DA and Class

• DA and Class - External Factors:

  > material deprivation - housing, diet and health, finances, fear of debt

  > cultural deprivation - parental interest, attitudes and values, speech codes

  > cultural capital
• DA and Class - Internal Factors:

  > labelling

  > setting and streaming

  > subcultures

  > marketisation policies
• External - Material Deprivation (housing):

  > poor housing can negatively affect achievement

  > inadequate space and overcrowding = incomplete work

  > increased likelihood of illness due to lack of sleep and poor conditions = absences from school

  > more likely to be experienced by low income families, who cannot move or fix problems quickly
• External - Material Deprivation (diet and health):

  > Howard - young people from poorer homes have lower intakes of energy, vitamins and minerals

  > weak immune system = illness = absence from school

  > Wilkinson - children from poorer homes are more likely to face emotional and behavioural problems (higher rate of hyperactivity and anxiety)
• External - Material Deprivation (finances):

  > Bernstein and Young - middle class mothers are more likely to buy educational toys, which encourage reasoning and intellectual development (low income families may be unable to afford them)

  > Tanner - school is costly e.g. transport, uniform, equipment - places a burden on working class families
• External - Material Deprivation (fear of debt):

  > Callender and Jackson - working class are 5 times less likely to apply to university than middle class students

  > Reay - working class are more likely to apply to local universities to save money by living at home and getting a part-time job
• External - Parental Interest:

  > Douglas - WC children underachieve due to a lack of parental interest

  > longitudinal study of over 5000 British children - MC parents expressed greater interest in child's education, indicated by more frequent visits to discuss their child's progress

  > Feinstein - parent's education affects child's achievement (through socialisation)
• External - Attitudes and Values:

  > Sugarman - attitudes of WC and MC subcultures are linked to achievement, due to different attitudes from manual and non-manual jobs

  > present vs future time orientation, immediate vs deferred gratification, collectivism vs individualism, fatalism vs hard work
• External - Speech Codes:

  > Bernstein - WC use restricted code, whereas MC use elaborated code

  > restricted code = limited, context-bound, unfinished

  > elaborated code = universalistic, detailed, abstract ideas

  > education is conducted in elaborated code (teachers, textbooks, tests) which places WC students at a disadvantage
• External - Cultural Capital:

  > Bourdieu - MC achieve in education because they have cultural capital (knowledge and values that can be exchanged for educational success)

  > MC are better equipped to meet the demands of school

  > can convert economic capital into education e.g. private schools, tutors
• Internal - Labelling:

  > Rosenthal and Jacobson - tested all pupils for IQ, then selected a random 20% to label to teachers as 'spurters' (expected to show intellectual growth)

  > re-tested them a year after and this was true, showing that teacher expectations affect performance

  > teachers usually expect WC students to fail, so they do not help, and the WC students become a self-fulfilling prophecy
• Internal - Setting and Streaming:

  > Ball - pupils placed in three bands, based on information from primary schools and non-academic factors (such as father's job)

  > band 1 = hardworking

  > band 2 = hardest to teach and least cooperative

  > band 3 = troublesome

  > due to teacher expectations, the bands were taught in different ways

  > strong relationship between bands, class and achievement - WC at a disadvantage
• Internal - Subcultures:

  > groups of pupils who share similar values that emerge as a response to labelling - pro-school and anti-school subcultures

  > Lacey - explains how they are formed through differentiation (teachers categorising pupils according to perceived ability) and polarisation (pupils respond to streaming by moving towards one of two poles or extremes)

  > study - Willis 'Learning to Labour'
• Willis - Learning to Labour:

  > studied 12 working class boys in secondary schools

  > formed an anti-school subculture - attached little or no value to academic work and had little interest in gaining qualifications

  > despite rebelling against capitalist ideology, this prepared the lads for work in capitalism by ensuring that they would fail and fill manual jobs
• Internal - Policies:

  > marketisation policies create competition

  > MC students are seen as more desirable as they achieve better exam results, so are selected by oversubscribed schools

  > Gillborn and Youdell - league tables create an A to C economy, where those capable of getting five GCSEs at C or above are given more time and resources to boost a school's position

  > WC are labelled as 'hopeless cases'