External class differences

• Factors outside of school that affect education

  • Material deprivation
  • Housing
  • Diet and health
  • Other
• Cultural deprivation


  Deficiencies in home and family backgrounds such as inadequate socialisation, inadequate language skills and inappropriate attitude/values
• Material deprivation


  Inability to afford basic resources such as food, housing, food and heating (flaherty refusal of fsm due to stigma)
• Bernstein


  Speech code put working class at a disadvantage because elaborated code is used by teachers, textbooks and exams. Middle class early socialisation gives advantage
• Housing


  • Overcrowding - no room for education activity (homework) and disturbed sleep from sharing bedrooms
  • Temporary accommodation - move more frequently, disturbed education
• Douglas


  Working class parents place less value on education, are less ambitious for children and give less encouragement to participate in activities e.g. homework/educational toys. Many working class parents don't attend parents evenings (start school at disadvantage)
• Diet and health


  • Lower intakes of energy, vitamins and minerals in poorer home, affects health by weakening immune system lead to absence
• Other factors


  • Fear of debts
  • Hidden costs of free education - poorer miss out due to lack of educational resources and funding for trips
  • Poorer children less likely to attend after school clubs due to fees/cost equipment/transport
  • Lack of extra cost of education - can't afford tuition
  • Children have less time to study as need to seek employment to contribute to family
• Sugarmann - working class subcultures 4 acts which are a barrier to achievement

  • Fatalism - you can't change status no matter what you do
  • Collectivism - valuing being a group rather than an individual
  • Immediate gratification - seek pleasure now rather than making sacrifices to get rewards in future
  • Present time orientation - present more important than the future, no long term goals
• Cultural capital


  Knowledge, language, attitude and values and lifestyles, this gives middle class an inbuilt advantage in a middle class controlled system
• Low income


  Lower educational achievement
• Working class boys likely to drop out of uni, but working class backgrounds still achieve social mobility and attend uni
• Middle class parents


  • Better equipped to meet demands of school curriculum
  • Can convert cultural capital into economic capital (private schools)