Language → An essential part of the process of education and the way in which parents communicate with their children affects their cognitive development and their ability to benefit from school
Hubbs-Tait et al (2002) → Where parents use language that challenges their children to evaluate their own understanding, cognitive performance improves
Leon Feinstein (2008) → More highly qualified parents (like to be middle-class) are more likely to use language in this way. They are also likely to use praise, which encourages their children to develop a sense of their competence
Parents with fewer qualification (likely to working-class) tend to use language in ways that only require children to make simple descriptive statement = Lower performance
Cultural Deprivation Theorists → Class differences in how parents use language as affecting education achievement
The language used in working-class is deficient → Their children fail to develop the necessary language skills for educational success
Unable to take advantage of the opportunities in school
Criticism: Troyna and Williams (1986) → Argue that the problem is not the child’s language but the school’s attitude towards it. Teachers have a ‘speech hierarchy’: label middle-class speech highest, followed by working-class speech and finally Black Speech
