Socio

• Labelling and the self-fulfilling prophecy


  When we get a negative label, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. This could be due to factors like uniform, equipment, desired language, etc. whereas middle-class students are seen as the 'ideal pupil' and therefore get a positive label.
• Setting and Streaming


  Working-class students are put in lower sets with naughty students and extra help, whereas middle-class students are put in higher sets and never care and try harder in education.
• Statistically, middle-class students outperform working-class students in education
• Internal Factors


  • Teacher expectations, sub-cultures, education policies
• Teacher Expectations-Labelling, self-fulfilling prophecy

  Teachers use stereotypical notions of ability to stream pupils, leading to negative stereotypes of working-class students as less able, and placing them in lower sets and streams.
• Educational Triage


  Schools categorise pupils into three types: those who will pass anyway, those with potential who will be helped to get a grade C or better, and 'hopeless cases' who are doomed to fail.
• Schools use a stereotypical view of working-class pupils as lacking ability, labelling them as 'hopeless cases' and warehousing them in the bottom sets, producing a self-fulfilling prophecy and failure.
• Usefulness of teacher's expectations


  • Setting and streaming allows teachers to tailor their support for students, but it is deterministic and ignores the autonomy of students. The education system is held accountable for the results of students from working-class backgrounds, and there is training and funding to try and close the gap.
• Pupil Subcultures-Willis-Learning to Labour

  The counter-school culture acted as a conscious bridge between working-class culture and the shop-floor culture of manual work, playing a role in the reproduction of class inequality and helping to explain why working-class boys ended up in working-class roles.
• The counter-school culture resisted the authorities of capitalism but was short-lived and never amounted to anything that would help improve the lads' position in society.
• It is hard to fully divide factors up between in-school and out-of-school as both impact each other. Something like language codes is both an out-of-school and in-school factor.
• Anti-school subcultures might explain why working-class pupils underperform, but the question of why working-class pupils join them is more complex and must at least in part relate to matters outside school.
• Not all students join a pro or anti-school subculture. Post-modernists argue that social class doesn't have as much of an impact as we think, and students can pick and choose how they identify, rendering class as a chosen identity.
• There are policies in place to close the gap between working-class and middle-class attainment, such as pupil premium, education maintenance allowance, and maintenance loans.
• Nike Identities


  Working-class students' class identities, formed outside school, intersect with institutional values, shaping educational outcomes. Wearing branded clothing like Nike validates their authenticity and gains peer approval, but clashes with the school's middle-class habitus, leading to a struggle for recognition.
• The 'Nike' identities contributed to working-class students' rejection of higher education as unrealistic and undesirable, expressing their preference for a specific lifestyle and leading to potential self-elimination or self-exclusion from education.
• The interplay between class identities, style, and institutional values shapes educational outcomes with both conflict and recognition.
• Usefulness of 'Nike' identities

  Working-class students faced a choice between sticking with their neighbourhood style and identity or adopting the fancier style of the school to fit in and succeed, showing the conflict between local and institutional cultures.