are better able to get advice and are able to establish good relationships with teachers. They recognise value of visit to museums and libraries
• CD - Parent's Education - Feinstein

  Use of income – better educated parents use their income in ways that promote educational success. Middle class mothers are likely to buy educational toys and books. They also have a better understanding of nutrition and its importance in child development
• CD - Working Class Subcultures - Sugarman (4 features)

  1. Fatalism – ‘whatever will be, will be’ attitude and there is nothing you can do to change your status. Middle class – you can change your position through efforts

  2. Collectivism – value being part of a group more than succeeding individually. Middle class – individuals should not be held back by group loyalties
• CD - Working Class Subcultures - Sugarman (4 features)

  3. Immediate gratification – seeking pleasure now. Middle class – emphasis on deferred gratification, sacrifices now for greater rewards later

  4. Present-time orientation – seeing the present as more important and so not setting any long-term goals or plans. Middle class – future time orientation that sees planning for the future as important
• Myth of Cultural Deprivation:

  • Keddie – cultural deprivation is a victim-blaming explanation. A child cannot be deprived of their own culture; they are simply culturally different

  Blackstone and Mortimore – working class parents attend less parents evening because they work longer, more irregular hours, not because they are not interested in their child’s education
• MD - Housing

  Housing:

  • Overcrowding - less room for educational activities such as revision and homework. It can also mean disturbed sleep from sharing bedrooms
  • Families in temporary accommodation move frequently and so this results in constant changes of schools and disrupted education
  • Crowding leads to higher risk of accident, cold or damp can lead to ill health. These problems all result in a higher number of school absences
• MD - Diet and Health

  • Howard – people from poorer homes have less intake on vitamins and minerals which weakens their immune system. This can result in more absences and difficulties concentrating in class
  • Wilkinson – among 10 year olds of lower social classes, there are higher rated or hyperactivity and anxiety which can have a negative effect on their education
• MD - Cost of Education

  • Tanner – the cost of books, uniform, laptops and travel places a burden on poor families
  • Flaherty – 20% of those eligible for free school meals do not take up their entitlement due to fear of stigmatisation
  • Smith and Noble – poverty means that the working class cannot afford private schooling or tuition
• MD - Fear of Debt

  • Going to university involved getting into debt to cover tuition and living expenses
  • Calendar and Jackson – working class students are more debt averse – see debt negatively and as something to avoid. They see more costs than benefits to going to university
  • Working class students are five times less likely to apply for university. If they do apply, it is to local university’s and they live at home to save on travel costs. This fives them less opportunities for high status universities
  • Working class students are also likely to work to cover expenses
• Cultural Capital

  Bourdieu – material and cultural factors are both interrelated factors that contribute to achievement. He identifies three types of capital that the middle class tend to possess more of:

  • Cultural
  • Economic + educational
• Cultural Capital - Bourdieu (3 types)

  1. Cultural capital – the knowledge, attitudes, value and abilities of the middle class. Through socialisation they gain the ability to express abstract ideas and develop an understanding of what the education system requires for success
  2. The middle class are at an advantage as their abilities and interests are rewarded with qualifications. The education system favours and transmit the middle class culture
  3. The working class devalue working class culture as rough and inferior. Therefore, their lack of capital leads to failure
• Cultural Capital - Bourdieu (3 types)

  2. Educational/Economic capital – both can be converted into one another. E.g. a middle class student with cultural capital can meet the demands of the school and gain qualifications. Wealthy parents with economic capital can convert it into educational capital and send their children to private schools or pay for tuition
• Labelling

  Teachers label pupils based on their assumptions on their class background. Middle class are given positive labels and the working class are given negative ones
• Labelling

  Becker – teachers judge pupils according to how close they fit the image of the ‘ideal’ pupil. The work, conduct and appearance of the pupil all influence their judgement. The middle class tend to be the closest to the ideal pupil and the working class are the furthest
• Labelling

  Dunne and Gazeley – the underachievement of the working class was normalised by the teachers and they were unconcerned about it and felt there was nothing they could do about it. They believed they could overcome middle class underachievement

  • Teachers set extensions for underachieving middle class pupils but entered the working class for easier exams
  • The working class students doing well were seen as overachievers
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

  Rosenthal and Jacobson – selected students at random as the ‘spurters’ and found that a year later they had made significant progress

  • The teachers conveyed their beliefs about the students through the way they interacted with them e.g. body language, attention and the encouragement they gave
  • This can also produce underachievement in students if teachers have low expectations and they convey them through their interactions
• Streaming - A-C Economy (Gillborn and Youdell)

  • Teachers see working class (and black) students as having less ability and therefore place them in lower streams and enter them for lower exams. This denies them the knowledge and opportunity to get good grades
  • The publishing of league tables created an ‘A-C economy’ in schools where they focus their time, resources and efforts into the students likely to get a grade C or above and boost their position on their league tables
• Streaming - Educational Triage

  The A-C economy produces educational triage in school where teachers sort pupils into three types:

  • Will pass and need no help
  • Have potential to pass and will be helped
  • Hopeless cases

  Teachers stereotypical view on working class (and black) pupils means they are labelled as ‘hopeless’ and therefore are put in bottom sets. This produces a self-fulfilling prophecy and failure
• Subcultures - Lacey


  Subcultures develop through:

  • Differentiation – teachers categorising pupils based on perceived ability
  • Polarisation – how pupils react to the streaming by moving to a pro or anti school subculture
• Subcultures

  • Pro-school subcultures – mainly middle class who gain status through academic success
  • Anti-school subcultures – mainly working class who gain status through inverting the school’s values
• Subcultures - Hargreaves

  Boys in lower sets were triple failures because they failed the 11+ exam, were put in low streams and were labelled as worthless. They form delinquent subcultures as a way to gain status
• Subcultures - Woods


  Other responses to streaming:

  Ingratiation – ‘teacher’s pet’

  Ritualism – staying out of trouble

  Retreatism – mucking about

  Rebellion – rejecting school’s values
• Criticisms of Labelling Theory

  • Useful in showing that schools are not fair institutions as the cultural deprivation theory assumes
  • Deterministic – assumes that all pupils who are labelled have no choice but to fulfil their label (Fuller)
• Class Identities - Habitus (Bourdieu)

  • Habitus is the learned ways of thinking being and acting that are shared by a social class. This includes tastes and preferences of lifestyle and consumption and their outlook on life
  • The middle class have the power to define their habitus as superior and impose it on the education system. The school therefore place a higher value on middle class preferences
• Class Identities - Symbolic Capital/Violence (Bourdieu)

  • Those who are socialised into middle class tastes and preferences gain ‘symbolic capital’. This is status and recognition from the school and they are deemed to have worth and value
  • The school devalue working class habitus and their tastes are deemed worthless
  • This withholding of capital is called ‘symbolic violence’ and it reproduces the class structure
  • The class between working class habitus and the schools middle class habitus mean that the working class see education as alien and unnatural
• Class Identities - Nike Identies (Archer)

  • Symbolic violence led pupils to seek alternative ways of creating status. They did this by investing in ‘styles’, through brands like Nike
  • Styles were policed by peer groups and the right appearance gained symbolic capital. However, it opposed the school dress code
  • The schools middle class habitus stigmatises working class identities and they sees their Nike identities as tasteless
• Class Identities - Self Exclusion

  • Evans – studied working class girls studying for their A-levels. She found that they were reluctant to apply to elite universities. Many working class students see places like Oxbridge as ‘not for the likes of us’
  • The girls had a strong attachment to their locality. This self-exclusion narrows their options and limits their chances for success
  • Working class pupils are forced to choose between maintaining their working class identity or abandoning them and conforming to the middle class habitus of the school to achieve success