Social Class & Educational Achievment

• 'White-collar' occupations - non-manual, professional occupations.
• Children from middle-class backgrounds generally achieve more in education than working-class backgrounds. This is because:

  • Middle class parents can afford private schooling.
  • 7% of schools are private & 90% of these students go on to university
  • Privately educated students, make up more than half Oxbridge and Cambridge entrants.
• Cultural factors that impact social class differences in education:

  • Cultural deprivation
  • Material Deprovation
  • Cultural Capital
  • Marketisation and parental choice
• Cultural deprivation is the lack of opportunities to participate in cultural activities
• Cultural deprivation is seen as the 'basic cultural equipement'
• According to some theorists, wc parents do not socialise their children properly, given mc children a bigger advantage at the school.
• Douglas: argued that wc pupils score lower in tests compared to mc pupils, because wc parents are less likely to read with their children/do not read with their children.
• Bernstein & Young: mothers choose toys that will properly stimulate their children, and spend time thinking about them.
• Bereister & Englemann - The language used in wc homes was deficient, this meant that wc students struggled to articulate, explain, describe or enquire in lessons.
• Berstein established two types of speech codes: Elaborated & restricted code
• Feinstein argued that w/c have a negative attitude towards education. M/c parents are more likely to provide the children with the necessary m/c support.
• Hyman argued that w/c pupils have created a 'self-imposed barrier' to their education & career success.
• Sugarman says that the self-imposed barrier has four features: Fatalism, Collectivism, Immediate gratification, Present-time gratification
• Compensatory education is a government policy that seeks to offset cultural deprivation.
• Sure Start - centers in deprived ares to help with education
• Keddie argues that cultural deprivation is a myth. Argues that children are cultural difference not culturally deprived.
• Tronya & Williams - there is a speech hierarchy that exists that needs to be challenged.
• Blackstone and Mortimer - w/c parents are frozen out of the system, as it isn't designed to fit their needs. E.g: W/C parents work long shifts, change regularly. Due to this, there may be conflict between the w/c parents and the school when it comes to parents' evening.
• Poverty & educational underachievement are closely linked. E.g: poor housing, poor diet & health, the hidden costs of education (trips, WI-FI)& fear of debt. W/c students are more debt averse.
• Material Deprivation examples:

  • 33% of students who receive FSM achieve 5 A*-C GCSE grades
  • Nearly 90% of failing schools are in deprived areas
• M/c parents use their economic capital to help their children gain cultural capital so their children can acquire greater educational capital.
• 7% of the population go to private schools at cambridge and oxford, however, they account for 50% of pupils at Oxford & Cambridge.
• 90% of deprived failing schools are in deprived areas, and exclusion and truancy rates are higher for WC pupils.