social class

• material factors - Smith and noble

  discovered a number of barriers to learning which can result from low income: Inadequate nutrition, can affect concentaration in school\leads to illness and abscence from school.

  Inability to afford school unifrom or fashionable clothing and trainers which could lead to school bullying
• Wadlfogel and Washbrook


  children from low income familys are likely to live in crowded or damp accomodation, which can make study at home difficult and may be link to poor health and sickness
• out of school factors

  working class students may likely have a part time job, which may create conflict between the competing demands of study and paid work
• Hirsch


  middle class pupils have advantages over poorer children they were more likely to have structered out of school activities, like private tutition, more likely to attend private school
• out of school - cultural deprivation


  parents interest in education - douglas saw the degree of parental interest, encouragement and involvment in their childrens education as the single most important factor affecting pupil progress. Middle class parents express a greater interest, as indicated by; more frequent visits to school and by encourging to stay in the education system
• Parents level of education

  because they are better educated, middle class parents tend to understand the schools system than working class parents. they know more about schools, the examination system and careers and so are more able to advise their children. Working class parents may feel less confident in dealing with teachers at parents evening
• language differences - Berstein

  the middle classes succeed not because of greater intelligence but merely because they use the way of communcation ( elaborate code) preferred by schools
• Cultural Capital


  Bourdieu- middle class culture is as valuable in educational terms as material wealth. Those who come from middle and upper class backgrounds have more cultural capital amd thus more acess to capital to the habitus taught in school. Robson: possession of cultural capital in the form of going to museums, the theatre, reading books for pleasure
• social capital - Bourdieu 


  Middle class famillies are more likely to have social capital.

  Gerwitz et al - Middle class parents tend to be able, through the grapevine of social network to acess "hot knowledge" when choosing a school and use it to acess the best school
• sugar man 


  Different social classes have different subcultures, with some different values, attitudes and lifestyle and that these effect the preformance of children in the education system
• techer labelling - Becker


  Teachers percieve the ideal student to be the one who conforms to middle class standards of behaviour. middle class teachers are more likely to percieve middle class behaviour as evidence of comitment to study, and working class behaviour as evidence of indiscipline, lower ability or motivation. A halo effect occurs when a student becomes labelled, either favorably, or unfavorably.
• Dunne and Gazely


  the labelling of working class pupils and parents as anti - school is still taking place
• Gillborn and Youdell


  Teachers are more likely to see middle class students as having the ability to enter higher level exams. This is based more upon teacher perceptions of what counts as ability rather than the students actual ability.
• Ball


  argued that the negative affects of labelling can be observed in whole groups. Sutton trust found that streaming poorer pupils at a disadvantage and favoured middle class children- the higher a pupils social class, the greater chance of being placed in top stream
• Campbell


  Subject setting advantages middle class students in the top sets because their attaintment increases, whilst working class students in the bottom sets do not increase their attaintment as the same rate or level
• ball


  evidence shows that grouping by ability leads to greater social class inequalities between children.
• unequal access to classroom knowledge and educational traige


  one of the consequences due to banding and streaming is that not all children have access to the same knowledge. Keddie, teachers taught those in higher streams differently to those in lower streams, pupils in higher streams were expected to behave better, do more work
• pro subcultures


  consist of students who generally conform to academic aims, ethos and ruless of the school and tends to be linked to students in upper streams and sets who are valued and rewarded - more likely to come from a middle class background
• anti school subcultures


  consists of group of students who rebel against school and develop an alternative set of deliquent values, attitues and behaviours in opposition to academic aims, ethos and rules of a school. This is a subculture of resistance and an anti learning of a subculture.These develop as a way of getting back at the system
• school organisation/curriculm


  what is taught in school disadvantages the working class. the knowledge that they encounter at school does not connect with their own cultural experience, working class experience is almost invisible in the curriculmn.